Griqua People also known as Griekwa, Chariqua, Korana or Koranna can be found in South Africa and Namibia, they are related to the Khoikhoi People. The Griquas are a unique ethnic group of southern Africa. They can also be found today in Zimbabwe.
They are the result of a recent process of ethnogenesis involving the mixing of Khoi-khois, San, and European peoples.
At the present time, the Griqua population is approximately 9,000 people (1996). Today the Griqua of South Africa are numbering 125 (Peoplegroups.org, 2023)
Traditionally, they were cattle herders. Early in the 1800s, they migrated north from the Cape Colony to Namaqualand, and from there, east to Griqualand West and the Orange Free State. In the 1860s, another group of Griquas migrated to Transkei. During their migrations, they were repeatedly driven from their land by invading groups of Boer farmers. The Boers also used Griqua soldiers to fight the Sotho and Ndebele peoples. In South Africa, the Griquas are classified as part of the Coloured population, even though they maintain a distinct sense of identity.
Griqua People hold Cultural Ceremonies that revive their culture and traditions such as Inabasas
Inabasas is a ceremony held to celebrate the virginity of young daughters. The clothing of men and women is based on occasions. Men clothing is the gain and they are barefooted also they perform different cultural dances.
Inabasas is also referred as Die Hok Meisie is to promote the purity among beautiful and young virgin women, respect for young women before this ceremony starts ladies should look for a sign when a whirlwind starts or end at home. The old ladies know that the house is for a girl who had her menstruation period for the first time and gather with her parents at the house and dicuss about the period for the first time, during the day, they would slaughter a sheep or goat, the ceremony take up till 15 days each day they have what they pratice.
On the 5th day In they prepare a meak with sheep or goat. On the 13th day she learn how to dance and cook.On the 14th day she have to experience life without the old lady help independent woman. On the 15th day they celebrate a big festival with music playing instruments and coming together as one people, the dancers with the old ladies sit in front with their traditional clothes, Instrument and the polar bone of the sheep will be served to the Old People in their tradition there is a way how they eat.
In Griqua Concept Nxabasas is a female and a goddess their belief include the existance of water and nature and they are cconsidered as one of South Africa’s heterogeneous and multiracial people who have unique origins.
Griqua, 19th-century people, of mixed Khoekhoe and European ancestry, who occupied the region of central South Africa just north of the Orange River. In 1848 they were guaranteed some degree of autonomy by a treaty with the British governor of South Africa. Under the leadership of Adam Kok III, the Griqua sided with the British in a war against the Boers. Their tendency to favour the British over the Boers took on greater significance after the creation of the Orange Free State in 1854 and the discovery of diamonds in the region in 1867.
Kok, who ruled the eastern portion of the Griqua territory (around Philippolis), saw no hope of successfully resisting the Orange Free State. He ceded his land rights to the new state in 1861 and led his people on a great trek east-southeast, to the southern foothills of the Drakensberg. His new home became Griqualand East. Kok’s rival, Nicholaas Waterboer, who ruled farther west around Kimberley, met no serious challenge to his land rights until diamonds were discovered there. Waterboer asserted his claim to the land ( Griqualand West) and succeeded, with British aid, in resisting absorption into the Orange Free State. Great Britain recognized the Griqua as British subjects in 1871 and annexed Waterboer’s land to the British crown. It eventually became a part of the Cape Colony.
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