From the Khoisan kraal established at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, Collin Meyer fine-tunes his mouth-bow, and begins explaining passionately about the necessity to keep the indigenous Khoisan culture and heritage alive.
”We have a situation now where the narrative of the Khoi and San people is a narrative of past tense, and that is a problem in our society. “We are sitting with a situation where there are over a million Khoisan people living in Cape Town, but we regard them as coloureds. And they regard themselves as coloureds.
“There is a need to inject these so-called coloured people with the right information about themselves, and that is why the Aba te programme was started.” Aba te, meaning “carry me”, is a four-part educational workshop series hosted at the former bastion of colonialism.
The country's oldest surviving building is undergoing a conscious
shift in narrative, and when the public visits they can find Meyer, skilled in indigenous music, Bradley van Sitters trained in the Khoekhoegowab language, Carlo Randall with vast knowledge of indigenous plant-medicine, and Ron Martin expertly read in the history of the Khoisan culture.
The four men came together last year to start the programme as a means to tell the story of the Western Cape's first people. When white colonialists arrived in Cape Town, or //Hui !Gaeb
(Veiled in Clouds), as the Khoisan called it, they brutally beat them and undermined their language and identity. The Khoisan people have traditionally been marginalised and forgotten throughout South African history and, until today, recognition of the Khoisan people as an indigenous population of South Africa remains contentious. “The academic narrative does not encompass the indigenous narrative, simply because the history that is out there in books is structured according to the way the colonists used to tell it. “We must understand that history is told from the perspective of
the victor all the time, and our own narratives have not seen the light of day and have been selectively left out. “We are not slamming the fact that history has been (the colonists') domain all along. We are filling in the gaps, and supplementing the narrative that is out there with the narrative that has been neglected all through the years, so that the viewer can have a holistic story.
“The story of Jan van Riebeeck is fine, but we like to tell the story of the person he met here: Autshumato or Harry die Strandlooper, and how he was taken to England in 1630, taught the English
language, brought back here as the postmaster, banished to Robben Island four times, escaped twice.
Nobody knows that. We are here to fill in the gaps,” Martin said. One is also seldom told that the Khoisan way of life comprised a matriarchal social structure: the women were boss. All cultural attributes were carried down from the women to the children. When men got back from a hunt, they would be relegated to a corner because their work was done.
The women would then skin the animal and prepare the food, and then serve the man, not a in a subservient capacity, but simply to give him his reward.
While the man is out hunting, his sons are at home, and the mother prepares the son how to treat his
wife one day - the way she has been treated by her husband. Martin explains: “Now let me tell you how this was perceived by the (colonialist) visitor: the visitor comes into the kraal and sees the
husband sitting there in the corner and being waited on hand-and-foot by his wife.
“They don't see the reality that the man is only getting his reward.” Van Sitters said, as passionate as his team was about telling the thousands of stories of the Khoi, it has also provided a time for them to reconnect with their ancestors. “A younger person can't carry an elder, it works the other way around. We are being carried on the backs of our ancestors, we are reconnecting with them every time we do this,” Van Sitters said. All four men work in diverse fields, and got together for the cause, Van Sitters added. A language graduate from the University of Namibia, he has been teaching students the Khoikhoi language since 2014. Since the initiative's inception last year, the team have enlightened thousands of people - young and old - about the untold history of the Khoisan people.
Randall said it was children who took best to the teachings, and they were fast learners. “It is the younger generation we feel it is most important to reach, as they will pass on the information. They are the future. “Over the last year we have learned so much about our history, and one another.
“There is still a lot to be done.”
The group said they are willing to speak at schools or functions, as part of their educational drive.
Contact Van Sitters on 084 961 8794, or Randall on 078 742 8733.