Hottentots, the people who were in possession of the greater part of what is now Cape Colony when it was first visited and colonised by Europeans. The Hottentots were so called by the earliest Dutch settlers, puzzled at their strange harsh fancal sounds and clicks, Hottentot or Hüttentüt signifying a quack in Frisian or Low German. It is a somewhat misleading name, as it is popularly used to include the two distinct families distinguished by their native names: the Khoikhoi, the so-called Hottentot proper, and the Sān (Sā) or Bushmen, between whom little charity exists. Again, among the Khoikhoi proper, the terms Hottentots, Hottentots proper, or Cape Hottentots are often applied to the remnants of the tribes who formerly lived around Capetown; while the inhabitants of Griqualand West, of the South Kalahari, and of Great Namaqualand are distinguished by their tribal names as Griquas, Namaquas, Koras or Koranas, as if they were not as much Hottentots as the Khoikhoi of Cape Colony. The Bushmen are hunters; the Khoikhoi, nomads and sheep-farmers. At the present time the so-called Hottentots proper may number about 17,000; and the half-breeds, mostly employed in the Cape Colony, may number probably 100,000. The majority of the former and almost all the latter class are now semi-civilised, and copy the habits, customs, dress, and vices of the European colonists. In general they are of medium height, not very robust in build, and have small hands and feet. Their skin is a pale brown colour; their hair woolly, growing in curly knots; their cheek-bones very prominent; and their chin pointed. The women are sometimes distinguished by certain organic peculiarities, and often have an enormous development of fat, especially in the breasts and hinder-parts. Their principal characteristics in former days were indolence and hospitality. Their favourite amusements were feasting, dancing, smoking, and singing. The men were herdsmen, and not fond of war, though they liked to hunt. The women, although held in high esteem, performed all the manual labour. Their dwellings were huts of wood and mats, or tents, disposed in circles, and easily transportable. Their manner of living was entirely patriarchal: each tribe or division of a tribe had its own chief. Their method of perpetuating family names was that the sons took their mother's family name, whilst the daughters took their father's.
Their language embraced three principal dialects—the Nama, spoken by the Namaquas; the Kora, spoken by the Koranas; and the Cape dialect, now almost, if not entirely, extinct. Owing to its use of suffixes for expressing the declensions of nouns and the conjugations of verbs, the Hottentot language has been classed by Bleek, Lepsius, and other scholars with the Hamitic family of speech. This view is, however, controverted by Fr. Müller, Hahn, and Von Gabelentz, who maintain that the Hottentots and Bushmen are allied peoples, the aboriginal inhabitants of the greater part of South Africa. The association of the Bushmen with the Hottentots rests, however, upon little more than the common possession of a few verbal roots and the common use of some harsh faucal sounds or 'clicks' in their manner of speech. These 'clicks' are four in number—a dental sound, usually represented by the sign |; a palatal, by #; a lateral, by ||; and a cerebral, by !. All the Khoikhoi idioms are distinguished by monosyllabic roots ending in a vowel, and the use of pronominal elements as suffixes for the purpose of forming derivatives. They possess no prefixes. One striking feature is a decimal system of counting.
They have both sacred and profane poetry, and hymns of both kinds are sung accompanied by the so-called reed-music or reed-dances, performed on reed or bark pipes. The sacred hymns are generally prayers, invocations, and songs of praise in honour of the supreme being Tsü||goab, the beneficent deity Heitsi-eibib, and the Moon; while the profane reed-songs or dances deplore the fate of some 'lead chief or hero, or are sarcastic lessons to some one who has done something unpopular. They are often given by way of welcome to some guest worthy of honour, and in every large kraal there is a bandmaster, whose business it is to drill the young boys and girls in this music. Dr Hahn compares its effect to the harmonium. The chief divinities of the Khoikhoi, as has been seen, are the supreme being Tsü||goab, who lives in the Red Sky; another beneficent being, Heitsi-eibib, considered as an ancestral deity, who came originally from the East; and ||Gaunab, an evil spirit, whose malignant influence has to be averted by prayers and charms, which furnish employment to troops of professional sorcerers. The mythology is rich, but singularly confused and difficult of interpretation. It contains also repulsive features enough, but not more so than the old Greek. Much more might have been known had well-meaning missionaries been more sympathetic or intelligent. Beyond the hymns spoken of, the popular imagination has originated, or at least retained, a great number of fables, as well as legends, proverbs, and riddles. One persistent feature in these is a strong inclination to personifications of impersonal beings. Speech and reason are freely imputed to the lower animals, and human-like agencies employed freely as causes of celestial and other natural phenomena. The first to give examples of these was Captain (afterwards Sir) James Alexander in his Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa (2 vols. 1838). More were brought to light by Krönelin and other scholars, and in 1864 Dr W. H. I. Bleek gave a good selection in his Reynard the Fox in South Africa: Hottentot Fables and Tales.
For the language, see the grammars by Tindall (1871), Hahn (1870), Fr. Müller (Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, vol. ii. 1877), and Bleek (1862-69). For the people, see Dr Gustav Fritsch. Die Eingeborenen Süd-Africas (1872); and Dr T. Hahn's Tsuni||goam: the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi (1882).