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2 Karoo People and Places M y visits to Reinet House (the Graaff-Reinet museum) began in mid2004 and continued throughout (and after) my fieldwork research period. The prevailing post-apartheid political climate meant that the museum experienced a complex transitional phase at the time and needed to “transform” its exhibitions and their accompanying narratives to address the silences engineered by the previous regime.1 Two incidents that occurred during the period of my visits remain prominent in my memory. In June 2005, during the planning phase of a proposed exhibition on slavery in the Eastern Cape, I remember talking to Anziske Kayster about the challenges involved. “It’s so difficult,” she said, “because museums have traditionally relied on objects to display and for an exhibition like this, we don’t have any objects.” Nonetheless, the staff at Reinet House persisted in their endeavors and compiled a successful traveling exhibition, “Slavery and the long road to restitution ,” which featured little-known information on this chapter of South African history. The exhibition received national media attention and credit for its firm commitment to transformation in post-apartheid museum displays. The second incident occurred one morning in December 2006 when I arrived at Reinet House to visit the staff. Jessie Gouws was at her usual place at the reception desk but I sensed a tension in her voice as she spoke in rapid Afrikaans to her colleague, Denise van Wyk. “Is everything all right?” I inquired. “You know the rhino horn that used to stand in the display case in this corner?” she asked. “Well, it was stolen last night. I just can’t believe it,” she continued, “such a valuable object being sold on the street for muti. . . . ”2 24 Karoo People and Places Jessie’s obvious distress at the loss of this item reveals her acknowledgment of the museum’s existing (white people’s) historical narrative. The material available for sale at Reinet House and other tourist sites overwhelmingly favors the founding of Graaff-Reinet as a frontier outpost, the various (white) leaders and magistrates, the Dutch-speaking farmers’ defiant declaration of Graaff-Reinet as a republic independent from British rule (1795–96), and the strategic role played by Graaff-Reinet in the Anglo-Boer War (1899– 1902).3 This narrative faithfully follows Graaff-Reinet from its very humble beginnings more than two hundred years ago and survives in the present day to provide much of interest for local and international tourists alike. Yet, the staff’s successful completion of the slavery exhibition with its introduction of stories from previously marginalized groups also shows a commitment to balancing the historical record. The challenge I faced in the context of my research is similar to that experienced by Anziske, Jessie, and Denise, namely, how to best narrate the story of the coloured community in Graaff-Reinet despite the existence of well-entrenched historical biases and, often as a direct result, a lack of accessible information. Writing a history of Karoo people and places in this setting is thus a very difficult proposition and raises complex questions, for example, where in time should the narrative begin? In other words, does one start with the colonial encounter or with archaeological evidence and precolonial history? How is it possible to tell the story of people who rarely featured in historical records due to the complete lack of interest shown by colonial officials (Elphick 1985, 148)? How can twenty-first-century writers interpret the limited oral history of that period when its narrators are no longer alive and the written record most likely contains further distortions by those in power? Historians usually encounter such problems to a greater or lesser extent, and fortunately, South African historians have already grappled with many of these questions. I thus rely on the insights and richly detailed work of important writers in this field, particularly those focused on the Eastern Cape region and its historical actors. What follows, therefore, is an attempt to frame and deliver a counternarrative of the people and place of Graaff-Reinet that intends to provide sufficient historical background for the musical focus of this book. Of Karoo Frontiers and Seams In his work on the Xhosa people in the eastern Cape region, Noël Mostert states, “The wars and the moral struggle on the Cape frontier provided the main formative experience of South Africa” (1992, xvii–xviii). The nine wars that took place between 1778 and 1878 on the eastern Cape frontier suggest a...

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