Cxam

The ǀXam were San people of the dry Karoo country south of the Kalahari. Their language, with its distinctive click sounds, belonged to the Tuu family. Rock paintings, engravings and stone tools record the long presence of San communities across the interior. During the later eighteenth century, settler stock farmers pushed into the Karoo, and fighting over land and livestock grew fierce. Armed colonial commandos attacked San communities, killing inhabitants and taking captives as the frontier expanded.