In 1652 the Cape Colony "Capemen" indigenous people of !Urill'ael'ona Goringhaicona, Goringhaiqua and Gorachouqua was one tribe under HRH Gogosoa of the Goringhaiqua when the Dutch under commander Jan Anthony Van Riebeeck landed at Table Bay. The early Cape Hottentots, a story of Autshumao a !Urill'ael'ona Goringhaicona is in microcosm an illustration of everything that Walter Rodney , the revolutionary African-in-Diaspora political-economy analyst from Guyana who was cut down in his prime by an assassin in 1980, conveyed in his book 'How Europe underdeveloped Africa' published in 1972. The struggle on the Table Bay shoreline at the Liesbeeck River was fundamentally about the Europeans empowering themselves at the expense of African advancement. The under-development or usurping of the natural advancement of a strategic African port run by indigenous Africans was a key building block in Europe's amassing power to itself in the race for global domination. The ruthless conquest of the !Urill'ael'ona Goringhaicona traders by appropriating their strategic resources, curtailing their access to clients, controlling the value they put on their products and services, stereotyping them as too primitive to participate in the new economy while destroying their ability to maintain control of their livestock-rearing agrarian economy, and Europeans engaging in physical annihilation of indigenes as the ultimate control, are all facets of Autshumao's story. It's the story of how Africa, actually by force, developed Europe, to invert Rodney's phrase.
The sudden resurrection of a 5 year old cold-case against Autshumao in 1658 and the manner in which it was presented and evaluated in a summary kangaroo-court, resulted in a devastating life sentence on Robben Island that took Autshumao from hero status to zero. Accompanying this act was the confiscation of all of his wealth and the subjugation of all Khoi on the Cape Peninsular to the will of the Dutch VOC. It illustrates the centrality to Autshumao's story of what the British cockney slang calls a 'stitch-up'. The 'stitch-up' deprived Autshumao of the kind of life he should have enjoyed after the entrepreneurship, fastidiousness and hard work he had exemplified. Like any successful entrepreneur he knew what it was like to start over and over again until successful and as such he provides an amazing African role-model for our youth in the 21stcentury. The cold-case kangaroo-court brought an end to the co-dependent relationship that Jan van Riebeeck and Autshumao shared with each other. While most stories about Autshumao project Autshumao as a nuisance factor for Jan van Riebeeck, for most of Jan van Riebeeck's time at the Cape he frequently required Autshumao's assistance as much as he feared Autshumao's pluck and influence on others. Autshumao too was a figure in history who was an African poised between West and East, poised between a pastoral economy and trading-service economy, and, by all accounts he handled this pressured pioneering role with valour and skill. The subjugation of Autshumao as an individual was also the first step in the conquest of South Africa by Europeans.
Autshumao was regarded for some time by all European shipping stopping at the Cape to be at the service of the English as the postmaster and Governor of Robben Island according to a traveller who recorded meeting him. From around 1638 Autshumao assisted by his English clients moved back to the mainland Table Bay from Robben Island with his followers and went on to become the founder of the proto-port at Table Bay that over three centuries would grow into the city of Cape Town. In 1652 all of Autshumao's efforts were usurped when the Dutch United East India Company (VOC), authorised with powers of state by the Dutch States General, established a permanent settlement, took over the administration of port services, and the natural resources of the port. In the process of this take-over Autshumao was divested of his accomplishments, marginalised, humiliated and finally imprisoned just at the time that he had begun to recover his local stature. At the centre of this final assault on him by Jan van Riebeeck was the manipulation of a cold-case in 1653 involving the murder of a Dutch shepherd and theft of the VOC herd of cattle. A combination of the cold-case and a hostage-taking drama initiated by Jan van Riebeeck assisted by the interpreter Doman, was used to extract a peace treaty with the Goringhaiqua and Gorachoqua that effectively surrendered to Jan van Riebeeck everything that he had sought since 1652 but was prevented from achieving by Autshumao. The initial establishment of a fort-come-refreshment-station for ships by VOC Commander Jan van Riebeeck soon became a Dutch colony for a century and a half and then it was conquered by the British. In the passage of time the Colony grew into the country known to the world as the Republic of South Africa.
As his brother said after Australia’s high court declared game over, ‘he was the one who had the vision’
Thu 13 Mar 2025 02.54 GMT
Yunupiŋu was 15 years old when the Yirrkala Bark Petitions – or Ṉäku Dhäruk in the Yolŋu language – were sent to Canberra from his home in north-east Arnhem Land and presented to the House of Representatives in August 1963. The “petitions” sought parliamentary intervention after the Menzies government excised a portion of the Arnhem Land Reserve and covertly issued licences to a French company to mine bauxite on Yolŋu land. The text of the petitions was typed in English and Yolŋu matha (language) and stuck on to stringy-bark frames painted with the traditional signs and symbols that, if you knew how to read them, proclaimed Yolŋu sovereignty.
Though a precocious student at the Yirrkala Methodist mission school, Yunupiŋu was deemed too young to be a signatory by the clan elders, including his father, Mungurruway. That task was appointed by the ŋärra – Yolŋu parliament – to nine men and three women between the age of 18 and 36, literate representatives of the 17 clans of the Yolŋu nation who were sending their bark emissaries to the federal capital of the Australian nation.
This unique act of political diplomacy did not attempt to block mining but instead sought three outcomes fundamental to Yolŋu law: consultation before coming on to land; consent before taking any resources from that land; and compensation for any resources extracted. Yolŋu had to abide with these laws in respect of their own territorial clan borders. Macassan traders had been complying with such Yolŋu domestic and foreign policy regulations for centuries.
Yunupiŋu’s name mightn’t have been written on the bark but his quick, curious eyes were trained on his elders’ dignified attempt at agreement-making with the commonwealth, his searching face looking up to the future. Indeed, when the principal of the Yirrkala mission school held a mock election in mid-1963, ahead of the federal election that Menzies would contest later that year with a knife-edge, one-seat majority – and the first election in which Indigenous Australians would enjoy the federal franchise – Yunupiŋu was voted prime minister by his student peers.
Three years later, Yunupiŋu was one of only a handful of Yolŋu boys sent away to bible school in Brisbane. Did he want to go into the church, become a minister? I asked him in a series of conversations we conducted in his home on the Gumatj homelands at Gunyaŋgara in 2021, marooned in his beloved Jason recliner chair, one leg short after kidney disease had extracted its rueful price. (He called what we were doing over those weeks ŋarraku dhäwu landrightsbuy – telling “my land rights story”.)
No, he told me. He went to Brisbane to learn about “the games that they played”. Why? “To look after the elders.” Yunupiŋu wanted to learn how leadership in the white world worked. His ambition, he said, was not to join them, but to know their game so as to beat them at it, fair and square. To do this he needed to learn how to be a leader “in both ways”. To live in two worlds. But he was crystal-clear on one score: his two-ways education was necessary to protect and defend “the oldest way, the Yolŋu way”.
The generous gift of the Näku Dhäruk | Bark Petitions having been rejected and the Menzies government re-installed in a landslide, Yunupiŋu first put his vigilance to work in acting as translator for his father and other elders in Milirrpum v Nabalco, known as the Gove land rights case. Handing down his decision in 1971 – and despite the repeat diplomacy of the elders giving him unprecedented access to their secret sacred knowledge of country – Justice Blackburn rejected the notion of native title.
In 2019, over half a century after Mungurruway and other clan leaders first asked for a voice in the decisions being made about their country and fate, Yunupiŋu lobbed the land rights ball back in the federal court. On behalf of the Gumatj people, he launched a claim for compensation over the impact of five decades of mining on lands which, he argued, had not been acquired under just terms. (“Just terms”, it seems, being a legal precept of both the Australian constitution and Yolŋu rom/law.)
The federal court found in Yunupiŋu’s favour but the commonwealth was not prepared to concede just yet. The Labor government – appearing to want to turn back the sands that Whitlam began pouring into Vincent Lingiari’s open hand in 1975, a legal hourglass flipped – appealed to the high court.
Like Eddie Mabo, who did not live to see the court decision that would overturn the legal fiction of terra nullius by which Australia’s First Nations had been dispossessed of their land – their sovereignty breached and their property stolen – Yunupiŋu was not in the high court of Australia to see the government’s appeal quashed. He passed away in April 2023.
Outside the court, Djawa Yunupiŋu saluted his late older brother as the “mastermind” behind the endeavour to safeguard the future of his people.
“He was the one who had the vision,” Djawa said.
As a watchful, reverent teenager, Yunupiŋu determined to master the white man’s game. He played for his ancestors, his elders, his children and his grandchildren. He played hard. He played the long game.
“Native title recognises that, according to their laws and customs, Indigenous Australians have a connection with country,” the judgment read.
“It is a connection which existed and persisted before and beyond settlement, before and beyond the assertion of sovereignty and before and beyond federation.”
“It is older and deeper than the constitution.”
In one of our interview sessions, Yunupiŋu proposed a historical hypothetical: what if Blackburn had to face Yolŋu law? Would the scales of Yolŋu justice weigh in his favour? What would a Makarrata process have looked like for a man who had not listened to and respected the elders?
Yunupiŋu gameplanned this idea for a while, animated, fire in his eyes. He concluded: “Everybody stands in front of the law. No one escapes judgment.”
“A judgment once and for all.”
Clare Wright is professor of history at La Trobe University. Her latest book is Ṉäku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the Course of Australian Democracy (Text, 2024)
The Hadza, or Hadzabe (Wahadzabe, in Swahili),[3][4] are a protected hunter-gathererTanzanianindigenous ethnic group, primarily based in Baray, an administrative ward within Karatu District in southwest Arusha Region. They live around the Lake Eyasi basin in the central Rift Valleyand in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau. As descendants of Tanzania's aboriginal, pre-Bantu expansion hunter-gatherer population, they have probably occupied their current territory for thousands of years with relatively little modification to their basic way of life until the last century.[5] They have no known close genetic relatives[2] and their language is considered an isolate.
Since the first European contact in the late 19th century, governments and missionaries have made many attempts to settle the Hadza by introducing farming and Christianity. These efforts have largely failed, and many Hadza still pursue a life similar to their ancestors. Since the 18th century, the Hadza have come into increasing contact with pastoralist peoples entering Hadzaland, sometimes declining in population. Tourism and safari hunting have also affected them in recent years.[6]
Hadza people traditionally live in bands or 'camps' of around 20-30 people, and their social structures are egalitarian and non-hierarchical. Traditionally, they primarily forage for food, eating mostly honey, tubers, fruit, and, especially in the dry season, meat. As of 2015, there are between 1,200 and 1,300 Hadza people living in Tanzania.[7] Only around a third of the remaining Hadza still survive exclusively by traditional foraging.[1][8]
Language
Once classified among the Khoisan languages primarily because it has clicks, the Hadza language (Hadzane) is now thought to be an isolate, unrelated to any other language.[9][10] Hadzane is an entirely oral language. UNESCO states that the language is vulnerable because most children learn it, but the use is restricted to certain areas of life, such as in their homes.[1] Still, it is not predicted to be in danger of extinction.[citation needed] Hadzane fluency is also considered the most important factor in distinguishing whether someone is Hadza.[11] In more recent years, many of the Hadza have learned Swahili, the national language of Tanzania, as a second language.[12]
History
Oral tradition
One telling of Hadza's oral history divides their past into four epochs, each inhabited by a different culture. According to this tradition, at the beginning of time, the world was inhabited by hairy giants called the akakaanebee (first ones) or geranebee (ancient ones). The akakaanebee did not possess tools or fire; they hunted game by running it down until it fell dead; they ate meat raw. They did not build houses but slept under trees, as the Hadza do today in the dry season. In older versions of this story, they did not use fire because it was physically impossible in the earth's primeval state. Younger Hadza, who have been to school, say that the akakaanebee did not know how to use fire.
In the second epoch, the akakaanebee were succeeded by the xhaaxhaanebee (in-between ones), who were equally gigantic but without hair. Fire could be made and used to cook meat, but animals had grown more wary of humans and had to be chased and hunted by dogs. The xhaaxhaanebee were the first people to use medicines and charms to protect themselves from enemies and initiated the epeme rite. They lived in caves.
The third epoch was inhabited by the people of hamakwanebee (recent days), who were smaller than their predecessors. They invented bows and arrows, cooked with containers, and mastered the use of fire. They also built huts like those of Hadza today. The people of hamakwanebee were the first of the Hadza ancestors to have contact with non-foraging people, with whom they traded for iron to make knives and arrowheads. They also invented the gambling game lukuchuko.
The fourth epoch continues today and is inhabited by the hamayishonebee (those of today). When discussing the hamayishonebee epoch, people often mention specific names and places and can say approximately how many generations ago events occurred.[13]
Archaeology and genetic history
The Hadza are not closely related to any other people. The Hadza language was once classified with the Khoisan languages because it has click consonants; however, there is no further evidence they are related. Genetically, the Hadza do not appear to be closely related to Khoisan speakers; even the Sandawe, who live around 150 kilometres (93 mi) away, diverged from the Hadza more than 15,000 years ago. Genetic testing also suggests significant admixture has occurred between the Hadza and Bantu. Minor admixture with Nilotic and Cushitic-speakingpopulations may have occurred in the last few thousand years.[2] Today, a few Hadza women marry into neighbouring groups such as the Bantu Isanzu and the Nilotic Datooga, but these marriages often fail, and the women and their children return to the Hadza.[14] In previous decades, rape and capture of Hadza women by outsiders seems to have been common.[15] During a famine in 1918–20, some Hadza men were reported as taking Isanzu wives.[14]
The Hadza's ancestors have probably lived in their current territory for tens of thousands of years. Hadzaland is about 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Olduvai Gorge, an area sometimes called the "Cradle of Mankind" because of the number of hominin fossils found there, and 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the prehistoric site of Laetoli. Archaeological evidence suggests that the area has been continuously occupied by hunter-gatherers much like the Hadza since at least the beginning of the Later Stone Age, 50,000 years ago. Although the Hadza do not make rock art today, they consider several rock art sites within their territory, probably at least 2,000 years old, to have been created by their ancestors, and their oral history does not suggest they moved to Hadzaland from elsewhere.[5]
Until about 500 BCE, Tanzania was exclusively occupied by hunter-gatherers akin to the Hadza. The first agriculturalists to enter the region were Cushitic-speaking cattle herders from the Horn of Africa. Around 500 CE, the Bantu expansion reached Tanzania, bringing populations of farmers with iron tools and weapons. The last major ethnic group to enter the region were Nilotic pastoralists who migrated south from Sudan in the 18th century.[17]
Each of these expansions of farming and herding peoples displaced earlier populations of hunter-gatherers, who were at a demographic and technological disadvantage and vulnerable to the loss of environmental resources (i.e., foraging areas and habitats for game) to farmland and pastures.[18] Groups such as the Hadza and the Sandawe are remnants of indigenous hunter-gatherer populations that were once much more widespread, and they are under continued pressure from the expansion of agriculture into their traditional lands.
Farmers and herders appeared in the vicinity of Hadzaland relatively recently. The Isanzu, a Bantu farming people, began living south of Hadzaland around 1850. The pastoralist Iraqw and Datooga were both forced to migrate into the area by the expansion of the Maasai, the former in the 19th century and the latter in the 1910s. The Hadza also have direct contact with the Maasai and with the Sukuma west of Lake Eyasi. The upheavals caused by the Maasai expansion in the late 19th century caused a decline in the Hadza population.
