the richtersveld cultural and botanical landscape - SAHRA
the richtersveld cultural and botanical landscape - SAHRA
the richtersveld cultural and botanical landscape - SAHRA
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Richtersveld Cultural <strong>and</strong> Botanical L<strong>and</strong>scape World Heritage Site Nomination 63<br />
latter half of <strong>the</strong> 19thCentury, ultimately leading to <strong>the</strong> almost complete<br />
disappearance of languages <strong>and</strong> identity early in <strong>the</strong> 20 th Century.<br />
The Namas of <strong>the</strong> Richtersveld<br />
The 20 th Century was a particularly dark time in <strong>the</strong> history of South Africa. For <strong>the</strong><br />
surviving KhoiKhoi it was a period when <strong>the</strong>ir continued presence was denied by<br />
successive governments <strong>and</strong> eventually defined out of existence through its<br />
exclusion from <strong>the</strong> apar<strong>the</strong>id panoply of races <strong>and</strong> active suppression by being<br />
subsumed into <strong>the</strong> ‘Coloured’ racial category, a classification created for people of<br />
mixed descent. In <strong>the</strong> 20 th Century South Africans of all backgrounds were<br />
educated to believe that <strong>the</strong> KhoiKhoi were extinct surviving only as a proportion of<br />
<strong>the</strong> origins of <strong>the</strong> Coloured community, <strong>and</strong> at that a percentage that most<br />
descendants of <strong>the</strong> KhoiKhoi were encouraged to deny as <strong>the</strong> authorities sought to<br />
ensure that yet ano<strong>the</strong>r racial identity did not surface to complicate an already<br />
unwieldy ideology.<br />
Notwithst<strong>and</strong>ing <strong>the</strong> 20 th Century experience, <strong>the</strong> post-liberation period (since 1994)<br />
has seen <strong>the</strong> re-emergence of KhoiKhoi identity amongst so-called coloured people<br />
many of whom are showing an interest in rediscovery of roots in <strong>the</strong> pre-colonial<br />
indigenous communities of Sou<strong>the</strong>rn Africa. It has also seen <strong>the</strong> re-emergence of<br />
<strong>the</strong> Nama, <strong>the</strong> last of <strong>the</strong> KhoiKhoi who still live <strong>and</strong> practice <strong>the</strong>ir culture along <strong>the</strong><br />
west coast Africa.<br />
The home of <strong>the</strong> Nama is an undefined region that lies along <strong>the</strong> west coast of<br />
Africa stretching inl<strong>and</strong> to well above <strong>the</strong> continent’s western escarpment. It<br />
includes <strong>the</strong> north-western parts of both <strong>the</strong> Western <strong>and</strong> Nor<strong>the</strong>rn Cape Provinces<br />
of South Africa, referred to in <strong>the</strong> vernacular as Namaqual<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> much of<br />
sou<strong>the</strong>rn Namibia. Some older maps show ‘Greater’ Namaqual<strong>and</strong> to be an area<br />
straddling <strong>the</strong> border of Namibia <strong>and</strong> South Africa, while ‘Smaller’ Namaqual<strong>and</strong> is<br />
confined to <strong>the</strong> South African side. It is a beautiful, but inhospitable l<strong>and</strong> with a<br />
rough terrain <strong>and</strong> unpredictable climate <strong>and</strong> vast, unpopulated areas.