Our Ancient History
Long before the antiquity of Egypt, Greece, India and Meso-America, modern humans were living in South Africa’s southern Cape. For thousands of years, the /Xam were its only people.
The southern San (/Xam) used the word kukummi to describe their stories, history, myths, folklore and news. //Kabbo, a remarkable /Xam man who was instrumental in transcribing their traditions, said that the kukummi “float from afar” and are invisible like the wind.
 Two thousand years ago, their lives were disrupted by the appearance of the pastoralist Khoenkhoen people. They came from the north driving before them herds of fat-tailed sheep and cattle, indelibly changing the dynamics of the /Xam hunter/gatherer lifestyle. The colonial settlers, who in just a couple of hundred years were to condemn the millennia-old kukummi to genocidal oblivion, followed them. These changes that overtook the /Xam are reflected in their rock paintings. Scenes of ritual and trance were joined by depictions of sheep and cattle and then later by lines of booted horsemen, skirted women and ox-wagons.
This legacy, in the mountains of the Cederberg and Koue Bokkeveld, is only three hours outside of Cape Town.
(Information provided by Kukummi Travels and rock art image from Peter Slingsby)
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