This dissertation interrogates the process of culture change and continuity among the 19th century Khoesan in the Karoo who were the descendants of precolonial hunter-gatherer and pastoralist populations. It looks at how local Karoo dwellers experienced and possibly mediated global impacts through 'older' cultural practice and belief. These impacts started in the 18th century in the Northern Cape when the trickle of Trek Boers of Dutch and German descent began to interact with, displace and disrupt San hunter-gatherers and Khoe pastoralists. This trickle turned into a torrent in the 19th century when the British displaced the Dutch East India company as administrators of the Cape and Empire asserted itself on the Cape hinterlands. In this context new creole identities were formed, especially that of 'Bastaards' whose attempt to adapt, progress and particularly to own land, were progressively marginalized. This intensified through from the 1830s when merino wool production increasingly pulled the Cape into a global export economy that was intensified by the rush to the Northern Cape diamond fields in the late 1860s. As the lattice of colonial roads, towns and railways gathered pace, the networks and nodes of Khoe and San dwelling withered. Most often classified as 'coloured', they were reduced to physical and social immobility as rural farm workers. This dissertation addresses aspects of this experience using their engraved rock art that is thematically dominated by the materiality of a colonial landscape. Horses, wagons, houses, steam engines and clothes are prominent motifs. At a glance these images seem to be disconnected from the precolonial styles and motifs of Khoekhoen and San artists. This dissertation, consequently, asks questions about the nature of this representation and the dislocation between the marginality and poverty of the artists and the material abundance and progress of the colonial world and the evidence of continuity of 'older' social practice that was expressed in new ways. It is argued that because of the diverse context of the 19th century and the undoubted continuity of Khoesan belief and practice, some of these images cannot be taken at face value and that they should be seen as creole expressions and continuities of Khoesan beliefs. Equally, however, there are aspects of these representations that are difficult to read in this way, and engravers are expressing the immediacy of their context and material marginality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/27292 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Lupuwana, Vuyiswa Thembelihle |
| Contributors | Hall, Simon |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Science, Department of Archaeology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MPhil |
| Format | application/pdf |
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