the richtersveld cultural and botanical landscape - SAHRA

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Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape World Heritage Site Nomination 51 The Nama also have a strong crafts tradition of which hut building and mat making is only a part. Known in the past for their leather clothing and other articles, leather work is one area in which they still manufacture artefacts. Others include textile printing which uses motifs taken from rock art and the environment. Traditional clothing, still worn by women on festive occasion consists of patchwork which is believed to have developed from the tradition of sewing together pieces of leather to create the karos, the large leather cloak of past times. Tanie Sana and Oom Willem who together continue the transhumance lifestyle Music and dance forms of the Nama, first mentioned by 17 th Century Dutch East India Company (VOC) expeditions to Namaqualand (the northwestern region of South Africa), are also undergoing a renaissance. Contemporary folk music played on modern instruments, principally acoustic guitar and harmonica, and usually sung in Afrikaans, still reflects the rhythm and tone of the past when Nama dancers did a similar shuffle to what is today called the ‘stapdans’ to the tune of instruments which are believed to have been similar to the didgeridoo or Andean pipes. These traditions are also tied to the land and reflect ancient ways of pre-Christian worship. Their perpetuation depends upon the continuation of the people’s way of life and continued movement with the seasons and in the period since South African democracy in 1994 both music and dance have seen an upsurge in practice and are now encouraged in schools. The Richtersveld Heritage Project funded by
Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape World Heritage Site Nomination 52 NORAD under the auspices of the Department of Environment and Tourism (DEA&T) has generated further enthusiasm through the production of videos on music and dancing and by providing study tours and training for selected field workers 4 . Crafts and an annual cultural festival in Port Nolloth are being encouraged by the government and have for the past several years received funding from the ‘Investing in Culture’ programme of the Department of Arts & Culture. Dancers and musicians from the Richtersveld regularly participate in national festivals and have travelled internationally. The “Nama Step” Dance 2.a.viii. The |Haru Oms (please refer to Appendix C for a full report on the traditional Nama architecture in the Richtersveld) The |haru oms, literally ‘rush mat house’, also commonly known by its Afrikaans name matjieshut or matjieshuis (little mat hut), is the single major physically identifiable cultural feature of the Richtersveld. The Richtersveld Community Conservancy and its surroundings is the only place where this structure is still built in substantial quantities although it can still be seen in places to the south of the Conservancy, around Steinkopf, Kommagas and Leliefontein, although in a form that varies considerably from the original. It is no longer used commonly by Nama 4 The Heritage Project also funded a video to be shown at the World Parks Congress in Durban in 2003 that has helped to finalise the rolling out of funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), directed mostly at preserving the unqiue biological heritage of the Conservancy.
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the richtersveld cultural and botanical landscape - SAHRA

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