7th Precinct: RAASWATER WASPLAAS - Reclaim Camissa - Citizen Project (sitios de interés)
Descripción del sitio
Here lies a gem of our cultural history.
Cape tradition was that the slaves took the population’s laundry to Platteklip. After the emancipation of the slaves (1834), their descendants continued to launder at Platteklip and at Capel Sluit, and to hold the 'place' as a special one.
“Every afternoon when the weather was warm the old washer-women would offload their bundles of washing at the corner of the Old Homestead at Oranjezicht. One of the sights of Table Mountain was the long procession of Malay washer-women, huge bundles on their heads, swinging along up Hope and Buitenkant Streets and along the Slave Walk. (Today’s Gorge Road) For many years they used the stream and rocks provided by nature, to be scoured and bleached. Almost daily more than 100 slaves could be seen, busy with the family washing.” (In Joe Lison 1970:38)
“After the abolition of slavery, there was a celebration along Platteklip on the first of December each year. The washer-women would clutter up the mountain in their ‘kaperrangs’ (clogs). Early in the afternoon they would leave their washing and dance waltzes to improvised music. Then, as twilight began to creep through the pines, they would march with their bundles down the path by the crumbling slaves walls of the Oranjezicht and Rheezicht estates”. (In Joe Lison 1970:38)
“On one such occasion, an attractive Malay girl, the wife of an Hafiz, named Abdul Malik, lost the ring her husband sometimes let her wear, while washing clothes at Platteklip Gorge. She and her friends searched high and low along the banks, but the ring was never found again......
The ring had been given to Abdul by a great scholar in Mecca under whom Abdul studied Islam. The aged scholar considered him to be his best scholar; and besides bestowing much love upon him, gave him a ring which he was always to wear on his finger. The significance of the ring was never understood, until one day when he went to have his head shaved according to Islamic rule. The barber found that the razor would not cut. After attempts with a second razor had also failed, someone in the shop suggested that Abdul might be wearing a charm, guaranteed to prevent his being harmed by a knife. Puzzled, Abdul removed the ring and experienced no difficulty being shaved. On occasions, the Hafiz’s wife found that when she was wearing the ring, she was unable to cut bread and anything with a blade seemed to be magically turned away when brought near her.
The ring was lost. The search was fruitless. Tradition says that the Hafiz’s magic ring will be found again, one day.” (In Joe Lison 1970:39)
Indeed, a ring was found in 2006, by an American scholar - Dr. Elizabeth Grzymala Jordan - on this site. Dr. Grzymala-Jordan's work looked at slavery globally, and in particular at the role of women slaves. The work she carried out in Cape Town, is recorded in a document submitted as part of her DPhil in Anthropology: "FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL: Washerwomen, Culture, and Community in Cape Town, South Africa", January 2006 - submitted to the Graduate School New Brunswick, State University of New Jersey, USA. The dig revealed plentiful artefacts - enough to fill 34 boxes.
“Every afternoon when the weather was warm the old washer-women would offload their bundles of washing at the corner of the Old Homestead at Oranjezicht. One of the sights of Table Mountain was the long procession of Malay washer-women, huge bundles on their heads, swinging along up Hope and Buitenkant Streets and along the Slave Walk. (Today’s Gorge Road) For many years they used the stream and rocks provided by nature, to be scoured and bleached. Almost daily more than 100 slaves could be seen, busy with the family washing.” (In Joe Lison 1970:38)
“After the abolition of slavery, there was a celebration along Platteklip on the first of December each year. The washer-women would clutter up the mountain in their ‘kaperrangs’ (clogs). Early in the afternoon they would leave their washing and dance waltzes to improvised music. Then, as twilight began to creep through the pines, they would march with their bundles down the path by the crumbling slaves walls of the Oranjezicht and Rheezicht estates”. (In Joe Lison 1970:38)
“On one such occasion, an attractive Malay girl, the wife of an Hafiz, named Abdul Malik, lost the ring her husband sometimes let her wear, while washing clothes at Platteklip Gorge. She and her friends searched high and low along the banks, but the ring was never found again......
The ring had been given to Abdul by a great scholar in Mecca under whom Abdul studied Islam. The aged scholar considered him to be his best scholar; and besides bestowing much love upon him, gave him a ring which he was always to wear on his finger. The significance of the ring was never understood, until one day when he went to have his head shaved according to Islamic rule. The barber found that the razor would not cut. After attempts with a second razor had also failed, someone in the shop suggested that Abdul might be wearing a charm, guaranteed to prevent his being harmed by a knife. Puzzled, Abdul removed the ring and experienced no difficulty being shaved. On occasions, the Hafiz’s wife found that when she was wearing the ring, she was unable to cut bread and anything with a blade seemed to be magically turned away when brought near her.
The ring was lost. The search was fruitless. Tradition says that the Hafiz’s magic ring will be found again, one day.” (In Joe Lison 1970:39)
Indeed, a ring was found in 2006, by an American scholar - Dr. Elizabeth Grzymala Jordan - on this site. Dr. Grzymala-Jordan's work looked at slavery globally, and in particular at the role of women slaves. The work she carried out in Cape Town, is recorded in a document submitted as part of her DPhil in Anthropology: "FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL: Washerwomen, Culture, and Community in Cape Town, South Africa", January 2006 - submitted to the Graduate School New Brunswick, State University of New Jersey, USA. The dig revealed plentiful artefacts - enough to fill 34 boxes.
Robert Ernest Bryson (born 1867, Glasgow) was a composer who wrote symphonies. In 1926 he composed an opera: The Leper’s Flute, with words by Ian Colvin. It is the story of the legend of the washer woman's ring.
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