THE San community in Tsholotsho will tomorrow participate in the Ibhoro Cultural Festival to be held at Tsholotsho business centre.
The festival will run under the theme Tjware Tjware: We are the people.
Tsoro-o-tso San Development Trust director Davy Ndlovu, whose organisation is leading the proceedings, said the event was meant to safeguard the cultural heritage of the Tjwa or San communities.
He added that the Ibhoro dance was part of the San culture, tradition and philosophy.
“Tjwa people were forced to migrate to the Ndebele and Kalanga speakers’ territories to make way for the creation of the then Wankie National Park by the colonial government. This created a language and culture contact situation that has had far-reaching consequences for Tjwa speakers,” Ndlovu said.
“A complete language shift is in sight considering that to date, there are only less than a dozen active speakers of the Tjwa language out of 2 500 Zimbabwean Tjwa/San community members.
“Despite the changes that have occurred within the San lineage, their cultural heritage is preserved through some of their traditional practices like the Ibhoro dance.”
Ndlovu said the festival was significant as it sought to document how the language of the San people of Zimbabwe was preserved in song.
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“We realised that cultural practices prevent the death of a portion of this language. The festival also seeks to demonstrate the importance of orature (song and dance) as a means of inculcating values, norms and beliefs from generation to generation in African societies,” he said.
“The organisers focus on the Ibhoro dance because it is the hub of the socio-cultural backbone of the Tjwa/San people as it preserves their cultural heritage, values, knowledge and beliefs.”
It is reported that the San people used animal names for their totems as a way of wildlife preservation.
Indications are that since they were mainly reliant on hunting as their food source, it meant that an individual was forbidden from eating the animal which his/her totem was derived from, for example the Tjwa of the Ndlovu totem are forbidden from eating elephant meat.
