Dear Museum Friends Issue 6 of 201 Most Important
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June 2011 Phone 044-620-3338 Fax 044-620-3176 Email: [email protected] www.greatbrakriver.co.za www.ourheritage.org.za Editor Rene’ de Kock Dear Museum Friends Issue 6 of 201 Most Important May is always a busy month at the museum. Our AGM took place on the 11th and Heritage Mossel much of the past committee was reelected for the April 2011-March 2012 year. Bay is holding its A. Chairperson Rene’ de Kock nd B. Heritage Nisde McRobert AGM on the 22 C. Secretary Hope de Kock June 2011 at 6.30 D. Treasurer Rodney McRobert pm. E. Additional Committee Members Coralie van Heerden, Kitty Munch, and Jan Nieuwoudt The Museum is The two members elected from the above to represent the museum on the Board of open Monday, Control are Nisde McRobert and Jan Nieuwoudt. We would like to welcome Jan Tuesday, Thursday Nieuwoudt who has a good deal of knowledge on Great Brak’s history. and Friday between 9 am and In addition was the bi-annual Arts and Crafts week organised by Hope de Kock 4 pm and on with the assistance of many of her craft class members. The standard this year Wednesdays from has been simply amazing and the work done by the class was outstanding with 9.00 to 12.30 pm. many new crafts being worked and on display. In-between these craft displays were a large collected Hopes next fund works by Vivian raising “Hands Holtzhouzen of Laotian On” crafts hand woven silks never workshop will be before seen. in June and will be held at the Great Most of the pieces contain Brak River motifs of floral, geometric Museum on and diamond patterns and Tuesday 21st. mythical animal borders. They display either three or Please call Hope de five large diamond panels, Kock on brocaded almost from one 083 378 1232 end to the other, with only for full details. small plain section at both ends. Colour changes on the weave have been made so as to confuse the evil spirits. These collections are good as Short of a book table runners or for wall hanging or even as shawls. to read TIM SIN, Laotian women A large collection wear simple black tubular skirts. of Pre-owned To identify themselves and adorn their skirts they weave books on sale in ‘Tim Sin’ and sew them to the the Museum bottom of their skirts. The ones Shop….Every on display are all used ones and week day morning depict the dragon/serpent and afternoons which is central to a lot of their when the museum folklore. Tigers and elephants is open. are also depicted. Laos means ‘The land of a million Proceeds go to elephants”. museum funds GBR MUSEUM NEWS LETTER JUNE 2011 Page No. 1 Hand-woven silk brocades are often irregular and have natural flaws or colour changes on the material. These are not considered as the defects but the charm of Southeast Asian The museum shop artistry. has a new range of cards depicting Many such as various scenes in the one on and around the the left from village northern India tell a simple story. In September 2009 This work tells the Wolwedans dam the story of a water level stood at rural woman 44.50% full and who had to water restrictions travel to a city were introduced. for the first time in her life in order to The Department of sign a contract Water Affairs and for her Forestry reports that upcoming during late May nuptials. She 2011, our saw a plane, a Wolwedans dam ferry and many water level is other new things on her 82.6% full and is still rising. journey. The museum celebrated Museum day on the 25th May with a collection of photographs depicting people of the village of Great Brak River, some in special events depicting our diverse heritage such as a wedding or simply children playing in the sand using the theme MUSEUMS and MEMORY. The photographs will be on display for the next few weeks. The annual museum’s workshop takes place from the 8th to 10th June 2011. An Evening of Entertainment Local History Above, the ‘First Shoe of Film and Factory’ in 1884 and the Photography ‘Road to the Height’, 1885. at the museum has Right, the villagers of been Great Brak River leaving the Apostolic Faith postponed nd Mission. ‘The Wedding’ until June 22 GBR MUSEUM NEWS LETTER JUNE 2011 Page No. 2 “Money Makes the World Go Round” Contribution by your editor “I have been reading a new economics book by Edmund Conway titled 50 ‘So you think money Economics Ideas. is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked An 1874 newspaper what is the root of illustration from Harper's money’ - Ayn Rand Weekly, showing a man engaging in barter: