The losses brought about by gain

Sandy Grant | Wednesday October 19, 2016 18:22

 

Diamonds enabled the poverty of the past to be partly shed and great wealth to be spread throughout large swathes of society. The past was laid to rest and with it many societal norms.

Headmen, key figures of the past, appear to have disappeared with many now being styled kgosi. Having been abandoned for reasons which eludes me, Dikgafela has been resurrected as a means of artificially show casing the culture of the past.  The rondavel is very much an endangered species.

The beautifully decorated malwapa, is to all intents, a gonner whilst the magnificent clay bathysphere granaries are demolished, one by one with today, no one being bothered to make new ones.  The ox wagon, together with trained trek oxen and the blacksmiths who kept the wagons in repair and moving, have completely disappeared. Numerous  rural skills of the past have lost traction and slipped away.

Thatchers used to be two a penny. How many are now left?   But then how many women today know how to collect boloko, not with spades but by hand, folding it bit by bit to make a small parcel?  But with the arrival of the mass produced plastic product, the entire genre of the home made domestic utensils, and the knowledge involved, was wiped out almost overnight.   Every community in the country made clay pots each one being of a distinctive style. Presumably knowledge about these stylistic differences, has already been lost.

Stamping sorghum with kika and motshe has gone forever.

If anyone today still makes kaffir beer, as it used to be called, they are likely to be few in number. Groups of women and children gathered around standpipes are no longer to be seen.

Also gone are the women carrying incredibly heavy buckets of water on their heads with practiced ease.

 Once a standard item for travellers by road, the water bag invariably suspended in the front of a truck, is now never seen. Presumably it has been replaced by the cool box.

Paraffin and gas lamps, the old Tilley lamp, are now rarely used. When electric power arrived, the old hand operated petrol pumps fell out of use, as did the cranked telephone handset.

Many of the old ward cattle kraals, the masaka, have disappeared.

Clothing has dramatically changed. The favoured dull colours, of the past, not least, khaki, have been replaced by the brighter hues and the wear that was intended by the women of yesteryear to cover, is now designed to reveal.

Hats for men, of whatever type, have gone out of fashion whilst the old men wearing army great coats appear to have disappeared. 

It is no longer a norm to see school children without shoes whilst the past practice of leaving doors unlocked is something that younger generations are unlikely to credit.