T'Kaness, the daughter of T'Goosht Kaba, 1820

Samuel Daniell (1775 - 1811)

RA Collection: Art

This image depicts a young woman called T’Kaness, the daughter of a chief of the Korah tribe. The Korah was a sub-group of the Khoikhoi people, a non-Bantu speaking indigenous nomadic group located in modern-day South Africa. T’Kaness is seen kneeling by the banks of the Gariep (Orange) River, the longest river in present day South Africa.

This etching is an illustration from a book called Sketches representing the Native Tribes, Animals and Scenery of Southern Africa (1820), originally drawn by Samuel Daniell and published posthumously by his brother William Daniell RA. The book was part of a British colonial tradition of ethnographic research and demonstrates deep inherent racial prejudice, seeking to categorise indigenous groups into a Western-imposed knowledge structure. Samuel Daniell based this drawing on his encounters with indigenous people when he travelled to South Africa between 1799 and 1802. This expedition was only possible due to colonisation of the land and peoples by Dutch and British forces.