!Gai tses The strength of a culture is the strength of its language On 2 November 2008, I stood along the ancestral graves of the |Khowese Nama people in Gibeon, Namibia, along the banks of the Great Fish River in Greater Namaqualand, north of the !Gurib (Orange-)river. The |Khowese Heroes Day Festival is a commemoration held on the day King Hendrik Witbooi (3rd King of the |Khowese) died in battle against the German authorities who occupied Namibia from the late 1800s. This years Festival took place against the backdrop of the Celebration of the 30 years of continued and dedicated Chieftainship of the 8th King of the |Khowese people, Paramount King Dr. Rev. Hendrik Witbooi. I was part of a group of Western Cape dignitaries that attended the |Khowese Heroes Day Festival and was asked to speak on behalf of the group at the ancestral graves. Moments before I delivered my speech tears started welling up, as I soon realized how historic this event truly was, as it unfolded itself. For there I was, in a community that still retained their ancestral Khoe khoe tongue, and I could draw a direct parallel to the prodigal son spoken of in the scriptures. Who after he lost all he valued, returned to his father to be accepted again in his fathers house. For I stood there addressing the Father of the Nation, Paramount King Dr. Rev. Hendrik Witbooi and other Chieftains , as a descendant of the First Nations of this land, a child of the Great Red Nation. My genetic ancestry testing traced my Mitochondrial DNA to the L0d haplogroup which is thought to be the oldest of the L0 clans, common to Khoesan populations of southern Africa. Coming from an urban background; I lost the ability, not due to my own doings, to communicate in my ancestral language and not in a language that was brought here on a ship; not only that, but I also lost the right to access my ancestral lands freely, which now today are in the hands of multi-national corporations, governments and others who conspired against the First Nations of this Land. The majority of the Western Cape Khoe khoe has to an large extend lost the oral knowledge around rites of passage, customs around marriage, etc. The list carries on. Aspects of the indigenous knowledge system has in todays world in the urban environment, still been preserved through the practices of Rastafarian Herbalist and Bush doctors who conserved the knowledge of herbs, roots and medical plants. These glimpses of indigenous cultures were like an oasis in a place where the knowledge of the First Nations, has by and large, taken a back seat for dominant Western cultures. Khoe khoe and San languages has been wrongly stigmatized as a skaamtaal not to be used. If you had a korrelkop or had strong indigenous features, you were ridiculed and joked, because people were either forced to fit into the Western accepted norms and standards of beauty. This leads me to my next point. One of the horrors of globalization and indeed a true evil is the bulldozing of elements of indigenous cultures, and the systematic destruction of First Nation languages in the wake Western steam train of development. Its true that with a push of the button one can communicate with people across the globe. But at what cost? What is the price indigenous cultures pay? Globalization inadvertently is the post-modern phase of colonilization. Now most youths would not dare appearing in public without any known brands or exposing the latest in fashion, trends and whats-in. To echo the words of Marcus Garvey, People without the knowledge of the past, history and cultures are like a tree without roots. To counterbalance the mass influx of foreign influence, it is important to preserve what is left of our indigenous languages and accompanying cultures. How much has to date already been lost? How much more will we have to loose before the alarm button is metaphorically pushed? How many indigenous artifacts are still in the store houses and museums on foreign soil? When will the remains of Khoe Khoe and San warriors who were massacred and send to labotoriums for archeological research purposes, be returned to their place of origin. Remember the knowledge of indigenous cultures is not only for those pursuing it today, but also for the future generations of tomorrow. What legacy will we leave behind for those to come? The analogy of ones fingerprint comes to mind. For as true as no two people share the same fingerprint, each culture possess characteristics which are inherently unique, whether it is the language, customs or traditions. It should be added in the same breath though that similarities do exist as culture stems from the interpretation / understanding of nature. For as much as there are similarities between people globally, what makes the fingerprint of cultures unique and peculiar is its distinctiveness of its customs, languages and traditions. These sentiments were highlighted during a journey I undertook to Europe where I was part of a youth cultural exchange programme in Toulouse, France. Its true that all participants conversed in English as the primary communication medium; but the overriding interest amongst everyone was to identify what makes each culture represented there unique. An Afro American- along with a Jamaican participant, requested me, who was the only representative from Southern Africa, to speak in an ancient African tongue. They wanted me to display the very uniqueness of my ancestral mother language. I was abruptly interrupted when I presented Afrikaans to the audience by a cultural activist from Holland, who motivated that he could understand almost every word I said, even if he had never set foot on African soil. Sure locals here added and spiced-up the 16thcentury Dutch that was brought here on Van Riebeecs ships, but the roots of the Creole-language Afrikaans stems from Germanic origins. I had to explain that the systematic destruction of the Khoe khoe and San languages was a direct result of foreign invasion. For it were the Christian missionaries who refused to register birth under Khoe khoe and San names, for example, people were beaten even killed for speaking their language, First Nations languages were never taken serious and never taught to children on school. The list of autocracies exceeds the space allocated here and is a point of further research. Furthermore, having a keen interest in acquiring knowledge of other languages is common feature in the global village of today. This has led me to gain basic introduction to a number of the European language, including Spanish, French and German. As my awareness grew within the realization of my situation here in Cape Town South Africa , the blood in my veins started calling out to preserve what was left of the Khoe Khoe and San languages. After searching far and long, I found a Namagowab workshop programme by the Language Commission in Western Cape Cultural Affairs Department, which has set the process in motion to attain my indigenous ancestral tongue, to speak in the language (gowab) of my ancestors. It was during these Nama workshops that my teacher, Pedro Dausab, shared his startling account. As a child growing up in Keetmanshoop, missionaries performed the pencil-test in his family to determine which ones of the siblings would go to a Coloured school and Nama Khoe school (which was actually a Catholic school who taught in Nama). After he failed the pencil test he was send to the latter school, while his brother and sister were send to the Coloured institute. So severe was the strategies undertaken that it tore through households, giving members of the same family different racial classifications. This was the nature of things as it evolved in this part of Africa. List of things we were never taught on school: During the period 1613-1614, the British kidnapped Coree, who was to become the first translator for bartering and trade purposes The Khoe khoe had a well defined Authorities and organisational structures in place with Chieftains During the Dutch-Khoe War, Jan van Riebeeck ordered that soldiers cut the bottom lip of all Khoe Khoe or San they kill for payment In 1695 the Big Trek of the Khoe khoe was undertaken out of Cape Town, to semi-desert regions which would act like a shield against the invading colonist. Many of the grouping settled on their way across the !Gurib (Orange) River The first border was a fence build along the Liesbeeck River. (A form of early-apartheid) Khoe khoe and San were hunted down and killed for a number of reasons including for research purposes in archeology, Devilpeak has been wrongfully mistranslated, it should be named duifbek kop
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:22:19 +0000
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