Professor Alethea de Villiers and the Executive Dean of ther Faculty of Humanities Prof Pamela Maseko.
Prof De Villiers began the presentation by reading the English translation of the poem, “The broken string”, by Dia!kwain, one the |Xam men who worked with Bleek and Lloyd to record the |Xam language, which was spoken by a community of people living in the Northern Cape Province.
She used the analogy of the broken string, and interpreted the poem, which describes a sense of loss and viewed as the loss of culture that no longer resounds, the songs that have been silenced and the instruments that are no longer played.
The string which should bind them to their heritage is broken, as culture was erased. To restore cultural heritage, the string needs to be restored or mended, through the learning and practising of culture.
Prof De Villiers framed her discussion of the broken string and how it can be restored, with two academic articles that she regards as the highlights of her career, and which also form the theoretical framework for this lecture.
The first article explores cultural hegemony, as described by Gramsci. She discussed how cultural hegemony, can be subverted if one adopts multiculturalism, culturally responsive teaching and define music education as cultural education.
The second article, co-authored with Menan du Plessis, a novelist and linguist and an expert in Khoisan linguistics. In this article the authors contextualised the |Xam stories and the songs embedded in them.
They also presented a reinterpretation of the established scholarly view of Percival Kirby to refine the historical record. The article presented the songs, performed by Hangǂkassō and originally written down by Weisbecker as one of the earliest examples of music influenced by the music bow in Southern Africa.
Prof De Villiers concluded the presentation by suggesting ways in which we can restore the string, linking us to our African cultural heritage, so that we are the people, those who restore the string.
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