Mdukatshani - Fifty Years of Beading

Loyisiwe Mdlalose weaving copper wire on a khamba , or traditional clay beer pot. Originally trained by Tessa at Waayhoek, she became part of the Mdukatshani group when her family moved to Nhlawe, a land reform farm in Weenen district.

In July 2005 Bonginkosi Thusi died at Nhlawe- the first crafter to die of AIDS. His wife, Zephi Lethuli, was diagnosed HIV positive soon afterwards when we took the entire group to hospital for testing. It was a year when the reality of the disease hit home, with several crafters losing family members. Zephi was put on ARVs, with a grant and food parcels to help the home. She would not survive her husband for long.

NHLAWE

They had sold well and she wanted more, but nobody was willing to make them. The Waayhoek crafters were busy on mbenge , which they preferred to khambas , which were difficult and slow. Infinitely slow, as we were going to discover, watching the bowls begin to take shape with a single simple spiral of beads. The bowls were beautiful, but expensive. Karen had outlets willing to take them, but when we had finished her order was there any point in making more? Where would we find a market?

They paid the transport themselves, loading the ‘tins’ onto the lorries like trophies. The metal rooms might be grimy, but they were part of their history, and would be useful while they camped in the bush. We adopted the group immediately. Could they make copper bowls woven on khambas (traditional beer pots)? We had a large order from Karen Muir, an American customer who had bought some at Waayhoek when she was out on a visit to South Africa.

We discovered Nhlawe by accident, a small encampment hidden in the bush about 25 km from Mdukatshani. It was an eerie place, full of ghosts, with thickets of thorn trees growing on the sand, and a small human settlement in a clearing. It looked deserted when we arrived there one autumn morning in 1999. There were shacks, tents, a few red ‘tins’. Did anyone live there? Were we being observed? A man strolled out of the shade as we parked. “Hullo Natty,” he said, “Where is Tessa?” We had found a group of crafters from Waayhoek. Nhlawe had originally been home to a ‘squatter’ community who were forcibly evicted in 1984, and were moved to the village of Waayhoek. They had never expected to return. When the government selected Weenen for the KwaZulu-Natal Land Reform Pilot Project in 1994, Nhlawe was one of the first farms bought up for resettlement and the squatters came back as owners of the land. Almost. For years Mdukatshani had been closely involved in the land claims programme and understood the difficulties of getting promises put onto paper. The ‘beneficiaries’ knew the problems too. It took courage to pack up your belongings and move, and not until late 1998 did the Thusi family decide to ‘go home’.

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Mdukatshani – Fifty Years of Beading