Creolisation on the Nineteenth-century Frontiers of Southern Africa: A Case Study of the AmaTola ‘Bushmen’ in the Maloti-Drakensberg

Abstract

This article explores the formation of mounted frontier raiding groups of diverse origins in the mountains of the north-eastern Cape Colony. It addresses concepts of creolisation, identity formation and image making (rock art) with special reference to nineteenth-century frontier conditions, and examines the ways in which ‘contact period’ rock art has been perceived until now. Certain frontier raiding groups often referred to simply as ‘Bushmen’ are revealed to comprise members from many formerly distinct ‘ethnicities’Footnote2, and include the progeny resulting from subsequent inter-marriage. Cultural and ‘ethnic’ mixing, the advent of the horse and the need for identity to adapt to these changes, results in a creolisation process probably more common to South Africa than has previously been allowed.