77

INDIGENOUS EDUCATION DURING THE PRE-COLONIAL

PERIOD IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

Johannes Seroto
University of South Africa
serotj@unisa.ac.za

ABSTRACT
Prior to the arrival of European settlers in the Cape Colony in 1652, formal and informal
educational practices through the transmission of indigenous knowledge from adult to
child had long been in existence among the Khoi, the San and the Bantu-speaking people
of Southern Africa. The African child was brought up by the community and educated in
the culture and traditions of the community. The curriculum of indigenous education during
the pre-colonial period consisted of traditions, legends and tales and the procedures and
knowledge associated with rituals which were handed down orally from generation to
generation within each tribe. This process was intimately integrated with the social,
cultural, artistic, religious and recreational life of the indigenous peoples. This article
discusses different forms of indigenous education that existed in Southern Africa during
the pre-colonial period.

Keywords: Pre-colonial period, indigenous education, indigenous people,

culture, rituals.

INTRODUCTION

Indigenous knowledge has been defined differently by various scholars (Flavier,

de Jesus, Navarro and Warren, 1995: 479; Suminguit, 2005: 1), although such
definitions have several overlapping features. Nakashima, Prott and Bridgewater
(2000: 11) argue that societies worldwide have always developed extensive and
useful sets of knowledge which have been derived from the local environments
in which people live and which guide them to survive within those environments.
Such social capital is present in all societies and has been developed over
generations (Gorjestani, 2000). Kothari (2007) explains further that indigenous
knowledge includes the codified wisdom, customs and traditions of local groups
of people which have been transmitted orally from individual to individual and
include folklore, rituals, songs, art and traditional law. The latter definition
stresses the transmission of this knowledge linking to the notion of indigenous
education. Armstrong (1987: 14) contrasts modern views of education with
indigenous education, which, she argues, is a natural process embedded in
everyday life and its activities. Indigenous education ensured cultural continuity
between one generation and the next and was essential to the continuance of
the intellectual, and survival of the mental, spiritual, emotional, and health of the
cultural unit and its environment. The emphasis in indigenous education lay in
the holistic development of the whole child (Alan, 1997).

Against this background, this article focuses on forms of formal and informal
teaching and learning existed among the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa
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78

before the arrival of the Europeans in the Cape Colony in 1652 (referred to later
as the pre-colonial period). The children of indigenous peoples learned in differ-
ent ways. In the early years of childhood, the child’s education was largely in the
hands of the biological mother; the community assumed a greater role as the
child approached adolescence. Language was learned mainly from the mother
and the extended family. Children learned about work, hunting, rituals and other
cultural traits (such as trance dancing, herding and the manufacturing of equip-
ment) from older members of their clans, through experience and by completing
tasks such as gathering and preparing food. The primary aim of indigenous
education was to prepare and integrate the young into various social roles.
Education was a deliberate endeavour to explain to children that their future (and
that of their community) depended on their understanding and perpetuation of
the social structures, laws, language and values inherited from the past.
Rituals and ceremonies were important events through which learning took
place. ‘Formal’ education during the pre-colonial period was most strongly
manifested in the form of the initiation ceremony. Different members of society
played the role of educators and the education that was provided corresponded
to the essential needs of the society.
In the past, many scholars tended to use the start of colonial rule as the dawn of
South African history (Molema, 1920: 51-52; Theal, 1894). These scholars held
the view that an indigenous person was a savage pagan with no history or
culture to transmit. This was a primitive, mistaken and naïve belief that perpetu-
ated the notion that indigenous people made no deliberate attempt to bring up
their children to be the kind of men and women society required (Mazonde,
2001). Although colonial rule marked a new epoch in history, pre-colonial South
Africa had several black communities which today form part of groups that make
up the country’s diverse population. The indigenous peoples (the Khoi, the San
and the Bantu-speaking peoples) lived a nomadic life at the Cape of Good Hope
and informal education took place in these communities.
A Western viewpoint proposed that formal schooling and education were syn-
onymous (Theal, 1894). However, education should be understood as the “whole
process by which one generation transmits its culture to the succeeding genera-
tion” or as a “process by which people are prepared to live effectively and effi-
ciently in their environment” (Sifuna and Otiende, 2006). In this sense,
indigenous education was closely intertwined with social life. It embraced char-
acter building, the development of physical aptitudes and the acquisition of moral
qualities that are an integral part of adulthood. Scanlon (1964: 3) describes the
education of the African before the coming of the European as an education that
prepared him/her for his/her responsibilities as an adult in his/her home, village
and tribe.
Education within local communities during the pre-colonial period involved the
oral histories of the group, tales of heroism and treachery, and practice in the
skills necessary for survival in a changing environment (Mbamara, 2004; Ma-
zonde, 2001). Pre-colonial history and education were based on oral tradition,
oral culture and oral lore – which are broadly messages or testimonies that are
 INDIGENOUS EDUCATION DURING THE PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
79