The Hadza's interaction with many of these peoples has been hostile. Pastoralists often killed Hadza as reprisals for the "theft" of livestock since the Hadza did not have the notion of animal ownership and would hunt them as they would wild game.[19] The general attitude of neighboring agro-pastoralists towards the Hadza was prejudicial. They viewed them as backward, lacking a "real language," and made up of the dispossessed of neighboring tribes that had fled into the forest out of poverty or because they committed a crime. Many of these misconceptions were transmitted to early colonial visitors to the region who wrote about the Hadza.[20]
The Isanzu were hostile to the Hadza at times. Isanzu people may have captured them as part of the slave trade until as late as the 1870s when it was halted by the German colonial government. Later interactions were more peaceful, with the two peoples sometimes intermarrying and residing together, though as late as 1912, the Hadza were reported as being "ready for war" with the Isanzu. Still, folk tales depict the Isanzu as favorable and, at times, heroic, unlike the Iraqw and the cattle-raiding Maasai. Moreover, many goods and customs come from them, and the Hadza myths mention and depict a benevolent influence of the Isanzu in their mythology.[21][22]
The Sukuma and the Hadza had a more amicable relationship. The Sukuma drove their herds and salt caravans through Hadza lands and exchanged old metal tools, which the Hadza made into arrowheads, for the right to hunt elephants in Hadzaland.
20th century
A Hadza hut. Huts have been built in this style for as long as records have been kept.
In the late 19th century, European powers claimed much of the African continent as colonies in a period known as the Scramble for Africa. The Hadza became part of German East Africa, though there is no evidence that Europeans had ever visited Hadzaland before the colony was proclaimed. The earliest mention of the Hadza in a written account is in German explorer Oscar Baumann's Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle (1894). The Hadza hid from Baumann and other early explorers, and their descriptions are based on second-hand accounts.
The first Europeans to report meeting the Hadza are Otto Dempwolff and Erich Obst. The latter lived with them for eight weeks in 1911. German Tanganyika came under British control at the end of the First World War (1917), and soon after, British colonial officer F. J. Bagshawe wrote about the Hadza. The accounts of these early European visitors portray the Hadza at the beginning of the 20th century as living in the same way as they do today. Early on, Obst noted a distinction between what he considered the 'pure' Hadza (those subsisting purely by hunting and gathering) and those that lived with the Isanzu and practiced some cultivation.
The foraging Hadza foraged and hunted using many of the same techniques they do today. Game was more plentiful in the early 20th century because farmers had not yet begun directly encroaching on their lands. Some early reports describe the Hadza as having chiefs or big men, but those reports were probably mistaken; more reliable accounts portray the early 20th century Hadza as egalitarian, as they are today.[20] They also lived in similarly sized camps, used the same tools, built houses in the same style, and had similar religious beliefs.[23]
The British colonial government tried to make the Hadza settle down and adopt farming in 1927, the first of many such government efforts. The British tried again in 1939, the independent Tanzanian government tried in 1965 and 1990, and various foreign missionary groups have tried the same since the 1960s. These numerous attempts, some forceful, have largely failed. Generally, the Hadza willingly settle as long as provided food stocks last, then leave and resume their traditional hunter-gatherer lives when the provisions run out; few have adopted farming for sustenance. Disease is also a problem – because their communities are sparse and isolated, few Hadza are immune to common infectious diseases such as measles, which thrive in sedentary communities, and several settlement attempts ended with outbreaks of illness resulting in many deaths, particularly of children.[citation needed]
Of the four villages built for the Hadza since 1965, two (Yaeda Chini and Munguli) are now inhabited by the Isanzu, Iraqw, and Datooga. Another, Mongo wa Mono, established in 1988, is sporadically occupied by Hadza groups who stay there for a few months at a time, either farming, foraging, or using the food given to them by missionaries. At the fourth village, Endamagha (also known as Mwonyembe), some Hadza children attend school, but they account for just a third of the students there. Numerous attempts to convert the Hadza to Christianity have also been largely unsuccessful.[23]
Tanzanian farmers began moving into the Mangola area to grow onions in the 1940s, but they came in small numbers until the 1960s. The first German plantation in Hadzaland was established in 1928, and later, three European families settled in the area. Since the 1960s, the Hadza have been visited regularly by anthropologists, linguists, geneticists, and other researchers.[24]
Present
Hadza hunters
In recent years, Hadza territory has seen increasing encroachment from neighboring peoples. The western Hadza lands are now a private hunting reserve, and the Hadza are officially restricted to a reservation within the reserve and prohibited from hunting there. The Yaeda Valley, long uninhabited due to the tsetse fly, is now settled by Datooga herders, who are clearing the Hadza lands on either side of the valley for pasture for their goats and cattle. The Datooga hunt out the game, and their land clearing destroys the berries, tubers, and honey that the Hadza rely on. Watering holes for Datooga cattle can cause the shallow watering holes that the Hadza rely on to dry up.[25] Most Hadzabe are no longer able to sustain themselves in the bush without supplementary food such as ugali.
After appearing in documentaries on the Hadza on PBS and the BBC in 2001, the Mang'ola Hadza have become a tourist attraction. Although this may seem to help the Hadzabe, much of the money from tourism is allocated to government offices and tourism companies instead of the Hadzabe. Money given directly to Hadzabe also contributes to alcoholism, and deaths from alcohol poisoning have recently become a severe problem, further contributing to the loss of cultural knowledge.[26]
In 2007, the local government controlling the Hadza lands adjacent to the Yaeda Valley leased the entire 6,500 square kilometres (2,500 sq mi) of land to the Al Nahyan royal family of the United Arab Emirates for use as a "personal safari playground".[27] Both the Hadza and Datooga were evicted, with some Hadza resisters imprisoned. However, after protests from the Hadza and negative coverage in the international press, the deal was rescinded.[28]
The Hadzabe were part of major studies concerning evolutionary anthropology and bioenergetics, primarily conducted by Duke University professor Herman Pontzer and Pontzer's research team. Pontzer's fieldwork was also overseen by the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research and Commission for Science and Technology. The Hadzabe were instrumental in the researchers' discovery of the exercise paradox, which found that the Hadzabe had comparable caloric expenditure to sedentary individuals in industrialized nations, despite being more physically active.[29]
Range
Range of the Hadza people (dark grey) in Tanzania Serengeti hunting grounds in Hadzaland
There are four traditional areas of Hadza dry-season habitation: West of the southern end of Lake Eyasi (Dunduhina), between Lake Eyasi and the Yaeda Valley swamp to the east (Tlhiika), east of the Yaeda Valley in the Mbulu Highlands(Siponga), and north of the valley around the town of Mang'ola (Mangola). During the wet season, the Hadza camp outside and between these areas. During the dry season, they readily travel between them. People access the western area by crossing the southern end of the lake, which is the first part to dry up, or by following the escarpment of the Serengeti Plateau around the northern shore. The Yaeda Valley is easily crossed, and the areas to either side abut the hills south of Mang'ola.
The Hadza have traditionally foraged outside of these areas, in the Yaeda Valley, on the slopes of Mount Oldeani north of Mang'ola, and up onto the Serengeti Plains. Such foraging is done for hunting, berry collecting, and for honey. Although hunting is illegal in the Serengeti, the Tanzanian authorities recognize that the Hadza are a special case and do not enforce the regulations on them, just as the Hadza are the only people in Tanzania not taxed by the local or national government.
The Hadza are organized into bands or 'camps' of 20–30 people. Camps of over a hundred may form during berry season. There is no tribal or other governing hierarchy, and almost all decisions are made by reaching an agreement through discussion. The Hadza trace descent bilaterally (through both paternal and maternal lines), and almost all Hadza people can trace some kin tie to all other Hadza people.[11] Furthermore, the Hadza are egalitarian, so there are no real status differences between individuals. While the elderly receive slightly more respect, all individuals are equal to others of the same age and sex, and compared to strictly stratified societies, women are fairly equal to men. This egalitarianism results in high levels of freedom and self-dependence.[30] When conflict arises, one of the parties involved may voluntarily move to another camp as resolution. Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher point out that the Hadza people “exhibit a considerable amount of altruistic punishment” to organize these tribes.[31] The Hadza live in a communal setting and engage in cooperative child rearing, where many people, both related and unrelated, provide high-quality child care.[32]
The Hadza move camp for several reasons. Camps can split when individuals move to resolve conflicts. Camps can be abandoned when someone falls ill and dies, as any illness is associated with the place it was contracted. There is also seasonal migration between dry-season refuges, better hunting grounds when water is more abundant, and areas with large numbers of tubers or berry trees when they are in season. If a man kills a particularly large animal, such as a giraffe, far from home, a camp will temporarily relocate to the kill site. Shelters can be built in a few hours, and most of the possessions owned by an individual can be carried on their back.
Hadza children
The Hadza are predominantly monogamous, though there is no social enforcement of monogamy.[33] After marriage, the husband and wife are free to live where they decide, which may be with the father or mother's family. This marital residence pattern is called ambilocality and is common among foragers. Specifically among Hadza, there is a slightly higher frequency of married couples living with the mother's kin than with the father's kin.[11] Men and women value traits such as intelligence, strenghth, ability, skills, dexterity and hard work when evaluating partners. They also value physical attractiveness, and many of their preferences for attractiveness, such as symmetry,[34]averageness[35] and sexually dimorphic voice pitch,[36] are similar to preferences found in Western nations.
A 2001 anthropological study on modern foragers found that the Hadza men and women had an average life expectancy at birth of 33. Life expectancy at age 20 was 39 and the infant mortality rate was 21%.[37] More recently, Hadza adults have frequently lived into their sixties, and some have even reached their seventies or eighties. The Hadza do not keep track of time and age exactly as the Western world does, so these life expectancies are approximate and highly variable.[12]
Subsistence
Two Hadza men returning from a hunt
During the wet season, the Hadza diet comprises mostly honey, fruit, tubers, and occasional meat. The contribution of meat to the diet increases in the dry season when game becomes concentrated around water sources. The Hadza also eat tubers and fruit from baobab trees, which give them about 100 to 150 grams of fiber daily.[38]
The Hadza are highly skilled, selective, and opportunistic foragers who adjust their diet according to season and circumstance. Depending on local availability, some groups might rely more heavily on tubers, some on berries, and others on meat. This variability results from their opportunism and ability to adjust to prevailing conditions.
Gendered division of labor
While men specialize in procuring meat, honey, and baobab fruit, women specialize in tubers, berries, and greens. This division of labor is relatively consistent, but women will occasionally gather a small animal or egg or collect honey, and men will occasionally bring a tuber or some berries back to camp.
Hadza men usually forage individually. During the day, they usually feed themselves while foraging and bring home any additional honey, fruit, or wild game. Women forage in larger parties and usually bring home berries, baobab fruit,[39] and tubers, depending on availability. Men and women also forage cooperatively for honey and fruit; at least one adult male will usually accompany a group of foraging women.
Women's foraging technology includes digging sticks, grass baskets for carrying berries, large fabric or skin pouches for carrying items, knives, shoes, other clothing, and various small items held in a pouch around the neck. Men carry axes, bows, poisoned and non-poisoned arrows, knives, small honey pots, fire drills, shoes and apparel, and various small items.
A myth depicts a woman harvesting the honey of wild bees, and at the same time, declares that the job of honey harvesting belongs to the men.[21] For harvesting honey or fruit from large trees such as the baobab, the Hadza beat pointed sticks into the trunk of the tree to use as ladders. This technique is depicted in a folk tale[21] and documented on film.[40]
Hunting
Hadza hunters
During the dry season, men often hunt in pairs and spend entire nights lying in wait by waterholes, hoping to shoot animals that approach for a night-time drink with poisoned bows and arrows.[10] The poison is made of the branches of the shrub Adenium coetaneum. The Hadza hunt and eat a variety of animals including impala, dik-dik, kudu, baboon, vervet monkey, bush baby, shrew, warthog, bushpig and various birds. They also catch fish.[41]
Traditionally, the Hadza do not use hunting dogs, although this custom has been borrowed from neighboring tribes to some degree. Less than 20% of Hadza men use dogs when hunting or foraging.[citation needed]
Honey
There exists a dynamic relationship of mutualism and manipulation between the Hadza and a wild bird, the Greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator).[42][43] To obtain beeswax, the bird guides people to the nests of wild bees (i.e., Apis mellifera). Sometimes, Hadza men whistle, strike trees, and shout to attract and keep the attention of the honeyguide.[44][42] Other times, the bird calls to attract the human honey-hunter with a distinctive chatter. Once the honey-hunter has located a bee nest, he uses smoke to subdue the bees and chops his axe into the tree to open the bee nest. The human eats or carries away most of the liquid honey, while the honeyguide consumes beeswax that may be left adhering to the tree, spat out, or otherwise discarded at the site of acquisition. In many cases, instead of actively feeding the honeyguide, Hadza men burn, bury, or hide the wax that remains at the harvest site, intending to keep the honeyguide hungry and more likely to guide again.[42][43]
The honeyguide also appears in Hadza mythology, both in naturalistic and personified forms.[21] Honey represents a substantial portion of the Hadza diet (~10-20% of calories), which is similar to many other hunter-gatherer societies living in the tropics.[45] Honey likely carried an evolutionary advantage via an improvement in the energy density of the human diet when it contained bee products.[44][45][42]
Religion and folklore
Religion
The Hadza do not follow a formal religion, and it has been claimed that they do not believe in an afterlife.[46]: 45 They offer prayers to Ishoko (the Sun) or to Haine (the moon) during hunts and believe they go to Ishoko when they die. They also hold rituals such as the monthly epeme dance for men at the new moon and the less frequent maitokocircumcision and coming-of-age ceremony for women.
Epeme
The Hadza people embrace epeme, which can be understood as their concept of manhood, hunting, and the relationship between sexes. "True" adult men are called epeme men, which they become by killing large game, usually in their early 20s. Being an epeme comes with an advantage: only epeme men are allowed to eat certain parts of large game animals, such as warthog, giraffe, buffalo, wildebeest, and lion. The parts of these animals that are typically considered epeme are the kidney, lung, heart, neck, tongue, and genitals. No one besides other epeme men are allowed to be present for the epeme meat-eating. If a man still has not killed a large game animal by his thirties, he will automatically be considered epeme and will be allowed to eat the epeme meat.
In addition to eating epeme meat, the epeme men participate in an epeme dance. In Jon Yates's summary[46]: 45 of Frank Marlowe's account,[11] this dance occurs every night when the moon isn't visible, and must occur in near-complete darkness, with camp-fires extinguished.
To begin the ritual, the women separate from the men and sit where they cannot be seen. The men gather behind a tree or hut and prepare for the dance. In the pitch dark, as the women begin to sing, the first man starts to dance. He wears a headdress of dark ostrich feathers, bells on one of his ankles, a rattle in his hand, and a long black cape on his back. He stamps his right foot hard on the ground in time with the women's singing, causing the bells to ring while marking the beat of the music with his rattle. He sings out to the women, who answer in a call and response. As the singing grows in strength, the women rise to join the man, who continues to dance—committing his efforts to a family member, one of the women, a friend, or one of his children. At this point, the child may join the dance as well. After each man has danced the epeme two or three times, the ritual is finished, by which time it is close to midnight.
The ritual has been shown to promote social cohesion among the Hadza, and those who share the epeme dance show elevated levels of mutual trust and support.[46]: 46–47
Folklore
Mythological figures with celestial connotations
Ishoko and Haine are mythological figures who are believed to have arranged the world by rolling the sky and the earth like two sheets of leather and swapping their order to put the sky above us; in the past, the sky was under the earth.[47] These figures are described as making crucial decisions about the animals and humans by choosing their food and environment,[48] giving people access to fire, and creating the capability of sitting.[47] These figures have celestial connotations: Ishoko is a solar figure, and Haine, her husband, is a lunar figure.[22][49] Uttering Ishoko's name can be a greeting or a good wish to someone for a successful hunt.[50]
The character "Ishoye" seems to be another name for Ishoko.[22] She is depicted in some tales as creating animals, including people.[51][52] Some of her creatures later turned out to be man-eating giants, disastrous for their fellow giants and people. Seeing the disaster, she killed these giants, saying, "You are not people any longer."[53]
Culture heroes
Indaya, the man who went to the Isanzu territory after his death and returned,[54] plays the role of a culture hero: he introduces customs and goods to the Hadza.[22]
The Isanzu people neighbor the Hadza. They are regarded as peaceful, and the Hadza myths mention and depict this benevolent influence of the Isanzu in their mythology. This advantageous view of the Isanzu gives them a place as heroes in Hadza folklore.[22] In some of the mythical stories about giants, it is an Isanzu man who liberates the Hadza from a malevolent giant.[22]
Stories about giants
The Hadza have many stories about giants, which describe people with superhuman strength and size but otherwise with human weaknesses. They have human needs, eat and drink, and can be poisoned or cheated.
