DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUNTERS AND HERDERS IN ANCIENT SOUTHERN AFRICA MUST BE RESPECTED
I am very pleased with your correction in the issue of 5-11 November of the use of the term “Khoisan”. It is basically correct, but it glosses over the history of the term. The word “Khoisan” was first used in 1928 by a German biologist (Schultze) who assumed Khoe and San were similar people genetically and linguistically (they both had “clicks” in their speech).
As I show in my recent book, First People: The Lost History of the Khoisan, we now know that San (hunters) and Khoe (herders) were originally quite separate. As you indicate in your correction, the San are derived from Later Stone Age hunters who have been around for at least 20,000 years, but they are descended from modern humans who have been identified in Africa 300,000 years ago in Morocco and 260,000 years in the Free State province.
Today there are two quite different San or Bushmen language groups: Ju or K’xa (Kalahari) and Tuu (southern Namibia, and once in South Africa, but today almost extinct). They cannot speak to each other without learning the other language, as separation is estimated to be about 30,000 years. The third language group is Khoe, and has East African heritage, expanding in southern Africa (in the winter rainfall area of the Cape) 2,000 years ago.
The summer rainfall area was left to the Bantu-speakers who came to the eastern part of SA around 1,700 years ago because their crops (sorghum and millet) could not grow in the winter rainfall area in the west.
“Khoisan” is thus a colonial term, and while it may be useful as a convenient shorthand, it would be better to recognise the difference between the hunters and herders until after the beginning of the colonial period, when the Europeans did not care about the difference. They only wanted cheap labour and cattle to refresh their ships going and coming from the Dutch trading posts in Batavia.