Heritage Day
Celebrate our South Africanism
Heritage Day, as we all know, is celebrated to recognise the mish mash of cultures and our diverse country and is a national public holiday in which we celebrate our cultural heritage, diverse beliefs and traditions. In KZN this day had been celebrated as Shaka Day as people gather at King Shaka’s grave on this day to honour him. When the proposed public holiday list was presented to parliament in1995 this date was not
recognized as a public holiday and there was an objection by the IFP. Compromise was reached and so Heritage Day came about. In 2005, a media campaign sought to “rebrand” the holiday as National Braai Day in recognition of the South African culinary tradition of holding informal home braais. On 5 September 2007 Archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrated his appointment as patron of South Africa’s Braai Day, saying it was a unifying force in a divided country. At the end of 2007 National Braai Day changed its name to Braai4Heritage. This was endorsed by South Africa’s National Heritage Council (NHC). It is a day on which South Africans celebrate the diverse cultural heritage that makes up our rainbow nation, our 11 plus languages, our history, our expression, our food, our wildlife and our land. It is also the day
to celebrate the contribution of all South Africans to the building of South Africa.
Brand South Africa best summarises our diversity in an Alphabet soup; a big, warm
potjie of culture. I could not have said it better myself, although I made one or two
adjustments to the potjie menu!
A > is for Archaeology
Mapungubwe in Limpopo is one of the richest archaeological sites in Africa. A Shona capital inhabited between 1200 and 1650, the city was a centre for the trade in gold and ivory with the Islamic areas of the East African coast, India and China’s Song
Dynasty. The Iron Age site, discovered in 1932 but hidden from public attention
until only recently, has been declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
B > is for Battles
Two globally important wars took place on South African soil in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Anglo Zulu War, Zulu impis armed only
with spears famously took on and trounced British forces armed with the most modern firepower of the time. The British were only able to defeat King Cetshwayo kaMpande’s nation after British troops were rushed to
South Africa from around the Empire. The Anglo Boer War is considered the world’s first modern war. Guerrilla tactics, camouflage uniforms, concentration camps and attacks on civilian targets, all the ugly signatures of 20th century warfare, were first used in that campaign. The war killed 22 000 British soldiers, 7 000 Boers, 24 000 black men, women and children, and 22 000 white women and children, many of whom died in almost 200 concentration camps.
C > is for our Culture Kick
Our entertainment scene is abuzz with talent. Everything from gumboot dancing to ballet and from opera to rap and everything in between. Besides our local stars pouring into the international scene we are becoming an international stop for many foreign stars who come here not only to perform but also to feel our uniquely South African vibe.
D > Is for Dance
Dance has became a prime means of artistic expression, with dance companies exploring new territory. Music and dance are pulling in
new audiences and a number of home-grown productions, particularly those aimed at the popular market, are wowing audiences both at home and abroad. Look at Richard Loring’s African Footprint, the musical Umoja, which has toured the world and the drumming feast Drumstruck, which took New York by storm.
E > is for Earth
The rock formations around Barberton in Mpumalanga and Mapungubwe in Limpopo were formed in the earth’s kindergarten period, dating back billions of years. The Magaliesberg is said to be the oldest mountain range on earth. The magnificent Drakensberg range of mountains, which runs the length of the country, has been named a Unesco World Heritage site. And then there’s the Vredefort Dome.
Two billion years ago a meteorite bigger than Table Mountain hit the earth 100km
southwest of Johannesburg, causing a 1 000-megaton blast that vaporised 70 cubic
kilometres of rock and may have changed the earth’s climate to make multicellular
life possible. This is the oldest and largest clearly visible meteorite impact site in the
world. Although now considerably eroded, the original crater was probably 250 to 300 kilometres in diameter. The Vredefort Dome is also a Unesco World Heritage site.
G > is for Game Reserves
We have Game Reserves. Some of the best in the world. From The Kruger
National Park to Addo, From Pilanesberg to the Kgalagadi, we have it all. We have biodiversity like no other countries, we have animals like nowhere else on earth and beautiful botanical gardens that display our floral wealth and animals on show that enthrall locals and foreigners alike.
F > is for Festivals
South Africa has a celebration for every event, place, art form, food, drink and
agricultural commodity. There’s the Ficksburg Cherry Festival, the National Arts
Festival, countless mud-and-dust music festivals, hundreds of mud-and-manure
farm shows, the Lambert’s Bay Kreeffees (crayfish festival), Hantam Vleisfees (meat
festival) and more. And every year, southern right whales travel thousands of miles to the Cape south coast to mate and calve in the bays. To celebrate the season the villagers of Hermanus put on a major festival which includes the best land-based whale watching in the world.
