Pretoria - It is not everyday that one delves into the thorny subject of claims relating to land stolen by colonisers from the original owners.
However, retired journalist Nthele Motsepe digs deep into this painful and emotive subject in his debut book, Mapungubwe Relics.
The book narrates the buried stories of pre-colonial African civilisation.
“Armed with nothing but vivid imagination and poetic licence, the book uses fictional characters to trap readers into a time capsule,” Motsepe told the Pretoria News.
In this 12th to 14th century setting, aboriginal people are mining gold, pre-cast it into an assortment of tools for trade with merchants from India, China, and Europe.
The book also explores how they were living in harmony with nature, and their strict adherence to African faith. They believed they possessed powers to make rain, and divert destructive winds.
“During rituals, their amazingly intimate connection with the gods can transport them to a near lifeless state, midway, between death and rebirth, and their extra-terrestrial nimbleness and frightening wakefulness is fused with uncanny stupor.
In the book Motsepe looks at how the tribe’s gift of clairvoyance begins to dwindle as they start adopting European practices brought along by visiting merchants.
“Eventually the European visitors capture and assassinate their king – an event which throws this tribe into a never-before-seen leadership crisis and a gradual erosion of African faith.
“This sets the stage for the 1652 colonial capture, the subsequent loss of land, livestock, mineral resources, the total erosion of African customs and the modern-day crisis of poverty, famine, disease, misery and racism,” Motsepe asserts.
Motsepe, a married father in his early 40s, says he wrote the book as a “humble contribution towards decolonisation of our history.”
“I also wanted to remind people of the world of our ancestors who started mining gold and diamonds long before the colonists set foot on our shoreline, and that they had amazing skills to manipulate these precious metals into various tools before trading with the rest of the world,” he said.
The book is set in Mapungubwe, North of Limpopo, and is based partly on the archeological discoveries that were made there.
“Land is the original sin of the colonial and apartheid epoch. We must talk about it until it is resolved because without land, you have no access to food, water and everything that makes life worth living. You are as good as dead,” Motsepe said.
Although the book is his first. Motsepe is no stranger to the world of writing. He cut his teeth in writing at the Tshwane University of Technology, where he spent three years in the Journalism class.
After graduating he joined various national newspapers before working as an investigative reporter for 10 years.
Motsepe has since joined the government, serving as a speech writer, spokesperson, media liaison officer and strategist in different departments.
Pretoria News