UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Southern Africa: hunters and food-gatherers
Orange, digging sticks for rooting out corms and bulbs, bags for carrying
foodstuffs, and wooden clubs for killing seals. All this technology was held
in common with San hunter-gatherers.
Perhaps the three traits not necessarily shared with hunters are the
building of more substantial huts from rushes, the manufacture of pottery
and the knowledge of the shaping of metals. Since Khoi Khoi moved about
pastures in fairly large numbers, they did not use caves and seem to have
built domed huts with a sapling structure across which mats of rushes and
perhaps skins were laid. These huts were usually arranged in a circular
village plan and it is frequently stated that the domestic animals were
kraaled overnight within the village circle. When the time came to move,
the saplings and mats were simply packed on to the back of oxen and
transported to the new site. 87 The situation as regards pottery and metalworking
is not so straightforward. Several early writers mention the
manufacture of 'earthenware, exceedingly brittle and ... almost all shaped
alike', 88 but no accounts specifically ascribe them to San. In fact Ten
Rhyne observed that only 'the richer among them make pots' though his
meaning is obscure. 89 The Namaqua of the late seventeenth and the
Gonaqua of the late eighteenth centuries both made pottery, and it is
probable that the remarks of Kolb, Grevenbroek and Ten Rhyne refer to
Cape Khoi Khoi in the late seventeenth century. 90 It is tempting to assume
that the appearance of pottery in the rock shelters and caves of the Cape
of the early centuries of our era marks the spread of pot-making pastoralists
into the area. Perhaps the conical-necked pots with the characteristic
internally reinforced lugs are the standard pattern referred to by Le Vaillant.
This is one of the recurrent pot forms from coastal and near-coastal sites in
the Cape 9 ' and in its shape and lugs might reflect the need for containers
with handles to carry milk. Other uses, including the melting of grease, are
mentioned in the early literature. 92
There is no evidence that the Cape Khoi Khoi were habitual
metalworkers before the arrival of European settlers, but the Namaqua were
quite obviously able to work copper into beads and discs in the seventeenth
century. When Van Meerhoff made the firstcontact with the Namaqua
from the Cape colony in I66I, he mentioned 'copper discs ... chains of
copper and iron beads', 93 but offers no comments on where or how they
were made. In his review of the Cape Khoi Khoi, Elphick has persuasively
argued that the Namaqua probably knew how to work copper and were
87. A. Sparrman, pp. 138-9.
88. F. Le Vaillant, p. 311.
89. I. Schapera, 1933.
90. P. Kolb, p. 251.
91. J. Rudner.
92. F. Le Vaillant, p. 311.
93. H. B. Thom, p. 353.
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