You cannot travel on the path before you have become the path itself – Gautama Buddha
A range of mountains – behind it others – there is no limit to the view. The Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape –
Great edifices of jagged black rock – weathered and carved – float on shimmering heat waves. Above, scribbles of cirrus sail across the sky – chased by a crescendo of timeless winds. This is Die Verdwaalwereld – The World of Disappearing – the land God created in anger.
Absence and Illusion
Absence defines the desert, absence and illusion. The seeming absence of water, shelter and life; of colour, sound and the boundaries of space and time. Perhaps it is the illusion of absence, like a blank canvas, that so fires the imagination. ‘Man was born to the desert, in
Life appears improbable – yet myriad species use remarkable survival tactics to defy a land of extremes. The richest variety of succulents on the planet are found here – most endemic – nourished by the mighty !ariep River (Orange River), a few millimetres of rain a year and fog from the nearby Atlantic Ocean that washes over the mountains through winter. The region, principally to protect this unique flora, was earmarked as a national park in 1972.
The
But, when the vision of gnarled beauty begins to fade, the vivid memory of its people – the smells of food cooking, the sad twang of a guitar, the laughter, the complex clicks of their language – will continue to bring a tear of joy to even the hardiest eye. The plants, the rare wildlife, the majestic scenery are the reasons, rightly, for the park’s existence – but its people define it. It is, simply, a living national heritage.
Hunter-gatherers
Despite the stark landscape, research has shown that people have lived in the Richtersveld for at least 3 000 years. The earliest inhabitants were Southern San hunter-gatherers who moved seasonally between the mountains and the plains.
The !ariep was of crucial importance to them – evidenced by scatters of stone tools, broken pieces of pottery and ostrich eggshell beads found on its banks. These people left little mark of their occupation other than petroglyph images of their trance induced visions visible on many rock engravings in the Bloedrif, Helskloof and Sendelingsdrif areas.
Pastoralist Khoekhoe
The first pastoralist Khoekhoe entered the region some 2 000 years ago from
Living in groups, under the leadership of captains, they were continually on the move – searching for pastures in a parched land. These hardy people sustained themselves on hunted game and a wide variety of unlikely foodstuffs and medicines derived from indigenous flora. This diet was further supplemented with meat and milk from domestic stock as well as fish from the !ariep.
The Great Chief, Tsui/Goab, was the bringer of rain; Heitsi Eibib, the mystical hero, foretold their future; //Gaunab inflicted sickness, death, misery; and the Great Snake, with a sparkling diamond embedded in its forehead, was the !ariep siren. Theirs was a complex culture – brought to life by actors, singers, poets and dancers.
Nature & Culture
Nature and culture were complimentary and cultural identity was strongly related to the natural environment. ‘To survive at all,’ wrote Chatwin, ‘the desert dweller must develop a prodigious sense of orientation. He must forever be naming, sifting, comparing a thousand different “signs” – the tracks of a dung beetle or the ripples of a dune – to tell him where he is; where the others are; where rain has fallen; where the next meal is coming from; where if plant X is in flower plant Y will be in berry and so on.’
And all this gathered information was translated into rich oral tradition and passed from one generation to the next – and it was not just survival lore but a joyous celebration of the bounties of earth.
Paramouncy of Women
One of the unique features of Nama culture, one that is a lesson to all, is the paramount position of women in society. They give life – they receive respect. She feeds, teaches, heals; she is the architect of their mat huts (matjieshuise) – picking and braiding reeds into mats and shaping the scaffolding poles; and, most importantly, she maintains the fabric of society.
She can own and inherit stock – buy and sell on her own initiative. When a girl is born it is time for celebration and when she reaches puberty she is initiated into womanhood. Beware if a girl does not undergo this ritual – the surrounding veld will be rendered barren. And when a boy is born – well, nothing to really celebrate.
Colonial Genocide
Then came the colonists and reverend imperialists. With them came genocide – physical and cultural. Those that colonists did not kill with guns or smallpox – the preachers tried to convert from their ways.
Captain Robert Gordon, in 1779, was the first European to visit the Richtersveld – renaming the !ariep the
Arrival of Trekboers
The missionaries, however, developed more permanent settlements which consisted of central mission villages with surrounding occupation areas. Further encroachment began with the arrival of trekboers. Initially it appears the Nama and settlers moved side-by-side from pasture to pasture.
Later, land was privatised and apportioned to Europeans – an act that contributed directly to the impoverishment of the Nama. And as they lost their land so they slowly began to loose access to it. By the 1940’s pressure for land had built so much that farm owners were reluctant to allow the Nama, particularly those with large herds, to use their land – thus denying them access to grazing and medicinal plant resources.
The soon to be enacted Group Areas Act only exacerbated the situation. It was into this intolerable situation – where more and more people were being squeezed into ever diminishing lands – that the Bosluis-Basters arrived in 1949.
An Unholy Act
In 1903 a group of nomadic Christian Basters in the Pofadder district were barred from worshipping in white churches. This unholy act – other than denying the community the rights of Christian marriage and burial – led to spiritual impoverishment and increased illiteracy.
In 1927 a white farmer married to a coloured made available a tract of land on the farm Bosluis where they built a church and settled – becoming known as the Bosluis Basters. With the advent of formalised apartheid they were deprived of this property and forced to pack their meagre possessions on their donkey carts and trek to the Richtersveld – deemed uninhabitable – where they settled at Eksteenfontein.
Whipped for Speaking Nama
And as the Nama of the Richtersveld lost touch with the world they knew and valued so their way of life was attacked. The discovery of alluvial diamonds on the banks of the !ariep heralded their introduction to the cash economy – with further devastating consequences to their lifestyle.
Other threats were as real, but more insidious. Stories abound of schoolchildren being whipped for speaking Nama – the language of instruction being Afrikaans. With each stroke their history and collective memory was erased. Fortunately the flame of their culture and identity burnt too strongly to be doused.
When the National Parks Board (NPB), as it was then called, entered the scene in 1972 it appeared they would add to the Namas problems. Not even the most insanely optimistic could have foretold that the end result would be the establishment of one of the most beneficial partnerships between parks and people – a model for the future.
Beneficial Partnership
There is no doubt that the Richtersveld deserves the highest level of protection. Nor were the Nama opposed in principle to the concept of a national park – but, unthinkable at the time, they wanted to retain access to it for traditional purposes.
Negotiations are usually slow affairs with the Nama who do not make decisions without the consensus of the entire community – a process too ponderous for the authorities. NPB attempted a shortcut by only negotiating with certain sectors of the community and generally making promises they could not keep. They even acquired a tract of land to which the Nama could be moved.
Militant Resistance
Numerous court applications and militant resistance followed. In 1989 the NPB threw the rule book out the window and within a month were in direct negotiations with the entire community. The
In terms of the agreement the diamond companies stayed, with the understanding that the land being mined would be rehabilitated and revert to the park when the gems played out – in reality, while a distraction, only 10 000 hectares of the 162 000ha park are covered by mining leases and only 500 directly affected.
Richtersveld Community Trust
The Nama stayed too. In fact they became the landlords of the
‘Finding a place for indigenous people in national parks,’ commented ethnobotanist Fiona Archer, ‘averted the double tragedy of loss of an unique ecosystem and an unique culture.’
Compromise Conservation
Essentially the agreement reached maintained Nama access to the park for limited grazing, customary plant use and the gathering of honey and firewood. But, most importantly, it represented one of the finest examples of how conservation can benefit from a compromise between private interests, the interests of a local community and national interests.
The park embodies the spirit of the idea that we all ultimately want to conserve the same things.
