What is the culture of the Khoisan?

The Culture of the Khoisan The name ‘Khoisan’ is a blend of ‘Khoikhoi’ and ‘San’ – two groups who shared similar cultures and languages. But they were in no way related. In fact, they generally existed in isolation of each other and used different means to survive off the land.

What did the Khoikhoi believe in?

The Khoikhoi have a separate deity for their trickster figure and call it Heitsi-Eibib. This figure also employs the duality present in Khoisan religious belief systems by maintaining ambiguity between good and evil, and shape-shifting between creator and destroyer.

What did the Khoisan eat?

The Khoisan ate roasted meat, and they also dried meat for later use. The influence of their diet is reflected in the common Southern African love of barbecue (generally called in South Africa by its Afrikaans name, a braai) and biltong (dried preserved meat).

Did the Khoisan believe in god?

The Khoisan peoples are a linguistically diverse cluster of southern African groups, including both hunter-gatherers (Bushmen) and herders (Khoekhoe and Damara). Religious ideas, including con- cepts of God, the spirits, and the dead, as well as myths and ritual practices, are held in common across ethnic boundaries.

What is the Khoisan language called?

Khoekhoegowab
The only widespread Khoisan language is Khoekhoe (also known as Khoekhoegowab, Nàmá or Damara) of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, with a quarter of a million speakers; Sandawe in Tanzania is second in number with some 40–80,000, some monolingual; and the ǃKung language of the northern Kalahari spoken by some 16,000 …

How did the Khoikhoi cook their food?

Early travelers in the southwest and south of the Cape Colony, and later explorers in the north, saw Khoikhoi pastoralists making and using large, reddish or black, coil-built cooking vessels with shoulder lugs and incised necks with everted rims. In these, they boiled meat and used some as drums.

What is the difference between Khoisan and San?

Differences between the two communities The Khoi Khoi were cattle keepers while the Sans were hunters and gatherers. They had different political organizations. Khoi Khoi were led by chiefs while the San did not have a defined leader.