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𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝘄𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀, 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 – 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟯

Justine 3

At the mouth of the Mzikaba River in the Eastern Cape lies the remains of an old shipwreck. Geoff Harris discovered the wreck in the late 1960s and in the 1970s Tim Maggs and Chris Auret identified it as the São Bento, a Portuguese vessel that was sailing from India to Europe when it wrecked in 1554. The KwaZulu-Natal Museum acquired several of its cannons in the early 1980s. In the course of conservation work, museum staff made an astonishing discovery.

Deep inside one of the cannons was a secret cache of money cowries. The São Bento cowries probably came from the Maldives. They were destined for trade with West Africa, where many billions of cowries were shipped by sea from the 1500s to the 1800s. Some of the São Bento cowries are on display in the museum.

There is an evil, dark side to the cowrie trade. The cowrie economy was closely tied to the slave trade, and cowries were often traded directly for slaves. If the São Bento’s journey hadn’t been cut short, its cowries would most likely have been exchanged for human lives.

📸The São Bento cowries in the KwaZulu-Natal Museum collections. Photo: Mudzunga Munzhedzi (2019).

#heritagemonth #kznmuseum #cowries #heritage #seasnails #money #Maldives #westafrica #SaoBento #Portuguese #GeoffHarris #TimMaggs #ChrisAuret #MzikabaRiver #India #Europe

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𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝘄𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀, 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 – 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟮

justine 2

The shells of money cowries are natural objects transformed into objects of cultural significance. After being harvested from their underwater habitat the snails quickly died, and the shells were cleaned of the rotting flesh. They were counted and gathered into containers in large numbers, and traded internationally as a valuable commodity. Money cowries occur in multiple places in the KwaZulu-Natal Museum. Watch this space for more information.

📸 A money cowrie that belongs to a divination set in the KwaZulu-Natal Museum collections. Photo: Justine Wintjes (2020)

#heritagemonth #kznmuseum #cowries #heritage #seasnails #money #Maldives

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Marsha for the website

Indigenous plants are part of our South African Heritage. This Heritage month the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in partnership with Duzi-uMngeni Conservation Trust and Project Gateway embarked on an initiative to educate Gateway Christian School grade 4 & 5 learners about the importance of planting indigenous plants and vegetables, and ensure their survival using the companion planting method. They were also taught how to protect their seeds from being blown away by air or washed away with water - by making clay seed bombs. The link for the seed bombs video is in the comments below.

Making clay seed bombs and planting the vegetable in the garden of the school are the activities that learners enjoyed the most. With the companion planting Marigold flowers were used, they support and ensures the survival of other plants (e.g. cabbages and tomatoes). These indigenous plants have medicinal and nutritional value to us. The indigenous plants used for this project were the Cape Ash tree and Spekboom both indigenous to South Africa. Marsha Kalika, Chief Education Officer (Outreach) did a presentation over three sessions with two different grades, at 30 minutes per session. Preserving our indigenous plants is one of the ways can use it to save our natural environment.

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Ayabonga Hlatshwayo, Aphelele Hlongwa, Marsha Kalika and Aphelele Ngubo after the presentation took a photo carrying plants and vegetables that were later planted in the school’s garden by the learners after the presentation.

#heritagemonth #heritage #kznmuseum #partnerships #spekboom #capeash #planting #environment #gardening #schools #education #indigenous

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Forensic ento conference

Due to the restrictions imposed by covid-19, in-person conferences have not been able to take place this year. The European Association of Forensic Entomologists normally hosts an annual conference. As this could not take place, Dr Jens Amendt, from the Institute for Legal Medicine in Frankfurt, decided to host the 1^st Digital World Conference of Forensic Entomology using Zoom. The conference took place from 15 – 17 September 2020 with 260 participants. It was very well supported by researchers and students from South America – making up half the delegates. Dr Kirstin Williams of the Natural Science Department gave a full length presentation as the invited speaker from South Africa. She spoke about the research that has been done in South Africa in the past 20 years at the Southern African Forensic Entomology Research (SAFER) Laboratory that is based at Rhodes University where she is a research associate. Dr Williams also presented a poster talk (a short presentation) on her work with colleagues on the discovery of a beetle new to South Africa and the first description of the larvae. Although most researchers are hoping to go back to in-person meetings in the future, digital conferences like this one, give opportunities to particularly students, who don’t have the funding and wouldn’t otherwise be able to participate in a conference.

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