It has already been stated that shortly after the occupation of the Cape peninsula by the Dutch, some of the Hottentots who had previously lived in that part of South Africa began to move away in a north-easterly direction. There was no other line of emigration open to them, for both to the north and the east their advance would have been opposed by tribes of their own race, who would certainly at least have deprived them of their cattle. The country which they entered was occupied only by Bushmen, and therefore no trace of their wanderings is to be found in the contemporary official records of the colony, for no European or Hottentot with whom Europeans came in contact knew anything about it. It is only from the traditions of the descendants in the sixth generation of those who migrated into the interior that any information concerning this movement is to be obtained. Fortunately those traditions were collected by the reverend Mr. Arbousset, the reverend Mr. Kallenberg, Mr. G. W. Stow, and others before the whirl of events that followed the discovery of the diamond mines confused and distorted the historical legends of every Hottentot and Bantu clan south of the Zambesi.

According to those traditions, the first party to move away from the Cape district was a section of the clan known in the early Dutch records as the Gorachouqua, who were under the leadership of Eikomo, son of the chief Kora—the Choro of Mr. Van Riebeek—who had died when still young.