Tannie Ossewania Praat Kaktus

The Gaggle Blue's..

2008-07-07T10:48:00.002+02:00

South Africa Still Sucks!

Yip..it's that time again...South Africa Sucks has gone bye bye's...and who said Big Brother doesn't exist..

But never fear when we are near...you can find the new blog at http://zahell.blogspot.com ..no posts there yet, but we will get to it shortly.. Boerejeug also got the chop...my, my seems we are hitting some nerves..

Please be skatties and pass on the new link to as many people as possible...

See you there
Groete
Jou Antie

Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle..an afternoon visit

2008-07-06T14:13:00.034+02:00

Long, long ago, in a land far, far away, lived a beautiful princess in a great and magnificent castle, surrounded by thick dark forests and perched precariously high up top upon a mountain....

Isn't that how you remember all those fairy tales from childhood starting?

Well...beautiful princesses did really exist...and, some of them, who had very rich and powerful daddy's, did live in magnificent castles too!

From out of my lounge window, looking west across the Rhine and the Rhine valley, far in the distance is the Vogesen Mountains, and directly in view on the top of the highest peak of the Stophanberch mountain, is the mighty castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg, once upon a time the seat of the Princes and Knights of Hohenstaufen. It might not look like much from such a distance, but oh boy..once you get up close it is one imposing medieval fortress and castle.

I have been there before and took a tour, but that was in winter, when the climb to the entrance was so treacherous with the ground frozen solid and slippery as a wet bar of soap.

On Friday I felt like taking a drive to photograph the Rhine valley, and so while driving up the mountain pass looking for a gap in the forest where I could get a good shot of the landscape, I just decided bugger that, the best shot of the valley is only to be had from the main tower window or battlements of Haut-Koenigsbourg! So off i went, parked my car and bought a ticket...come and join me on my tour..!

This year marks the 100th year centenary of the completion of restoration work on Haut-Koenigsbourg. While I was at it, I took over 135 photos from every angle of the exterior and interior of the beautiful castle. The very best of my photos I present to you here, in a pictorial tribute to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who initiated and financed the restoration, as well as the architect Bodo Ebhardt and the many people, carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, sculptors, artists, gilders and other 'fachleute' from all the surrounding villages of the Alsace who were involved in its magnificent restoration over 100 years ago.

It is unknown when a castle was first built on the site. The first explicit mention that is known was in 1147 when Fredrick von Hohenstaufen, (known as 'One Eye') noted the strategic importance of the 755m high Stophanberch mountain... It took its name from the original Königsburg, German for "king's castle", in 1192.

In the early thirteenth century the castle passed from the Hohenstaufen family to the Dukes of Lorraine who entrusted it to the Ratsamhausen family who held the castle until the fifteenth century. A coalition of cities attacked and burned the castle in 1462.
The ruins passed to the Thiersteins who rebuilt them after 1479 with a defensive system suited to the new artillery of the time. In 1517 the Thierstein died without an heir and the castle came into the possession of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor.

It was abandoned after the Thirty Years' War because it had been burned and pillaged by Swedish troops after a 52 day siege. For a few hundred years the castle was left unused and became overgrown by the forest. Various romantic poets and artists were inspired by the castle during this time.

It was given by the city of Sélestat to the German emperor Wilhelm II in 1899. Wilhelm wished to create for himself a castle lauding the qualities of the medieval time of Alsace and more generally of German civilization. He hoped it would reinforce the bond of Alsatians with Germany, as they had only recently (1871) been incorporated into the German Reich. The management of the restoration of this fortified castle was entrusted to Bodo Ebhardt. Work proceeded from 1900 to 1908.

Bodo Ebhart's aim was to rebuild as near as possible to what it was like on the eve of the Thirty Years' War. He relied as much as possible on historical accounts, but, occasionally lacking information, he had to improvise some parts of the stronghold. For example, the Keep tower is now reckoned to be about 14 metres too tall. Wilhelm also encouraged certain modifications which emphasised a romantic nostalgia for Germanic civilization. For example, the main dining hall has a taller roof than it did at the time, and links between the Hohenzollern family with the Habsburgs of the Holy Roman Empire are over-emphasized.

