First there was old Noah in his Ark, preserving all the living creatures, great and small, against extinction through the Great Flood. Then there was Mark (Solms), with his Dik Delta heritage space, preserving all the ancestral creatures and traditional herbs of the Khoe and San cultures. This time against the great flood of Forgetting associated with the ‘arrogance of the present’ in the the Now Age of the Blackberry, the e-Book and the I-pod.
First to arrive in this modern version of the Ark was the herd of fat-tailed sheep, more goat than sheep and impossible to catch, that provided meat and wool and skins to the Khoe. Then came the herd of Sanga cattle, beloved by the Khoe nomadic herders, with their distinctive hide patterns and sweeping horns, not only as providers of nourishment but also as symbols of wealth. Now, with the arrival of two young ostriches, it is the turn of the heritage of the San to be honoured. In one of the San languages the male ostrich is called !amib and the female is called !amis. (“The symbol in front of the word sounds like tasting something with your tongue against your palate. The rest of the word is sounded as in Afrikaans,” says guardian of Khoe customs, Jenny Arrison.) The ostrich played an important role in the lives of the hunter-gatherers. The eggs were used as water containers and the broken shells were shaped into beads and ornaments. The meat was cured and dried and it sustained families for many weeks.
But the ostrich is perhaps best remembered from the Ostrich Dance, in which the San men and women danced round a ceremonial fire. They imitated the way that an ostrich runs, rocking from side and side, and kicking its legs wildly out in front. (Because, you see, an ostrich’s knees bend the wrong way!)
It is thought that the dance was partly sympathetic magic, giving the hunters power over the ostrich, and partly symbolically honouring the ostrich for its practical role in the lives of the hunter-gatherers.
This dance is preserved to this day in the Riel Dances of the Western Cape, in which the dancers still imitate the movements of a running ostrich. At the last Oesfees a group of colourfully dressed Riel dancers demonstrated the intricacies of this dance. Last week, the arrival of the ostriches was suitably celebrated by another group of young Riel Dancers from the Swartland, led by school principal Chester Davids.
Next time you visit Solms-Delta don’t forget to pay homage to the ostriches and to practice their San names.
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