transmitted orally from one generation to another. Transmission of these testi-

monies also took the form of ballads, songs or chants. The main focus of this
oral history, according to Leshoai (1981: 242), was to teach children, men and
women about morality, religion, philosophy, wisdom, geography, history, politics
and the entire spectrum of human existence in the various communities. The aim
of this article is therefore to examine the virtues of the indigenous education of
the Khoi, the San and the Bantu-speaking people during the pre-colonial period.
The objectives emanating from this overall aim, are to:
• describe different forms of education that were provided to and by indigenous
peoples during the pre-colonial period; and
• analyse the contents and methods that were used to provide education to
indigenous people.

This article is based on a literature study and the analysis of historical docu-
ments and archaeological and anthropological material.

EDUCATION THROUGH SOCIALISATION

The process of indigenous education in Africa was intimately integrated with the
social, cultural, artistic, religious and recreational life of the indigenous peoples.
Education took place through the socialisation process which had to do with the
acquisition of cultural norms, values and beliefs, and rules for interacting with
others. The process of socialisation begins within the context of the family. The
family has a fundamental function of shaping a child’s attitudes and behaviour.
The family also determines the child’s initial social status and identity in terms of
race, religion and social class. The central concern is how infants and children
are taught to think, act and feel appropriately. Broadly conceived, education is
seen as the means whereby individuals are recruited to be members of a culture
and whereby culture is maintained (Spindler, 1974).
The education of indigenous people was transmitted in two ways: (i) informally
by parents and elders in society through a socialisation process; and (ii) ‘for-
mally’ through initiation rites or apprenticeship/craftsmen (Hlatshwayo, 2000: 28).
Informal education is the “lifelong process by which every person acquires and
accumulates knowledge, skills, attitudes and insights from daily experiences and
exposure to the environment” (Coombs and Ahmed, 1974: 8). One of the charac-
teristics of informal education is the contact individuals have with a variety of
environmental influences that result from day-to-day learning. In the informal
education mode, formal characteristics that are associated with certain rites of
passage in formal organisation (such as the initiation ritual) might exist (La Belle,
1982). Formal education, on the other hand, can be defined as the “institutional-
ised, chronologically graded and hierarchically structured educational system”
(Coombs and Ahmed, 1974: 8). Unfortunately, this mode of education did not
exist in the pre-colonial era. Nevertheless, the absence of formal education
during this period did not necessarily translate into the total absence of provision
of education as a lifelong process to and by indigenous people. The two modes
of education (formal and informal) should not be viewed as discreet entities. In a
formal education system (like a classroom) the teacher and the learners are not
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80

only involved with the curriculum, teaching methods or the organization of the
classroom, but also with the rules, beliefs, knowledge and culture that learners
transmit among themselves. It is therefore imperative that the two modes of
education should supplement and complement each other. As will be discussed
below, informal education during the pre-colonial period was provided through
language learning, initiation schools, art education and music education.

Language acquisition
It is important to take note of how children are socialised to use language and
how they are socialised through language. According to Schieffelin and Ochs
(1986: 183), language is “a critical resource for those who wish to understand
the nature of culture and how cultural knowledge and beliefs are transmitted both
from generation to generation and in every interaction”. Language socialisation
begins at the moment of social contact in the life of a child. The verbal interac-
tions that are established between the mother and the child can be regarded and
interpreted as cultural phenomena that are embedded in systems of the ideas,
knowledge and social order of the particular group into which the child is being
socialised (Ochs and Schieffelin, 2001: 190).
Pre-colonial education was oral in nature and was transmitted through the
peoples’ own languages. Through folklore, children learned the values of their
community and to appreciate the power and beauty of their own languages. A
full body of custom can be regarded as the total culture of a people. An important
part of each culture is that aspect of their creative expression that is verbal. The
verbal aspects of the creative life of the indigenous people were found in tales,
proverbs and riddles – and collectively, this may be referred to as ‘folklore’
(Herskovits, 1961: 452). Language learning activities were organised in the
evenings in the form of folk storytelling sessions. It was during these times that
cultural values were transmitted to children through language learning.
Proverbs were also used to transmit and enhance language learning among
younger members of a community. In African societies, it was a mark of ele-
gance to enliven one’s speech with different aphorisms (Herskovits, 1961: 453).
Proverbs were cited in the native courts in much the same way as they are cited
today, by lawyers in a court of law. The morals that the proverbs illustrated gave
insights into the basic values of society and also taught what was held to be right
and wrong. Herskovits (1961: 453) mentions that these proverbs can be re-
garded as an index to accepted canons of thought and action.

