| Ron Martin- Heritage Consultant |
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| Written by Bradlox | |
| Wednesday, 20 May 2009 | |
Ron Martin- Heritage ConsultantWe have been given a lot of misconceptions. We have been given a lot of diverse paths to follow instead of following the true part. And that’s actually identifying and knowing our culture, where we come from. Because without knowing where you come from, you will not know where you going to. And we lucky today after 1994, after our first democratic elections, opportunities were opened for us who were interested to go research and look into our true identity. Take it for ourselves, to identify with it, and know more about it, teach it to our kids and call upon on our own, because no-one can take it away from us anymore. We lost our language, land, folklore, cultural practices, even some of our dances we saw today taken away from us. Now we have the opportunity to grasp it again. And fortunately even if you don't like history, you can't do without history.
When the Khoe khoe and San tribes firstly encountered Europeans, it always ended up in bloodshed. Always! For as early as 1488 when Bartholomew Dias came around the Southern Coast of Africa, when he met the San people in Saldanha Bay, 2 of our ancestors died. When Vasco de Gama came to Mossel Bay, he send a group of men to the coast to collect some water, he met up with the Hoeri Khoe. And remember the Khoe Khoe was very accommodating people. All you had to do was go to the Chief and pay a little tribute to him; he would have given them the water. But no. The European culture is one of entitlement. They went onshore and took the water. The Khoe Khoe herds men started throwing them with stones, they replied with crossbows. And another two of our ancestral brethren died on this occasion. So whenever there were contact between the white folk and the Khoe khoe and San there were violence. It's an unfortunate way of meeting people. Because of the accommodating nature of the Khoe Khoe, we would have welcomed them. Now this nature of welcome extended well further then that. For some Europeans sailors did pass here and did "barter" with our people in exchange for goods (European goods for sheep or cattle) But most of them ended up in skirmishes.Now there are one incident that is note worthy and it happened in 1510. Now if you look at the landscape, of the Liesbeeck Valley. There are 3 water bodies that actually converge somewhere in this valley and at the mouth of what is commonly called Salt River was a beach there, now it's under Industrial grounds, called Woodstock beach, right at the mouth of the Salt River. A Portugese gentleman on his way to India called Francisco Delmade landed there, and him and 50 of his sailors came ashore and saw thousands of heads of cattle roaming. And they thought they are going to help themselves. And then what happened? The one or two herds men who saw hid away from them. Well the sailors saw no point in bartering and started taking some cattle. The herdsmen came out and tried to stop them. They saw that these guys got weapons and decided to go back in the bush and called their cattle to them via a series of whistles. The sound was made between the front teeth; it was more a singing then a whistling. So it couldn't be heard far, but only the cattle could hear it. And they whistled in different variation. So when they were in "stacata", the cattle did different things to different whistles without the White people hearing that the whistling is actually taking place. So are people were very industrious. So this made Francisco Delmade so mad, for he was Viceroy to India properly the same as being an Ambassador to a country or governor of a lesser country. He wasn't use to dealing with as he would put it, "people that are below him". Because everyone regarded the African as beneath them, especially the Europeans. So he decided to go in the bushes and abducted some of the children of the Khoe khoe. Now that in fact was cause for retaliation. The Khoe attacked and Delmade himself along with 50 of his men was killed. Now European history called it a massacre, but what about the culture of our people that has been killed between 1488, the first contact and today. The second biggest skirmish, but the one that has properly the most meaning for the KhoeSan researcher in his/her reawakening, is the one that actually caused the cultural genocide of our people took place right here in this valley. In 1652 when van Riebeeck arrived here, he had this attitude of "who are these people". They were about 300 – 400 people belonging to the Goringhai Khoe at that time, 700 people belonged to the Gorachou Khoe, the Cocho Khoe had thousands, they had about 3 000 people . You had the Geino Khoe just across the mountain and we had the Hoerighaikona / who we call "Die Strandlopers" roaming the beaches. So to the Dutch this was relatively few people / small figures, because of they owned thousands and thousands of cattle. Van Riebeeck couldn't understand. Instead of bartering 4-5 cattle for a copper bangle, why don't we take all the cattle for ourselves? In 1657 Van Riebeeck and some of his men decided to start a council of their own, independent from the Council back home. So they granted some of their soldiers and leaders some pieces of land. So that “instead of using the Refreshment Garden lets grow our wheat and corn, and keep our own cattle. So that we don’t rely on the Company for the refreshments / provision for the ships.” So he granted 7 pieces of land along the Liesbeeck Valley. The land we standing on today was part of a Farm called "De groene veld" and in Dutch actually means, the green field. On the other side of the Liesbeeck was called "de Hollandsche tuin". So to keep people off the land they build a fence. Remember the Khoe khoe had no need for fence and was roaming around freely until that point along the Liesbeeck River. So when the Khoe khoe returned and found a fench around their grazing river, they were obviously upset. The Khoe khoe went away and made use of grazing land to the south, in the area today called Wynberg- Grassy Park area. When they came back again in 1659 after the Winter seasons, they found permanent structures. Now that was the nail in the coven. Now the Khoe khoe knew that these people were not going away. A structure build by brick and water painted white standing out in the landscape, was an indication that these people were not going anywhere. Now the Khoe khoe came with their own heard of cattle and soon realized that the cattle inside the fences were also their own cattle. They already took our land, so they decided to take the land away and along with it, everything we owned before they arrived here. So they started raiding the farms. Remember raiding is a European term and it means stealing, but for the Khoe khoe is was merely repossessing. Our ancestors believed that they were justified. So the Europeans thought hold on…. What are these Barbarians doing now! They cant take that which is ours. Remember the European mentality; the culture of entitlement and ownership. So they started forming what they called "burger militia"; burger meaning citizen and militia meaning army, so literally an army made up of citizens. To secure payment for each of the KhoeSan they killed, they had to cut off a lip of who ever they killed. |
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 June 2009 ) |
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