San peoples

The San, Bushmen, are the hunter-gatherer nations of southern Africa and its oldest surviving cultures, diverged from other humans 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Their old countries span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa; their ancestors' tongues belong to the Khoe, Tuu and Kxa families, a people definable only against pastoralist and Bantu neighbours. Botswana holds 63,500 San, Namibia 71,000, the great proportions of the nation. Tracking, poison arrows, mongongo nuts and trance dances healed and fed the bands for millennia; rock shelters from the Drakensberg to the Brandberg still show the eland, the rain bull and the shamans dying into stone. San is itself a borrowed slur, rejected by its bearers. Land boards, craft cooperatives and the Kalahari's first-language schools keep the first people first. Botswana's 63,500 San keep the highest proportion on earth. Namibia's 71,201 San vote in every election. Khoe, Tuu and Kxa tongues still sound in the camps.