After World War I, the French state confiscated the castle. For many years it was considered fashionable to sneer at the castle in France because of its links to the emperor. Many considered it to be nothing more than a fairy tale castle. However, in recent years many historians have established that, although it is not a completely accurate reconstruction, it is at least interesting for what it shows about Wilhelm II's ideas of the past. Parts of the 1937 movie The Grand Illusion by Jean Renoir were shot at Haut-Kœnigsbourg.

The castle has been listed as a monument historique since 1862. In 1993, it was officially designated as a national historic site by the French Ministry of Culture. Today, it is one of the most famous tourist attractions of the region.

After passing through the main gate with the Tierstein coat of arms, you pass through a narrow passage between the main south buildings and the outer fortified walls and out into the lower courtyard, where is situated the stables, the mill house, blacksmiths workshops, stores and all the other buildings that made the castle self sufficient

As the photo's above shows the extensive work required on the old wind mill and mill house, the before and after shots of it's restoration. The big old millstones were unearthed during restoration and are also on display.

This is the lower forcourt entrance, also fortified so that it would not be cut off form the main living quarters by an artillery attack. It also has one of the many wells in the centre which is no less than 62 metres deep...!

This spiral staircase leads from the inner courtyard, outside of the kitchen, pantries and wine storehouse, up into the keep and the gallery of the private living quarters.

This pic above is the kings study. All the rooms in the private apartments are inter leading, not large rooms and with low ceilings ans small windows, they are pretty dark and dingy, however this was to be able to heat them properly in winter.

In each room was either an open hearth or a ceramic wood burning stove covered with green glazed, pressed ceramic tiles with emblems and representations of medieval life.

The above pic shows the arms room (I poached this pic as mine came out too dark), displayed are a collection of various halberds, massive double handed swords, amazing assortment of crossbows and long bows, wind up crossbows that no doubt could kill a mammoth, and a collection of armour.

The furniture in the Lorrain bedchamber, situated in the south side of the building, comes from the province of Lorrain, and was a gift from the people of the province to Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In this section of the castle is the most luxurious apartments. Not that they would be considered luxurious by our standards, but some of them were provided with long drop latrines. All the rooms were interconnecting.

The most impressive room is the Kaisers Great Hall, it was probably the gathering place for all the knights and ladies and the scene of many banquets and gatherings. An imperial eagle and coat of arms indicate the political character of this room, with the most beautiful frescoes by Leo Schnug adorning the ceiling and walls.

At the back is a gallery which gives an indication of the height of this room.

I have taken a some of pics of the huge tapestries with scenes of knights on horseback in full armour and regalia..the pics unfortunately do not do them justice, but I have to post them to give you a bit of an idea. Then the wood paneling is finished off with many different ornamental wood carvings of male and female figures. All beautifully painted and gilded...there are so many, but i will have to be happy just posting one little pic..

This is a shot upwards into the gallery of the Great Room, or banqueting hall

...a strange thing I noticed was that all the maidens and ladies have got large pregnant bellies...I don't know why...maybe woman back then were pregnant all the time...all those long winter nights and brave and horny..knights..!

...as can be seen by the two pics below, I did manage to get my shot of the Rhine valley! This is the view from the top of the battlements of Haut-Koenigsbourg on top of the Stopphanberch mountain of the Vogesen, looking east across the Rhine to Deutschland, with the Schwartzwald in the distance.

Below is the small village of Orschwiller, surrounded by vineyards and fields of wheat.

The End

The Soldier Stood And Faced God

2008-07-02T16:09:00.005+02:00

The soldier stood and faced God, Which must always come to pass. He hoped his shoes were shining, just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, you soldier, how shall I deal with you? Have you always turned the other cheek? To My Church have you been true?"

The soldier squared his shoulders and said, "No, Lord, I guess I haven’t, because those of us who carry guns, Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays, and at times my talk was tough. And sometimes I've been violent, because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny, that wasn't mine to keep...

Though I worked a lot of overtime, when the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help, though at times I shook with fear. And sometimes, God, forgive me, I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place, among the people here.

They never wanted me around, except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord, It needn't be so grand. I never expected or had too much, but if you don't, I'll understand."

