ABSTRACT
The first people at the Cape about whom we have the reports of eye-witnesses were yellow-skinned hunters and herders. Discussion on hunters and herders has been bedevilled because scholars have attempted to fit scientific classifications to popular usage and combine various criteria. There are no anthropological studies of Khoikhoi herders, for no group of herders in the south has retained its ancient way of life to the degree to which some hunters, retreating into the desert, have retained theirs. There has been much speculation about the northward links of the yellow-skinned hunters and herders but little substantial evidence. The hunters and collectors described by the early travellers and settlers inhabited the mountains and the sea-shore. The hunters of the mountains fished in the rivers with harpoons made of bone, and trapped eels, when opportunity offered, and the Strandlopers lived off shellfish and other fish caught on lines, and in the fishgarths which are still visible along the Cape coast.
