In the last blog, we flashed through 125 000 years of\nexciting events in three pages. I will try to slacken the pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We discussed the possibility of the Phoenicians visiting the\nSwartkops River, and the panic this must have caused amongst the little band of\nBushmen resident in our future Village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the Year Dot, approximately 24 generations after this\ndramatic event, the indigenous population had forgotten all about the\nPhoenicians and had resumed the even \ntenor of their ways. Incidentally, there never was a Year Dot. The early\nmonks who dreamt up the Anno Domini method of counting years had no concept of\nzero, so they went straight from 1BC to 1AD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life was chilled. As long as you avoided annoying the\nelephants, rhinos, hippos, lions, leopards and buffalo, and didn\u2019t tread on a\nwide variety of reptiles, you could happily spend all day long eating oysters\noff the rocks. No champagne unfortunately, but they did drink Karri, a\nfermented honey mead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to legend, they discovered a hollow tree containing\na small pool of water, into which honey had dripped from a hive above. It had\nfermented naturally. When they got over their hangovers, this seemed like a\nbrilliant idea. In due course, different varieties of Karri became available,\ndepending upon the flavour of the local honey, which of course depended upon\nwhich flowers the bees visited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this idyllic lifestyle was too good to last. People now\ntermed Khoikhoi but who called themselves the Red People, decided to leave\nBotswana and head south. Two thousand\nyears ago they reached the sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Genetically, the Khoi and the San were related. Linguistically\nboth relied on lots of clicks. Genetic studies indicate that 22 000 years\nago the Khoisan constituted the largest group of hunter-gatherers on the\nplanet. The San are the descendants of the first Homo sapiens<\/em>, i.e.\nmodern man. They have the oldest gene pattern of any existing people and it is\nthought that all other nationalities are descended from them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But there was still a serious cultural distance between them.\nThe Khoi looked down upon the Bushmen \u2013 the name San they gave them means\n\u201cthose who pick things up from the ground\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Khoi brought with them cattle and sheep, seriously\ndispleasing personal habits and a bad attitude. They smeared animal fat over\ntheir bodies to exhibit their wealth. The richer, the smellier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The concept of personal property was part of Khoi culture,\nthose with large herds were the rich people, those without worked as servants.\nWhereas the San were the original socialists. Nobody owned anything of note.\nAnd if hungry, they felt zip about pinching a Khoi cow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite divergent lifestyles, the Khoi and the San coexisted\nand probably interbred once they got to know each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, the Khoisan formed the bedrock of the Coloured\nfolk of South Africa. The numerous \u201cclick\u201d languages were lost except within\nthose remnants of the San people still found in areas of Botswana<\/a>, Namibia<\/a>, South Africa<\/a>, Angola<\/a>, Zambia<\/a>, Zimbabwe<\/a> and\nLesotho. They were replaced by a version of Afrikaans which has to be the most\nexpressive in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is well known that the Eastern Cape\nis the home of Black and Coloured rugby. Some clubs have been in existence for\nover 100 years. I have been to plenty of games in my role as driver of the referee\u2019s\ngetaway car. The ref being Michael, my son. We have been to places I didn\u2019t\nknow existed. You have no idea how popular rugby is out in the bundu!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine the scene at a typical derby\nbetween two Coloured teams if the click language had prevailed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The original is followed by the\nAfrikaans equivalent, and then the English translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The referee to the scrum: \u201cClack, click,\nclock\u201d (\u201cCrouch, Bind, Set\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The spectators,\nadvising the referee: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClickity-click\u201d, clickity-click\u201d\n(\u201dHy hou! hy hou\u201d). [\u201cHe won\u2019t release the ball!\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCluckity cluck!\u201d (\u201cHy\u2019s\nomkant! Hy\u2019s omkant!\u201d) [\u201cThat player is offside!\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClockity clockity\ncluck\u201d (\u201cJy blaas soos \u2018n doos!\u201d) [\u201cYou are not reffing very well!\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClackity, clickity,\nclockity cluck! (\u201cVat jou fokken o\u00eb uit jou gat uit!\u201d) [\u201cWe advise you to\nobserve the game more closely!\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me come back to\nthe straight and narrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the original inhabitants this was the first of many more\nintruders yet to come, of which more later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is very likely that a Khoikhoi clan took up residence at\nthe site of the future Redhouse. They set up their huts and grew some crops. They\ndidn\u2019t move around as much as the San. They had clay pots in which they stored food and Karri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They lived in clans on what they considered their tribal\nterritory. Every so often, they would decamp and move to another spot, perhaps\nin pursuit of grazing for their cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, what earthly reason do I have for thinking that the\nKhoikhoi once lived in Redhouse, you may well ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Firstly, their descendants are still traversing the Village\nwith their cattle, fertilising our greenery as they go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, it is well known that Redhouse has been the home of\nhordes of egrets for ever and ever. Every\ntrick in the book has been tried to get the egrets to leave the Village for as\nlong as I can remember. Nets over the trees in which they live. Toy snakes\nplaced strategically on the branches. Loud bangs. Shotgun blasts. Nothing will make them\ngo away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many kinds of egrets, but I guess ours are Bubulcus.Ibis.