*Historic tombstone unveiling set to spotlight Khoi-San heritage
The unveiling of Gaoberekwe Pitseng’s tombstone scheduled for International Human Rights Day on December 10th is expected to thrust the remote Metsiamanong settlement onto the global stage.
This is according to South African Khoi-San Prince and cultural Ambassador, Malatsi Siwa.
Siwa is a youth leader, cultural activist, artist, motivational speaker, and holds the title of the Continental Cultural Heritage and Peace Emperor.
In an exclusive interview with this publication, Siwa said he was mobilising companies and individuals to make the event a success and wants to subsequently hold annual events to resuscitate the Khoi-San culture and take it to the world.
His wish for the ceremony is to build decent structures for visitors attending the ceremony, including Starlink Wi-Fi, display of artistry and solar lights for those living around the monument.
“I came here to Botswana to bury Ntate Pitseng in 2024, and I was really inspired by President Boko and his strong belief in human rights. But I have realized that the Basarwa or Bakhwe communities depend on handouts and do not benefit from the people who come here to take their stories for sale elsewhere. Being Khoi-San and having travelled the world as a performer I know that rural and underdeveloped communities can benefit from telling their stories,” he said.
His broader plan includes circuses, cultural festivals, mobile village theatres where tourists can come and learn about the Khoi-San and their culture anywhere in the world.
He said that the Khoi-San still want to practice their ancestral lifestyle, but modernisation makes it difficult for them to do so.
He said that the Khoi-San are found in many parts of Africa including in West Africa, Middle East, and the Americas.
“This mobile village theatre will enable the tourists to learn about the original Khoi-San food, dance, and we will also train our youngsters to do rock paintings, and perform acrobatics since they have body physique similar to that of the Asians. They can do all these things with ease and they can run long distances, among other traits. We will also introduce spiritual tourism, to showcase that Khoi-San are the first people to occupy this world and it will also help us restore ourselves spiritually,” he said.
Siwa also further shared a spiritual perspective on the burial of Pitseng after three years in a mortuary, which he believes brought “closure to many bad things that were going to happen to the country”.
He claimed he personally “fetched Pitseng’s spirit” and moved it to the CKGR for it to rest, with his ancestors on their land.
“Indeed we are spiritual people and we can perform miracles such as disappearance of an individual. We live side by side with our animals, and we don’t kill for commercial purposes, but for food only,” he said.
Siwa dismissed the notion that the San community will finish all the animals if allowed to continue with their nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, saying other tribes in the SADC region co-exist with wild animals and use them for rituals.
Pitseng’s grave is located over 200km from Gantsi into the CKGR away from the nearest tarred road, and Siwa hopes that representatives from neighbouring countries will attend the unveiling.
