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Greetings, and may peace flow upon your institution.

I am writing after I had read your Zoutpansberger newspaper of 29 January 2016 and more specifically the article “The Boer general who did not like to fight. Part 2.

I am someone who likes to know more about the history of past generations.
I am requesting you to feed me with more information on the history of chiefs and others living in this area.

I often get approached by young people asking me for more information about the past and I tell them what I know. I am an old man, born on 12 September 1940. I grew up here in Venda and attended school here. I am also a member of the Royal Council of the Manavhela clan.

There is a book called The Chair of the Ramabulana and another, The History of the Western Soutpansberg. If you know of any library having it or bookshop selling it, please inform me. I would like to have these books.

I have some collective history and information I would like to pass on to new generations.
 
Dear Mr Manavhela
Thank you very much for your letter. In our regular series of articles focussing on the street names, we try to highlight the history of the region and we try and incorporate the Venda history as well. I will try and send you the articles that have thus far been published.

The books that you have mentioned are valuable resources, but there are also numerous others. I do not know whether these are available in the Louis Trichardt library, but I would expect them to be.

In the last two or three decades, some really good books have been published dealing with the history of the Zoutpansberg. You should also try and get hold of works of well-known Venda authors such as MH Nemudzivhadi. Try these:
* Braun, L.F. “Colonial Survey and Native Landscapes in Rural South Africa, 1850-1913”. Brill, 2015.
* Nemudzivhadi, M.H. “The Attempts by Makhado to Revive the Venda Kingdom 1864-1895”, Potchefstroom University for CHE, 1998.

- MF Manavhela, Manavhela village, Kutama

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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