One of the giants, Sengani (or Sengane), is depicted as Haine's helper. As the story goes, Haine gave him the power to rule over the people. In Haine's absence, the giant endangered people with his decisions. The people resisted his choices, so the giant ordered the lions to attack them. This surprised the humans, who had previously regarded lions as harmless. The people killed the giant in revenge.[55]
This giant had brothers, rendered as "Ssaabo" and "Waonelakhi" in Kohl-Larsen. Several tales describe the disaster these giants caused by constantly killing and beating the Hadza. The Hadza had to ask for help from neighboring groups, and finally, the giants were tricked and either poisoned or shot to death by poison arrows.[56]
Another story tells of a man-eating giant, rendered as "!Esengego" by Kohl-Larsen. He and his family were killed by a benevolent snake, which turned out to be the remedy applied by the goddess Ishoko to liberate people. Ishoko changed the corpses of the giant family into leopards. She prohibited them from attacking people unless an arrow provoked or wounded them.[57]
Another giant, rendered "!Hongongoschá" by Kohl-Larsen, appears as a different sort of mythological figure. He did not bother the Hadza much in his tales, only secretly stealing small things at night. His nourishment was the flowers of trees (and occasionally stolen vegetables). The people greeted him with great respect, and the giant wished them good luck in hunting. This changed when a boy deliberately injured the giant, and though he attempted to provide goodwill, !Hongongoschá took revenge by killing the boy. Finally, the god Haine determined a course of justice: he warned the people, revealed the boy's malevolent deed, and changed the giant into a big white clam.[58]
Land rights in Tanzania are a complicated issue, but they are extremely important to the future of Tanzania and its people. Communal lands are central to the Hadzabe and other groups, and gaining legal rights to those lands as a community is the first step toward keeping those lands undeveloped.
Our partner Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT), with support from the Dorobo Fund and TNC, pioneered the Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCRO), a form of individual, and more recently, group land tenure within a larger village holding. This is an effective tool for strengthening community land rights and securing communal lands.
In October 2011, the Hadza took the innovative step of asserting legal claim to their homeland with a CCRO. They received official title — recognized by the government of Tanzania — to 57,000 acres.
In 2012, we secured four more homeland designations and protected 90,000 additional acres for the Datoga tribe. Their designations assert that more than 80 percent of their lands will now be managed as grazing areas for livestock and wildlife.
Securing additional land for pastoral use helps both tribes, as the Datoga no longer need to move onto Hadza land to graze cattle.
Now, the Northern Tanzania Rangelands Initiative, a coalition of 10 NGOs working to create a thriving landscape where people and wildlife co-exist, has helped secure more than 1.2 million acres of land for communities like the Hadza.
With legal rights to the land, the Hadza then had the means to earn income from it in a sustainable way. Working with Carbon Tanzania and other NTRI partners, the Hadza established a mechanism that pays them for protecting their traditional forests.
They've since earned more than $300,000, which has gone toward paying school fees for dozens of students, training rangers to monitor the community's land and its wildlife, and improving health clinics. The money also pays to keep the forest protection program running and expanding.
This nature-based solution to helping mitigate the effects of climate change is also preserving a people's traditional way of life in a modern world. And for this reason, the Hadza’s Yaeda Valley Project is a recipient of the 2019 Equator Prize, one of the United Nation’s most prestigious awards for environmental protection and climate resilience.
To see God glorified through an abundance of Christ followers within every people group.
Our Mission
Joshua Project highlights peoples and places with the least access or response to the gospel so the Body of Christ can prioritize its prayer and mission efforts.
About Us
Followers of Jesus around the world are commissioned to “go make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Christians may perceive they are fulfilling Jesus’s commission because churches are thriving in almost every country. The word translated as “nations,” however, is “ethne” in the original Greek, which can equate to “ethnic groups.” Christians are called to make disciples of all ethnic groups, not just modern nation states, because God desires his acts of love, hope, and salvation to extend to all peoples of the world.
Joshua Project highlights the peoples and places with the least access or response to the gospel.
Who are these ethnic groups? As long as they remain unknown and hidden, followers of Christ would be seeking to obey Jesus’s Great Commission like someone traveling without a map or destination. Joshua Project provides a destination map for the Great Commission by highlighting peoples and places with the least access or response to the gospel, empowering the Body of Christ to prioritize its prayer and mission efforts.
We provide a comprehensive people group database of the world, and we track what God is doing among these peoples, so we can assist the Global Church in the vision of seeing God glorified through an abundance of Christ followers within every people group.
Our History
Joshua Project was birthed in 1995 out of a world evangelism initiative called the AD2000 and Beyond Movement which had four key founders from four different countries (Argentina, Malaysia, China, and India). Luis Bush, from Argentina, was the main influencer in founding Joshua Project.
Joshua Project provides a comprehensive people group database of the world.
At the time, there were various people group lists being formulated without universal acceptance. To inspire the global church in working toward the vision of a "church for every people and the gospel for every person", an initial Joshua Project list of 1,700 largest unreached people groups was agreed upon by key global leaders and creators of various people group lists.
Many missionaries were inspired to pray and labor among these largest unreached people groups, particularly in the 10/40 window, during that time. Joshua Project continued after the AD2000 and Beyond initiative ended, expanding its list to include all people groups, with a special emphasis remaining on unreached peoples.
Joshua Project seeks to inspire prayer and ministry among unreached people groups.
Joshua Project was a ministry associated with the U.S. Center for World Mission (now known as Frontier Ventures) from 2005-2023. In 2024, Joshua Project was established as a non-profit organization within the United States.
Our Beliefs
Joshua Project believes God has uniquely created and orchestrated the peoples, languages, and cultures of the world to reflect his own creativity and beauty in this world. Joshua Project provides dignity to all peoples by acknowledging their existence and value, while also recognizing that humanity can only fulfill its purpose by knowing and being reconciled to its Creator. We are followers of Jesus who help likeminded people join God’s story of seeing his message of hope and reconciliation through Jesus extend to all people groups of the world. We adhere to the following statements of faith:
Service - We delight in serving churches, ministries, and individuals with information to help them take prioritized next steps in missions.
Generosity - We are committed to steward people group information with a radical generosity. We believe this resource is crucial to the church’s obedience to the Great Commission and offer the majority of that resource for free.
Neutrality - We are evangelical Christians with a people group focus, but we otherwise seek to be neutral in denominational and missiological particulars.
Resourceful - We seek to honor God by being good stewards of resources. Joshua Project is far more impactful than what seems possible for our limited budget and staff.
Diligence - We love what we do and work hard to do all things as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:17).
Having a people group lens - We understand the Global Church has many responsibilities, but Joshua Project advocates for the Body of Christ’s involvement in intercession and mission work among unreached people groups who have had little access or responsiveness to the gospel.
Having a responsiveness to the field - Joshua Project relies on feedback from the field to accurately display people’s identities and their status of Christian witness. We seek to display the local realities and viewpoints of people’s identities and responsiveness to the gospel.
Maintaining data integrity - At tension with the prior value, Joshua Project seeks to maintain integrity in our data, which means we work diligently to provide updates on population counts and take seriously the level of reputability of field data sources. We also compare data with other sources and seek to reconcile disparities.
Obtaining enough demographic data on all people groups to catalyze prayer and ministry among them - We are not exhaustive in our understanding and presentation of information on particular people groups or the details of mission activity among them. Instead, we seek to create a comprehensive list of people groups that defines the mission field as accurately and adequately as possible to help the Body of Christ prioritize their prayer and mission activity.
The Sandawe are a Southeast African ethnic group that dwell in central Tanzania’s Dodoma Region’s Chemba District. In the year 2000, Sandawe was expected to have a population of 40,000 people.
The Sandawe language is a tonal language with click consonants, similar to the Khoe languages of southern Africa. There’s no further proof of a connection between the two.
History of the Sandawe People
The Beginning
The Khoisan were once considered the earliest human DNA lineages. However, the Sandawe DNA lines are older. Southern Khoisan is said to have originated in East Africa.
Unlike their contemporary neighbors, the Gogo, the Sandawe are descendants of an early Bushmen-like people. They dwell in the geographic center of ancient German East Africa, with the ‘Street of Caravans’ running parallel to their southern border.
The Khoe languages of southern Africa may have shared an ancestor with Sandawe language. Unfortunately, it contains clicks, making it difficult to learn for the Bantu people in the area. It is unrelated to the Bantu languages surrounding it; however, nearby Cushitic languages have been affected.
Emini Pasha
Because of their intense hunting and gathering heritage, the Sandawe have traditionally been regarded as skilled survivalists during times of food scarcity. They also become herdersand agriculturalists during the time Charles Stokes and Emin Pasha’s had expeditions (the late 1880s to early 1890s). However, they continue to be identified as part of the Gogo people.
As a result, the Sandawe were not recognized as a separate people by Europeans until Lt. Prince’s travels in 1895, when they were eventually recognized as such. Despite their technologically primitive civilization, European colonists thought of them as politically and militarily crucial until the twentieth century.
The Sandawe learned agriculture from their Bantu neighbors, most likely the Gogo, and set up homesteads wherever reasonable ground for their primary food crops of millet, sorghum, and later maize could be found. However, they disliked and had little purpose for longterm village life. They mainly remained stateless, with no interest in ’empire-building.’ The Sandawe, on the other hand, had a long history of mutual collaboration in activities like hoeing and threshing, homebuilding, and organizing informal pig and elephant hunts.
They constructed their makeshift shelters far away from water sources and then went hunting in the nearby countryside. Thus, polygamy was probably not practiced until after they adopted agriculture.
During the Colonial Period
When Germany began colonizing Sub-Saharan Africa in the mid-nineteenth century, certain Sandawe clans exploited their reputation as rainmakers to claim the foremost rank, but they were never recognized. Others rejected European control as well as the enormous migrations of colonists arriving all around them. The Germans were told that Mtoro, a guy with some power, was in charge. He was named headman or commander of the Nyamwezi colony, which had just been formed.
Mtoro and Nyamwezi immigrants were despised by the Sandawe, who expelled them in 1902 and took their animals. According to reports, Lieutenant Kohlerman was dispatched to maintain the peace and killed 800 Sandawe warriors in three days without losing a single man. A second expedition arrived and took 1,100 cattle. ‘Progress,’ said the district commander:
The rock-strewn land of Usandawe…is home to a still warlike, predatory, and undiscovered mountain tribe whose members refuse to recognize the German government, live far apart, and allow no headmen or superiors, and thus have no headmen or superiors far ejected those experimentally implanted by the station. We’ve taken control of the issue.
The German colony was encouraged and withdrew its armed forces. As the troops left, the Sandawe attacked, proclaiming their preparedness to face a new expedition and tormenting the Nyamwezi. The Sandawe were eventually ‘pacified,’ and 22 were selected, mainly from the traditional rainmaking tribes. “One of the headmen stated,” said another, “If anyone refuses to obey my orders, I will file a complaint with European Sergeant Linke. He is the one who uses fetters and the whip to punish people… As a result, my people see that you live in harmony.”
Tom Von Prince and his wife Magdalene von Prince, prior year 1908
The institution of the chiefdom, on the other hand, soon collapsed and vanished once colonization ended. In their tales, the Sandawe compare themselves to tiny creatures that utilize their cunning and intellect to overcome their more powerful and dangerous adversaries. “The deathly terror that must have existed to send these people hundreds of kilometers south of the equator, into the center of many foreign tribes to find peace, can only be guessed at,” Tom von Prince said in his book Gegen Araber und Wahehe.
Culture of the Sandawe Tanzania
The Sandawe have a secret and highly spiritual society based on animism. Caves in the mountains were revered and sometimes feared since they were thought to house ghosts. As a result, caves were avoided, no animals were herded there, no wood was chopped, or twigs were broken to avoid disturbing these ghosts. Instead, the Sandawe would go to the caves once a year to perform sacrificial rituals to ensure that the spirits would not be vengeful and disrupt the community‘s overall well-being.
People would travel to the hills’ caves in groups, chanting prayers to the ghosts and assuring them that they had not come to disturb them but to show their love. These prayers were screamed as loudly as possible to ensure that the spirits could hear them regardless of their location. The Sandawe believed in the moon, stars, seasons, and the mantis bug, among other things. The moon was seen as a symbol of life and fertility, bringing rain and regulating the cycle of fertility in women. The mantis was a heavenly messenger with a specific cause for arriving. The explanation was generally sought through a medium.
Warongwe, a god who was abstract, remote, and unrelated to the well-being of ordinary life, was rarely worshipped to or sacrificed to. Instead, in virtually every African region, religion was based on a lengthy line of ancestors and a close-knit extended family system that served as a conduit between living creatures and a distant all-powerful God.
The Sandawe were and continue to be extroverted people who like singing, dancing, producing music, and drinking beer. They have an extensive song library. Harvest and courting rituals, healing rituals with their trances, circumcision celebrations, and simba possession dances, in which dancers mimicked lions to resist witchcraft, were all distinct from one another. Nevertheless, the Sandawe still have a strong oral tradition, and they enjoy telling stories that represent the group’s accumulated knowledge.
For more articles on the Tanzania Tribes click here!
The revival of South African Indigenous Languages is currently a priority of the SA Government
Compiled By: Dr Lendy Spires
In Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that indigenous peoples have the right to revitalise, use, develop and transmit to future generations their languages, oral traditions, writing systems and literature.
South Africa is a multilingual country. The country’s Constitution guarantees equal status to 11 official languages to cater for South Africa’s diverse peoples and their cultures. These are: Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, Setswana, SiSwati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga
The Indigenous languages of the Khoi, Nama, San and Korana first nation people have not been included and the continues advocacy of the indigenous people for their language rights have been delt with minimum urgency.
Linguistic diversity is being threatened around the world, and this threat is acutely felt by indigenous people. According to UNESCO, approximately 600 languages have disappeared in the last century and they continue to dissapear at a rate of one language every two weeks. Up to 90 percent of the world’s languages are likely to disappear before the end of this century if current trends are allowed to continue.
Moreover, fewer and fewer children are learning indigenous languages in the traditional way, from their parents and elders. Even when the parental generation speaks the indigenous language, they do not often pass it on to their children. In an increasing number of cases, indigenous languages are only used by elders.
We need to ask ourself why is the protection of indigenous languages important. Saving indigenous languages is a matter of urgency and is crucial to ensure the protection of our cultural identity and dignity as indigenous people and safeguarding our traditional heritage.
As a result of linguistic erosion, much of the encyclopedia of traditional indigenous knowledge that is usually passed down orally from generation to generation is in danger of being lost forever. This loss is irreplaceble and irreparable.
Customary laws of our indigenous communities are often set out in our language, and if our language is lost our community may not fully understand its laws and system of governance that foster our future survilval.
The loss of indigenous languages signifies not only the loss of indigenous knowledge but also the loss of cultural diversity, undermining the identity of the community and the individual.
Biological, linguistic and cultural diversity are inseparable and mutually reinforcing, so when an indigenous language is lost, so too is indigenous knowledge on how to maintain the world’s biological diversity and address climate change and other environmental challenges.
In the spring of 1672 (autumn in the Netherlands) a formal land buy agreement was reached between the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope and the Khoi tribes of the Cape.
