ǂKhomani | Hugh Brody Archive

THE PEOPLE AND THEIR ANCESTRAL LANDS

The ǂKhomani are among the first known people to live in the southern region of the Kalahari Desert. They have lived as hunters and gatherers in this immense sandy savannah for generations. The Kalahari landscape in the northwest corner of South Africa, is a land rich in wildlife, plants, rolling sand dunes, dry riverbeds and clear night skies.

THEIR STORIES

When the ǂKhomani shared their stories, they unpacked a detailed account of dispossession from their lands, scattering of their people, erasure of their way of life and the disappearance of their language. To speak of their past was to search in memory for all that was taken from them in the colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid era. After a successful land claim, they also told stories of reclamation of culture, recovery of lands, revival of their language and even rejuvenation of memory itself. They told stories of the struggles to emerge from the immense losses of the past, and moved into a new era with an empowered narrative for the future of their children.

THEIR ARCHIVE

Please visit:  https://ibali.uct.ac.za/s/bvf41/page/index

This archive holds all the materials that were generated over 15 years of work with the ǂKhomani of the southern Kalahari by various researchers. This journey began with the research that was required to file a land claim, which was granted in 1999. Thereafter, as part of a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Audit, detailed research continued, producing a series of oral history records, detailed local maps, and various film projects up to 2012. The physical archive includes over 130 hours of original film, more than 1300 photographs, detailed local maps, GIS (geographic information system) databases, family trees and transcripts of oral history collected in four different languages (Nǀuu, Nama, Kora and Afrikaans). The digital archive hosted here on Ibali holds a digitised version of the physical archive to facilitate access to this large and extensively rich resource.

THEIR CHAMPIONS

After decades of enduring suppression, discrimination and displacement from their ancestral lands and inspired by the possibility of a land claim, the ǂKhomani people began to speak out. Key community voices in this process are: Oupa Regopstaan Kruiper, Dawid Kruiper, Elsie Vaalbooi, Petrus Vaalbooi, ǀUna Rooi, Kheis Brou, Jakob Malgas, Andries Olyn, Anna Swartz, Antjie Kassie, Katrina Esau, Johanna Koper and Griet Seekoei. Many others who were living at the edges of townships, at the sides of the road, or living as farm workers also came forward with their stories.

RESEARCHERS AND SPECIALISTS

1997-2012

A team of researchers and specialists worked with the ǂKhomani to record their stories. Roger Chennells, a human rights attorney, was the community’s legal adviser. The lead researchers were Nigel Crawhall (sociolinguist and activist) and Hugh Brody (anthropologist and film-maker). Bill Kemp and Valter Blasevic (cartographers) worked on collecting GIS data and produced detailed maps and posters. Levi Namaseb (linguist) worked on the documentation of NIuu, a language once thought extinct. They were assisted by many volunteers who wanted to see the successful return of ǂKhomani to their ancestral land.

2014 TO DATE

This project website is the outcome of a decade of work, funded through sporadic funding, by a consultancy called African Tongue, directed by local linguist Kerry Jones, to enrich the archival descriptions of the ǂKhomani | Hugh Brody Archive held by UCT Libraries Special Collections. This required a large and specialised team from various fields to work closely with the ǂKhomani people to verify archive descriptions. In linguistics, Bonny Sands (Nǀuu), Alena Witzlack-Makarevich (Nǀuu), Kerry Jones (Nǀuu and Khoekhoegowab), Niklaas Fredericks (Khoekhoegowab), Sylvanus Job (Khoekhoegowab), Valerie Isaaks (Khoekhoegowab), Francoise Betta Steyn (Onse Afrikaans) and Anneke Potgieter (Standard Afrikaans). From UCT Libraries, Paul Weinberg (Archivist) Thomas Slingsby (GIS Officer), Deidre Goslett (Archivist), Andrea Walker (Archivist), Susan Mvungi (Archivist) and Michal Singer (Principal Archivist).  From 2023, consultancy Uliza LLC has assisted with converting the transcript files into machine readable format as well as into subtitles for the archived film footage. Their team consisted of Christine Vorster (Operations Manager), Lia Snijman (Project Coordinator), Craig Swingler (Project Assistant). The process of taking such a large and diverse African collection, digitising it and describing it in a way that facilitates FAIR access required the development of unique resources and processes never before undertaken.

A UNITED FRONT

The collaboration between this team of researchers and the ǂKhomani people of the southern Kalahari has resulted in the most extensive documentation of ǂKhomani heritage that has ever been undertaken. This archive represents a detailed recognition of the ǂKhomani people’s history and their rightful place in the world.

For more information please visit: www.africantongue.co.za