A group of about thirty people from Grahamstown and King William's Town braved cold and windy conditions in front of the Bible Monument on Saturday afternoon to witness the handing over of a special Bible to Joubert Retief.
A group of about thirty people from Grahamstown and King William's Town braved cold and windy conditions in front of the Bible Monument on Saturday afternoon to witness the handing over of a special Bible to Joubert Retief.
A representative of the Afrikaans cultural organisation known as the Rapportryers, he was chosen for this honour because he is a direct descendant of Daniel Retief, brother of the Great Trek leader Piet Retief.
Earlier that day, the local community was treated to a fascinating multimedia presentation about the life and death of the well-known trek leader, Piet Retief.
Historian Tiaan Jacobs told a small but keen audience at the PJ Olivier Club about the time Retief spent in the Albany area before he made his ill-fated journey into the kingdom of Dingaan.
Chairman of the Eastern Cape branch of the Bible Society the Reverend Hein Barnard read a passage from the new Bible, recounting how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples in John 13.
The commemorative Bible was sponsored by Niels Heunis and produced by the Bible Society in Cape Town to recall a similar gesture of goodwill in April 1837 when the local community handed over a Bible to Jacobus Uys, a Voortrekker leader who was making his way up north.
The original Bible, now known as the Uys Bible, is kept on display at the Voortrekker Monument outside Pretoria. The Rapportryers hope that the new commemorative Bible being passed on from one community to another will eventually be kept alongside the Uys Bible.
Several members of the Grahamstown community signed one of the inner pages of the brand new Bible before it was handed over to representatives from King William’s Town.
The Rapportryers of Grahamstown are doing this special project as part of their celebrations to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Great Trek. The Bible Monument on Strowan Road was erected in 1962 to remember the special bonds of friendship between the English and Afrikaans speaking communities who lived in Grahamstown in the first half of the nineteenth century.
