Heritage Cases

It is argued that the current dominant neo-Imperialist heritage ideology is disadvantageous to some South African culture groups—the Griqua, a Khoe KhoiSan people, being the case at hand. Fervent neo-Imperialist ideological support from both academia and the public sector, based on its perceived restitutive and inclusive qualities, is evidenced by staunch resistance to anyone opposing the ideology. But the neo-Imperialist idiom—like its predecessor, Imperialism—is underscored by missionary inspired cultural and historical constructs of the British Colonial Period when it was used by the then Cape government for socio-political purposes. These histories are often contrary to and promoted at the expense of impartial heritage research. Calls by KhoiSan groups—including Griqua sections—for a more holistic, integrated, and peoples centred approach to their histories have, to date, largely been ignored. Popular and publicly available Griqua history centres on a seventeenth to eighteenth century mixed-race origin of them between indigenous Khoe and White settler groups at the Cape. But this version of history is contrary to that held by many Griquas, and at least some heritage specialists. Cavazzi and Labat (1732) describe a Giaques homeland cited in the Congo / provincial regions of the Kingdom of Monoemugi, that was invaded and conquered between the years 1491–1592. They follow a subjugated and incorporated section of the Giaques—the Giaques Cassange—to Angola, where they subsequently settled with their original conquerors, the Muzimba / Chilomba. In 1648 the Giaques Cassange and other culture groups were consulted by appointed Portuguese ambassadors in an attempt to bring them into the Christian fold. The history thus recorded leaves to question the fate of Giaques / Griquas survivors of the said Muzimba, and inferred later disputes and conquests, and with direct reference to the Giaques ou Galles / Galies recorded residing toward the north-east of the greater Okavango region by Pierre du Val, Cafrerie et Monomtapa, circa. 1663. The above-mentioned alludes to a fairly recent and reasonably reconstructable Griqua history; it, however, designates the Giaques / Griquas as a people with an origin northward of South Africa and is, thus, directly contrary to the Imperialist and neo-Imperialist constructs of Griqua history. It is suggested that the South African Griqua are the descendants of displaced survivors of possibly various invasive wars further north in Africa, starting with the Muzimba conquest of their homeland; expulsed and dispossessed Giaques / Griquas fled mainly southward and south-westward, where they were encountered by the missionaries, residing in and near the Cape Colony’s interior border regions in the nineteenth century. South African Griquas, at present, mainly reside in the Northern, Western, and Eastern Cape provinces. The post-1994 democratic emphasis on the neo-Imperialist ideology resulted in the Griqua being denied investigation into and access to their more distant history, negatively impacting not only on their heritage but also their human rights. It is, thus, requested that SAHRA / the relevant provincial heritage resources authorities (PHRAs) initiate(s) an impartial research program into their history to afford them their rightful place in the broader southern African historical and heritage cultural arenas.