Learning about the Eastern Cape
| KNOW YOUR HISTORY: General manager of Kareiga Game Reserve, Alan Weyer (right), held the audience's attention at the Lower Albany Historical Society (LAHS) meeting at Settler's Park last Thursday, when he spoke of the evolution of the Eastern Cape. With him is LAHS chairman Ian Moore Picture: ROB KNOWLES |
ROB KNOWLES
WELL-KNOWN Eastern Cape historian and raconteur Alan Meyer, explained how misunderstandings can occur between cultures when he addressed the Lower Albany Historical Society meeting at Settlers Park last Thursday.
Weyer, who also works as general manager of the Kariega Game Reserve near Kenton, set the scene by explaining the history of the peoples of the area.
"The earliest people that could be regarded as modern humans occupied Africa around 160 000 years ago,” he asserted. "Around 70 000 years ago evidence stored in the Arctic ice sheets indicates a volcanic catastrophe where mass extinctions occurred and those people who had left Africa returned. Southern Africa might have been the only place where the environment was conducive to humans, and it is estimated that only around 2 000 humans remained on the planet.”
Weyer said this meant genetic diversity only occurred from this point forward, and there was more diversity in two chimpanzees from the same family than in any two humans.
"That's how small the variation is,” he said, "and how closely all people are related to each other.”
However, Weyer continued, lighter skinned people began to migrate out of Africa after this. Paler skins produce more folic acid, essential in reproduction and especially in pregnant women. Less sunlight in the northern hemisphere meant more folic acid was required to be produced. In hotter climes, the abundance of sunlight was enough to encourage reproduction without the need for additional folic acid.
The San (Bushmen) lived on the southern tip of Africa and were essentially hunter gatherers in groups of 10 to 50 people. Then, about 2 000 years ago a tribe of Nguni people from the north, the Koi Koi, began to travel back through Africa and, keeping to the eastern coastline to avoid deserts, met the San.
The Koi Koi lived in communities of perhaps 100 people, and the mixture of these two races became the Koi San.
"Both races were basically the same, but their cultures were different,” Weyer said. "The Koi Koi had mastered agriculture and iron making, as well as keeping domesticated cattle for milk which they learned from the Asians, and brought these skills with them.”
When the Europeans landed in the Cape they met the Koi San people who might have been moving southward to find better grazing land. This gave the Boer settlers the impression the Koi San and other Nguni tribes were migrating to the Cape at this time, Weyer told the audience.
Another interesting fact Weyer shared was that, in the 17th and 18th centuries, at a time when the average age of a European was about 40, the average age of the Nguni was around 75.
The Nguni tribes had even larger social structures of around 300 to 400 people, and were ruled by a chief. They were farmers and cattle breeders. Their languages intermingled with the Koi San which comprised of many "click” sounds, and this is the reason the isiXhosa language consists of around 40% "clicks” whereas isiZulu has only around 13% which were inherited from the Koi San, Weyer said.
The Nguni tribes practiced customs that have largely lived on throughout the intervening years. The chief's first wife (right hand house) lived in a position of prominence, and her first born son would be expected to one day form his own clan. As the chief got older, his last wife (great house) would be the daughter of his greatest rival, and would one day become the chief of his father's clan.
This, explained Weyer, was the way to grow the number of clans as well as prevent political rivalry from the chief's eldest son. Although polygamy was accepted, each wife would be given lobola (cattle) which was a sort of insurance policy in case the husband abused her or the marriage did not work out. Only the wealthiest men of the tribe could even contemplate having more than one wife. Strangely, said Weyer, the lobola for the chief's great house was paid for by the entire clan.
Weyer explained that daughters were important because they did most of the work. Sons were not well regarded in the clan and were sent off to look after the cattle. They lived alone until it was time to be initiated, which included being taught by the elders and ritual circumcision. Once they had passed the initiation they washed off the white paint from their faces, which was symbolic of washing away their childhood, and join the clan as adults.
Negotiations among the clans were common practice, and relied on consensus. If a few rival clans were in dispute the most senior chief could not interfere, but called an imbizo where the problem was discussed. Weyer said everyone was invited, and the first to speak put across their point without interruption. Then the opposing clan would have to repeat everything the first had said to indicate they had understood the other's position. Only then would they be allowed to present their point to the imbizo. 
"There was no written language,” said Weyer, "and so this system ensured all the facts were known and understood, and consensus was reached and implemented.”
"Imagine today the problems we could resolve if we actually listened to and understood the other person's point of view?” asked Weyer.