Initiation ceremonies

Throughout Africa, initiation rites and various rituals to mark the passage from
childhood to adulthood were cultural devices that were used to inculcate the
spirit of communalism in the youth. An initiation ritual includes any system of
rites that are done regularly in a set, precise manner whereby a child or adoles-
cent is made a member of a sect or society and invested with a particular status.
Initiation rituals occur in special places and this is an indication of that they are
organized systematically. Certain teachers impart knowledge to initiates and
information on the initiation ritual is fixed and varies from one society to the next.
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81

Initiation rituals remain informal in that the curricula of initiation are not fairly
standardised and validated. Initiation as a ritual carried symbolic meaning that
related to the social structure and belief system of a particular cultural group.
The values, memories, myths and traditions of a community are contained in the
initiation ritual.
An example of an initiation school among the Bantu-speaking people in the pre-
colonial period can be traced back to the Tsonga-speaking people. The schools
were called ngoma (drum – general word for rites), were held every four or five
years and were attended by boys aged 10 to 16. A lodge was constructed away
from the village in a secluded area and consisted of a walled or fenced com-
pound with sleeping huts and other ceremonial areas (Junod, 1962: 74). Initiates
were circumcised immediately when they entered the lodge. Junod (1962: 75)
explains this stage by saying that “the boy has now crossed…” – a technical
expression that clearly shows the character of this rite of passage. The principals
of the schools believed that during this period, initiates had to be taught about
perseverance and initiates were therefore beaten for small offences. Harsh
tactics were used to teach the boys courage and endurance. The Venda people
and the Pedi people believed that this harsh treatment enabled the circumcised
boys to be in a better position to be called upon to fight during war (Pitjie, 1950:
105). The art of fighting was part of the activities the boys practised. Experienced
men gave lessons to initiates in stick fighting. Stick fighting was believed to be
part and parcel of manhood. Initiation schools played a pivotal role in equipping
the circumcised boys with the knowledge that was required for success in battle.
When the boys came out of the initiation schools, they had acquired the neces-
sary skills to be good fighters or warriors (Mönnig, 1967; Pitjie, 1950).
The purpose of the initiation school was to introduce the young boy to manhood
and to make him a thoughtful member of the community (Junod, 1962: 94).
According to Hammond-Tooke (1974: 230), the education that was given by the
men of the tribe during the period of seclusion (especially among the Sotho
group) had a strong nationalistic flavour and was characterised by tribal loyalty
and values. The rights and obligations of citizenship were an integral part of the
teaching that Bantu-speaking initiates received throughout the initiation process.
Hammond-Tooke (1974: 231, 235) reiterates that initiation schools prepared the
young boy for one or many of his adult roles, including his military, political,
religious, legal and marital duties. The emphasis varied from society to society.
Female circumcision was also practiced in some indigenous communities.
During the initiation, girls received instruction in various matters. Although ex-
perienced women in charge of the initiation schools aimed their efforts at instill-
ing tribal history and values, it seemed that much time was also spent on tutoring
initiates regarding the roles of women, including their domestic, agricultural and
marital duties. Sex education, in particular, received much attention (Stayt,
1968).

Rock art

The production of rock art during the pre-colonial period was embedded in the
social, economic and intellectual circumstances of the community in which it was
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made (Wolf, 1981). Rock art in South Africa has been generally associated in
most people’s mind with hunter-gathers; yet both pastoralists and agriculturalists
also produced a variety of rock art during and after the pre-colonial period
(Maggs, 1995: 132). In the South-western Cape, there are enormous collections
of rock art and evidence suggests that they are thousands of years old (Yates,
Manhire and Parkington, 1993: 61; Thackeray, 1983). Many paintings in the area
are recognisable as human figures and a variety of animal species. The paint-
ings have been clearly linked to a predominantly hunter-gatherer (Khoi and San)
lifestyle and many yielded evidence of shamanistic ritual practices (Yates,
Golson and Manhire, 1985; Parkington, Yates, Manhire and Halkett, 1986;
Lewis-Williams, 1992).

