To follow the Khoekhoe trail, you need to know who they are. Or rather, who they were. And so, starting from the present and their shreds of Hottentot identity, we go back to the 17th century, the dawn of an already fatal encounter with the West. This will not be an ethnophany of the cow people, but a reconstruction in fragments. And since we'll be on the road with them, spurring humpbacked and long-horned cattle across the steppes and savannahs, we'll be continuing our journey back in time, let's say over a few millennia, just to see... To see where this path takes us as it travels backwards through Africa's past. To go beyond invisibility and make traces speak for themselves. To try and understand a little better what migrates, transmits and transforms. Oh, and by the way, a kraal is an encampment of huts, a social and political unit of these nomadic pastoralists. Let's read theEncyclopédie 's excellent article and start there.
