Khoi and San’s liberation walk comes to a ceremonial end
A LIBERATION walk spanning 1 000km concluded with participants visiting the oldest existing colonial building in South Africa, the Castle of Good Hope.
About 30 Khoi and San started their journey in Victoria West in the Karoo on February 17 and arrived in Cape Town on Wednesday.
They dedicated this year’s walk to praying for rain.
They also received water that had been blessed by an indigenous tribe from Canada and yesterday used it in private ceremonies as they moved from holding cells to other locations in the castle.
Indigenous rights activist /Namtakhob Neal Hartman Ligter said they were at the castle because it was the original symbol of oppression of the indigenous people.
“The castle was at the centre of the issue, which still plagued the indigenous people and it was still kept as a beacon of that history.
“We will visit the holding cells and torture chamber where we will perform our rituals for those souls tortured at the hands of the colonists,” said Ligter.
He said that many of the rituals were performed from transferred knowledge, but there were still limited points of reference as the Khoi and Boesman history had largely been ignored or written by whites.
For 150 years, the castle was the centre of civilian, administrative and military activity in the Cape and also the site of gruesome punishments, torture and executions, also housing a gallows.
Its dungeons served as temporary holding cells for chiefs of indigenous groups from the Cape and other regions.
One section was used as a torture chamber (Die Donkergat) and a place where people were executed.
Gillian von Langsdorff, 55, and her daughter, Tanisha La, 30, from Canada participated in the walk and said they felt welcomed and accepted since their arrival.
“I work with the indigenous people back home and there is so much similarity – almost mirror images – in terms of customs, atrocities and the struggle for recognition.
“The walk was life-changing and challenging, but was also a very healing process for all of us,” said Von Langsdorff.
La said meeting the communities along their journey from Victoria West had been eye opening and the happiness they still had despite their hardships and poverty was something that would stay with her always.
Kalahari Khomani San leader Dawid Kruiper started the Liberation Walk in 2004 and since 2013 it has become an annual event.