In a field study that was devoted to the measurement of hand prints found in the
South-western Cape, it was believed that the first people who occupied the
Western Cape were the San people, although it was also inhabited by the
Tswana-speaking herders and the Nama-speaking pastoralists (Manhire, 1998:
100). Manhire (1998) concluded that the majority of the hand prints found in the
area were made by children. Hand prints were produced by smearing the palm
and digits with wet pigment and placing them on a wall or roof to leave an imprint
of the hand. The fact that a number of young people were involved in a group
activity to make hand prints suggests that some kind of special event or cere-
mony was held. In most cases, it was at these types of functions that informal
education took place.

We can also learn much from the type of pottery that was produced during the
pre-colonial period. The early white travellers in the southwest and south of the
Cape Colony saw the Khoi making and using large reddish or black, coil-built
cooking vessels with shoulder lugs and incised necks with reverted rims (Bol-
long, Sampson and Smith, 1997). These ceramic utensils were used in the Late
Stone Age by the San and the Khoi. On the basis of excavations at Zaayfontein,
Glen Elliot and Holmsgrove Shelteron the southern bank of the Orange river,
about 50km upstream from the Orange/Seacow confluence, Bollong et al (1997)
concluded that the ceramics (dated before 700 A.D.) that were found in rock
shelters in the upper Seacow Valley were possibly used by the Khoi as vessels
for liquid storage while the bowls were used by the San for cooking. The San
people traditionally used empty ostrich eggs to store water. They carried the
eggs as water bottles or buried them in the sand to keep the water cool. Knowl-
edge about the use of different utensils and how they were made was passed on
from generation to generation. This in itself was an education that satisfied the
needs and requirements of the time.

Acquisition of practical skills

Men and women played different roles during the pre-colonial period. Since the
Khoi were interested in livestock, the men and boys were responsible for guarding
the herds from being stolen or attacked by wild animals. As a result, they were
taught how to make implements like poison arrows or utensils like clay pots.
Boys would learn practical skills by watching what senior members of the society
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did. The San regarded the eland as their most spiritual animal and their rituals
revolved around this animal. One of the tasks of the elderly men was to teach
the young boys how to track an eland and how the animal would fall once it was
shot with an arrow. The boy had to carefully observe the skills that were used to
kill an eland. Only after a boy had killed his first large antelope, preferably an
eland, was he considered an adult (Clottes and Lewis-Williams, 1996).

The Khoi people had to acquire certain skills by means of observation. For
example, before the birth of a child, the Khoi mother-to-be was taken to a hut
where she remained until at least seven days after the delivery. No men were
allowed to enter the hut. A special fire was lit in the hut. The mother and the
baby had to avoid contact with water. Both the child and the mother were to be
protected from any harmful practices. It was during this period of seclusion that
the mother was taught how to care for the baby. After this period of seclusion, a
ritual of incorporation was conducted in which members of the kraal and blood
relations from other kraals participated (Lewis-Williams, 1990). Birth rituals
included subjecting the child and the mother to some form of medication. The
young mother learned about the different herbs that could be used to cure child
illnesses.

The San’s culture included institutionalised, altered states of consciousness that

were called the ‘trance dance’. The trance was induced through intense concen-
tration, prolonged rhythmic dancing, audio-driving and hyperventilation. The
trance dance was performed around the carcass of a recently killed animal; men
and older shaman women danced in circles while young women sat, clapped
their hands and sang traditional songs (Lewis-Williams and Dowson, 1989: 38-
49). The term ‘shaman’ refers to someone ‘who knows’ and is able to transcend
into the supernatural world (Ogembo, 2005: 206-207). Certain kinds of trance
experiences and hallucinations were accorded the status of visions. In general,
people accepted the shamans’ accounts of their various visions as insights into
what was happening in the spiritual world (Lewis-Williams, 1994: 278).