H > Is for Handicrafts
No doubt about it – South Africans are a crafty bunch. The country’s people produce a remarkable range of arts and crafts, working from the pavements and markets of the big cities to deep rural enclaves, with every
possible form of traditional artwork – tribal designs, Afro-French wirework, wood carvings, world-class pottery and bronze casting,
stained glass, basket weaving, clay and stone sculpting, paper from elephant dung and ornaments made from waste.
I > is for Indigenous Art
The massive Drakensberg range of mountains is the world’s largest art gallery – indoors or out – and a monument to the San Bushmen hunter-gatherers who lived there from the Stone Age until the late 19th century. Living in the sandstone caves and rock shelters of the Drakensberg’s valleys, the San made paintings Unesco describes as “world famous and widely considered one of the supreme achievements of humankind. Outstanding in quality and diversity of subject and in their depiction of animals and human beings . which throws much light on their way of life and their beliefs.” In 2000 Unesco named the Drakensberg as a World
Heritage site, for both its natural beauty and the unique cultural heritage of the mountains’ rich store of San art.
J > is for Jukskei
A game in which the player throws a wooden pin – known in Afrikaans as a skei – at a peg in the ground, jukskei is as South African as you get. The game is said to date back to 1734, and grew out of bored transport riders
passing the time by plant a stick in the ground and see who could hit it from a distance with one of the pins from the oxen yokes.
K > is for Kwaito
Like hip hop, kwaito is not just music. It is an expression and a validation of a way of life – the way South Africans dress, talk and dance. It is a street style as lifestyle, where the music reflects life in the townships, much the same way hip hop mimics life in the US ghetto. Just as many of the influences on hip hop come from the streets of New York and California, kwaito became the musical voice of young, black, urban South Africa. It’s a mixture of all that 1990s South African youth grew up on: SA disco, hip hop, R&B, Ragga, and a heavy, heavy dose of American and British house music.
L > is for Literature
Thomas Pringle, Rider Haggard and Olive Schreiner, Wilbur Smith, JM Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Athol Fugard, Credo Mutwa, Sol Plaatjie, Deon Meyer, NP van Wyk Louw, Andre Brink, Etienne Leroux, C.Louis Leipoldt, Can Themba, Breyten Breytenbach, Alan Paton, Eugene Marais and Herman Charles Bosman all wrote from these shores.
South Africa has produced two Nobel literature laureates: JM Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer. The country has had a rich history of literary output. Until relatively recently, realism dominated the production of fiction – perhaps because authors felt an overriding concern to capture the country’s turbulent history and the experiences of its people. Fiction has been written in all of South Africa’s 11 official languages – with a large body of work in Afrikaans, in particular. Many of the first black authors were missionary educated, and the majority wrote in either English or Afrikaans. One of the first novels by a black author in an African language was Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi, written in 1930.
M > is for Mbube
In 1939 a tall, shy Zulu migrant worker named Solomon Linda stepped up to the microphone and produced a three-chord song with lyrics something like “Lion! Ha! You’re a lion!”, inspired by boyhood memories of chasing lions stalking the family cattle. The song was called Mbube, Zulu for “lion”. It’s estimated that Linda received a total of 10 shillings for the song. Yet the tune went on to become Pete Seeger’s runaway
hit Wimoweh, then the Tokens’ The Lion Sleeps Tonight, on to at least 160 covers, before ending up in the voices of Timon and Pumbaa, the meerkat and warthog characters in Disney’s classic movie and
Broadway hit The Lion King, earning some US$15-million in royalties – but not for Linda. The musician died in 1962 with less than R100 in his bank account. His widow couldn’t afford a headstone for his grave. In February 2006, Linda’s legacy finally received some justice.
N > is for Nguni Cattle
So you think a cow is a cow is a cow? Think again. South Africa’s indigenous Nguni cattle, long the mainstay of traditional Zulu culture, are possibly the most beautiful cattle in the world, with their variously patterned and multicoloured hides everywhere in demand. For hundreds of years, the wellbeing of the herds and the Zulu people have been so closely connected that cattle have become a part of the people’s spiritual and aesthetic lives.
O > Is for Owl House
So you think a cow is a cow is a cow? Think again. South Africa’s indigenous Nguni cattle, long the mainstay of traditional Zulu culture, are possibly the most beautiful cattle in the world, with their variously patterned and multicoloured hides everywhere in demand. For hundreds of years, the wellbeing of the herds and the Zulu people have been so closely connected that cattle have become a part of the people’s spiritual and aesthetic lives.
P > is for Palaeontology
So you think a cow is a cow is a cow? Think again. South Africa’s indigenous Nguni cattle, long the mainstay of traditional Zulu culture, are possibly the most beautiful cattle in the world, with their variously patterned and multicoloured hides everywhere in demand. For hundreds of years, the wellbeing of the herds and the Zulu people have been so closely connected that cattle have become a part of the people’s spiritual and aesthetic lives.
