keiskamma tapestry

The extensive, exquisitely detailed artwork that has come to be known as the Keiskamma Tapestry, and which for many years has been dispayed in the corridors of the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town, is based on the iconic Bayeaux Tapestry in Colmar, France. Made to the same dimensions, the Keiskamma Tapestry similarly makes use of embroidery as a storytelling mechanism. The Bayeux Tapestry triumphantly depicts the Norman invasion and conquest of Britain in 1066. The Keiskamma Tapestry by contrast tells history from the point of view of the dispossessed peoples of South Africa. Documenting the historical injustices of two hundred years of colonial subjugation, further entrenched by the apartheid government’s oppressive racist policies from 1948-1994, it depicts the complex, interwoven narrative threads of pre-colonial histories, Xhosa ancestry, the Frontier Wars, the British subjugation of the Xhosa, the harshly repressive years of apartheid and the first democratic elections in South Africa.

The piece shows the Dutch and British settlers’ need for cattle to supply the passing ships at the Cape with meat and milk, their territorial expansion further and further into the interior and the desperate famine that followed the Xhosa Cattle Killings of 1856–7. While colonial historians referred to this as a form of ‘mass suicide’, revisionist historians see it as the earliest example of a mass passive resistance movement in South Africa. The alleged prophecies of the young girl Nongqawuse led the Xhosa to believe that if they killed their cattle and destroyed their crops, the spirits of the ancestors would rise up and help them to drive the white man from their land, so bringing the Xhosa nation back to its former glory. Images of cattle can be found throughout the Keiskamma Tapestry. Historic incidents and battles are depicted in different ‘chapters’, with prominent personalities of the time such as Chief Sandile, Nongqawuse and Queen Victoria acting as flashpoints in the story.

Underlying the Keiskamma Tapestry is a desire for acknowledgement of the brutal injustices of colonialism and apartheid, and a hope for reconciliation and mutual understanding. The artists’ representation of South African history ends with the first free election in South Africa, a time of great optimism for the majority of South Africans.