CHAPTER
I
TheAfricans
The Significance and Problems of Precolonial History
Modern Western culture is inordinately present-minded.
Politicians are ignorant of the past. School curricula fore-
shorten the historical record by focusing on recent events. Peo-
ple lack a sense of their location in time and fail to perceivethat
contemporary society is constrained by its cultural aswell as its
biological inheritance.
Many historians of the white South African establishment
start their history books with a brief reference to the voyage of
Vascoda Gama round the Cape ofGood Hope in 1497-98 and
then rush on to the arrival of the first white settlers in 165~.
Other historians are so committed to emphasizing the role of
capitalism as the molder of modern Southern Africa that they
ignore the processes that shaped society before Europeans be-
gan to intrude in the region.
The precolonial history of Southern Africa is significant in