Our heritage [by Sandy Grant]

2709,Sandy Grant,php13A2.tmp.jpg,2013/october/01,2013-10-01 09:30:00, | Friday May 30, 2014 00:00

The duiker, after all, has been beautifully crafted, is very elegant and has been admired by many hundreds of people over a long period of time.

On the other hand, there will be those who insist that it is inappropriate to talk about a work of art on what is indubitably, a grave. No part of a grave, it may be claimed, can be regarded as a work of art.

It may be for this reason that the Serowe kgotla informs visitors that whilst they are welcome to take photos of the view of Serowe, they may not take photos of any of the graves, duiker or no duiker.

A grave is a grave. Full stop. It may be, therefore, that it (the kgotla) may feel that making public information about the duiker can only have the effect of increasing interest in it - which would be unwelcome and unhelpful.

The problem is that this duiker is a monument of major national importance.

The country possess only few monuments of any kind which date back to that period and in terms of artistry, the duiker is one of a kind, it stands on its own as a work of great distinction.

In those terms, it is important that we know as much as possible about it. Who made it? Who commissioned it?

How was the artist identified? How much did it cost and how was it transported to Serowe and erected?

It may come as a surprise to learn that the duiker was made by a Dutch immigrant to South Africa, Anton van Wouw,  and that it should have cost, £850 delivered, please note, to Mafikeng, not Serowe.

Van Wouw   was regarded in South Africa as the most pre-eminent sculptor of his day and if Sekgoma, on behalf of the tribe, wanted only the best that was available, he certainly got it.

Van Wouw was indeed the best.  But the process of getting it made and then getting it to Serowe proved to be a story of its own.

Van Wouw may have made the plaster design but this had then to be shipped to England for bronze casting, shipped back, railed to Mafikeng and then Palapye and then taken from there to Serowe by ox wagon. Getting it up the hill, with out mishap, and then erecting it, must have been another story, on its own.

For more information see Kutlwano July 2011