Ethnic Identity, Demographic Crises, and Xhosa-Khoikhoi Interaction

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Periodical article

Title:	Ethnic Identity, Demographic Crises, and Xhosa-Khoikhoi Interaction
Author:	Ross, Robert
Year:	1980
Periodical:	History in Africa
Volume:	7
Pages:	259-271
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	The Cape South Africa
Subjects:	acculturation ethnic identity Khoikhoi Xhosa Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171664
Abstract:	One of the classic problems in southern African history is that of the relationship between the Khoisan and the Bantu-speaking Africans. It would seem useful to describe historical examples of Khoisan-Bantu interaction, which may serve as models for the description of the deeper past. Here the situation of contact during the latter part of the eighteenth century between the most southwesterly Nguni-speakers, the Xhosa, and the most easterly Khoi pastoralists in the region which later became the eastern border of the Cape of Good Hope is examined. It is clear that during this period there occurred a definite process of assimilation of Khoi to Xhosa or other communities. Variations in the degree of assimilation of the pastoralist Khoi to the mixed agriculturalist Xhosa may be explained in terms of ecological frontiers and the crisis of subsistence which both types of society experienced. Notes.