Mdukatshani - Fifty Years of Beading

A MESSAGE FROM OUR TRUSTEES The celebration of 50 years of beading at Msinga is a story of limitless imagining, of stringing drops of light together through what is bleak and broken, to make it magnificent. Just as each bead on a thread is uniquely beautiful, it becomes part of a pattern that creates meaning and function. Just as each item of beadwork is a single piece of art, it links people together through ideas and skills, through passion and determination. In telling this story of the crafters of the Mdukatshawni Rural Development Project (formerly Church Agricultural Projects – CAP), Creina Alcock holds up the beads and the cotton, the copper and the gold so that they reflect not only the sun but also the light and shade of the lives they carry. In the early years, the project had 300 beaders and Mdukatshani beadwork became renowned from New York to Paris to London. Within these pages, a sculptor, a sangoma (traditional healer) and a supermodel are among many sharing the stage. The project has connected people across continents and generations. These relationships, their tones and meanings are recorded as intricately as those of the beads.

Deborah Ewing, Chair of Mdukatshani Craft and Welfare Trust

The project was born out necessity, a response to the apartheid forced removals. It created training and work but just as importantly a refuge from recurrent natural disasters and human conflicts, and from the heartache that follows them. The people of Msinga have suffered through 21 local wars and the project has been taken to the brink by sabotage, flooding, international tragedies, and global recession. Yet it endures and flourishes, and it gives cause for joyful celebration. We are certain that CAP’s Trustees have been equally proud of this legacy. The Trustees have always been selected to include diversity in expertise and experience, from the Chief Headmen, the Indunankulus of the Mchunu and Mthembu tribes, the late Petrus Majozi and Bhekuyise Nxongo, to anti-apartheid campaigners Peter Brown, Elliot Mngadi and Reverend Dale White. Although Peter and Elliot were jailed and banned for their work opposing ‘blackspot’ removals, after their restrictions were lifted they became monthly visitors to the project bringing news of the wider world for discussions with the people of the valley. Today’s trustees include Mchunu Umntwana (prince) Joseph Mchunu and Bomvu Indunankulu , Kusakusa Mbokazi. (The Mthembu tribal representative on our board Induna Khonzokwake Mvelase, died recently) Trustees meetings are reflective of the complexity of our country, some driving from Johannesburg and Durban, others hitching rides on bakkies, others walking for miles along aloe lined footpaths to dusty roadside pickup points. The discussions and decisions about the project are entwined with the wisdom of tribal leaders and community elders blending with agriculturalists, political activists and academics. Each point is painstakingly translated between English and Zulu, a skill at which the late Dave Alcock and Natty Duma excelled and which GG Alcock, Rauri Alcock and Gugu Mbatha continue. Opening and closing prayers are offered in the formal Zulu style. Trustee meetings historically happened under massive Tamboti trees, their leaves bright orange in winter, or shady uMncaka , Red Ivory trees beside the rushing brown Tugela, trustees perched on rock stools, no boardroom tables here. With the building of the learning centre, also the bead HQ, trustee meetings could take place under a roof, the seats often large wooden boxes full of raw beads. The Trustees of MRDP are delighted that this wonderful history of the bead project and all who are and have been involved in it can be shared to commemorate the 50th anniversary. It is an invaluable record, beautifully illustrated by the photography of Tessa Katzenellembogen and Rauri Alcock. This book has been translated into Zulu to give the crafters and their families an enduring record of their years as members of the project.

“No boardroom tables here” The Board of Trustees meeting on a kopje on Mdukatshani to discuss the transfer of the farm with Mchunu and Mthembu tribal elders

Mdukatshani – Fifty Years of Beading

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