Q > is for Quagga
Extinction is forever – or is it? On 12 August 1883 the last living quagga died at the Amsterdam zoo, and the world believed this unusual type of zebra had gone the way of the dodo. The quagga lived in the Karoo and
southern Free State, unlike regular zebras, was striped on the front half of its body only, coloured a creamy light brown on its upper parts and whitish on its belly and legs.
R > is for Robot
South African English is both rich and peculiar. Here, cars stop at robots, not traffic lights. A pickup truck is a bakkie, sneakers are takkies, a hangover is a babbelas, and people greet each other with a heita or
howzit. Eish! expresses surprise, frustration or outrage, and a juicy piece of gossip is likely to be greeted with a drawn-out see-ree-ous!. An particularly handy word is sharp (often doubled up for effect as sharp-sharp!), used as a greeting, a farewell, for agreement or just to express enthusiasm. Voetsek! means go away right now – or else – and a bliksem is what will happen to you if you don’t voetsek. Those who won’t voetsek
and aren’t scared of a bliksem are known to skrik vir niks – unless they’re simply spookgerook.
S > Is for Shuttleworth
With an appropriate name, South African internet entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth used the millions he earned selling his company in his late twenties to become the first African in space. Joining a Russian crew on the International Space Station in 2002, SA’s Afronaut has gone on to become a major philanthropist, setting up the Mark Shuttleworth Foundation to promote science education and open-source software.
Shuttleworth’s Go Open Source campaign aims to create awareness, educate and provide access to the software – which is created by volunteers and free for anyone to download, use and modify. Software
developed by Shuttleworth companies includes Ubuntu, a leading open-source operating system used, among others, by Google.
T > is for Tsotsi
Tsotsi is the first South African film to win an Oscar, and has put the country’s movie industry firmly in the spotlight – and vindicated the government’s multimillion-rand strategy to increase the volume of local films and market South Africa as a film-making country. Based on acclaimed playwright Athol Fugard’s only novel, Tsotsi – the word means “thug” or “hoodlum” – tells the story of a violent young street criminal who finds redemption after he inadvertently abducts a baby during a car hijacking. The film cost $5-million to make and was filmed on location in
Kliptown in Soweto, Gauteng.
U > is for Unesco World Heritage
Did you know that Table Mountain National Park has more plant species in its 22 000 hectares than the British Isles or New Zealand? Or that the
Drakensberg has both the highest mountain range in Africa south of Kilimanjaro and the continent’s richest concentration of rock art? South Africa is home to seven Unesco World Heritage sites, places of “outstanding value to humanity”. Natural heritage sites are the St Lucia wetlands, the Cape Floral Region and the Vredefort Dome meteor impact site. Cultural heritage includes the archaeological site of Mapungubwe,
and Robben Island, for centuries a jail for political prisoners – including Nelson Mandela. The Drakensberg mountain range, with its dramatic scenery and rich store of rock art, is a mixed natural and cultural World
Heritage site.
V > Is for Villages
South African cultural villages allow tourists to experience first-hand the traditional ways of life of South Africa’s people, from the Basotho Cultural Village in the Free State, the Shakaland Zulu village in KwaZulu Natal, the Shangana Cultural Village and South Ndebele Open- Air Museum in Mpumalanga, and the Lesedi Cultural Village in Gauteng. Visitors get to eat traditional food, be entertained by traditional dance and music, and sleep in authentic dwellings. And the villages are more than a unique holiday experience: owned and run by local communities, they help uplift the often marginalised communities of rural areas.
W > Is for Wine
The vineyards of the Western Cape have been producing wine since the
17th century, with perhaps the most famous estate, Groot Constantia,
established in 1685. Members of the British royal house, Napoleon
Bonaparte, Louis Philippe of France, Frederick II of Prussia, the Lords
Seventeen of the VOC, governors, admirals and captains coveted the
Constantia label and treated their special guests to it.
South Africa now has 100 200 hectares under vines for wine production, with the annual harvest some 600-million litres. The country produces 3,1% of the world’s wine and ranks as number nine in overall volume production. The Winelands are set in magnificent Cape mountain scenery, with estates offering wine tastings, restaurants and accommodation. Some of the world’s top eateries are to be found in the
region.
Y > is for Yummy
South Africans are lucky to have such a varied heritage. Dishes such as bobotie can be ranked with the best in the work. Snoek braais are kong, pap is truly South African and no one can make chakalaka like we can.
Biltong is another South African delicacy that you have expats queueing up for in foreign lands. What about melk tert, koeksisters and ouma
rusks. Where would we be without our truly South Agrican staples.
Z > is for Zulu
The Zulu people are South Africa’s largest population group, with isiZulu the most common home language. They also have the country’s largest
monarchy, headed by King Goodwill Zwelathini, and a rich and enduring culture going back centuries. Shaka, who ruled the Zulu in the 19th century, is possibly their most famous leader, an almost mythical figure
and the stuff of legend – not to mention a fair amount of colonial fabrication.
