The Keeper of the Kumm

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Sylvia Vollenhoven. The Keeper of the Kumm

Prologue

PART 1. MIXED

Loss and exorcism

Talking dolls and string scooters

A strange house called Shalom

White parks and pressure cookers

Becoming the Springbok’s Eyes

Old enough

Dootje and Trina de Klerk

Longing and belonging

My husband is fighting for king and country

Ougat vs kaffirtjie

Hair politics and complex sentences

Fashioning identity

PART 2. COLOURED

Sledgehammer destruction

Sanity’s gossamer safety catch slips

Incest and a vivid imagination

Incest and a star woman

Partying in a Jewish cemetery

Soweto ’76 and a blind date with Ian Khama

The girl of the Early Race

PART 3. BLACK

Ascending on a battlefield

Marrying a man I met in a bar

Clashing cultures and vultures

White papers and petrol bombs

Let’s shoot her in the tits

//Khwai-hemm the All-Devourer

Getting divorced and donning a flak jacket

The death of Samora Machel

Following Tutu in the bush

An angel on an Angolan battlefield

Walter Sisulu’s release

Mandela free on a watermelon day

Glory bright, unclouded

The prince and princess from Nigeria

A new moon and the Hammerkop

PART 4. KHOISAN

An Israeli army officer called Blessed

Exploring, and never been to me

Naked grammar and a girl called Horse’s Pathway

Rescued by ritual

Epilogue

Endnotes

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Sylvia Vollenhoven

The Keeper of the Kumm

.....

My story fizzles as Niall’s face becomes very serious. I’ve never seen such a shadow between us before. He reaches for the genet-skin pouch in which he keeps his traditional ‘bones’. The objects in the bag are a talismanic mixture that also includes a few bones. Only once before has he used this method of divination – to reassure me that in spite of my concerns about working with an ancestral spirit all would be well.

“Give it a blow if you will,” he says, opening the pouch and pushing the contents toward me. We sit opposite each other on the floor. The room is bedecked with the comforting symbols of African healing and divination. Neatly stacked jars of herbs flank a small altar. The wall behind it is covered with brightly coloured cloth. A tangible border between us and the horsey suburb in which he lives.

.....