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Room Themes
Experience the
ambiance and take a tour through this unique guest house:
Room 1 - The Afrikaans Room
Afrikaners are
descended from northwestern European settlers who first
arrived in the Cape of Good Hope during the period of
administration (1652 – 1795) by the Dutch East India
Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC). While
the original settlers came mainly from the Netherlands,
their numbers were also swelled later by French and
German religious refugees. Their ancestors were
primarily Dutch Calvinists and Flemish, together with
smaller numbers of Germans, French Huguenots, Frisians
and Walloons. They lost their Dutch citizenship when the
Prince of Orange acquiesced to British occupation and
control of the Cape Colony in 1788.
Extract taken from: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
(Website) |
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version |
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Room 2 – The Pedi Room
(Standard Twin Room)
Pedi was
previously used to describe Sotho-speakers of
Mpumalanga and Limpopo Province. More recently,
these groups have been renamed Northern Sotho. The
Pedi, as more narrowly understood, are part of the
Highveld Sotho who live on the plateau around
Polokwane. Other Northern Sotho subgroups, over many
of whom the Pedi once held sway, are the Lowveld
Sotho along and below the Drakensberg Escarpment,
and the Eastern Sotho in the Mapulaneng district,
towards Lydenberg.
Extract taken from: Vanishing Cultures of South
Africa, by Peter Magubane |
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version |
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Room 3 & 4 – The Swazi Rooms
The Swazis are
a Bantu-speaking people who are predominantly Nguni in
language and culture. They originate from east central
Africa. As part of the Nguni expansion southwards, the
Swazis crossed the Limpopo River and settled in southern
Tongaland (today called Mozambique) in the late
fifteenth century. After 200 years the Swazi people,
still under a series of chiefs of the Dlamini clan moved
into the region on the Pongola River, where they lived
in close proximity to the Ndwandwe people. Later on,
economic pressures of land shortage finally brought
these two groups to blows, after which battle the Swazis
retreated to the central area of modern Swaziland. Here
the Swazis continued the process of expansion by
conquering numerous small Sotho and Nguni speaking
tribes to build up a large composite state today called
Swaziland.
Extract taken from: Swaziland National Trust Commission
Website
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Room 5 –The Ndebele Room
(Superior Room)
The
Ndeble are well known for their outstanding
craftsmanship, their decorative homes, and their
distinctive and highly colorful mode of dress and
ornamentation. They were once a part of the Nguni-speaking
peoples who settled along the southern Africa’s
eastern coastal plain, but broke away some three
centuries ago and migrated to the central inland
plateau. The Ndzundza Ndebele today mainly live in
the former homeland of KwaNdevele in Mpumalanga, and
around Nebo (Limpopo Province)
Extract taken from: Vanishing Cultures of South
Africa, by Peter Magubane |
Click to view a larger
version |
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Room 6 – The Tsonga Room
(Superior Room)
The
Tsonga are not an homogeneous ethnic group that can
trace its roots back to a single founder. Their
forefathers came from present-day Mozambique to
settle in South Africa in the 19th
century, generally in small groups without important
chiefs. Today the Tsonga are centered mainly in the
Lowveld between the Escarpment and the western
borders of the Kruger National Park.
Extract taken from: Vanishing Cultures of South
Africa, by Peter Magubane |
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version |
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Room 7 – The Tswana Room
(Superior Room)
The
Tswana are part of the Sotho, with three broad
divisions - Basotho (Southern Sotho), Pedi (Northern
Sotho) and Tswana (Western Sotho). The Tswana
historically lived on the Highveld, with the Basotho.
From the mid 1800s, many Sotho chiefdoms in the
western Highveld began to regard themselves as part
of a larger Tswana group in the colonial
Bechuanaland (now Botswana). This accounts for
variations in dialect, social structure and culture
among the mant Tswana groups that persist today.
Extract taken from: Vanishing Cultures of South
Africa, by Peter Magubane |
Click to view a larger
version |
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Room 8 – The Basotho Suite
(Luxury Suite)
The Basotho have been
identified as part of a larger Sotho cohort, comprising
three broad divisions: Basotho (Southern Sotho), Pedi
(Northern Sotho) and Tswana (Western Sotho). The Basotho
used to live throughout the Highveld area but, since the
mid 1800s, have been most closely associated with
Moshoeshoe’s independent kingdom of Lesotho (previously
Basutoland), whose territory today is an enclave within
South Africa’s borders.
Extract taken from: Vanishing Cultures of South Africa,
by Peter Magubane
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Room 9 – The Zulu Suite
The
origin of the Zulu, probably the largest single
population group in South Africa, lies in a small
Nguni-speaking chiefdom that emerged near the White
Umfolozi River in what is today known as Kwazulu
Natal during the 16th century. Shaka, who
became the chief of the tiny Zulu group in 1818,
laid the foundations of the Zulu nation and built
the mightiest empire in South Africa.
Extract taken from: Vanishing Cultures of South
Africa, by Peter Magubane |
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version |
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Room 10
– The Xhosa Suite
The
Xhosa-speaking peoples or Cape Nguni inhabit the
Eastern Cape, from the Kwazulu Natal border to the
Eastern Cape Zuurveld. Historically they were
hunters, herders and subsistence farmers, who were
organized in more or less politically independent
chiefdom clusters, each recognizing a paramount chief.
Xhosa, like Nguni, a linguistic rather than an
ethnic term, was the dialect spoken in the valleys
of the Fish, Keiskamma and Buffalo rivers.
Extract taken
from: Vanishing Cultures of South Africa, by Peter
Magubane |
Click to view a larger
version |
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