KOMVANDAAN
We South Africans are fond of talking about our rich, diverse cultural heritage. But it is important to remember the hard work done every day by poets, translators and activists to keep indigenous languages and traditions alive.
No one knows this better than Lynthia Julius, a poet born in Namaqualand, Northern Cape, who won the Afrikaans category of the AVBOB Poetry Competition in 2017 with her poem ‘Vir Aljarreau’. Her debut collection, Uit die Kroes (Kwela, 2020) pays tribute to her own Nama roots, while sometimes lamenting her distance from them. As we celebrate Heritage Day, her extraordinary poems, some of which have been translated by Douglas Reid Skinner, remind us why it is important to celebrate indigenous memory and storytelling.
In one particularly evocative poem, called ‘Ontheeming (Displacement)’, she describes the way her relationship to her Nama heritage changed after she and her mother moved to Kimberley, away from her place of birth, when she was a child:
My mother is sourdough bread and Nama line dancing
belly laughter and meat
Okiep and Bergsig people
she can count to ten in Nama
when I tried the other day
I only got to three…
when I’m in Springbok, I’m much too city
in Kimberley, too Nama…
But even though her relationship to Nama culture might be more distant than she would like, she credits it with helping her find her own voice as a poet.
“I am the poet I am today because of where I come from. Because of my heritage. And I don’t sit, while writing, and make the conscious decision that I need readers to see and experience my heritage. It is a part of me that has shaped me in every facet of my life and writing.”
Another poem, ‘Intellektualisme van Goed (Intellectualising Stuff)’, describes her longing to run back to her mother’s house and hear the honest, down-to-earth speech of the people she knows and recognises in that environment:
I wanted to hear Aunty Lysie’s stories of Ashley, who used to lie
on the roof with a blanket when the sun was shining
I wanted to hear Uncle Piet playing his out-of-tune guitar
with his wine next to his left tackie
and the butt of a spliff beside the right…
“I was sitting in Philosophy class while studying at the University of the Free State,” Julius remembers. “I sat there, and I was sick of academia. I sat there, and I was homesick. I felt estranged while sitting in that class, and I desperately needed to be human again. Shaped by the Northern Cape, the people, and their Gariep Afrikaans.”
Asked what celebrating Heritage Day means to her, she uses an Afrikaans word, “komvandaan”, meaning the place you come from or origins:
“I cannot make sense of the world without my heritage. Without acknowledging my ‘komvandaan’. I make sense of the world, as a poet, through my ‘komvandaan’.”
Wider access to poems such as these always depends on the work of translators, and Julius is full of praise for Reid Skinner’s translations.
“I never thought I’d see my poems translated. Douglas, however, handles one’s work with so much respect. He always takes my heritage, my use of language and dialect, into consideration. So yes, I do see my work being translated into English of course. But I don’t see that happening without Douglas.”
In the next few days, write a poem that highlights an aspect of your own linguistic and cultural “komvandaan”.
The AVBOB Poetry Competition is open for submissions until 30 November 2026. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za and familiarise yourself with the competition rules.