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The San are the aboriginal people of South Africa. Their distinct hunter-gatherer culture stretches back over 20 000 years, and their genetic origins reach back over one million years. Recent research indicates that the San are the oldest genetic stock of contemporary humanity.
Today, the two largest San groups in South Africa are immigrants from Angola via
Namibia. These are the !Xû and the Khwe, currently living at Schmidtsdrift, 80
km outside the Northern Cape provincial capital, Kimberley. There are 3 500 !Xû
and 1 100 Khwe. Both groups claim an indigenous identity on the basis of their
languages and cultures.
The
next largest group is the San population of the southern Kalahari. Today, most
San in this area (Lower Orange District) describe themselves as the ‡Khomani.
The group is descended from several original San groups, including the ||Ng!u
(close relatives of the !Xam who lived south of the !Gariep River), the ‡Khomani
who spoke the same language as the ||Ng!u but had distinct lineage, the |’Auni,
the Khatea, the Njamani and probably others whose names are now lost to us. Most
San of this bloodline now speak Khoekhoegowap and /or Afrikaans as primary
language. There are 23 confirmed speakers of the ancient N|u language. They
constitute some of the few surviving aboriginal South African San. Approximately
1 500 adults are spread over an area of more than 1 000 km in the Northern Cape
Province. Most people live in the northern reaches of Gordonia, at Witdraai,
Ashkam, Welkom, Rietfontein and surrounding villages. Others live in and around
Upington and Olifantshoek.
A
small pocket of aboriginal South African ||Xegwi San lives on farms in
Mpumalanga Province near Lakes Banager and Chrissie and around the towns of
Lothair and Carolina. Their numbers are not known, though estimates run between
30 and 100 adults. These ||Xegwi San are descendants of a displaced group of
Drakensberg San, famous for the rock paintings made by their ancestors up until
the middle of the last century. Their original language is extinct.
There is a group of about 70 adult !Kung San living across the border from South
Africa at Masetleng and Ngwaatle Pans in Botswana. These people originally lived
next to the ‡Khomani in what became the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (KGNP).
They were displaced by the KGNP and driven into Botswana. They have lodged a
land claim in South Africa though they have yet to resolve the issue of their
citizenship. !Kung is a Northern San language.
There are thousands of people in the Northern Cape who are to some degree aware
that they are direct descendants of the largest South African San population of
the 18th and 19th centuries, the !Xam. In the area of Prieska there are
semi-nomadic farm labourers known as Karretjiemense (Cart People). These people
know they are of San descent and may have spoken San languages in the previous
century.
Recently, the Khoisan Representative Council has attempted to claim
responsibility for !Xam representation. It is unclear at this stage if there are
any coherent community structures that have maintained a !Xam identity or
whether this is a form of revisionism.
SASI
works with those populations that are recognised by the Working Group of
Indigenous Minorities of Southern Africa (WIMSA) and have coherent community
structure
SASI was established in June 1996 in response to a need expressed by the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) and a number of individuals who were working with San communities. WIMSA is the representative body of the San leadership of southern Africa. Its members and executive body are all San. WIMSA reviews its mandates with all service organisations, including SASI, at its Annual General Meeting.
Presently SASI is mandated to work on a national and regional level through the creation of multi-disciplinary development projects in areas such as education, leadership training, cultural resources management, land rights, intellectual property rights, oral history collection and new approaches to community mobilisation.
In the areas of work where SASI does not have the requisite expertise, and in an attempt to imbed the knowledge that has been gained through our work, SASI actively seeks to work with other NGOs and government agencies. SASI also forms part of various sectoral networks, such as land restitution NGOs in the Northern Cape.
An office in Cape Town provides administrative support to the activities with
the ‡Khomani San (Gordonia District) and the !Xun and Khwe communities (Diamondfields
District) in the Northern Cape Province. Field offices in Upington and Kimberley
support the work of field staff in or near community settlements.
SASI Trust
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