Lentswe, Jouberton - Leano la Bophelo project together with its partners are excited to celebrate Heritage Day on September 24. The celebration will be hosted at Goudkoppie heritage hill in Klerksdorp. This event is organized in partnership with the Klerksdorp Museum.
The event will mark the official opening of Goudkoppie heritage hill to the people of Matlosana, Dr Kenneth Kaunda District and the province. Everyone will enjoy the facility’s education and history.
Leano la Bophelo will not only be celebrating Heritage Day, but will also be launching an Information Centre which is based at Goudkoppie heritage hill to serve Matlosana communities, visitors and tourists. The day will be exciting as there will be celebration of culture in different forms such as there will be story tellers and historians to narrate the history of Matlosana and its people, enjoyment of indigenous games, cultural groups performances, cultural and moribo music, local crafters selling their artists items and everyone will be treated to traditional meal prepared specially for the day.
Leano la Bophelo requests members of the community of Jouberton to join them on September 19 at old Jouberton cemetery when it will embark on cleaning of graves. This initiative is a reminder that graves are sacred heritage sites that should be preserved and maintained. Those who have passed on are our ancestors and they need to be honored for the contribution they have made to our lives and communities. Members of the communities are urged to bring their cleaning equipment to join everyone at the old cemetery next to Tower Mall. Cleaning starts at 08:00 and will end at 14:00.
On the 24th festivities will begin at 07:00 with a peaceful health walk or procession with candles from Milner High School and everyone is welcome to join the walk as remembrance of our culture and heritage. All the festivities will end at 18:00.
Everyone is requested to dress in their traditional theme to match the significance of the day.
Those wanting to participate can contact Rathebe Mojaki on 072 979 5619.
Look back at Klerksdorp 1888
Lentswe, Klerksdorp - It is Heritage Month and we are looking back through the archives at the nearly 187 years of existence of Klerksdorp.
Late in 1837, a group of 12 Voortrekker families, having agreed to assist Hendrik Grobler (a pioneer farmer who, by then, has been farming for a few years on his farm Elendsheuwel next to the Skoonspruit) to build a weir in the Spruit, each received a plot of land from Grobler.
These plots stretched from the wagon road that ran all along the eastern foot of the hills today known as “Oudorp Koppies”, to the Skoonspruit. This wagon road would, in turn, become Hendrik Potgieter Street.
Klerksdorp continued as a small farming settlement till 1886 (only receiving official town status in September 1888), when everything changed irrevocably. For in November 1885, gold was discovered on the farm Ysterspruit to the southwest of town, soon to be followed by yet more discoveries on the town commonage (the land between Goudkoppie Heritage Hill and Matlosana Mall).
The huge influx of fortune seekers soon led to Klerksdorp’s “Old Town”, hemmed in by the hills and the spruit, running out of habitable space. And thus was born Klerksdorp New Town on the eastern side of Skoonspruit. New Town (or “Nuwedorp” as most residents refer to it) had inauspicious origins as a shantytown rising from the Western Transvaal grasslands almost overnight, with everything from tents and wooden “lean-to’s” to “houses in a box” (pre-fabricated corrugated iron houses imported from abroad as a kit) serving as accommodation.
- Courtesy of Klerksdorp Museum.
