Griqua

Population: Estimated several hundred thousand identifying as Griqua in South Africa

Location: The Northern Cape around Griquatown and Campbell, Griqualand East around Kokstad, and communities across the Western Cape and Namibia

Language: Afrikaans, with Khoekhoegowab now being revived by activists

Language family: Germanic (Afrikaans); Khoe-Kwadi heritage

Traditional governance: The Griqua captaincies with written constitutions, councils and courts in the nineteenth century; today several Griqua national conferences and traditional leadership structures seeking statutory recognition.

Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.

Clothing: Nineteenth-century frontier dress historically — hats, waistcoats, long dresses — retained in ceremony; Griqua church dress today.

Food: Mutton, bread and coffee of the frontier economy; Karoo and Cape cooking; the community's food is regional rather than distinct.

Ceremonies: Griqua church services and the annual gatherings of the Griqua National Conference; commemorations of the Kokstad trek; heritage days at Griquatown and Campbell.

Marriage customs: Christian marriage from the earliest missionary period; the community was formed substantially through intermarriage across the frontier's populations.

Initiation rites: None formal; church membership and the Griqua institutions have served as the community's formation since the nineteenth century.

Every dish the Atlas publishes for South Africa and Namibia, at national rather than community level — 18 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.

“We wrote our own laws before anyone wrote them for us.”

The community's political claim.

“The wagon that crossed the mountain did not come back.”

Said of the 1861 trek.

“A people who name themselves cannot be unnamed.”

Self-designation as the founding act.

Creation: Christian cosmology from the earliest mission contact, with Khoekhoe traditions of Heitsi-Eibib and the cairn graves surviving in memory and in revival.

Beliefs: The Griqua Independent Church and other denominations; strong scriptural and constitutional idiom in political argument; contemporary revival of Khoekhoe practice among activists.

Ancestors: The graves of Adam Kok III at Kokstad and of the Griquatown founders are pilgrimage sites for the community's annual commemorations.

Traditional settlements: Griquatown's mission church and stone buildings; Kokstad's grid town; Cape settlements founded under Le Fleur in the twentieth century.

Building techniques: Stone and lime mission-era building; the Griqua church at Griquatown, one of the oldest in the interior; frontier wagon-based mobility.

Village layout: Mission town around church and school; Kokstad laid out as a planned settlement on the Griqua model.

1. 1800s–1813

   Frontier communities coalesce; the name Griqua is adopted at Klaarwater, renamed Griquatown.

2. 1815–1861

   Captaincies at Griquatown and Philippolis with constitutions, courts and coinage.

3. 1861–1863

   Adam Kok III leads the trek over the Drakensberg; Kokstad is founded.

4. 1871–1879

   Diamonds at Kimberley; Griqualand West and then East are annexed.

5. 1990s–present

   Griqua organisations seek recognition as an indigenous people; Khoekhoe language revival gathers pace.