Khoisan focus on healing, restoration

Members of the Cochoqua Khoisan community celebrated Heritage Day in Chatsworth.

The Cochoqua Khoisan community, based in Retreat and the greater southern suburbs, hosted a Heritage Day event focusing on healing and restoration in the Khoisan community.

It was held in Chatsworth, near Malmesbury on Heritage Day, Friday September 24.

Shirley Marinus, secretary of the Cochoqua Khoisan Community Forum said the Cochoqua Khoisan community, which is part of the national Khoisan Council, serves the entire Western Cape and that members from all over the Western Cape were bused in to Chatsworth for the event.

Ms Marinus said most of the activities took place on an open field and people were welcome to move in and out of the proceedings without being a health risk to each other.

“A children’s group of drum majorettes marched the streets of Chatsworth to announce the opening. Children also participated in indigenous games such as drie blikkies, kennetjie, hokkies and skipping rope, games which had been played in the Khoisan communities for decades in the past.”

Ms Marinus said more than 400 children and adults had been treated to Khoisan dishes made over open fires. “Watermelon preserves on roosterbrood, waterblommetjie bredie, beetroot salad to name but a few, were of the many dishes fed at the event.”

She said the healing ceremony was a spiritual cleansing of past hurt and trauma left addressed over the years.

“The Khoisan people, who are the first nation of this country have been oppressed and marginalised almost to the brink of extinction due to more than 360 years of colonialism and Apartheid of all ruling governments in the country. Today our people are unemployed and many forced to live a life of poverty, drug abuse, violence, and gangsterism. It is time for healing and revival in the Khoisan communities,” said Ms Marinus.

For more information about the Cochoqua Khoisan community contact Ms Marinus at 074 535 4321.