Khoi chief’s spirit to be brought home
A DELEGATION comprising Khoi chiefs and members of the Eastern Cape Legislature will travel more than 10 000km to Australia for the spiritual repatriation of Khoi Chief Dawid Stuurman.
MPL Christian Martin said that during the delegation’s June 10 to 15 visit the official business would be to repatriate Stuurman’s spirit.
Martin said he was excited that the project he had championed since 2013 was nearing finality.
“Remember, I made a vow and I will have my hair cut immediately after Stuurman’s spirit has been laid to rest.”
While in Australia, the delegation will also meet progressive Aboriginal cultural groups to share ideas on spiritual repatriation.
Martin said traditional healers would be part of the delegation, to lead the ceremony, as well as Khoi chiefs and members of the Stuurman family.
Branches of local trees would be used for traditional ritual purposes in the spiritual repatriation, including the umphafa tree which the delegation would take to Australia.
A permit had been received from the Australian authorities, and a phytosanitary certificate had been granted by scientists from the local agriculture department, he said.
The spiritual repatriation will be conducted through traditional rituals at Sydney’s Central Railway Station on June 13 and the delegation would return home on June 14. Stuurman’s spirit would be laid to rest in a ceremony at the Sarah Baartman Heritage Centre in Hankey on Youth Day, June 16.
“This is aimed at healing the wounds of the past and allowing the Stuurman family and the Khoi community to find closure,” Martin said.
Stuurman was a Khoi chief who was also a political activist. He was one of the few people known to have successfully escaped – more than once – from Robben Island, where he was incarcerated for his persistent fight against colonialism as early as 1808.
Born in 1773 near Gamtoos River, Stuurman was a leader of the Khoikhoi people in the Eastern Cape.
“The history of Stuurman and [Xhosa prophet] Makana is closely linked,” Martin said.
“Stuurman was part of the group that accompanied Makana when he escaped from Robben Island, when Makana drowned.
“Because Stuurman had shown leniency towards some of the colonists at the time of the escape, he was sentenced to see his comrades executed and then exiled to Australia, where he later died.”
Stuurman was reported to have been buried at a cemetery near to where Sydney’s Central Railway Station now stands.
His remains were later exhumed and reburied in a mass grave in another cemetery in Sydney that now forms part of the Memorial Park.