<\/em> In\nLatin, Bubulcus means cowherd. These egrets like ticks. I reckon this is their\nancestral home, harking back to the days of Khoi and their cattle. We are\ndoomed to live forever with the incredible mess they make, not to mention the\nsmell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So what made the Khoi up sticks and head south? It so happens\nthat even further north there was a great stirring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably due to a rise in population, a slow but steady\nexodus of people began, moving eastwards and southwards out of the area where\nCameroon is today, from about 3000BC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It took them a while but in due course the first of the\nso-called Nguni speakers arrived in Northern Natal. It wasn\u2019t so much an\ninvasion as a slow advance into new lands looking for fertile soil to plant\ntheir crops and water for their cattle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the centuries passed, these people comprising several\ntribal groups collectively called the AmaXhosa, and behind them many more\ntribes now lumped together as the AmaZulu, gradually filled up the east coast\nof South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their encounters with the San and the Khoikhoi they found in\ntheir path cannot have been all that unfriendly. They absorbed some of them\ninto their ranks which is why their language, isiXhosa, contains a few of the\noriginal San clicks. Nelson Mandela was of the royal house of the abaThembu,\nand his DNA test showed that he had Khoisan ancestry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This gradual southward movement and social interaction\nbetween the San, the Khoikhoi and the advancing black tribes was a pretty\nlaidback expedition. Bear in mind that they first entered northern Natal around 1AD, and it took until 800AD before the\nvanguard made it to the Fish River. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s call it about 1000 km from the northern border of KZN\nto the Fish River. That\u2019s an average trek of 1.25 kilometres per annum. Even\nour decrepit railway system moves faster than that! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Several more waves of immigrants followed and by 1500AD the\nland east of the Fish was well settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere in the world a huge amount was going on. During that 1500-year period, in Asia, Europe\nand the Americas, numerous empires rose and fell, major religions emerged for\nbetter or for worse, dreadful plagues swept the world from time to time,\nmillions upon millions of people were wiped out by warfare, the Dark Ages\ndescended, China invented paper and gunpowder, eventually the Renaissance\nenlightened the dismal scene, America got \u201cdiscovered\u201d and, more importantly\nfor this romantic series, Vasco da Gama made it round the Cape to India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where would you have rather been 1000 years ago? Merry\nEngland, or the Eastern Cape? Read on!<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are of European descent, and you could go back 40\ngenerations in your time machine to visit your ancestor, the chances are that\nyou would be absolutely appalled at what you found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s assume a man of middle age (in those days probably between 35 and\n40). By the law of averages he would have been a serf, bound to his master\u2019s\nland for life. Do you really think you are directly descended from William the\nConqueror?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being a serf meant that his daily grind was dictated by the local baron, who could do with him and his family as he wished. This included handing over his daughter to his lordship on the eve of her wedding day, the so-called droit du seigneur!<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you introduced yourself, shivering in the pouring rain\nof a typical English summer, he might have opened his gob to reply, and you\nwould have been greeted with a mouthful of broken and missing teeth, seriously\nbad breath and a hacking cough brought on by the latest bout of plague. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You wouldn\u2019t have been able to refuse his invitation to enter his odorous cottage, made of mud and timber and a thatched roof, with a fireplace in the middle of the single room. Don\u2019t shriek if you see a rat and, yes, that itching really is a horde of fleas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And please don\u2019t ask\nto go to the toilet!<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, if your great, great, plenty more greats,\ngrandfather was part of the long, slow migration of the amaXhosa, well, what a\npleasure. Hey ho, up at dawn to check on the cattle. That was the man\u2019s job,\nand he was also in charge of making the Amasi, fermented milk, like yoghurt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After that was done, and the women were busy tending the\ncrops, making food, looking after children, skinnering and all the other tasks they constantly complain about, well, sit down with the amadoda\nand discuss affairs of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if the urge is upon you, take a stroll a little way up\nthe nearest kopje, check that no ill-intentioned serpent is lurking in the\ngrass, crouch on your haunches, give thanks for the lovely view of rolling\ngreen hills dotted with your fat cattle, the lazy brown river flowing past your\nkraal, the bluest of skies, and enjoy what is so well described in that most earthy\nlanguage, Afrikaans, a hearty boskak!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"