There was a silence all around the throne, where the saints had often trod. As the soldier waited quietly for the judgment of his God.

"Step forward now, you soldier, you’ve borne your burdens well. Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets; you’ve done your time in Hell."

~Author Unknown~ 32 Battalion

Afrikaners is orals

2008-06-28T12:24:00.000+02:00

The Curse

2008-06-27T00:41:00.007+02:00

And Mugabe awoke with a hoof on his throat and he struggled
and howled to be free,
tripped on the racks of his English shoes and clawed at his English suits,
And crashed down the unlit corridors where his wife has collected her loot,
Screaming “You may not condemn me - there are by-laws and statutes and fines”

But the Devil replied “God’s law trumps that, and by his law you’re mine.”
Come, see what you’ve done to your people, see what you’ve done to your land,
And then I’ll haul you back into the light, and see if you understand.

Then the Devil seized him by his neck and dragged him up into the night
And Bob hung limp, for one against one was not his idea of a fight
They spiralled down to a wasteland, and Mugabe sprawled on his face,
“Spare me, spare me” he whimpered, “spare me this terrible place”,
For he saw charred beams and scattered bricks, filth and ruin and weeds,
And through the dawn came children, sifting the dust for seeds.

“Eight years ago” said the Devil, “this place was heavy with maize,
there was fruit on the trees and crops in the earth and grass for the cows to graze;
It was farmed by those who loved the soil, who knew it and tended it well,
And now it’s farmed by Cellphone, from the Monomotapa hotel.”

“Racist” screamed Mugabe, “Imperialist, Colonist, Queer!
These people are free, that’s down to me and that’s why I rule here!”

“Free to do what?” asked the Devil, “to cower and cringe to survive?
The farms are going, the work is gone, now only your thugs can thrive,
Preying on women and children, feeding on horror and fear,
Flying flags of hate and despair that had no business here;
Look at your mindless militias, look in each alien face,
Condemned by their own insanity, exiled for life from the race,
Watch them go into action, cheer as they take up the fight,
Beating up Zimbabweans for the crime of being white,
Red-eyed from drink, thick-tongued from drugs, watch them go off on a spree
Burning the homes of Africans who dared to be honestly free.”

Mugabe licked his lips and whispered, “All freedom comes at a price,”

“Indeed?” said the Devil “And for the record - what was your sacrifice?
Did you give blood to the struggle? How many times were you mortared?
Or did you play politics in a hotel, and wait till your rivals were slaughtered?
If ever you tasted honour or pain those tastes were long since forgotten,
Eclipsed by the flavours of power and greed, the aromas of all that is rotten.

Come, Mugabe” and up they flew and soared over country and town
And each time they swooped, hunger and horror reached up to pull them down,
And the souls of children streamed past them, and on and up into the light
And Mugabe whimpered and twisted, to shield his eyes from the sight
“Sons of despair,” said the Devil “and daughters of desolate selves,
It’s the West that gives food to your people, while your cronies are stuffing themselves.
The West you despise and prosecute is the innocent’s sponsor and friend.
But when your young ‘veterans’ seize the supplies, these fragile lives have to end;”

“I did not know,” croaked Mugabe and the Devil applauded with glee:

“Save your lies for Mbeki, they make no impression on me.
Now, look at the shuttered factories, look at the overnight queues.”

“Blame the British,” Bob stammered, “the whites, the Norwegians, the Jews.”

But the streets sent up a whisper, a whisper as loud as a roar:

“The old man who stole three elections - it’s time that we showed him the door!”

A scream rose up from the city, a scream rose up from a cell,
And the Devil plunged them into the earth and to a cameo from hell
Of shadowed figures with smiling lips that shone with delight and disdain,
Of a body convulsing and wrenching, shaking apart from the pain;

“Applaud your police,” said the Devil, “corrupted beyond repair;
And caress the electrodes, the batons and guns, and the innocent tied to the chair.”

But as Mugabe stretched out his hand the scene was gone in a flash,
And he stared instead at a drive full of Mercs and a house full of money and trash,
And then at the gloom of an upstairs room, heavy with malice and lies,
Where fat men sat and talked poison, avoiding each others’ eyes:

“Here are your generals,” the Devil hissed, “your ministers, judges and hacks,
They have fortunes and forex and farms they can’t farm, it’s only a future they lack,
Do they flee for Malaysia , Libya , France with their women and all they can pack?
Or do they just turn and remove you, and claim dispensation for that?