At the time of the agreement the Cape settlement lacked a commander as the appointed commander, Goske, who replaced the deceased Commander Hackius, has not arrived in the Cape yet. The representation of the Khoi was also divided into two as the tribes on the west coast did not recognise the leadership of the largest tribe - the Chainouquas.
The Dutch representation
The death of Commander Hackius In the latter part of the year 1671 (30 November) created a leadership crisis in the Cape as his second-in-command, Cornelius de Cretzer, was also not available.
As Commander Hackius was not able to attend to his duties during his sickbed the burden fell on his second-in-command (secunde), Cornelius de Cretzer. De Cretzer had been the most active member of the Cape government and well-liked by the burghers and superior officers. In general he was regarded as able, honest and attentive to his duties. Unfortunately, at a dinner party where he was the host, he lost he his temper with two of his guests. The one was a captain of a ship in Table Bay and the other a passenger from the same ship. The two guests were in an argument which led to the captain attacking his passenger. Unable to pacify him, De Cretzer stabbed the Captain with his rapier. In shock over the incident, he fled into hiding and later slipped away quietly to Amsterdam to argue his case. The Directors of the VOC pronounced him blameless, but he never reached the Cape again as his return ship was attacked by Moorish pirated.
De Cretzer filled the three positions immediately below the commander and therefore with the death of Commander Hackius and the absence of De Cretzer there was no senior person available to take up the duties. The governance of the Cape was eventually referred to the Politieke Raad under the representation of Lieutenant Conrad van Breitenbach with Hendrik Crudop as the secretary.
To address the lack of leadership in the Cape the Directors of the VOC made three appointments to the Cape - Isbrand Goske as Commander, Albert van Breugel as Secunde and Pieter de Neyn as fiscal. Van Breugel arrived in the Cape before Goske on 25 March 1672 and took charge of the settlement. At the same time, a return fleet from the east brought Commissioner Arnout van Overbeke to the Cape. As the highest ranking official of the VOC, van Overbeke made an inspection of the settlement and came to the conclusion that a formal land purchase agreement with the Khoi tribes of the Cape, will bring more stability to the settlement. Hendrik Crudop as the secretary proceeded to arrange for the negotiations.
The Dutch negotiation team existed out of Arnout van Overbeker (Commissioner), Albert van Breugel (Sekunde), Conrad van Breitenbach (on behalf of the Politieke Raad), Lieutenant Johan Coon (of the Garrison) and Hendrik Crudop (Secretary).
The Khoi representation
The first message for negotiations was sent to the Goringhaiqua (“Kaapmans”) who owned the western part of the Dutch settlement. The Goringhaiqua stood under the leadership of Osinghkamma who was known to the Dutch as prince Schacher. Prince Schacher was the son of Gogosoa whom Van Riebeeck met in the Cape. Legend has it that Gogosoa lived until an age of hundred and died in the same year Van Riebeeck left the Cape. The Goringhaiqua was a leading tribe who also spoke for the Gorinhaikonas (“Strandlopers”) and Cochoquas (“Saldanhars”).
The second message was sent to the Chainouqua tribe which lived in the area today known as Baardskeerdersbos, Gansbaai and Grabouw. They owned the eastern part of the Dutch settlement next to the Hottentots-Holland mountains. At that stage, they were the largest Khoi tribe. When Van Riebeeck arrived, their chief was Sousoa – the man with the title of “Khoeque” (the paramount chief of all kings and landowners) - was regarded as the chief of the chiefs. Sousoa was deceased by then, and his throne had been transferred to his son Goeboe, who also had died shortly before and left his throne to his minor son Dhouw – “the hereditary prince and heir of the Hottentots-Holland Land”. His uncle, Cuiper, was acting as regent.
Crudop invited Schacher and Cuiper with Dhouw to the Castle for the land purchase agreement.
Background to The Agreement
Jan van Riebeeck was sent to the Cape to create a halfway station where ships on route to the east could replenish food and water. The original idea was that Van Riebeeck will buy the needed proviant from the indigenous tribes at the time. Van Riebeeck set-out with the planned model for the station, but soon learned that the food supply from the Khoi tribes was not reliable and that he could not supply passing ships with the needed proviant. He convinced the management of the VOC to allow the establishment of farmers who will farm for their own account and deliver their produce to the company. It was approved and the Vryburger settlements started.
As more and more products were required by the company to supply the ships, the Vryburger settlements grew in proportion. More and more land was taken by the settlers to be cultivated for food production. Over time the farms of the Vryburgers penetrated the Khoi tribes land deeper and deeper. This lead to conflict and instability in the settlement.
The Agreement
The negotiation between the VOC and the Khoi tribes of the Cape took on the form of land negotiations where the Vryburgers will restrict their settlements to an agreed area which the Khoi will not use as grazing fields. The Khoi delegation undertook to sell the land to the VOC for now and ever. As payment, the Khoi could for the agreed amount, take provisions from the Castle storage.
The agreement is currently preserved in the registry of deeds in Cape Town and is regarded as a legal document. It is structured into eight clauses which are as follows:-
That the Khoi prince (referring to Schachen) agrees that he and his heirs in perpetuity will sell to the East India Company (VOC) the district of the Cape included Table, Hout and Saldanha bays, with all the lands, rivers and forest there-in and pertaining thereto, to be cultivated and possessed without remonstrance from anyone. With this understanding, however, that the prince with his people and cattle shall be free to come anywhere near the outermost farms in the district, where neither the Company nor the vryburgers require the pasture, and shall not be driven away by force or without cause.
The Khoi prince agrees he and his people never to do harm of any kind to the Company or its subjects, and allow them the right of transit and trade not only in the ceded district but in his other possessions.
The Khoi prince promises to repel all other Europeans who may attempt to settle in the district.
The Khoi prince engages that he and his descendants forever shall remain the good friends and neighbours of the Company, and be the enemies of all that seek to do the Company or its subjects harm.
The Company (VOC) engages to pay to Prince Schachen with goods and merchandise such as he may select to the value of 800.
The Company (VOC) guarantees the Khoi the peaceful possession of the remaining territory, and gives them the right of passage through the Company’s ground where ever exercise of this privilege may not cause damage or annoyance to the Company or its subjects.
The Company (VOC) secure for prince Schachen the right of refuge in the Company’s territory in case of his being defeated by his enemies, and bind the company to protect him. It also refers to tribal disputes to the decision of the Company and provides for a present to be made yearly to the protecting power.
The Khoi prince Schachen acknowledge that the foregoing has been translated to him he agrees to all, and that he has received the amount stipulated.
The agreement was signed on behalf of the company by Aernout van Overbeke, Albert van Breugel, Coenrad van Breytenbach, en J. Coon. On behalf of the Khoi tribes under the Goringhaiqua (“Kaapmans”), it was signed by prince Schachen and his second-in-command ‘T Tachou. The secretary Hendrik Crudop signed as the witness.
A second agreement identical to the one signed with Schachen was signed with the Chainouqua tribe for the area next to the Hottentots-Holland mountains with all its lands, streams, and forests, together with False Bay are ceded to the company for an amount of 800 pounds.
The document is dated in the fortress of Good Hope on the 19th April 1672 and is considered a legal transaction, even though by modern standards it is considered an unfair bargain in which the two parties were not equal in bargaining power. The lands transferred in the agreement was already largely settled by the Dutch, so the tribes didn't lose anything that was not already settled, but if they refused the agreement they would not effectively gain the land back. They would lose protection given to them under the agreement. Regarding the payment of 800 pounds it, later on, transpired that the actual value of goods transferred was nowhere near even 10% of the agreed value. It can also be mentioned that the land sold by the Khoi prince to the Dutch was also land taken from other tribes with force.
After match
When the new commander for the Cape of Good Hope, Isbrand Goske, arrived later in the same year, he congratulated Crudop for administering the agreement. He promoted Crudop to the position of Onderkoopman - the lowest rank of those who negotiate deals and manage trade posts for the company (Jan van Riebeeck was a Koopman who manage the trading post in Tonkin, Indo-China, before he's assignment to the Cape). Pieter de Neyn arrived in the same year as Goske to take care of the legal affairs - the first fiscal at the Cape.
The land bought from the Khoi was used to settle more Vryburgers and when the French Huguenots arrived in 1688 farms were allocated to them based on the Crudop-agreement. By 1714 more than 400 of these farms exist. It is noted that the Crudop-agreement was the first land transaction between Europeans settlers and indigenous tribes.
Dr Spires we need resources when we do our charter its probably going to be 30–50 pages, its basically going to be a service delivery charter that speaks to current service delivery priorities of the state but escalated or placed on steriods specifically to deal with the recognised constituencies because we cannot depend on institutional resources that is allocated to ward councillors in our areas.
Those ward councillors have a budget of R500 000.00 and they serve a long list of priorities in their wards so we need additional structured infrastructure development funding which we are not going to get unless we have a clear concise decription of how the current under spending in Khoi and San constituencies is hampering our people right to liberty to freedom and better quality of life and that is the objective of this charter.
So when it comes to language it becomes critical for us in the final product to have a dual version, I think its even better if we have it in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa therefore we would not go ahead further without translating our material into three languages.
Leaders we have to get structure here interms of the Korana Estate, archeology, anthropology, museums, national estate, decolonization and the repatriation of our human remains across the country of Korannas that have not been buried. It is time for us to take responsibility.
Khoebaha Arendse is the Sitting Commissioner for the Western Cape Provincial Government; Sitting Commissioner and Chairperson for the Cultural Councils in the Western Cape and have the expertise and research facilities at his disposal in the country. So we have the means to do the job and the guidance we need and its time for us to step up.
We talk about constituency by definition of Act 3 of 2019, we cannot speak out of context that is the act that we have submitted amendments on 28 February 2025. Now the definition of a constituency is a community cultural group, a community branch or a branch with a branch head as you find in subsections under chapter two of the act. So that is the definition of a statutory constituency.
Then there is the greater descendant community which is not part of that incorporated constituency branch yet because not all our people participated in the physical composition of a branch or community branch interms of Act 3 of 2019. In relation to that in my case I have 22 nationally which is referenced by the Khoi-San Commission. Which means they gave me acknowledgement of that and gave a notice of closing the investigation on 24 May 2024, now we are waiting for a status quo report.
It has been handed to the Minister for his decision or to the Presidency since it is a Kingship therefore its important to ask these questions and when you have these questions answered understand we cannot speak of constituencies that do not exist so a current branch that have been submitted to act 3 of 2019 is the very definition of a constituency we can speak about.
The principality of legislation speaks to the representative mandate, in this case the branch who applied for recognition is the representative mandate that mandate speaks to the greater constituency it speaks to develop the grater constituency under other pieces of legislation that is why this is such a historic process for us.
Specifically the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Act, the Traditional Courts Act, the Customary Marriage Act, the Customary Initiation Act, the Amended Employment Equity Act, the Land Expropriation without Compensation Act there are so many pieces of legislation the Preferencial Procurement Public Framework Act all these legislative entities have a direct cross pollination with Act 3 of 2019 the amended version that will be amended so in that sense the legislated entity which is the branch interms of Act 3 of 2019 speaks to the greater ambiet the bigger symbiosis of Korana descendants that is not yet part of the process, but there are programs specificly that speaks to their heritage estates and the recognition of their heritage estates interms of persons, places and events of historic significance interms of Act 25 of 1999 which is the National Heritage Resources Act.
In addition to that the other legislation specificly NEMA which is the National Environmental Management Act which also speaks to the Khoi-San Diaspora, why all the national parks and all environmental protectorate is vast tracks of land is also associated with customs and traditions of Korana which is already under protection interms of NEMA. Now we need to cross pollinate over into NEMA, so there is a lot of cross pollination that happens in us in this current legislation to other legislations. That is to create a symbiosis with the greater constituencies from a recognise branch perspective.
The four elephants that were on a truck that overturned on the Olifantskop Pass in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday arrived safely at their destination at Samara Karoo Reserve early on Thursday morning. The reserve responded to misinformation spread by the NSPCA, clarifying that it did not allow hunting.
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The four elephants that were in a truck that overturned on the Olifantskop Pass in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday, 5 March 2025, were seen happily exploring the riverbank of their new home on Thursday and showed no signs of injury or distress.
Video footage taken last night shows the four elephants led by the matriarch, who has been collared for tracking purposes, quietly walking off into the night.
The four were donated to Samara Game Reserve by Sanparks as part of a greater plan to resettle elephants in the Camdeboo.
“Samara Karoo Reserve is a conservation undertaking started in 1997 to rewild the Great Karoo landscape into a born-again wilderness home to all historically occurring species, including elephants. We are committed to biodiversity conservation and land restoration funded by photographic tourism,” the reserve said in a statement.
Fake claims were made on social media by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) that there was hunting at Samara Game Reserve. Despite attempts to obtain further information from the NSPCA, none of Daily Maverick’s questions were answered. The organisation only posted a claim that they had “searched” for it on the internet.
Providing sanctuary
This translocation forms part of broader elephant conservation measures within South Africa to expand the habitat available for elephants to thrive.
“As one of the Eastern Cape’s largest private reserves, and having worked closely with expert ecologists and zoologists for 27 years, Samara Karoo Reserve is well positioned to offer a sanctuary to these gentle giants,” the reserve said in a statement on Thursday morning.
SANParks spokesperson Fayroush Ludick confirmed they had received the happy news that the elephants were doing well.
“The donation is part of a long-term strategy towards elephant management, which includes range expansion and improving genetic diversity,” Ludick said.
Samara’s statement continued that they were very thankful for game reserves close to the accident site that assisted with food and water for the teams, and sent equipment to help with the elephants.
“The professional wildlife translocation team, veterinary team, release team and Samara team were on site to monitor the elephants and ensure their safety throughout the incident. The vet confirmed that the elephants were not wounded in the accident, and they walked off the truck into the reserve with no visible signs of distress or injuries.
“The elephants will continue to be closely monitored in the coming days and weeks to ensure their health and wellbeing as they settle into their new home,” the statement added.
Sarah Tompkins, co-founder of Samara Karoo Reserve, said they were very grateful that the four elephants were safe.
“We are incredibly thankful that the elephants are safe, and that after many months of planning there are now four more elephants roaming the Samara landscape.
“Samara would like to thank all those involved in the translocation and who assisted with the unfortunate accident, including SANParks officials and the Conservation Solutions translocation team, whose professionalism and deep care for their work was truly evident.
“The safety and wellbeing of the truck drivers and the elephants was the team’s number one priority throughout the incident. We were humbled by the way in which nearby reserves rose to our assistance, lending additional equipment to ensure the elephants’ wellbeing, donating water and food to the team and assisting with organising logistics.
“The camaraderie of the conservation community is unmatched. We would also like to thank the public for their heartening messages of support and those affected by the road closure for their patience.”
The Olifantskop Pass remained closed for most of Wednesday as authorities worked on a plan to transport the elephants to the reserve, which is near Graaff-Reinet. Unathi Binqose from the Eastern Cape Department of Transport said one lane of the pass was opened at 10.10pm, and both lanes were open after 2am.
In October 2017, after an absence of elephants in the Karoo for 150 years, six female elephants were released into the Samara Karoo Reserve. In November 2018, they were joined by two bulls from the Phinda Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal. Elephants were also resettled in other Karoo reserves as part of the plan to have these animals return to the plains of the Camdeboo. DM
The Kruger National Park (KNP) will once again host scientists, researchers and protected area managers from around the world.
The 22nd annual Savanna Science Network Meeting will be held in Skukuza from March 3 to 6 under the theme ‘Re-imagining conservation: Healthy, sustainable, climate-resilient savannas that benefit people’.
According to the KNP spokesperson, Isaac Phaahla, this internationally acclaimed event will bring together leading scientists, researchers, conservationists and policymakers to address critical challenges facing savanna ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
“The park will host 230 delegates representing 91 different scientific and conservation organisations from 21 countries. Many topical issues in ecological and social sciences will be covered during the four-day event. The close interactions between academics and park authorities facilitated by this meeting are key to promoting proactive evidence-based decision-making and directing research to address priority conservation management needs.The meeting has always valued capacity building, and as such students share the platform with world-renowned savanna scientists from across the globe,” said Phaahla.
