Shifting frameworks for understanding otherness The Cape Khoi in pre‐1652 European travelogues, an early modern Latin letter, and the South African novel Eilande (2002)

This dissertation examines framings of the Khoi, native inhabitants of South Africa’s Cape. An important aim is to make apparent that the formation of knowledge about these peoples is a matter of framing and not of discovering ‘facts’. Factual knowledge is surrounded by a host of interpretive frameworks or worldviews that generate meaning. Foregrounding this process adds to an understanding of European intellectual history and South Africa’s continued renegotiation of its past.
Chapter one focuses on pre-Van Riebeeck times (1488-1652). An observed lack of Christianity became a dominant standard for European judgment of Khoi ‘bestial’ uncivility. The reiteration of stock images meant that knowledge about the Khoi did not actually advance as the question why they should rank below the civil, Christian state was never asked.
Chapters two and three discuss a 1695 letter about the Khoi by the Dutchman J.W. van Grevenbroek, who was a VOC secretary. Grevenbroek relies on empirical evidence to challenge ‘the European recycling of rumour’, positioning the Khoi in Europe’s intellectual transition from Middle Ages to Renaissance. Yet, he also remains a child of his time, for his appreciation of the Khoi as ‘brethren’ revitalises Christian and Ancient worldviews.
Chapter four shows how the historical novel Eilande (2002) by Dan Sleigh (South Africa) reframes Grevenbroek and individual Khoi through South Africa’s postcolonial circumstance. Eilande highlights that various voices have been preserved in the historical archive unequally. Furthermore, focusing on Autshumao/Herrie and Krotoa/Eva, Eilande exposes the unsustainability of a colonial society through a process called ‘Andersmaak’.