Look at the wealth that seeps from them, and then hold your nose at the stench
Of the paltry crew that cleave to you, the cowards, the fools and the French;
See them plotting and scheming; hear your folly despised,
Even your reptiles want you gone - you made them, are you surprised?

Now do you know what you are Mugabe, now do you understand?
You’re the Lord of the bloated thousand, and King of an empty land.
What gave you most pleasure Mugabe? Which wickedness tasted most sweet?
The mass murder of the Ndebele?
The children with nothing to eat?
The whites you had casually butchered?
The election results that you changed?
Or the war that you fought in the Congo, for diamond commissions arranged?
The perversion of the system?
The enrichment of those you despise?
The limos, money and power?
The lies and the lies and the lies?

I ought to admire you Mugabe; you’ve certainly earned your hellfire,
And all for small motives; self interest and fear, that aspect I have to admire;
Better by far that you never had lived Robert Gabriel!
The world will heal the wounds you’ve left, but I cannot heal you in hell!”

Then the Devil’s right hand grabbed Mugabe, and Mugabe screamed in his fright,
And he scrabbled and pleaded and whimpered and begged…
And awoke to an African night,
And sweated and panted and shuddered, calling his aides to his side.
Reconstituting his ego, his vanity, his evil and pride.

But then he screamed again, recoiling from that he could not bear to see:
The slogans burning his eyes from the walls and the words… we want to be free!
Enough is enough! Zvakwana!! Sokwanele!!

The Devil meandered down Second Ave, strolled up Samora Machel Blvd,
“The brave will inherit,” he murmured, “when I have Mugabe in hell:
And the dawn will return to Zimbabwe , and children will learn how to smile,
Zimbabwe is one of God’s countries… but at least it was mine for a while...

Author unknown

Buffaloed

2008-06-24T19:01:00.015+02:00

I have to take a break from reading about Mandelatopia every now and then, and got onto this topic...(the American 'Bloedrivier') and this article, it's a good read, and the one that follows below it... I thought you might find it interesting...sure is a myth buster. I have never done an in depth read on the history of the Red Injuns, but I sure had nighmares as a kid watching those old westerns...!

Fighting the truth about American Indians - evidence of cannibalism and other questionable practices by Native Americans vs. political correctness

When NASA launched the cremated remains of scientist Eugene Shoemaker aboard the Lunar Prospector nearly three years ago, the last thing it expected was a controversy. Here was a fitting tribute to a man who taught Apollo astronauts about the moon's geology and helped discover the famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that slammed into Jupiter. The probe containing his ashes was scheduled to scan the moon for signs of water, and then, mission accomplished 18 months later, crash into the lunar surface: a fitting graveyard for a fellow like Shoemaker.

And yet the controversy came-but not from budget hawks in Congress worried about NASA's payload. Instead, it came from Navajo Indians, who called it a sacrilege. "Using the moon as a burial site for an astronomer is a desecration and gross insensitivity to all who respect and practice Native American religions," explained Albert Hale, then president of the Navajo Nation.

So what did NASA do? It apologized. "We sincerely regret any unintended offense," wrote a NASA official. "We look forward to hearing from you and learning more about how Navajo traditions might help inform NASA's pursuit of scientific knowledge." It was surely one of the strangest episodes in the history of space exploration. Yet few people noticed it. The media go into conniptions whenever some little hamlet in the Bible Belt elects a creationist to the local school board, but the NASA-Navajo spat generated only a couple of newspaper stories in the Southwest.
Perhaps apologies emanating from the Clinton administration aren't considered news anymore. More likely, there's an unwritten rule at work here: It's not acceptable to question Indian religious beliefs-or anything else about them-even when they're asserted in seemingly bizarre contexts. That's because American Indians occupy a unique moral high ground in the public imagination. Their systematic extermination and relocation is one of the most brutal acts in U.S. history. Most Americans know this intuitively, but they'd rather not think about it-so instead they choose simply to feel sorry for the Indians living today. This aura of victimhood has won Indians a whole series of special rights involving everything from building casinos to going on whale hunts.