He added that the idea for the Savanna Science Network Meeting came about when a small group of scientists working on river-related issues in KNP, reflecting on the impacts of the 2000 floods, were of the opinion that a small meeting could be held annually to share research findings with park management.
The scope and participation of these meetings grew quickly to include savanna-related research and delegates from many countries and organisations.
“This meeting is now considered the premier international savanna science conference covering socio-ecological research taking place in savannas across the globe.
The conference format allows for dialogue and discussion on ecological science and conservation matters, both formally and informally, in a spectacular venue, shaping our collective understanding and seeding future research collaborations and projects to address key knowledge gaps,” Phaahla said. A range of topics will be discussed, including:
• Large and largely unexpected patterns in vegetation over time • Savannah conservation in the age of artificial intelligence • From source to sea – the integrated management of freshwater ecosystems • Building sustainable connections to natural and cultural heritage inside parks • Walking the mammalian tightrope – balancing costs and benefits.
The meeting will be streamed live on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/@savannasciencelivestream335, for those who would like to take part online.
This is the third chapter in a forthcoming e-book, entitled 'Decolonial Education and Youth Aspirations'. Syra Shakir argues that to decolonise your pedagogy, curriculum and support to students, you must first decolonise your mind; Decolonised psychology, changing hearts and minds.
Higher Education (HE) in the United Kingdom has seen a long-standing problem of differential outcomes between White and Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students (Arday, Branchu & Boliver, 2022). BAME students are disadvantaged in their experiences in HE; they are less likely to leave higher education with a first class or 2:1 degree and less likely to be employed six months after graduating compared to their White peers (Advance HE 2018b; UUK/NUS, 2019).
A particular area of concern is around engendering a sense of community and belonging, especially for those students who already experience marginalisation (Cureton & Gravestock, 2019; Thomas, 2012). Research highlights the university experiences of students from minority backgrounds are shaped by feelings that they do not belong, a teaching curriculum that omits a diverse range of perspectives, an academic environment which favours the white majority, staffing and student bodies which are not reflective of marginalised communities, and a system which is set up to accommodate the needs of white students rather than students of colour (Bunce et al., 2010; Bernard et al., 2014). It is these experiences collectively which can lead to feelings of ostracization from the wider university community and little sense of belonging for students of ethnic minority backgrounds which can then lead to drop out (Thomas, 2012; EHRC, 2019).
There have been several student-led campaigns across HE which have sought to address the dominance of the western canon of thought and knowledge production (Arday & Mirza, 2018) and the ways by which university curriculum has been racialised as white (Peters, in Arday & Mirza, 2018). It appears that our current higher education system omits significant aspects of our shared connected history (Connell, 1997; Bhambra, 2014,2016) and this is symptomatic of entrenched institutional racism which still permeates higher education and society at large (Dei et al., 2004; Shilliam, 2015). University pedagogy and curricula, dominated by White European canons, contributes to the overall experience for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students in relation to engagement, belonging and marginalisation (Ahmed, 2012; Nwadeyi, 2016). Recent research indicates that BAME students are rarely provided with opportunities to negotiate, challenge, co-create, nor decolonise these white canons of knowledge permeating higher education (Bhopal, 2014; Andrews, 2019; Rollock, 2016; Arday, 2019). Moreover, BAME students are engaging with a curriculum that does not reflect their heritage, history, lived experiences nor their future pathways.
A lack of belonging and feeling disconnected to the curriculum are not only experienced by students of BAME backgrounds but by students of many backgrounds (Meehan & Howells, 2018; Thomas, 2017). Furthermore, differential outcomes and racialised experiences negatively impact not only those who are the target but also the wider community overall (Cohen, 2021). According to the prominent critical race theory (CRT) scholar Derrick Bell (2018), helping those most disadvantaged in our community will benefit everyone. The Office for Students (OfS), the main body that regulates higher education in the UK, requires universities to address both belonging and the curriculum to better support student experiences and outcomes to fulfil their conditions of registration as a university (OfS, 2023).
To investigate these issues, I embarked on using co-creation as a pedagogic approach to explore racialised experiences raised by students within the Race Equality Charter (REC) survey in 2019, situated in a post 1992 university in the North of England. Co-creation involves students and staff working together to design curricula and involves meaningful supportive relationships through adopting relational pedagogy (Bovill, 2020). Co-creation is becoming more widespread and positive outcomes relating to raised student achievement and better engagement, such as attendance, contribution, have been demonstrated (Bovill, 2019; Cook-Sather et al., 2014; Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017; Shakir & Siddiquee cited in Jamil, 2024). However, these tend to be ‘one off’ interventions. The methodological approach used a critical race theory (CRT) lens to frame the extended life cycle of interventions. This is because a key tenet of CRT, ‘a contradictory closing case’ outlines that ‘one off’ interventions do not make real, sustainable changes and thus a quick return to the discriminatory status quo occurs (Delagado & Stefanic, 2017). The further tenet of CRT that the approach adopted was listening and learning from people of colour. This involved creating safe spaces for students (both those of BAME and white backgrounds) to share their lived experiences to inform changes to policy and practice at the university moving forward.
My overall research over the last four years aimed to investigate whether student belonging, and attainment are connected and therefore addressing both through co-creation rooted in a decolonised curriculum and pedagogy underpinned in anti-racist practice can support closing gaps for students. This chapter explores one part of the overall research: the decolonised framework developed through student staff co-creation over four years and provides a way forward for educators and student services wanting to decolonise their teaching, learning, assessment, classroom practices and support to students. Students who participated were from multi-disciplinary backgrounds across all levels of study, undergraduate through to postgraduate and from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. They shared their lived experiences and journeys navigating university and made several recommendations to the institution to improve student outcomes. It is their voices and wisdom that inform the decolonising checklist. I will now go on to define decolonising, co-creation and anti-racism in my context.
Decolonising in higher education
Decolonising in my context, refers to the process of challenging and rethinking the existing education systems that are rooted in colonial legacies and practices; the higher education (HE) environment is an example of this (Arday & Mirza 2018; Sian, 2019). Decolonising involves critically examining and altering the curriculum, teaching methodologies, assessment, academic support, and structural racism within the educational system to address and rectify the biases, inequalities, and Eurocentric perspectives that dominate education. This process aims to incorporate indigenous knowledge systems and voices that have been historically marginalised or erased, fostering an inclusive, equitable, and diverse educational environment.
Co-Creation
Co-creation has been fundamental to my work in decolonising the curriculum and my pedagogic approach (Bovill, 2020). In co-creation there is a move away from the typical form of teaching structures adopted in HE, whereby the educator is the source of all knowledge and ‘fills up the empty vessel student’. There is a shift in power dynamics (Shakir & Siddiquee, 2023; De Los Reyes, 2002) which means the ‘educator becomes the educated’ and a reciprocal teaching relationship takes place for learning to happen (Werder, et al., 2010). The students are empowered to be ambassadors of their own wisdom and to share this not only with staff but with their peers through peer teaching and mentoring in a classroom of all possibilities (hooks, 1994). The focus of the co-creation interventions were around equity, identity and lived experiences, which spoke to students directly and was about something that mattered to them to bring about positive changes to their educational journeys (Shakir & Siddiquee, 2023; Freire & Ramos, 1996; hooks, 1994). The founding parents of teaching and researching philosophies central to the approaches I have adopted are rooted in papa Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed (Freire, 1970) resonating very personally to students as it concerned issues that directly affected them and to which they could be part of the solution. At the same time, the co-creation approach offered teaching with love, at the core of mama hooks’ practice (hooks, 1994). It provided compassion, care and nurture to students who had been disadvantaged, experienced significant challenges, and were provided with a safe space to share such experiences.
Anti-Racist Practice
Accept racism exists
Not being racist is not enough
Time to listen and learn from people's experiences
This acrostic defines anti-racism and calls for action to become anti-racist. Anti-racism asserts that all racial and ethnic groups should be treated equally and have equal opportunities (Kendi, 2019). However, it requires more than belief, it demands active efforts to dismantle systems, privileges, and behaviours that sustain white supremacy (Delgado & Stefancic, 2023). In higher education, anti-racist practices create a more inclusive environment by addressing systemic racism (Salisbury & Connelly, 2021), fostering belonging for marginalised students (Hampton, 2020), and enhancing academic success (Thomas, 2012). These practices help reduce racial disparities by providing tailored support, such as mentoring and academic resources (Jankowski, 2022). Integrating anti-racist education into curricula cultivates critical thinking and a reflective learning environment (Tate & Bagguley, 2017), equipping students with essential skills for a just society (Jayakumar, 2008). Universities play a crucial role in this transformation. I will now present the decolonizing framework.
Decolonise your mind
So how to decolonise? The easy trap staff often fall into is to simply diversify although this is only one ingredient of the decolonised approach. Decolonising our education means that we have to first understand the profound impact colonisation has had on our education and our society. Examining our approach to practice and teaching pedagogy requires a critical reflection on how we learn, what we learn, and whose knowledge is valued within our curriculum. It is essential to interrogate the perspectives that are included in our educational frameworks and, just as importantly, those that are excluded. Marginalised voices, particularly those from the Global South, have often been erased or deliberately omitted, contributing to a persistent imbalance in knowledge production.
The dominance of Eurocentric, Western narratives, often shaped by white, male perspectives, reinforces existing power structures, privileging certain epistemologies while devaluing others. Understanding how knowledge is acquired and recognising the methods we prioritise or dismiss, is central to challenging these inequities. Pedagogy plays a crucial role in either reinforcing or dismantling these racialised power dynamics, making it imperative for educators to embed cultural knowledge, foster a deep understanding of diversity, and develop strategies that address the individual needs of students. By actively seeking out and amplifying marginalised perspectives, we can create a more inclusive and equitable learning environment that values the contributions of all global knowledge systems.
Higher education institutions continue to operate within a Eurocentric curriculum that thrives in an elitist, neoliberal-saturated environment. This reality prompts critical internal questioning about the extent to which our educational structures reinforce existing inequalities and fail to accommodate diverse perspectives. The ongoing legacy of colonialism persists, shaping lived experiences and influencing differential outcomes that disadvantage individuals from historically marginalised backgrounds. Recognising these systemic barriers is essential to fostering a more inclusive and equitable academic space.
Educators must actively engage with the concepts of structural whiteness, privilege, and positionality, acknowledging their roles within these systems. Through meaningful allyship, colleagues of colour can be empowered, ensuring their voices are heard and valued. This requires a commitment to seeking out and critically engaging with data that highlights disparities not only within higher education but across wider society. Understanding these patterns is crucial for developing interventions that address the persistent inequalities experienced by individuals from BAME backgrounds in contrast to their White counterparts.
A key component of this work involves listening to and responding to the lived experiences and voices of people of colour. Their insights should serve as a foundation for shaping targeted interventions that tackle the complex and deeply rooted issue of racism within learning, teaching, and assessment practices. Beyond the classroom, these approaches should extend to broader institutional policies and frameworks to ensure meaningful, long-term change.
Advancing one’s practice in this area necessitates engagement with applied educational theoretical frameworks such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), the works of Paulo Freire, Frantz Fanon, and bell hooks, among others. These perspectives offer valuable tools for understanding how racism is perpetuated within educational spaces and provide guidance on teaching with real love, fostering empowerment, and supporting the most disadvantaged students.
Finally, ongoing self-reflection is crucial in this journey toward anti-racism. Educators must regularly assess their progress, critically examining their actions and their impact. By adopting a framework of internal reflection and evidencing concrete steps taken toward anti-racist practice, individuals and institutions can ensure accountability and drive meaningful transformation within higher education.
Sun City is one of the best resorts in South Africa. It borders the Pilanesberg Nature Reserve making it an ideal destination if you want to see the Big 5 while staying at a resort. It also has one of my favourite hotels in South Africa, The Palace.
RESTITUTION AND REPARATION: AFRICA AND THE POST-COLONIAL CONDITION FELLOWSHIP
The annual fellowship program themed, “Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition,” will convene scholars or practitioners interested in restitution and repatriation issues related to African art and artifacts. By fostering dialogue and research, the program aims to shed light on this critical issue and contribute to meaningful progress in returning looted artifacts to their rightful homes in Africa.
This fellowship program aligns with The Africa Institute’s broader mission to foster critical thinking and dialogue around African and African diaspora studies. By bringing diverse voices and perspectives together, the program promises to advance crucial conversations about cultural heritage, historical accountability, and the path toward a more just future.
The program will run over the course of three academic semesters, beginning September 1, 2025, and ending December 31, 2026. The fellowship program aims to host three expert fellows at different stages in their careers over a year-and-half period (Fall 2025, Spring 2026, and Fall 2026).
About Open Society Foundations
The Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, are the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights. Visit opensocietyfoundations.org for more.
Applicant Criteria
Applicants must demonstrate a clear scholarly focus on restitution, repatriation, and reparation of cultural heritage, particularly in the context of Africa and African diaspora, and the post-colonial condition. Preference will be given to scholars whose work bridges multiple disciplines or engages diverse methodologies to explore the theme. The research must be original, feasible within the fellowship duration, and impactful for ongoing and future debates around restitution and reparations. Awarded fellows are required to submit a publishable paper or chapter based on their fellowship research as part of the final publication by the end of the fellowship program.
Research Project topics may include, but are not limited to:
The historical and contemporary debates on cultural restitution and reparation
Case studies of looted artifacts, human remains, or cultural heritage
The role of Western institutions (museums, archives, universities, etc.) in perpetuating or addressing colonial legacies
Neo-nationalist policies and campaigns for repatriation and restitution
The impact of racial reparations and lessons for cultural restitution
Eligibility Criteria and Expectations
Candidates must have a minimum of a master’s degree or Ph.D. in a relevant specialization and/or area of research.
Candidates must demonstrate how their research aligns with and contributes to the broader objectives of the Open Society-funded project, including the lecture series, residential fellowships, conference, and final publication.
Fellows are expected to present their work as part of The Africa Institute’s lecture series and participate in the final conference and publication of its proceedings.
Submission Guidelines
All files must be submitted in PDF format, combined into one file, to streamline the review process. The required documents should be submitted in the below order :
Candidates must submit a detailed research proposal/letter of interest (1,500–2,000 words) outlining the abstract for the publishable paper, project goals, research questions, methodology, and intended outcomes. The proposal must articulate how their work contributes to the larger conversation on restitution, repatriation, and reparations, as framed by the synopsis
Curriculum Vitae
Two sample writings (e.g., articles and book chapters)
Two reference letters from a specialist in an area relevant to the fellowship themes and objectives
Please name the file using the residency title abbreviation and the applicant’s name in this format: Open Society_LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME. Use the same name in the email subject heading, ensure you specify the semester you are applying for, and send the PDF as an email attachment to applications@theafricainstitute.org.
Deadlines and Key Dates
April 1, 2025, for applicants interested in Fall Semester 2025 (commencement date of the fellowship is September 1, 2025)
October 1, 2025, for applicants interested in Spring Semester 2026 (commencement date of the fellowship is January 10, 2026)
April 1, 2026, for applicants interested in Fall Semester 2026 (commencement date of the fellowship is September 1, 2026)
The Department of Social Development derives its core mandate from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa:
Section 27 (1) (c) of the Constitution provides for the right of access to appropriate social assistance to those unable support themselves and their dependants.
In addition, Section 28 (1) of the Constitution sets out the rights of children with regard to appropriate care (basic nutrition, shelter, health care services and social services) and detention.
Schedule 4 of the Constitution further identifies welfare services, population development and disaster management as functional areas of concurrent national and provincial legislative competence.
The following existing laws or parts thereof, can be regarded as constituting the legislative mandate of the Department of Social Development in South Africa:
All the abovementioned laws, excluding the Welfare Laws Amendment Act, 1997 and the Advisory Board on Social Development Act, 2001 have been amended a number of times since April 1994.
