Peter Kolbe’s Account of Khoikhoi Diviners and Trance

Record summary

Peter Kolbe’s 1719 Description of the Cape of Good Hope records Khoikhoi religious specialists, healing performances, divination, dreams, and beliefs about spirits. It is one of the most substantial early modern European descriptions available for the region and can be used to trace how trance-like healing and predictive authority were translated into Dutch categories. Kolbe’s work also contains hearsay and colonial generalization. Comparison with archaeology, indigenous histories, and later ethnography is essential, especially because the term “Khoikhoi religion” covers diverse communities and periods.