Yet the past is not a simple morality play, and a new round of scholarship questions the popular image of Indians as innocent children of nature. There's a major battle going on over the ownership of history, and it pits academics against activists who insist that Indians be seen only in certain lights.

The veneration of Indians is nothing new: It goes back at least as far as the stories of Pocahontas and the first Thanksgiving. Its most recent manifestation is the Sacajawea dollar-which itself is just the latest in a long line of Indian-head coins dating back to the 19th century. There have been plenty of other Indian stereotypes, too, including the scalp-crazy "Injun" savages from old movies and the pulps. But when was the last time you saw one of these? They're almost as extinct as the buffalo that used to roam the Great Plains.

Which brings us to exhibit A: the buffalo. Indians were remarkably efficient buffalo killers, with individual hunters dressing in skins to get close shots, and groups of them driving whole herds off cliffs. It's becoming increasingly clear that Indians inflicted an enormous amount of damage on this Edenic symbol of wild North America. In his recent book The Ecological Indian, Shepard Krech III of Brown University writes that Indian belief systems contributed to overhunting. Many Plains Indians thought that if even a single buffalo were allowed to escape from hunters, it would alert others; as a result of this belief, the hunters would "kill as many as possible" whether they needed the buffalo or not.

Perhaps the most important factor contributing to the buffalo's brush with extinction, however, was the demand for hides on the East Coast. Princeton historian Andrew C. Isenberg, author of The Destruction of the Bison, estimates that Indians were killing 600,000 buffalo each year by the 1840s-an unsustainable death rate. By the time white hide-hunters arrived on the scene, the buffalo were trapped in a downward spiral. "Without their involvement, the buffalo would probably have only lasted another 30 years," said Dan Flores of the University of Montana in the New York Times.

These professors all pay a price for their views: "It's anti-Indian stuff," sniffs the University of Colorado's Vine Deloria. Yet there's long been circumstantial evidence that Indians played a key role in the Pleistocene extinctions of well-known North American megafauna-mammoths, saber-tooth cats, giant ground sloths, and scores of other species whose bones are now on display near the dinosaur wings of natural-history museums. Proof of the Indians' involvement in nearly wiping out the buffalo is much stronger. Ignoring it now is like ignoring the fact that many black Africans participated in the slave trade-a historical truth of tremendous inconvenience to peddlers of victimhood theory.

There's even grimmer news in the recent scholarship. In September, the journal Nature published incontrovertible evidence that many southwestern Indians practiced cannibalism in ancient times. This was suspected for years, given the frequency with which butchered and cooked human bones turned up in archaeological digs. But some scholars believed this was proof of nothing more than rituals whose meaning is now lost, or perhaps the execution of people thought to be witches. Just because the Anasazi were tossing dismembered body parts into cooking pots doesn't necessarily mean they were also eating them, right?

Last year saw the publication of the groundbreaking book Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest, by Arizona State University's Christy Turner II, a longtime advocate of the cannibalism theory. It was an important work, but some scholars decided to ignore it. "I was just at an archeological conference," said UCLA's Steven A. LeBlanc in the Los Angeles Times. "There were tenured professors there who said they were not going to read Christy's book. They don't want to think about it." But now scientists have found human fecal remains containing proteins that could only have gotten there from the consumption of human flesh. There hasn't been much of a response from the naysayers yet, except to recycle the familiar claim that the ancestors of today's Indians didn't do these things, because there's no mention of cannibalism in their oral traditions.

Who can blame the descendants of the Anasazi-today's Hopi, Pueblo, and Zuni peoples-for wishing the cannibalism stories weren't true? The charge of institutionalized cannibalism is embarrassing, and suggests a whole culture of vicious Jeffrey Dahmers. But in fact, cannibalism proves no such thing. It was not an uncommon practice in premodern societies. There's plenty of evidence of it occurring all over the globe, including Europe (mainly in the Stone Age). What's so surprising about cannibalism among ancient Americans?

