Terminologies

”One said that he never wanted to hear the term used again in post-Apartheid Namibia. The other argued that the term could be ennobled by the way in which they themselves now chose to use it. Thus, he argued, the term

`Bushman´ could be used in a positive way for all the people in southern Africa who shared similar ethnic backgrounds and customs.” (kalaharipeoples 2004)

Nowadays, because of political correctness, the governments of South Africa and Namibia as well as development organisations and the press mostly use the term “San”. In many cases, the name indigenous groups would give themselves is derived from their own language. Over the last few years, several indigenous groups in Southern Africa try to construct a common

“San”-identity. To strengthen the common identity, more and more groups use “San” or

“Bushmen” as their self-designation. Hohmann argues that this trend has to be understood against the background of the increasing awareness of the disadvantaged indigenous minority, aiming to show its unity in the fight against discrimination. The designation “Indigenous” is used in the same way as the common name “San” to achieve a cultural and political emancipation, certainty of their land ownership and access to resources. Local communities describing themselves as “indigenous” qualify themselves as long-term subjects of so called

“Anthrop-Tourism” and as beneficiaries of development programmes aimed at ethnical minorities, which are often explicitly linked to indigenous groups. (cf. Hohmann 2003: 2 et seq.) As Saugestad later argues, one should use the term a group uses to describe themselves.

The case study of this paper is a family-group, summarised by the term #Khomani and who are also identified by this name. A special group of #Khomani, the Kruiper-family calls itself //Sa! Makai. This name can be derived from an important ancestor of that family, a certain Ou Makai. Whenever I focus explicitly on that particular family, I use the name //Sa! Makai. The term #Khomani is used when referring to various indigenous groups in the Southern Kalahari region of South Africa. Before I continue, I would like to define some common terminologies used to describe this indigenous group, which is the subject of this paper.

I. “Bushmen (English)/ Bosjeman (Afrikaans)“

“Bushman” is a colonial concept, with a depreciative connotation not least because of the term itself. Biological characteristics, geographical criteria and lifestyle are used as criteria for classification of “Bushmen”. Neither these criteria nor others legitimate the identification of

“Bushmen” as a homogenous society. The word “Bushmen” derives from the Dutch term

“Bosjeman”, meaning “people, who live in the bush”. This term describes people based on a stereotypic conceptualised living space. In doing so, the natural area “bush” is exchanged in the colonial conceptualisation into a “cultural area”, suggesting by the term “Bushmen” that the people called by that name live in the “bush”. Furthermore, the colonial mentality thereby constructs Africa as “nature” in opposition to Europe as “culture”. The term “Bushmen” is associated with nature in general and in connection with the term “bush” in particular with characteristics such as “close to nature”, “aboriginal”, but also “wild” and “threatening”.

Furthermore, the term “Bushmen” is also a sexist structure as the term “men” is used as generic concept for humanity as a whole. (cf. Boussoulas 2004: 103 et seq.)

II. “San/ Khoisan“

The term “San” was originally derives from “Sonqua” or “Soacua”. “Sonqua” is the

“Khoikhoi’s” description of “Bushmen”, and means: “people, who are different from us”,

“people without livestock”, “people, who steal livestock” or “roamers”. This shows that even the term “San” as a synonym for “Bushmen” contains a pejorative meaning. As a logical consequence also the word “Khoisan”, which is often used as a generic term for “San” and

“Khoikhoi” (languages) nowadays, is constructed, as the criteria used for subsuming the languages is the use of “clicks”. However, there are some languages containing clicks which are not covered by this term. (cf. Boussoulas 2004: 105) “Khoi” (which means: human), not as a linguistic but ethnic criteria was primarily used to name people who were active in livestock production. (cf. Saugestad 2004: 23) Furthermore, the term “San” was constructed by the European occupiers, legitimating for taking over power. Nowadays, whenever possible, the individual names of the various societies - thus, their self-designations such as

#Khomani, !Kung, Halliom and others - are used. Nevertheless, often it is necessary to use the construct “Bushman” because of certain historical or social contexts. In such cases, specialist literature preferably uses the term “San”. Quotation marks show the intrinsic problem of the term “San”. (cf. Boussoulas 2004: 105)

III. “#Khomani“

Basically, #Khomani is an umbrella term for several indigenous groups, dwelling as hunters

by different families, such as the //Sa! Makai. #Khomani denotes “people we don´t understand“. (Interview Flemming 2005)

IV. “//Sa! Makai and //Sa! Makaip“

Saugestad argues that when naming the different groups, the societies’ self-designations shall be considered whenever possible. As every name gets an insulting meaning as soon as one uses it to describe a negative attribute of a particular group, it is always the social context which shall guide the use of a particular term. (cf. Saugestad 2004: 23) To give an account of the wishes of the group I am focusing on in my paper, I am quoting an excerpt from an interview with Dawid Kruiper, the Traditional Leader of the #Khomani:

”Somebody from outside decided on the term San. That was too much in a hurry with this term. Why not use //Sa!? //Sa!Makai is the big grandfather, our grandfather and the //Sa!Makaip Traditional House is the Kruiper family. It´s all the families which form the Kruiper family, the Kruiper tree. Bushmen is also good, I´m proud of it! It has no bad meaning, also if outsiders say so. Bushmen is okay! I´m not a Khoisan, I´m a Bushman! In my language //Sa!, not San.” (Interview Kruiper 2005 b)

Also Petrus Vaalbooi, who acts as Political Leader of the #Khomani, calls himself a

“Bushman”. ”I´m actually a Bushman, that´s what I am. Nothing more and nothing less.”

The situation of the children of the #Khomani is somewhat different. They often get verbally harassed and discriminated as “Bushmen”, primarily at school. Petrus Vaalboois children left school after being discriminated by the teachers.

“The principle would say to his children: Ah, I see, he is again off to overseas with his dirty Bushmen feet full of sand. Don´t think because you are a Bushman and get a land claim that you can be joking in my class.”

(Interview Flemming 2005)