Every month the Ulwazi team meets to discuss the stories that the fieldworkers have been researching. As a non-Zulu person I find the stories absolutely fascinating, and my questions to the team often lead to heated discussions about traditional Zulu culture and how it translates to modern day living. One of the stories that we … Read more
Every month Ulwazi receives numerous requests from the public regarding the history of their family names. Mbusiswa Zuma is our fieldworker who is dedicated to researching the history and clan praises of popular Zulu surnames. Follow the links below to read about the surnames Mbusiswa researched during the month of October: Izithakazelo Nomlando wabantu bakwaZondo … Read more
Every year, at the start of spring, the Botanical Society of South Africa holds the Indigenous Plant Fair at the Durban Botanical Gardens. The event, which took place over last weekend, gives people a chance to see the incredible flora indigenous to South Africa, and allows them an opportunity to speak to people in the … Read more
The annual Royal Zulu Reed Dance (uMkhosi woMhlanga) took place last week with thousands of young women attending the ceremony at the Enyokeni Royal Palace in Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal. The festival, which takes its name from the riverbed reeds which the young maidens carry, was reintroduced by King Goodwill Zwelithini in 1991, as a means of … Read more
A fascinating project has just been launched by the Archive & Public Culture Research Initiative. Still in its first stage of development, the Five Hundred Year Archive aims to create an online research portal through which the public can access visual, textual and sonic archival objects and texts from the last 500 years of Southern … Read more
While diplomats are trying to find consensus on an international instrument to protect traditional knowledge at the World Intellectual Property Organization, some countries are establishing systems to protect their traditional knowledge domestically. South Africa will be launching on 24 May its National Recordal System to catalogue its indigenous knowledge. The National Recordal System (NRS) is an initiative … Read more