#khoekhoe

Sarah Baartman (1789-1815) faced exploitation and racism as the "Hottentot Venus" in 19th-century Europe. Her story is a powerful reminder to stand against discrimination and injustice. Today, she is in the spotlight as a reminder to commit to promoting equality and respect for all.

In South Africa, DNA testing has a complex and contested history, particularly given the eugenic underpinnings of the apartheid regime, which manipulated scientific research to justify white supremacy (Turner, 2024). In the post-apartheid era, narratives celebrating the benefits of DNA testing have proliferated, particularly with the rise of capitalist-driven initiatives such as AncestryDNA. These services offer possibilities for family reunification, contribute to the dismantling of bias, and inform research and narratives about marginalized groups historically excluded from official archives and other historical sources. For many, access to DNA testing has led to ambiguous and sometimes contradictory messages about belonging, communal identity, and origins. These tensions deeply affect key components of identity formation—such as ethnicity and race—and have, paradoxically, led to feelings of exclusion for some individuals.

Although this sense of exclusion can be profoundly damaging, it is often dismissed until it manifests in tangible societal outcomes, such as adverse mental health effects, social unrest, or the rise of nationalism and extremism (Macron, Rachuel, and Caulfield, 2020).

When I began my fieldwork in January 2024, DNA-related narratives were already prevalent online. One striking example included the claim: “Our Khoikhoi women, the carriers of the world’s most ancient DNA, have been the most beautiful on this land.” Such narratives have real offline impacts, particularly on the ethnic and racial constructions surrounding Coloured identities and communities. Since then, I have encountered a proliferation of similar narratives. Statements such as, “Many Coloured individuals can trace their lineage and history to the Khoekhoe/San tribes and are their ancestors,” initially seem to offer solidarity. However, these are often accompanied by conflicting or unresolved ideas about the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid, reinforcing rigid boundaries around the meanings of Colouredness and indigeneity.

While many individuals may now be able to trace their DNA, there is still a prevailing sentiment that “our youth are still left behind” because Coloured communities “refuse to acknowledge” or are “negligent in understanding” their complex “shared historical roots as Khoi people.” These online narratives not only increased in volume but also became flashpoints for tension, generating sharp conflicts between South Africans and their diasporic descendants over questions of Coloured identity.

In my own family, AncestryDNA testing confirmed long-held suspicions about several ancestors who, according to archival records, were frequently racially reclassified by state officials at different points in their lives, often between baptism and marriage. These ancestors were all born at least a century before the official start of apartheid, which meant that much of our familial history was preserved through oral storytelling, often fragmented by various forms of migration and the erasure of records.

When I discovered that my family’s roots also extend to Turtle Island, it took me over two decades to begin understanding decolonization. Although the term has become a buzzword among many Canadians, it remains a critical reminder to me, as a South African, that blame should not be placed solely on individuals. Rather, it is important to recognize that colonial systems have long adapted and persisted, actively enforcing structures of oppression through the erasure of knowledge, identity, and entire communities. South Africa is not immune to such manipulations. However, it appears that Turtle Island is, in some respects, further along in co-creating and preserving knowledge across communities to resist such erasures.

Sarah Baartman's tragic story is a heartbreaking narrative of exploitation, racism, and the dehumanisation of an African woman in the early 19th century. Born in South Africa's Eastern Cape in 1789, Baartman faced a life marked by hardship and loss. Orphaned at a young age, she entered domestic service in Cape Town after her partner was murdered, and their child died.

In 1810, under questionable circumstances, Baartman signed a contract with British ship surgeon William Dunlop and entrepreneur Hendrik Cesars, agreeing to travel to England to participate in shows. Her distinctive physical features, characterised by extremely protuberant buttocks due to steatopygia, made her a spectacle in London's Piccadilly Circus, where she was exhibited in skin-tight, flesh-coloured clothing adorned with beads and feathers. The fascination with her large buttocks reflected the prevailing fashion of the time, but Baartman's public display in so-called "freak shows" also highlighted the darker undercurrents of racism and colonial exploitation.

Baartman faced a tumultuous life in Europe, performing on stage, enduring private demonstrations, and facing questions about whether she willingly participated or was coerced. The British Empire had abolished the slave trade in 1807, but Baartman's treatment raised ethical concerns, leading to a court case against her employers, although they were not convicted.