A central element of the trance dance was the San’s belief in an invisible energy
that was found in almost all animals, but especially in the eland. According to the
San shamans, this enabled them to undertake a journey to the supernatural
world where they were able to perform various tasks such as rainmaking, fighting
off evil spirits and curing the sick (Lewis-Williams and Dowson, 1989). To
achieve this, the San believed that their most important spiritual being (Kaggen,
the trickster-deity) harnessed a supernatural potency which was associated with
large game animals and could be found especially in the blood, fat and sweat of
the eland (Lewis-Williams, 1994: 278). Any person who wanted to become a
shaman had to be trained and had to observe how the trance dance was con-
ducted. The dance was not isolated from other cultural beliefs, norms and prac-
tices. A young San man who wished to become a shaman had to dance with an
experienced shaman until he had learned to master altered and unique states of
consciousness and to control the level of his trance state (Clottes and Lewis-
Williams, 1996; Marshall, 1969: 347-381). Indigenous education during the pre-
colonial period therefore involved both the theoretical inculcation and the practical
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inculcation of skills. Young shamans had to learn the trance dance through
dance and folk songs by watching and participating in the trance dance.
The San and Khoi children (boys and girls) learned certain life skills through
watching what adults demonstrated during different cultural practices and cere-
monies. At the commencement of menstruation, a girl’s puberty ritual was held.
This comprised of isolating the young girl in her hut. During this period of seclu-
sion, the young girl would effectively learn the roles of motherhood, wife and
other gender-appropriate skills. This can be construed as a transmission of
education from an adult to a non-adult. The adults also performed the Eland Bull
dance during which the women imitated the mating behaviour of eland cows and
the men that of eland bulls. The elderly men had to demonstrate the activity and
thereafter the young boys had to reflect on what they had observed. As a part of
the marriage ritual, the man would give the fat from an eland’s heart to the girl’s
parents as a token of love and appreciation (Clottes and Lewis-Williams, 1996).

Music and dance education

Music and dance played, and still continues to play, a special role not only in
South African society but also throughout the rest of the world. People have
sung and danced to express joy or sadness to reinforce cultural beliefs and
values. Song and dance were often regarded as living records of past and
present events and traditions (Kgobe, 1999). Even though formal lyrics and
musical notes were not taught, indigenous music equipped young generations
with knowledge about past and present events and traditions. It was through
music and dance that the social norms, traditions and beliefs of a community
were depicted. Music and dance also played a role in marriages, funerals,
initiation ceremonies, religious practices and rituals.
A common feature of all indigenous music is rhythm, which engages all mem-
bers of a group to respond to the beat in a social way. The co-existence of
different and simultaneous rhythms created a strong sense of community and a
highly interactive mode of learning. Oehrle (1991) refers to indigenous music as
something profoundly pluralistic to which one responds in a social fashion.
Indigenous music has relied entirely on an oral tradition of transmittance. Musical
knowledge is learned through highly interactive social events and rituals where
music is the predominant means of communication (Westerlund, 1999: 99).
Music and dance also played a significant role in the history of the Bantu-
speaking peoples. Just like the San, the Bantu-speaking peoples used bow
instruments, whistles, rattles, drums, xylophones, reed flutes and horns signal-
ling on special occasions (Hammond-Tooke, 1974: 106). Singing and dancing
were used during initiation ceremonies, especially in girls’ initiation schools (e.g.
the Pedi girls’ initiation rite called bjale) (Mönnig, 1967). During the initiation
process, the initiates sung different songs which marked different stages of the
initiation. For example, the special dancing drum was kept by the chief and it
was used during the girls’ initiation ceremonies. The song they sung when they
entered the initiation school was not the same as the one they sung when they
went home. Every song they sung had a link with the social practices of the Pedi
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85

people. In the Venda Domba (python dance), social, religious and sexual instruc-
tion were given through the medium of song and dance. It took place during the
period when girls were believed to be crossing the bridge between childhood and
adulthood. Moral lessons on desirable social skills were taught and reinforced
through traditional music and dance (Kgobe, 1999).

CONCLUSION
Indigenous education, which was predominantly informal, prevailed before
formal and institutionalised education was introduced by the European settlers
on their arrival in the Cape Colony. This type of education, which was fundamen-
tally provided through the socialisation process, ensured that indigenous people
acquired and accumulated knowledge, skills, attitudes and insights from their
daily experiences and exposure to the environment. Indigenous education during
the pre-colonial period was relevant to the needs of the society of the time.
These skills, attitudes and insights are still relevant today. It would be an error to
undermine and replace these African value systems with a modern or Western
education system. Formal and informal education systems should exist simulta-
neously, even though they might sometimes appear to be in conflict with one
another. Through informal education, children learn the norms and values of
society, and ideally, this forms the foundation for later schooling. In other words
a judicious integration of both approaches in which culture and tradition are
valued while contemporary knowledge essential for life in the 21st century is also
acquired. A well-socialised child will benefit more from formal education. Indige-
nous knowledge should, therefore, form a basis of any curricula that is intro-
duced in any education system.
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86

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