Hottentots
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Hottentots. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the people who were in possession of the greater part of what is now Cape Colony when it was first visited and colonized by Europeans. The Hottentots were so called by the earliest Dutch settlers. It is popularly used to include the two distinct families distinguished by their native names: The Khoikhoi, the so-called Hottentot proper, and the San (Sa) or Bushmen. Again, among the Khoikhoi proper, the terms Hottentots, Hottentots proper, or Cape Hottentots are often applied to the remnants of the tribes who formerly lived around Cape Town; while the inhabitants of Griqualand West, of the South Kalihari, and of Great Namaqualand are distinguished by their tribal names as Griquas, Namaquas, Koras or Koramas, though they are as much Hottentots as the Khoikhoi of Cape Colony. The Bushmen are hunters; the Khoikhoi, nomads and sheep-farmers. At the present time the so-called Hottentots proper may number about 17,000; and the half-breeds, mostly employed in the Cape Colony, may number probably 100,000. The majority of the former and almost all the latter class are now semi-civilized, and copy the habits, customs, dress, and vices of the European colonists. In general they are of medium height, not very robust in build, and have small hands and feet. Their skin is a pale brown color; their hair woolly, growing in curly knots; their cheekbones very prominent; and their chin pointed. The men were herdsmen, and not fond of war, though they liked to hunt. Their dwellings were huts of wood and mats, or tents, disposed in circles, and easily transportable. Their manner of living was entire patriarchal: each tribe or division of a tribe had its own chief. Their method of perpetuating family names was that the sons took their mother's family name, while the daughters took their father's.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a dark-skinned race in the extreme southwestern part of Africa. They are related to the Bushmen. Their language differs from that of the negro races. They are unlike the negroes, also, having a yellowish brown, rather than a black complexion. The cheek bones are prominent. The lips are thick, the nostrils wide, and the nose flat. The hair is woolly and the beard scanty. When the Dutch and English settlers first invaded South Africa the Hottentots inhabited a territory of 100,000 square miles and numbered perhaps one-fifth of a million. Like the American Indians, they have been crowded away from the settlements. Their game has been destroyed. A remnant of 10,000 or 20,000 still exists. They have no fixed habitations, or, at best, live in miserable, low huts. They depend upon cattle rather than tillage for subsistence. See Bushmen Hour-glass, a contrivance for measuring time. In making, the glass-blower closes a cylinder at each end, and draws the walls together to form a small passage or waist at the middle. When complete the glass has the form of two cones placed point to point. In use, as much sand or mercury is inclosed in one end as will run through the passage in an hour. By turning the glass the other end up, the passage of another hour can be marked, and so on. If a person were set to do a task, or wished to speak for an hour, the hour-glass reminded him of the passage of time, and also when his "hour was up." Its use gave rise to the expression, "the sands of time." The hour-glass continued in use for a long time after the invention of clocks. See Clock ; Watch ; Clepsydra
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The word Collier's used in 1921 as a neutral label is now regarded as a slur in South Africa and Namibia; the people the book called "Khoikhoi" are today called Khoekhoe or Khoikhoi, the "Bushmen" are the San, and the two together are usually grouped as Khoisan. Neither account mentions that between 1904 and 1908, before both were printed, German colonial forces killed the great majority of the Nama and Herero in South West Africa — an act Germany formally acknowledged as genocide in 2021. Aiton's 1910 tally of "a remnant of 10,000 or 20,000" is long out of date: the Nama language is spoken by roughly a quarter of a million people in Namibia today, though the old Cape Khoekhoe dialects died out. Modern genetics has also overturned the framing of these people as a marginal remnant, showing Khoisan populations to be among the most genetically diverse and deeply rooted on earth.
Written for this edition, 2026.