Aged Persons Act, 1967
This Act provides for the protection and welfare of certain aged and debilitated persons, for the care of their interests, for the establishment and registration of certain institutions and for the accommodation and care of such persons in such institutions. The Act was amended a number of times before April 1994. Further amendments were made in November 1994 in order to, amongst others, repeal certain discriminatory provisions and in November 1998 in order to provide for the establishment of management committees for homes for the aged, to require reporting on the abuse of aged persons and to regulate the prevention of the abuse of aged persons. The Department is currently drafting a Bill on the status of older persons.
Fund-raising Act, 1978
The Fund-raising Act, 1978 that provided for control of the collection of contributions from the public and for the establishment of various relief funds was, except for the relief fund chapter thereof, repealed in 1997 by the Non-profit Organisations Act, 1997. The Department is in the process of amending the remaining part of the Act.
Social Service Professions Act, 1978
This Act, formerly known as the Social Work Act, provides for the establishment of the South Africa Council for Social Work and defines its powers and functions. The Act was amended on a number of occasions – in 1995 it provided for the establishment of the South African Interim Council for Social Work and for the rationalisation of certain laws relating to social workers that remained in force in the various areas of the national territory of the Republic. The Act was also amended in 1996 in order to make the South African Interim Council for Social Work more representative of the people of the country. The 1998 amendment established the South African Council for Social Service Professions and professional boards for social service professions.
Child Care Act, 1983
The Child Care Act, 1983 which provides for the establishment of children’s courts and the appointment of commissioners of child welfare, for the protection and welfare of certain children, for the adoption of children and for the establishment of certain institutions for the reception of children and for the treatment of children after such reception, was amended in 1996 to provide for legal representation for children and for the registration of shelters. The 1998 amendment provided for the rights of certain natural fathers where the adoption of their children born out of wedlock has been proposed and for certain notice to be given. The 1999 amendment provided for the establishment of secure care facilities and for the prohibition against the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The Department and the South African Law Commission is currently preparing new comprehensive children’s legislation.
Probation Service Act, 1991
This Act provides for the establishment and implementation of programmes aimed at the combating of crime and for the rendering of assistance to and treatment of certain persons involved in crime. A new amendment Bill has been prepared, which will be introduced in Parliament during April 2002.
Prevention and Treatment of Drug Dependency Act, 1992
This Act provides for the establishment of a Central Drug Authority, the establishment of programmes for the prevention and treatment of drug dependency, the establishment of treatment centres and hostels, the registration of institutions as treatment centres and hostels and the committal of certain persons to and their detention, treatment and training in such treatment centres or registered treatment centres. The Act was amended in 1996 to extend the application of the Act to the whole of the national territory of the Republic and in 1999 to establish the Central Drug Authority.
Social Assistance Act, 1992 and Welfare Laws Amendment Act, 1997
The Social Assistance Act, 1992 provides for the rendering of social assistance to persons, national councils and welfare organisations. The Act was amended in 1994 to further regulate the making of grants and financial awards to certain persons and bodies. In 1997 the Welfare Laws Amendment Act, 1997 amended the Social Assistance Act, 1992 in order to provide for uniformity of, equality of access to, and effective regulation, of social assistance throughout the Republic, to introduce the child-support grant, to do away with capitation grants, to abolish maintenance grants subject to the phasing out of existing maintenance grants over a period not exceeding three years, to provide for the delegation of certain powers, and to extend the application of the provisions of the Act to all areas in the Republic.
Non-profit Organisations Act, 1997
This Act repealed the Fund-raising Act, 1997, excluding the chapter, which deals with the relief funds, and provided for an environment in which nonprofit organisations can flourish. The Act also established an administrative and regulatory framework within which nonprofit organisations can conduct their affairs. The Act was amended in 2000 to effect certain textual alterations.
Advisory Board on Social Development Act, 2001
The Act provides for a national advisory structure in the social development sector with the aim of building and consolidating partnership between government and civil society and for that purpose, to establish a body to be known as the Advisory Board on Social Development.
White Paper for Social Welfare (1997)
The White Paper sets out the principles, guidelines, proposed policies and programmes for developmental social welfare in South Africa. As the primary policy document, the White Paper serves as the foundation for social welfare in the post 1994 era.
White Paper Population Policy for South Africa (1998)
The White Paper aims to promote the integration of population issues in development planning with the view to achieving sustainable human development. The Department of Social Development is responsible for monitoring population trends and for supporting national, provincial and local spheres of government through capacity building, research and information dissemination on population issues. Issued by Department of Social Development.
According to many credible studies, the Tanzania demography data about its population of people in the country includes more than 120 Tanzania tribes that are of African descent, most of whom are grouped together in large groups. As a result of the effects of rural-to-urban migration, modernity, and politics, some small tribes in Tanzania are gradually disappearing.
At the beginning of 5000 years before this era (bce), the San hunters settled in the country. The Sandawe hunters in northern Tanzania Mainland are considered to be their descendants. By 1000 years before this era (bce), agricultural and pastoral activities were introduced through the migration of the Cushite people from Ethiopia. Iraqw, Mbugu, Gorowa, and Burungi are of Ethiopian descent. Nearly 500 years ago (ce), the Bantu farmers who used iron arrived from the west and south, began to relocate or replace Sandawe hunters and collectors; meanwhile, Nailotic pastoralists invaded the area also from Southern Sudan.
Today most Tanzanians are of Bantu descent; The Sukuma – who live in the north of the country, south of Lake Victoria – form the biggest tribe in Tanzania. Other Bantu peoples include the Nyamwezi, based in the midwest region; The Hehe, who are in the highlands of the south of the country and the Haya in the northwest corner who is one of the most educated tribe inTanzania; The Chagga of the Kilimanjaro region, who live south on the slopes of mountain Kilimanjaro; and Makonde, who live in the Mtwara and Ruvuma regions of the southeast. The Nailotic people – represented by the Maasai, Arusha, Samburu, and Baraguyu – live in the northern part of central Tanzania. The Nazarenes, a very mixed and urban group, form another ione of the influential tribes of Tanzania. Most Zaramo live in the Dar es Salaam and coastal environment. The Zanaki – the smallest tribe in number – live near Musoma in the Lake Victoria area. Julius Nyerere, the founding father of the country and the first president (1962-85), came out of this group.
The list of tribes in Tanzania also include Asians and European communities in few numbers. During the colonial period, Asian migration was encouraged, and Asians dominated the domestic production trade. Originally from Gujarat in India, they form several groups: Ismāʿīlīs, Bohras, Sikhs, Punjabis, and Goans. Since independence, however, the Asian population has declined sharply due to immigration. The population of Europeans, never became large because Tanganyika was not a settlers’ colony, but was composed mainly of British, German and Greek societies. After independence, the influx of foreigners from Europe, North America, and the Japanese linked to foreign aid projects made Tanzania their temporary home.
Unlike many African countries, Tanzania does not have a single politically or culturally dominant tribe, although groups that gained Christian missionary influence and Western education during colonial times (especially Chagga and Haya) are well represented in the government sector and financialeconomy.
Zanzibar Tribes
The first Ismaili settlers of East Africa first settled in Zanzibar
There are several groups of Africans present on the islands. Indigenous Bantu groups, including the Pembas in Pemba and Hadad and Tumbatu in Zanzibar, have inherited settlers who came from Persia in the 10th century. These groups and some of the slave generation call themselves Shirazis. There is also a small area of Comoros and Somalis. Arab settlements were also established early, and intermarriage with the natives took place. The arrival of the Arabs in the 18th and 19th centuries from Oman led to the formation of a group of elites. Omani immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century were relatively wealthy. Asians form a very small number.
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The Sandawe are a small group living in north-central Tanzania in Kondo District, near the town of Kondoa, between the Mponde and Bubu rivers. The Sandawe are a small remaining group of a race of people that originally lived over much of Africa. The San, called Bushmen by the Dutch in South Africa, were the first people we know in the Rift Valley. The Sandawe are racially different from the surrounding tribes. They have lighter skin and are smaller, with knotty hair like that of the Bushmen, commonly referred to as peppercorn hair. They have the epicanthic fold of the eye lid (like East Asian people) common to the Bushmen.
The Sandawe language includes click sounds as consonants and is also tonal. Totally unrelated to other languages around them, it is difficult to learn. The language is related to the languages of the Bushmen (San) and the Hottentots (Khoi) of the southern Africa and is therefore classified as a Khoisan language. The Hadzapi, also in northern Tanzania, are the only other aboriginal people in Eastern Africa still speaking a Khoisan language.
The Sandawe are an indigenous hunter-gathering and click-speaking ethnic group of Southeast Africa, residing in the Kondoa district of Southeast Arusha in the Dodoma Region of north-central Tanzania.
They have lived predominantly between the Bubu and Mponde rivers for eons before Europeans colonized Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Sandawe population is currently estimated to be 60,000.
Location
The Sandawe people are a small group living in north central Tanzania in Kondo District, near the town of Kondoa, between the Mponde and Bubu rivers.
Identity
The Sandawe are racially different from the surrounding tribes. Whereas most of the tribes in Tanzania are Bantu people, and the nearby Maasai are Nilotic, the Sandawe speak a San language. Some Sandawe have features more like the San people of southern Africa, while others look more like their Bantu neighbours.
They have a coppery brown skin and tend to be smaller than the surrounding peoples. Photos show some Sandawe to have knotty hair like that of the Bushmen, commonly referred to as peppercorn hair. They are reported to have the epicanthic fold of the eyelid (like East Asian peoples) common to the Bushmen.
The Sandawe are a remnant of the earlier inhabitants of the area, thought to have once covered all of eastern and southern Africa. Another related people in Tanzania are the Hatsa (or Hadzapi). Some think the pygmies in Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire are related, though they now speak the Bantu language of their neighbors and have more Bantu features.
History
The Sandawe are a small remaining group of a race of people that originally lived over much of Africa. The San, called the Bushmen by the Dutch in South Africa, were the first people we know of in the Rift Valley. As they came under pressure from invading and immigrant peoples, the non-aggressive hunter-gatherers often moved away or were absorbed by intermarriage, or more often were killed off. The San as a group are considered to be the oldest human lineage in the world.
Southern Cushites then Eastern Cushites were followed by the Highland Nilotes (Kalenjin Cluster), then the early Bantu. Oral traditions of the Kikuyu of Kenya refer to the Athi (the ground people), whom the Kikuyu paid for the right to move into their land. The Athi are thought to be the original San people of the area.
Some San peoples seem to be in existence now speaking the Bantu language of their dominant neighbors. The herding and tilling of the immigrant peoples, with their metal implements and weapons, upset the Sandawe way of life and sources of food.
Language
The Sandawe language includes click sounds as consonants and is also tonal. Totally unrelated to other languages around them, it is difficult to learn. The language is related to the languages of the Bushmen (San) and Hottentots (Khoi) of southern Africa and is classified as a Khoisan language. It is considered to constitute a separate branch of the Khoisan family of languages.
The Hadzapi, also in northern Tanzania, are the only other aboriginal people in Eastern Africa still speaking a Khoisan language. Their language is also so different that it likewise constitutes aseparate branch of Khoisan. Comparative linguists theorize from comparison of the Sandawe and Hadzape languages with other San languages that the point of origin of San speech was here in Eastern Africa.
Customs
The Sandawe are known as a monogamous people, in contrast to the traditional practice of their neighbours. Some sources, however, comment that they have recently adopted polygamy from their Bantu neighbours. They have been associated with rock art that is very similar to the rock art of the southern San peoples, but with some unique features. See links at the end of this profile for more on this topic.
They have traditionally been hunters and gatherers of food, moving their portable shelters wherever there was game. In the past generation, the village-based development program of the Tanzanian central government has encouraged the Sandawe to develop a more sedentary lifestyle based on farming. Maybe one-fourth of the Sandawe have migrated to the areas around the towns of Arusha and Dodoma.
The Sandawe now own cattle and cultivate with metal hoes instead of their original wooden digging sticks, but still maintain their hunting, including pig and elephant. The men also still gather wild honey and women gather wild fruits and vegetables and dig roots with sticks.
Because of their healthy lifestyle and wide diet, the Sandawe have a much higher level of health than their Bantu neighbors. They do not suffer the kwashiorkor or other deficiency conditions of their neighbors. During the 20th century, the Sandawe have shifted from their traditional movable structures called sundu, to more solid rectangular houses of the tembe type of their Bantu neighbors.
Sandawe hold all-night dances to the music of drums in the moonlight. The Sandawe have a great musical and dance tradition, with beer-drinking at their celebrations. There are celebrations for each area of life, each with its own music: hunting, hoeing, circumcision, etc. Curing rituals have their own music. Their instruments are musical bows and a trough zither.
The elders tell the children stories of the past, conveying their history, traditions and wisdom. They also value riddles and have an art of humorous insult. In many of their traditional stories the Sandawe identify with the small animals whose cunning and intelligence gives them victory over their more powerful enemies. Men today commonly wear the Muslim brimless hat, called kofia, common to other peoples in central Tanzania.
Economy
The Sandawe are hunter-gatherers. They cultivate the soil with a mattock, fertilize with manure, and keep cattle, sheep, and goats. The men clear the land, tend the animals, and hunt, while the women do the cultivation and food gathering. The staple food is millet, supplemented with fat, milk, and butter, meat being rarely eaten.
Socio-political and Cultural practices
For some 30,000 years, archaeological evidence indicates they were the only human inhabitants of Tanzania along with Hazabes. They lived in small family groups of about 25 men, women and children. Households, each comprising a nuclear family, are organized into patrilineal exogamous clans that form the basis for autonomous local communities.
They hunted with bows and arrows tipped with deadly poison that enabled them to kill very large prey, such as giraffe and eland and even displace large carnivores from kills to scavenge flesh from the carcasses. Smaller game was caught in traps or snares. However, sixty to eighty percent of their diet consisted of a wide variety of seasonally available plant foods. Large animals required cooperative communal hunts. When one was killed, the hunter whose poisoned arrow penetrated deep enough to permit the poison to work, owned the kill. It was then his responsibility to oversee its distribution amongst the rest of the hunters and the community. Sharing and gift-giving were strongly emphasized.
Anthropologists classify them as a “band society” in which there are no elected leaders, chiefs, or spokespersons. Social determined by the general consensus of all adult or near-adult members, irrespective of sex. The status of women was relatively equal to that of men.
Many aspects of their culture show the influence of their Bantu neighbours. Their isolated wooden houses with roofs of clay are built in the lee of the wind. Their traditional clothes were of hika-grass, feathers, and hides, and the dominant cosmetic practices include shaving of hair, earlobe piercing, and face tattooing.
Marriage, which is monogamous and requires bridewealth, is forbidden with parallel cousins and preferred with the maternal uncle’s daughter. Residence is patrilocal, often after an initial period near the wife’s parents.
Religious Belief
The Sandawe believe in a Supreme being and Creator God known as Warongwe, who was so abstract, distant, and unrelated to the well-being of normal life that it was rarely prayed to or given sacrifices. Their religion consisted of a long line of ancestors and a strongly-knit extended family system that mediated between living beings and a very remote all-powerful God.
Spirits are still believed to occupy rock shelters and shallow caves in the hills and are respected and even feared. So as not to disturb these spirits, the rock shelters were avoided by all but their shamans; no animals were herded there, and no wood cut or twig broken. Once a year the Wasandawe would go to the caves to sacrifice in order to make sure the spirits would not be spiteful and interfere with the general well being. In the hills, groups of people would shout prayers to the spirits, assuring them that no one had come to disturb them, but had come to pay their respects.
These prayers were shouted as loudly as possible, to make sure that the spirits could hear them. The Sandawe show great reverence for bees, honey, and also respect for small cunning animals who outwitted larger enemies. Part human-part animal figures representing transformed shamans (called “their anthropes”) are quite common in Kondoa.