offering chickens in First evidence of exchange for his yearly bartering in parts of newspaper subscription. Africa 12,000 years ago “For hundreds of thousands of year’s Cattle, which include civilisation tended to anything from cows, to barter for goods, sheep, to camels, are trading shells and the first and oldest form precious stones for of money. With the food and important advent of agriculture commodities. For the came the use of grain first evidence of money as a currency we need to go back 5,000 years to where and other vegetable or modern day Iraq now sits, to find the shekel. Though this was the first form of plant products as a currency, it wasn’t money as we know and understand it. It actually standard form of barter represented a certain weight of barley equivalent to gold or silver. Eventually in many cultures. the shekel became a coin currency in its own right. In much the same way, 11,000-8,000 years Britain’s ago currency is The Shekel (unit of called the weight) trades in pound Mesopotamia because it 5,000 years ago was originally equivalent to First evidence of gold a pound of and silver coins in silver. Lydia. 2,600 years ago A 640 BC one-third stater electrum coin from Lydia (An ancient country of west-central Asia Minor on the Aegean Sea in present-day northwest China invents first Turkey) banknotes 1,200 years ago The ancient Greeks and Romans used gold and silver coins as currency, with the Latin denarius Introduction of the gold ultimately giving birth to the dinar in various standard, pegging all countries, including Jordan and Algeria and money to a set amount providing the ‘d’ that served as an abbreviation for of gold the British penny before dissimilation In 1971. It 1816 also gives us the word for money in Spanish and Portuguese- dinero and dinheiro. The first ever bank notes were issued in 7th centaury ‘Money never made a China, though it took another 1,000 years before the man happy yet, nor idea of paper money was adopted in Europe, by will it. The more a Sweeden’s Stockholms Banco in 1661”. man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it The world's earliest paper money. Song makes one’ Dynasty Jiaozi (Sichuan capital of Chengdu) Benjamin Franklin GBR MUSEUM NEWS LETTER JUNE 2011 Page No. 3 Elephants in Early Mossel Bay Contribution by your editor At up to 4.5 meters in shoulder height, Elephas reki was one of the largest elephant species to have ever lived. It is believed that they ranged throughout Africa between 3.5 and 1 million years ago. It is not known for sure, but the disappearance of E. recki from Africa by the Late Pleistocene was probably related to vegetation changes which became more suited to Loxodonta. Within the borders of the present South Africa, elephant material has been identified from sites in the present provinces of the Western Cape (18,000–1,500 BP, and 500–recent BP). It would appear that at some or other time in the past, elephants could or did occur over much of what is now South Africa, including the arid north-western parts. Two of the most important fossil localities that have yielded proboscideans (Elephants, Mammoths, Mastodons) are Langebaanweg and Elandsfontein in the Western Cape. There are also numerous examples of painted and engraved elephant figures sometimes shown being hunted by a large party of men. The transhumant herding communities of the western and south-western Cape, the Khoekhoen, were familiar with elephants and the value of ivory – they traded ivory bracelets with the Portuguese navigator and the explorer Vasco da Gama in Mossel Bay on 25 July 1497 – but there is no direct evidence that they engaged in extensive ivory operations (Axelson, 1973). In the eighteenth century, formal expeditions set off from Stellenbosch, travelling for a number of months and returning with wagons loaded with ivory (Wilson, 1969b). Two professional trading expeditions left the Cape in 1736 under Hermanus Heupenaer and returned with profitable stocks of ivory bartered from the Thembu and Xhosa (MacKenzie, 1988). African Savanna Elephant (Loxodonta africana) Many of the road passes in the Southern Cape were built on paths created by the elephant. These giant animals made easily followed trails through the forests, and we know that the Elephant Trail from nearby Riversdale through the Attaquas Kloof was used by the early people right through the ages to the new explorers like Le Vaillant (1782). Lawrence G Green writes in ‘Trails of the Tuskers’ that the Bloukrans pass on the Garden Route is also an old elephant highway.