Moving to Paris in 1814, Baartman continued her exhibitions under the nickname "Hottentot Venus." She faced further exploitation, possibly engaging in prostitution, and ultimately succumbed to illness, dying at the age of 26 in 1815. The postmortem exploitation continued as Georges Cuvier, a naturalist, dissected her body, preserving her skeleton, brain, and genitals. These remains were exhibited in Paris's Museum of Man until 1974, a grotesque testament to the objectification of Baartman.

The journey of Sarah Baartman's remains back to her homeland was a protracted one. Finally, in 2002, after years of advocacy and efforts, her skeleton, brain, and genitals were repatriated and laid to rest in the Gamtoos River Valley, where she was born. Baartman's story remains a symbol of the intersection of racism, sexism, slavery, and colonialism, prompting debates and discussions about the historical exploitation and the ongoing fight against injustice.

The Anthropological Masterlist is HERE.

Central Africa is an African region that spans the central part of the continent.

AMBUNDU ─ “The Ambundu, or Mbundu, people are an African people. They are native to northwest Angola.” ─ Mbundu Information ─ Angolan Culture ─ Kimbundu Language (in Portuguese)

ANGOLA ─ “The Angolan people are an African people that share the Angolan culture. They are native to Angola.” ─ Angolan Information ─ Angolan History ─ Angolan Rulers

BAMBUTI ─ “The Bambuti, or Mbuti, people are an African people. They are native to Congo.” ─ Mbuti Culture

BUSHONGO ─ “Bushongo, or the Kingdom of Kuba, was an African civilization that lived from 1625 C.E. to 1884 C.E. They lived in Central Africa.” ─ Kuba Art ─ Bushongo Creation Myth ─ Bumba in Bushongo Myth

CAMEROON ─ “The Cameroonian people are an African people. They share the Cameroonian culture.” ─ Cameroonian Information ─ Cameroonian Culture ─ Cameroonian History

EFIK ─ “The Efik people are an African people. They are native to southern Nigeria and western Cameroon.” ─ Efik Language

NGOMBE ─ “The Ngombe are a Bantu linguistic group. They are native to the Democratic Republic of Congo.” ─ Akongo in Ngombe Mythology

Southern Africa is an African region that spans the southern part of the continent.

HIMBA ─ “The Himba people are an African people. They are native to northern Namibia.” ─ Himba Information

KHOEKHOE ─ “The Khoekhoe, or Khoikhoi, people are an African people. They are nomadic and native to southwestern Africa.” ─ Early Khoekhoe Society ─ Khoekhoe Religion ─ Khoekhoe Language

KHOISAN ─ “The Khoisan people are an African people. The term refers to anyone in South Africa that does not speak a Bantu language.” ─ San Culture ─ Khoisan Culture ─ Khoisan Dictionary

PEDI ─ “The Pedi, or Bapedi, people are an African people. They are native to northeastern South Africa.” ─ Pedi Culture ─ Pedi History ─ Pedi History

SOTHO ─ “The Sotho, or Basotho, people are an African people. They are native to southern Africa.” ─ Basotho Clothing ─ Sesotho Language

An interesting article about the social process of creating machine translation datasets in Khoekhoegowab. Excerpt: 

On the surface, Wilhelmina Ndapewa Onyothi Nekoto and Elfriede Gowases seem like a mismatched pair. Nekoto is a 26-year-old data scientist. Gowases is a retired English teacher in her late 60s. Nekoto, who used to play rugby in Namibia’s national league, stands about a head taller than Gowases, who is short and slight. Like nearly half of Namibians, Nekoto speaks Oshiwambo, while Gowases is one of the country’s roughly 200,000 native speakers of Khoekhoegowab.

But the women grew close over a series of working visits starting last October. At Gowases’s home, they translated sentences from Khoekhoegowab to English. Each sentence pair became another entry in a budding database of translations, which Nekoto hopes will one day power AI tools that can automatically translate between Namibia’s languages, bolstering communication and commerce within the country.

“If we can design applications that are able to translate what we’re saying in real time,” Nekoto says, “then that’s one step closer toward economic [development].” That’s one of the goals of the Masakhane project, which organizes natural language processing researchers like Nekoto to work on low-resource African languages.

Compiling a dataset to train an AI model is often a dry, technical task. But Nekoto’s self-driven project, rooted in hours of close conversation with Gowases, is anything but. Each datapoint contains fragments of cultural knowledge preserved in the stories, songs, and recipes that Gowases has translated. This information is as crucial for the success of a machine translation algorithm as the grammar and syntax embedded in the training data.