A SACRED PLACE

The coastal road from Port Elizabeth to East London is busy with trucks carrying loads of pineapples and cars carrying holidaymakers and Eastern Cape administration officials, intent on their pursuits of business or pleasure. At one point, the vehicles speed across a bridge within a stone's throw of a small tributary of a river that rises a few miles from the sea. As Thoreau wrote of Walden pond, ‘the scenery is on a humble scale and, though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur’ (Thoreau, 1854: 183). This river valley is home to a number of wild creatures, though not as many as when the English settler Thomas Pringle visited the area in 1823 and reported that it was thick with antelope, elephants and hippopotami. For the indigenous Xhosa peoples, it is a sacred place. I once found a reed basket filled with pumpkin seeds floating in the water, and when I looked carefully, a calabash of sorghum beer and a small basket of white beans hidden in the reeds. I have been told that these were offerings to the ‘abantu bomlambo’ (‘the people of the river’). In traditional Xhosa cosmology, these people are believed to live beneath the water with their crops and cattle, and such libations would result in a new strength and wisdom in human affairs.

It is easy to see why this is considered a sacred place. The water is a pure, deep green, and the banks are thickly forested with yellowwood trees and ancient cycads. Many birds, including the elusive Greenbacked Heron, nest in the bordering reeds that sway and rustle in the wind. I have spent many solitary hours there listening to the song of the chorister robin in the golden light of a breaking dawn. Early morning is my favourite time, as it gives the best chance of seeing one of the shy creatures who live here — the Cape clawless otter. If one is lucky enough to find the crab shells that often mark an otter holt and has the patience to sit very quietly, one can catch glimpses of these playful and inquisitive creatures. I once watched a family of otters playing in the shallows. The three pups had small, squashed, brown faces and chased each other through the reeds, diving and popping up intermittently to look at the strange human figure.