A number of cultural attributes of the Sandawe are similar to those of the southern San. This included the Sandawe girl’s puberty ritual (the phek’umo) and the southern San eland bull dance. Both rituals involved women bending over and suggestively bearing their buttocks to attract the male dancers. According to anthropologist Eric ten Raa, what the Sandawe women were in fact doing in this ritual, was re-enacting “the role of the moon in the basic creation tradition, according to which, the moon entices the sun into the sky for the first celestial copulation.
The whole rite is held under the aegis of the moon and has the explicit purpose of ‘making the country fertile.’’ It is also believed to control the fertility cycle in women. There are other Sandawe beliefs that venerate the stars and the seasons. Like the San, they also revered the praying mantis who was considered the divine messenger of god.
The Sandawe simbo rituals involves violent trance experience as well as certain beliefs and metaphors, like transformation into a lion.” The majority of Sandawe shamans induced trance (also known as altered states of consciousness) through vigorous all-night ritual dancing, sometimes lasting up to twenty-four hours, accompanied by the singing and clapping of women. Eventually the dancers suffered the effects of this activity in the form of dehydration and hyperventilation that led to stiffening of the muscles and, finally, bodily collapse. At that point, shamans are said to have left their bodies, transformed into animals and traveled to the spirit world that existed beneath and above the real world. This enabled them to acquire supernatural potency and negotiate with deities, their deceased ancestors and battle evil spirits for the benefit of their communities.
Returning to the material world with their newly acquired power, they were able to cure sickness, make rain, control the movements of game animals so their hunters could successfully ambush them, restore and maintain harmony in their communities, and perform other vital tasks. Upon recovering from trance, they painted their cosmological experiences on the walls of rock shelters.
Political Situation
The traditional living patterns of the Sandawe left them isolated from other peoples. They were pressed by immigrant groups for millennia. Into modern times they were outside the political and social mainstream. The socialist Tanzania government forced the Sandawe to limit their movement and settle down. As they lost their hunting areas, their sources of food diminished, but they found it hard to make a transition. Their experience with farming and herding has resulted in economic disaster.
Dear Dr. Spires, I’ve read the article above. In my response and for me it relates to Psychobabble, Academics and Psychologists alike declare that human experience hardly provide us with everything we WANT — not to be confused with what we NEED. Instead we are compelled by nature to compete, struggle, compromise and even fight for what we WANT. Does that justify the existence of academics, organised religion and a political state government?
Our Hottenttot Southern African Native ancestors and ancients around the world believed in an imposed governance and control to ensure happiness, prosperity and peace. When we trace the period 800BCE to 1515CE, we experience a seesaw of peace, goodness, happiness, irrationality and injustice under institutionalised academia, organised religion and governmental politics.
Confucian Ethos: If your desire as academia, organised religion or governance is for good, then your people will be good. Upon Confucius, Sun Tzu carved another trajectory, that “the art of war is vital for the continued existence of academia, organised religion and secular nation states with their institutions designed for total control and management.” The Hottentot Native tribes of Southern Africa could only get to the gates of academia, organised religion and secular nation state government politics.., yet happiness and goodness should’ve been the gate for the Hottentot San who’s now considered Intruders on their own land, and under threat from legislative ethnic cleansing by being boxed in with the “Khoi” or “Khoisan” narrative empowerd by a collusion between academia and politics.
Aristotelian Ethos: “man is by nature and academic, spiritual (not religion) and political animal”. — humans are naturally social and are drawn to academic, religious and political partnerships and associations. Should natural selection be blamed? Aristotle postulated that humans are born with weapons for the use of wisdom and virtue, but they can also be used for opposite ends. Obviously the academia, religious institution and political government of the day and age determine the pendulum of choice swinging to the extreme right, or the extreme left.
The Indian Sage Chanakya observed “that a single wheel does not move…” The political animal inherent in mankind, thus translates to the power of traction in partnerships and associations between academia, organised religion and politicians, in that many wheels shape and facilitate narratives and motions, mostly for a syphon and plunder economy.
Law and justice became a crucial component of the tapestry of the fabric of governments. Law became a blinding theme, while justice remains blindfolded. “Equal justice under academia, religion and state law is now a cliché wrapped in a metaphor and presented as a veritable psychobabble of jurisprudence.
Augustine of Hippo believed that justice in academia, organised religion and law is taken away and their overseeing principles, especially secular nation state governments are reduced to nothing more than mere robbers.” And that pigeonholes academia, organised religion and secular nation state governments as a necessary evil that can be eradicated by the will and informed prior consent of the Hottentot San in Southern Africa.
Before academia, organised religion and secular nation state governments existed, there are evidence that the Hottentot San thrived, and managed their affairs with minimum fuss. Soon organised religion in earnestly entered the race. Everything was created, and therefore there must be a creator, mused the Theologians.
War and peace entered the rat race too. Pacifists and war mongers alike clamoured for their voices be heard and their choices to be had.
The Holy Quran (English Version) encourages believers in Surah Baqarah 2:216 to defeat the enemy to please God. The enemy appears in many forms — greed, envy, anger, lying, cheating, addiction, corruption, compulrion etc.
Inner engineering opposed to social engineering is a great mechanism to shut out the enemy. The self should know best. IBN Khaldun highlighted the fact that “government, academia and organised religion prevents injustices other to such that they themselves commit. This fact is manifested and evident today in almost every level of academia, organised religion and secular nation state governments.
Awareness to devine intervention is enumerated in Surah Al Taha 20:6 of the Holy Quran (English Version); and in Vaughn CJ’s declaration that “no human authority can make lawful, what the devine authority has made unlawful.” — Thomas v Saltmarsh (1674) 124ER1098 concerning a land licence.
Saltmarsh was inspired by the Holy Bible as well — Leviticus 25:23; Psalm 24:1; Deuteronomy 19:14 and in hundreds of other passages. This postulates that permanent peace, progress and prosperity are attainable only when academic, organised religion and secular nation state government leaders unreservedly obey the word of God.
Psychobabble of academics, organised religion and notably secular nation state government politics began earnestly with the infamous dictum of Niccolo Machiavelli who haughtily declared that “a prudent ruler cannot, and must not honor his word” — this outrageous treachery and non-punishable sedition dictated the politics of our academics, organised religion and secular nation state government politicians of our Sub-Saharan continent, especially between 1652 and 2025.
A pro-active academia, spiritual well being institutions and political party governments should strictly focus on vision, mission, commission and provision without division. YWB ( Your well being) — the Peoples — is the only service expected not withstanding YAB, YB, YM and YA.
Academic, organised religion and political leaders must avoid being diseased by self-interest and ego. We should not blindly rely on Intelligence Quotient (IQ) alone, but CSQ (Common Sense Quotient) as well for all practical purposes. Psychobabble academia, organised religion and politics began between 1515 and 1848 that witnessed the birth of realism and the social contract (Thomas Hobbs); Liberalism and the rule of law ( John Locke); Republicanism and the general will (Jean-Jaque Rossow) that impelled Thomas Paine in the Americas Colonies and Jan van Riebeeck on the Hottentot Natives territories in Southern Africa; freedom and personal responsibility (Immanuel Kant); Conservatism and the academic, religious and political traditions (Edmund Burke).
All these academic, religious and political Psychobabble experiments were planned, designed and designated to determine the best course of action to exercise power and authority for themselves, by themselves. The thinkers of all these institutions were movers and shakers who was also consistently viewed as revolutionaries in their fields, especially the ones rendering the deep state relevant.
Will a moral code help? (Jose Ortega v Gasset)
Is unlimited government with the support of academia and religion preventable? (Frederick Hayek)
Is property and property rights theft? (Pierre Joseph Proudhon)
Is justice under law attainable? (John Rawls)
The administration and administrators of history, law and justice totally depend on academic, organised religion and secular nation state government will.
Mao Zedong offered the solution that defines, describes and determines the role of the pied piper: “Politics is war without bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed.”
South Africas “Khoi” or “ Khoisan” narrative, just like the secular nation state government of national unity (GNU) is relegated to lip service, spineless enforcement with a soulless exposition totally excluding the Hottentot Native tribes from their own affairs, on their own land.
This National academic, religious and political Psychobabble we are witnessing in South Africa daily, requires drastic and direct action or swift closures. No academic, religious or state government institutions are entitled to gamble with the future generations of the Hottentot San based on their own past analysis and convictions. Therefore academia and the state must and should drop their “Khoi” or “Khoisan” program, your use of the term while it’s declared unconstitutional included Dr. Spires.
Charles de Gaulle made a valuable point: “ academia, Spirituality and politics are too serious to leave in the hands of training facilities (Schools, universities and colleges), churches and nation state governments with their politicians”, especially when they are the victors of war. 🌞
While the hunters are out hunting, Blaauwkrantz will ensure that non-hunters see the area if they wish not to accompany the hunting party. Non-hunters are to pack dark khaki / camouflage clothing if they will be joining the hunting party. Day trips can be arranged for:
Shopping in Port Elizabeth
Addo National Elephant Park, 40 minutes drive from lodge, was established in 1931 to save the Eastern Cape Elephant and Cape Buffalo from extinction. Addo is now home to over 400 elephants and offers an unbeatable opportunity to view these amazing giants of Africa. Addo is also home to a large variety of birds (185 species), the black rhino, a numerous variety of buck species as well as the unique flightless dung beetle.
Various private game reserves to view the Big Five in open vehicles, situated within an hours drive from our lodge. Blaauwkrantz Safaris offers unequalled game viewing in conditions suited to the traveller.
Day trip with a private tour guide to Addo & Schotia Game Reserve includes a night drive is very worthwhile and a great photographic opportunity.
The historical town of Graaff-Reinet, 1.5 hours drive from the lodge, is situated in the middle of the Karoo Nature Reserve, and was found in 1786. You will find over 300 national monuments in Graaff-Reinet, which is more than you'll find in any other town in South Africa
Enjoy a breathtaking part of The Garden Route, where you can see mountains, indigenous forests, deep gorges, coastline of cliffs and sandy beaches. You can also view ancient yellowwood trees, fynbos plants and birdlife.
Bayworld in Port Elizabeth on the beachfront has an exceptional aquarium with daily dolphin displays, tropical house and a museum.
Port Elizabeth is in Algoa Bay and every year whales are familiar sights along the coastline which is not to be missed, sightings include the Southern Right whale, which mates and calves between July and October each year in the sheltered Algoa Bay.
The historic town of Grahamstown where, the annual arts festival attracts a wide South African and international audience. This is the home of the Xhosa people whose culture and colourful beadwork is of great interest.
One of the biggest amusement parks in Port Elizabeth is the Boardwalk. Lots of fascinating sights to see, but the main one will probably be the casino. In the boardwalk there is also a games room, shops and restaurants. After sun set the city transforms into a sea of lights and a variety of nightlife. Evening entertainment includes beachfront pubs and cocktail bars.
Visit the beautiful gardens in the area.
Visit various cheetah, lion & crocodile sanctuaries in the area
Visit a reptile & raptor center.
Elephant-back Safari in the Addo Elephant Park.
Horseriding in the Addo Elephant Park
Golfing - 10 courses within an hour's drive
Surfing - 45 minutes away
Scuba Diving - 45 minutes away
Deep Sea fishing - we offer for Yellowfin tuna. Fish between 10-85kg (20-200lbs) are the norm. There are also plenty of other game fish including Skipjack / Bonito, Dorado and even Marlin. Fishing is done at a 30-40 miles drop-off, off the continental shelf. Heavy or light tackle can be used for fishing, the choice is yours. April - July are the months when these fish are around. For those who would like to do bottom fishing, surf fishing, bass fishing or back-line trawling for Salmon and Garrick off an inflatable, is a light tackle challenge not to be missed.
Limited bird hunting is available during certain times of the year.
Beachfront Condo's & River House
We have two beachfront condos along the main beaches of Port Elizabeth, these may be made use of as pre or post safari accommodation. They are situated within walking distance of top restaurants, beaches, shopping and entertainment.
Our River House is situated on the bank's of the Sunday's River, a 3 minute drive from the southern gate to the Addo Elephant Park, we recommend this venue for long stays, 3 nights or more.
Garden Route
To complete your safari experience, we can recommend good tour guides to take our clients on guided trips along the scenic 400-mile garden route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town. Along the way clients visit the coastal town of Plettenberg Bay & Knysna, the Ostrich farms of Oudtshoorn, experience cage shark diving diving in Gansbaai and stop over in the winelands of Stellenbosch. Set aside at least 3 days for this breathtaking trip and to spend a few days seeing the sights of our magnificent mother city, including Table Mountain, the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront and the penguin colony of Cape Point.
Dr Lendy you see what my mother and Katz had in common, when she and Katz and Jaftha Taaibosch was together at Odemolen, they made a pact because Jaftha and Taaibosch had a very good relationship and Jaftha and Katz had a very good relationship, but it was politics that caused an argument between them. Katz was very bitter towards the ANC and opted to support the National Party and Jaftha was fundamentally ANC like my mother but that did not keep her from keeping the peace between them, but they had a fundamental pact.
My mother is the great, great, great granddaughter of Klaas Lukas and was always the peacekeeper amongst them that’s why none of these Korana’s that are appearing now here as royalty it was only Katz and Taaibosch that had a relationship with my mother. That is why I am in position of all those files that was handed down by my grand mother Elizabeth Oliphant to my mother and the files handed by Elisabeth’s mother Johanna Phillips was handed down to Elizabeth and those files comes from Hendrik Korana and that is the son of Klaas Lukas.
So, you see that is why my family was always in possession of the documents Dr Lendy, we did not have a childhood for all the generations since the age of twelve we were raised in the Dorop which is the transfer of generational memory thats why we know exactly the date of which who lies buried where, who was born where, because that was transfered over a period of 12 years since the age of twelve by the time you are twentytwo then you go to the Nau. So in essence that was coupled with our experience in the liberation struggle and organisation of which me and MP Wesley Douglas share a lot of experiences, but that essentially balances and it weaponises our memory with surgical and military presition in interpreting legislation.
So legislation is insufficient in the total application in securing justice or for the purpose for which is was design but the ability to amend and review legislation. We have now mastered all those arts therefore we are in the best place history could have placed us and that is the centres of memory has been preserved in Korana. Now we are digitising that codex for transfer to the next generation in our generation.
That is why I am not swayed to the left or swayed to the right I am codexing that information so that there is succession of memory in Korana, but i cant do it for everyone, I can only do it for Khoebaha Glen Taaibosch and Queen Shamida Kats and for the Transfrontier Kai Korana which is my house. The others must come and join into that symbiosis, I am not going to invite them, if they are Korana and they want to be part of this symbiosis of memory then they must come take hands with Queen Kats, Khoebaha Taaibosch and myself the Transfrontier Korana Royal Houses.
It is not exclusive but this is the way our culture have been dictating it. It is a sacret journey the gathering and transfer of generational memory in Korana.
By – Haripriya Vasudevan, Bengaluru based educator, writer and researcher
The Indian education system, while making significant strides in modern times, particularly through progressive schools like Riverside, has the potential to achieve even greater heights. Institutions such as Riverside, which emphasize Empathy, Ethics, Excellence, Elevation and Evolution, are preparing children to become change-makers with a societal impact. However, for the entire Education system as such to become truly robust and impactful, integrating the ancient Indian knowledge system (IKS) into our educational foundation is crucial. The recent National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandates the implementation of IKS in schools, a move that, although taking time to resonate widely, promises a holistic change starting from the grassroots level of education.
The Legacy and Structure of Indian Knowledge Systems
The NEP 2020 recognizes the rich heritage of ancient and eternal Indian knowledge and thought as a guiding principle. Indian Knowledge Systems encompass Jnan, Vignan, and Jeevan Darshan, which have evolved through experience, observation, experimentation, and rigorous analysis. This tradition of validating and putting knowledge into practice has historically impacted various fields, including education, arts, administration, law, justice, health, manufacturing, and commerce. Indian knowledge has been transmitted through textual, oral, and artistic traditions, influencing classical and other languages of Bharat. “Knowledge of India” thus includes ancient Indian successes and challenges, and offers insights into India’s future aspirations in education, health, environment, and all aspects of life.
