Locals are out to promote oral history

MBOMBELA – A group of local history lovers have partnered with the Department of Sports, Arts and Recreation to preserve indigenous knowledge.

Members recently met to discuss the formation of a local oral-history group that will deal with the recording, preservation, promotion and protection of historic memories.

Nketseng Magalifa from the department said the initiative emanated from the fact that there are a lot of indigenous stories that have been passed from one generation to the next. The members felt that those tales might be lost to future generations.

With a common goal of identifying topics worth discussing, the members want to tell indigenous stories that will attract the interest of locals.

The topics will range from diverse heritage sites to abandoned spots that tell the story of the area.

An oral-history conference is being planned to take place in August. It will invite storytellers from all corners of Mpumalanga.

Magalifa added that the department is responsible for preserving oral history and saw it fit to include the community from this year.

“We thought that it would be important to work with the community because most of the topics that are discussed touch them in one way or the other,” he said.

The project will assist communities in retrieving traditional support systems in matters such as food conservation or natural medicine.

Oral history will include poetry and music, as well as oral praise, performance and tradition. Communities will also be entitled to derive benefits from the commercialisation of commodities produced with the help of indigenous knowledge accessed through oral history.