Monument for Khoi interpreter who helped create Afrikaans language

15 August 2016 - 18:20 By TMG Digital

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula will this week commemorate the life of Krotoa‚ a Khoi woman‚ by unveiling a monument in her honour at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town. The event‚ on Friday‚ was geared to be another milestone in the pursuit of national reconciliation‚ healing and nation-building‚ the SA National Defence Force said in a statement.Krotoa worked as a servant in the household of Dutch settlers' leader in the Cape of Good Hope‚ Jan Van Riebeeck‚ from the age of 10 and is credited with being instrumental in working out terms for ending the first Dutch-Khoi-Khoi War.Krotoa demonstrated an aptness for languages‚ and later established herself as a reliable interpreter between the Dutch and the Khoi tribes."Having foreseen the inevitability of change‚ following the arrival and settling of the Dutch in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652‚ Krotoa acted as facilitator between the Dutch and the Khoi‚ resulting in her being ostracised by the Khoi people."Also known as Eva‚ following her being baptised as a Christian‚ Krotoa was married off to a Danish surgeon called Pieter van Meerhof‚ in what was the first recorded official mixed race marriage in South Africa‚ and had several children with him."When Van Meerhof was killed in a slave hunt in Madagascar‚ Krotoa’s status in the Dutch colony declined. She was later banished to Robben Island and her children sent to Mauritius‚ only to return to South Africa after their mother’s passing.Long depicted as a controversial figure caught between two competing worlds of the Dutch and the Khoi‚ Krotoa is also credited with being among the chief architects of the Afrikaans language‚ according to the SANDF.Minister Mapisa-Nqakula‚ as custodian of the Castle of Good Hope‚ an entity of the Department of Defence‚ will lead a symbolic repatriation of the spirit of Krotoa from the burial grounds of Die Groote Kerk in Church Square‚ where her bones were interned in an unmarked grave after being removed from the grounds of the castle nearly a century after she was buried there.Krotoa’s spirit will symbolically be returned to the grounds of the Castle of Good Hope‚ where the Minister will unveil a monument in her honour.Minister Mapisa-Nqakula will be joined by representatives of the Khoi and various other traditional leaders as well as the Military High Command during the ceremony.The ceremony to repatriate Krotoa’s spirit takes place at a time the Castle of Good Hope marks 350 years of existence...

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