lien | ǂKhomani | Hugh Brody Archive – Photographic component

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.

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