In Indian philosophy, knowledge is closely connected to the three terms: darshana, jnana, and vidya. Darshana, or philosophy, represents the system or point of view that leads to jnana, knowledge. When knowledge about a particular domain is organized and systematized for reflection and pedagogy, it becomes vidya, or discipline. Indian educational tradition, primarily oral, emphasized that knowledge should be stored in the mind, facilitating memorization and oral transmission through the guru-shishya (teacher-student) mode.
Over time, knowledge in various domains has been institutionalized into numerous disciplines (vidya) and crafts (kala). These include diverse fields such as philosophy, architecture, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, sociology, economics, ethics, geography, logic, military science, agriculture, trade, metallurgy, shipbuilding, medicine, poetics, biology, and veterinary science. Despite historical losses, a continuous and cumulative series of texts remains available, reflecting uninterrupted reflection on the nature and character of knowledge in Indian tradition.
The NEP 2020 and Integration of IKS
The National Education Policy 2020 emphasizes the inclusion of IKS into curriculums at all levels of education. The National Credit Framework (NCF) has made it possible for students to earn credits in courses related to ancient Indian sciences and arts. Recognizing this heritage, the NEP highlights the need for interdisciplinary research and dissemination of IKS for societal applications.
The Indian Knowledge System (IKS) Division, established under the Ministry of Education (MoE) at AICTE, New Delhi, promotes IKS through various initiatives. These include facilitating interdisciplinary research, preserving traditional knowledge, and promoting its application across arts, literature, agriculture, sciences, engineering, technology, architecture, management, and economics. The Division also funds IKS centers in educational institutes, providing financial support to establish centers and conduct related activities. Furthermore, the IKS Internship Programme pairs students with experts to work on short research projects, providing practical experience and financial support.
While significant progress has been made in higher education institutions (HEIs), with over 8,000 HEIs incorporating IKS into their curricula, it is crucial to extend this integration to primary and middle-level education. Introducing IKS at an earlier stage will have a profound impact, as children will connect with ancient value systems during their formative years. The sooner this implementation occurs, the faster and greater the impact on students and society as a whole.
IKS aims to integrate seamlessly with contemporary knowledge rather than being preserved as a separate compartment of learning. This integration involves incorporating core IKS ideas into modern textbooks, developing Indian thought models based on IKS literature, and applying these models to modern problem-solving techniques. The process emphasizes the use of Indian languages, as translating core ideas into English often loses their essence. Balancing IKS with Indian language education is crucial for fostering high-quality research and promoting harmonious economic growth.
A Path Forward for Holistic Education
IKS fundamentally teaches how to ask questions, guiding our way of thinking through fundamental sutras. Axiomatic beliefs such as “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (the entire universe is a family) and “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah” (may all be happy) form the foundation of IKS’s worldview. Revival and reinforcement of IKS aim to integrate it with contemporary knowledge, shifting the focus from preservation to utilization. This approach will help India serve as a hub of emerging knowledge for the world.
Implementing IKS in Indian schools is an ongoing process, with significant strides made in curriculum development, teacher training, and creating practical learning opportunities. The Ministry of Education collaborates with state governments and educational boards to ensure widespread adoption of IKS. Digital platforms like SWAYAM and NPTEL deliver IKS courses online, and regional courses reflect the native cultures, traditions, and languages of different states, ensuring localized and relevant IKS education.
The integration of Indian Knowledge Systems into the Indian education system, as guided by the NEP 2020, holds the promise of a holistic, enriched learning experience. By blending ancient wisdom with modern educational practices, we can create a system that not only preserves our rich heritage but also prepares our children to be informed, innovative, and empathetic global citizens.
Remember how magical it was to visit Sun City when you were younger? There was something amazing to do regardless of age. A mega casino for the adults, the futuristic Skytrain was the coolest way to get around, the entertainment centre was heaven on earth for kids, and who can forget about the iconic Valley of the Waves? There was just nothing like Sun City.
A few weeks ago, we were surprised with an unexpected offer inviting us on an all expenses to experience the newly revamped Palace of the Lost City. Over the years, that magical feeling of visiting Sun City faded with each trip so we were curious, and even excited to see what had changed. We simply had to find out if this improved version of Sun City could reignite that sense of magic and nostalgia from the good old days...
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Dispute over Indian monument must be settled — KZN Premier Ntuli
The monument will mark the arrival of the SS Truro vessel from Madras (now Chennai), in India, carrying Indian indentured labourers.
03/03/2025
Clive Ndou 2 minutes read
KZN Premier Thami Ntuli. Photo: Supplied
The construction of a monument to honour the Indian indentured labourers, who arrived in 1860 to work in KwaZulu-Natal’s sugarcane plantations, will not go ahead unless the dispute around the design of the sculpture is settled.
This is according to KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thami Ntuli, who last year announced the approval of the monument’s design by the provincial Cabinet.
However, a dispute around the design has since erupted within the Indian community.
Ntuli said the provincial government will not give the greenlight for the construction of the monument if the dispute has not been settled.
Last year, there had been progress on engagements regarding the 1860 Indian Labourers Monument project. Respecting community participation, the government will be guided by the community on how to move forward with this important and transformative project.
“This project has been delayed by disagreements within the groups concerned; however, we hope to start construction as soon as the disagreement is resolved.”
The monument will mark the arrival of the SS Truro vessel from Madras (now Chennai), in India, carrying Indian indentured labourers to the Natal colony to work in the colony’s sugarcane fields.
While the design is yet to be made public, The Witness understands it features a bell, which during the colonial era was rung as a signal for the sugarcane field workers to either report to work or knock off.
In 2020, former Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs MEC, Ravi Pillay, was requested by then KZN premier Sihle Zikalala to facilitate consultations for the construction of the monument.
While Pillay recently told The Witness that there had been extensive consultation before the final design was presented to the provincial Cabinet for approval, some members of the Indian community claimed that the consultations were not broad enough.
The work on the design of the monument started with the establishment of a committee in 2010.
Ishwar Ramlutchman, who was one of the founding members of the committee, said a section of the Indian community was not happy with the design.
Ramlutchman, who also has the status of a Zulu Prince following his adoption by the late Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, said the overwhelming view within the Indian community was that the bell was a symbol of colonialism.
People view the bell as a colonial instrument used to control Indian and black labourers. It’s an insult to the indentured labourers.
In addition to the bell, some members of the Indian community are not happy with the overall representation of the history of the community.
By attempting to capture the history of the entire KZN province, some members of the Indian community believe the monument ended up diluting the history of the Indian community.
A sustainable future for elephants has to work alongside human social development if they’re to survive in South Africa’s rapidly changing landscape. That’s the core message of a strategy proposal issued for public discussion by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.
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14 min
What do we need to do in order for elephants and people to coexist and for both to thrive? That’s the question the National Elephant Heritage Strategy seeks to answer. Do people value them in a way that they’re going to allow elephants to share the country in which we all live? If so, how?
What we need to do, it suggests, is to look beyond the traditional management of biodiversity in isolation and consider the role of elephants in wider society. Reconstruct the fabric of land use so that people and elephants can coexist in living landscapes that interconnect to the benefit of both people and elephants.
The heritage strategy now out for public discussion attempts to answer these questions by putting a frame around what exists and projecting forward into what our relationship with elephants should be. It’s quite consciously a heritage and not a conservation strategy. We’re talking about very advanced, very complex and possibly controversial thinking.
The best person to unpack the proposal is Professor Rob Slotow of KZN University who was one of the drafters with a long history of thinking through elephant conservation and management.
Professor Rob Slotow. (Photo: Supplied)
Don Pinnock: The National Elephant Heritage Strategy is certainly generating a lot of discussion. Perhaps you could start by giving us some context. What makes this strategy different from previous approaches to elephant management in South Africa?
Rob Slotow: The way we’ve traditionally approached biodiversity management has been very biologically focused. We look at what causes increases or decreases in a species’ population, or what threatens an ecosystem. We tend to think in terms of over-harvesting or conflict. What’s missing is the broader social and political context in which biodiversity exists.
DP: So, are you saying that previous management plans have been too narrow in their focus?
RS: Exactly. If you look at the National Biodiversity Management Plans for rhinos, lions, or even cycads, they’re heavily focused on the biological aspects. They don’t adequately address the people context, the social issues that are crucial for biodiversity to persist in the modern age, although this is changing as they’re revised over time.
DP: You mentioned intangible rights, like spiritual or cultural values. How does the heritage strategy incorporate these elements, which are often overlooked in traditional management plans?
RS: That’s a key point. We recognise that there are elements of human rights and value systems that aren’t tangible in a purely biological sense. Spiritual rights, cultural rights, the intrinsic value of nature — these are all important considerations that need to be factored into management plans.
DP: In 2008 South Africa developed Norms and Standards for Elephant Management. How does the current strategy build upon or depart from that framework?
The challenge is that this framework lacked broader context. It operated in a vacuum, without addressing the broader socioecological system.
RS: The 2008 Norms and Standards were the outcome of the culling debate and a Ministerial Round Table. They provided detailed guidance for managing elephants, covering hunting, culling, contraception and translocation. However, the challenge is that this framework lacked broader context. It operated in a vacuum, without addressing the broader socioecological system.
DP: So, you’re suggesting that the 2008 framework, while detailed, didn’t provide a clear basis for decision-making when conflicting interests arise?
RS: Precisely. Every situation became a battle, with people wanting to do things and others telling them they couldn’t. There was no overarching framework to guide these decisions. Moreover, because the elephant management plans were tied to specific reserves, they tended to be isolated, failing to address the broader elephant conservation issues, and, importantly, the social context.
DP: You mentioned the need for a meta-population management plan. Could you elaborate on that?
RS: What we’re missing is a plan that connects all the elephant populations across different reserves. Instead of managing each reserve in isolation, we need to look at the national herd, considering the overall health and genetic diversity of the elephant population. This would allow for planned translocations to assist reserves where elephants are isolated from natural movement.
DP: You’ve spoken about Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), how does this fit into the bigger picture?
RS: Well, elephant range states which are parties to Cites are required to have a National African Elephant Action Plan which links to the overall African Elephant Action Plan. South Africa doesn’t have one, and the heritage strategy, combined with other elements such as the Norms and Standards and proposed National Elephant Meta-population Management Framework, will cover this in a way most suited to our unique context.
DP: The heritage strategy seems to sync with the concept of living landscapes conceptualised in the White Paper on Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s Biodiversity, the draft Revised National Biodiversity Economy Strategy and the SANParks Vision 204o. What does that mean in practical terms?
RS: “Living landscapes” refers to areas where people and biodiversity coexist. It means not confining conservation efforts to protected areas, but extending them into the broader landscape, considering the needs and concerns of local communities and the untapped potential of biodiversity on land with conservation compatible land use. It’s about access and benefit sharing, such as developing small and medium-sized enterprises in communities near wildlife properties, allowing them, for example, to benefit from tourism for which elephants are a key driver.
We already have good examples to draw on, such as Dinokeng north of Pretoria.
There are about 176 landowners comprising government land, private farms, and many smallholdings. The Gauteng government got them all together and collectively they formed a Big Five Reserve by dropping fences. There was no land expropriation. Those landowners who didn’t want to join were allowed to continue their land-use and were simply fenced out, forming islands within the broader reserve. The lions and elephants now just walk around those properties.
The capital growth has been tremendous and jobs for local people and the value of land in the area have rocketed.
DP: Are there communities actually existing with elephants, given that almost all elephants live in fenced reserves?
RS: The concept of community living with elephants is a broad one and would include communities outside fenced reserves. A lot of private reserves have relationships with surrounding communities, and most state reserves have formal linkages in that many state reserves with elephants (and some private reserves) have some form of claimant relationship with communities that once lived there.
DP: Given that almost all elephants are state, provincial or privately owned and the tourism opportunities on these properties generally have been extensively utilised, how will communities be able to benefit from elephants?
New models can provide win-win options, noting especially that the White Paper and the heritage strategy say partnerships are essential. Business as usual is not socioecologically sustainable.
RS: That is true under the current models which do not promote (one could say prevent) access and benefit flows to surrounding communities in a meaningful way. New models can provide win-win options, noting especially that the White Paper and the heritage strategy say partnerships are essential. Business as usual is not socioecologically sustainable.
DP: I guess what you’re looking at is similar to parts of places in Botswana, Namibia and Kenya.
RS: Of course. In many of those areas you have wild animals not in parks roaming around or using corridors over state land, community land and private land, often with a range of land uses. Free-roaming animals are not a new thing to Africa, it’s just that we’re no longer accustomed to it here.
DP: In those areas there’s sometimes human-elephant conflict. How does the strategy address this issue?
RS: We need to find ways for elephants and people to coexist, whether it’s through protected areas with fences or by allowing elephants to roam freely in certain areas.
In places like the Mapungubwe area or west of northern Kruger, where elephants roam widely, we need to move beyond simply culling problem animals. We need to explore alternatives, working proactively with local communities and land owners for win-win solutions.
Fenced islands, like in Dinokeng, can protect key agricultural production land with tomatoes or oranges or community villages, and local people can be employed as elephant shepherds to guide elephants away from settlements. The heritage strategy calls for African Solutions for African Opportunities.
DP: You mentioned elephants moving into northern KZN from Kruger. What’s the appropriate response in such situations?
The future of our elephants is in our hands. (Photo: Rob Slotow)
RS: The current response is often to shoot the elephants outside of protected areas. But we need to think more strategically. These elephants could be showing us where we need to create corridors for biodiversity, not just for elephants but for the dispersal and gene flow of other species and overall ecosystem health. We need to mitigate the costs for communities affected by these elephants, perhaps by fencing villages or implementing herding programmes, which is working elsewhere. Education, awareness, and capacity development for novel solutions are all critical aspects highlighted in the enablers with the heritage strategy.
DP: The comment has been made about elephants overbreeding in small reserves. Is this something that concerns you?
RS: We may have a preconceived idea of how many elephants should be in a reserve, including even for large reserves such as Kruger. This is often influenced by the fact that there were initially no elephants there. When we see numbers increasing, it naturally raises concerns. However, what we are learning is that elephants are part of the natural system and serve important ecological roles, even at high densities. It is essential that their density varies in space and time.
We find that even in small reserves there are areas of high use, and lower use, refugia where they retreat and spend time and areas in which they feel threatened and move through much more quickly, feeding less.
In other words, we shouldn’t set a number and manage for that number, but rather, the context of the reserve needs to be taken into account – what their objectives are about and what the natural system in that reserve is telling us.
DP: There was a report recently that said provincial reserves were failing to protect the biodiversity they were set up to protect, let alone create employment opportunities.
RS: It’s not necessarily true. In the context of elephants, all of the provincial reserves are doing very well in protecting their elephant populations. It is also not correct that provincial protected areas have not created jobs. Remember the heritage strategy is about new ways of thinking that aim to improve socioecological sustainability. It’s not intended as a blueprint for addressing the financial and governance sustainability of provincial reserves.
DP: Finally, what role does engagement and consultation play in the Elephant Heritage Strategy?
RS: Engagement and consultation are crucial. The strategy emphasizes the participation and influence of stakeholders, not only in the drafting process but also in the implementation of the strategy. It’s about ensuring that the people on the ground, the managers and local communities, have a stronger say in the decisions that affect them.
It’s also about a holistic approach that provides space and opportunity for different viewpoints and value systems to be considered and integrated into African solutions for African opportunities. It’s about both people and nature thriving.
DP: Rob, thanks for clarifying the key principles and aims of the strategy. It certainly represents a significant shift in how South Africa approaches elephant conservation. DM
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