The Ghost of Theal

Stereotypes about the Khoe-San as pre-modern, unusual, and virtually extinct in South Africa have been socially pervasive. School history is one very important medium through which such views have been reproduced, spread and sustained. This article examines the way the Khoe-San people have been depicted in South African school history books from the late 1800s into the post-apartheid period. It shows that there has been great consistency of degrading representations of the Khoe-San from the late 1800s, with significant changes occurring only during the 1980s. It also shows that despite the momentous shift in the representation of the Khoe-San in post-1994 books, pernicious ideas, which perpetuate Khoe-San marginalisation, have been reproduced.