Why Cape Herstoriographies Matter
By June Bam
In a bold and fascinating narrative, June Bam presents a history of the imposition of history and the suppression of knowledge. She considers the voices that have been left out of the official history of our deep pasts and how this omission has impacted on our knowledge of South Africa’s pasts.
What can the interpretations of the plants, rituals and knowledge of the cosmologies tell us about the ongoing link between a pre-colonial past (often assumed to be of an extinct people) and indigenous identities in an integrated South African present?
Ausi Told Me: Why Cape Herstoriographies Matter provides fascinating insights into life at the Cape over several centuries, the indigenous inhabitants and their accumulated knowledge, and how attempts were made to systematically erase this knowledge during the colonial and apartheid eras.
Yet the wisdom of the ages still resides with the Ausidi, the female, intergenerational knowledge-keepers who are revered for the central role they played in Rondevlei, Hardevlei and other communities on the Cape Flats before the forced removals from the 1960s onwards changed the landscape forever.
The book delves into many of the untold stories of the Cape, challenging various scholarly assumptions about the origins and enduring influence of the Khoi and San in the languages and cultures of southern Africa.
History is not unassailable
The meticulously well-researched text is also skilfully interwoven with stories from current and former residents of the Cape Flats who speak candidly about their childhood experiences, the vast expanses of plants and flowers that used to more than satisfy local communities’ food and medicinal requirements, and the Ausidi – the formidable yet selfless family matriarchs, many of whom refused to be cowed by the apartheid regime’s forced removal policy and fought to protect their cherished livestock and land.
Ausi Told Me: Why Cape Herstoriographies Matter serves as a reminder that popular history is not unassailable; it should be regularly questioned and, where necessary, challenged.
The book makes a powerful case for a decolonised approach to exploring and interpreting southern Africa’s neglected past – in which the stories, dreams, visions and rituals passed down through the generations are recognised once more as critical sources of scholarly knowledge and physical and emotional wellbeing.
Ausis (first-born women knowledge keepers in the Cape) were and continue to be profound intergenerational knowledge holders of these pasts and this book challenges absences and assumptions about the Cape Flats and surrounds.
“Our history did not start in 1488. People moved past this point long before Diaz. Look at the evidence in pathways, mountains, the landscape, of travels and migrations before 1488. They are in our languages. How our cattle came about. Huge horned cattle. […] The Chinese marked in places even here in South Africa of where they were. We want to see that.”
– Jaypee Phillips, Mossel Bay Khoi activist
About the author
June Bam heads the San and Khoi Unit at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town. She leads on !Gâ re – Rangatiratanga – Dadirri, with fellow indigenous scholars of the Worldwide University Network and has been visiting professor with Stanford University’s overseas programme (2014–2020).
She has co-edited Whose History Counts (2018) and Indigenous Women Re-interpret Southern Africa’s Pasts (2021). Her previous collaborative work, Turning Points in History, won the UNESCO Peace Education Prize for South Africa (2008).
- PUBLISHER | Jacana Media |
- ISBN | 9781776345847 |
- Recommended Retail Price | R300.00 |
- Classification | Historical Memoir |