A deeper understanding of all this requires scientific investigation. Researchers still don't know why the Anasazi ate human flesh, and they won't ever know unless they can do their work without political interference. Unfortunately, studying prehistoric America is becoming a difficult business. A 1990 law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, has given tribal activists a say in whether scientists can study ancient human remains, as well as the right to retrieve items in museum collections. There are dozens of examples of the government forcing researchers to surrender potentially important finds to Indian tribes for reburial, before even the most rudimentary examinations of them can take place. In August, the federal government refused to turn over the 10,000-year-old Spirit Cave Man to Nevada tribes petitioning for it-but won't let scientists examine it either. It's off-limits to everybody. The government is also expected to announce a decision in the landmark Kennewick Man case no later than September 24

Many mysteries remain about the original peopling of North America-scientists still aren't sure when human settlers first arrived, or who they were. Yet if something like a Rosetta Stone were to surface, the government might very well force researchers to give it up because a handful of tribal activists considers it a sacrilege to study such things. The desires of Indians who don't participate in tribal activism-in other words, the majority of them, who might very well want to learn more about the past-are rarely accommodated.

Despite these struggles, the remarkable diversity of pre-Columbian America is beginning to emerge. Some Indians were noble, others ignoble; some were generous, others greedy; some ate buffalo meat, others had a taste for human flesh. Covering this up is the surest way to deny American Indians their humanity. It turns them into nothing more than totems of identity politics.
National Review
-by John J. Miller

Tom Quick “The Avenger of the Delaware”

2008-06-24T11:14:00.010+02:00

Tom Quick was born in Milford, Pennsylvania in 1734. His father, Thomas Quick, Sr., emigrated from Ulster County in 1733 and was a descendent of well to do ancestors who came from Holland in the late 17th century. Thomas Sr. built a log cabin and settled on valuable lands around Milford. Hunting and fishing were his principal pursuits, together with clearing his lands. Eventually he built a saw mill and a grist mill along a tributary of the Delaware River.

Tom Jr. was his first born and grew up to be tall and broad shouldered with high cheek bones. His youth was spent with the Indians of the Delaware Valley. He became familiar with their language, engaged in many of their sports, hunted and fished with them and became an expert marksman with a rifle. While his brothers and sisters were attending school, Tom was off hunting and trapping with the Indians.

The friendliness with the Indians did not last. While the Indians were reaping the rewards and hospitality shown by the Quick family, there were other influences at work which led the Indians to break off relations with them. This change in feeling did not go unnoticed by the Quick family and while they remained friendly, they did not mingle with the Indians as they had before. Unsuspecting of any treachery, the Quicks went about their business as usual.

On a trip along the Delaware River one winter day in 1756 Tom Jr., his brother and father were unarmed and got ambushed by the Indians. Thomas Sr. was shot by an Indian named Muswink and lay severely wounded. Tom and his brother tried to carry their father across the river. Thomas Sr. told his sons, as he lay dying, to leave him and try to escape to save the family. They ran across the Delaware, and finding they were not pursued, turned cautiously back to see what became of their father. The Indians were war-whooping and rejoicing as they scalped and then beheaded their father. It was at this moment in time that Tom resolved that he would avenge the death of his father. After the Indians left they gathered up the remains of his body and gave him a Christian burial. The day his father was buried Tom took his knife in his right hand and his rifle in his left, looked up to heaven and exclaimed:

By the point of the knife in my right hand and the deadly bullet in my left:

By Heaven and all that there is in it and by earth and all that there is on it:

By the love I bore my father; here on this grave I swear eternal vengeance against the whole Indian race……A voice from my father’s grave cries, Revenge! Eternal Revenge!

He took on the name “The Avenger of the Delaware” and lived up to his new found title. He became a wanderer throughout the valley of the Upper Delaware, remaining hermit-like in remote caves and cabins. One of his favorite hangouts was a cave at Hawk’s Nest, just north of Port Jervis. From this vantage point he could see the entire valley, scope out Indians that may walk along the riverbed, and hone his shooting skills.

Tom had a gun that was 7 feet, 4 inches long and it carried a ball one inch in diameter. He called it “Long Tom.” It was said that one time he shot 3 Indians with one bullet.

Of all the Indians Tom had killed the one that he relished most was when he met up with Muswink, the killer of his father, at Deckers Tavern on the Neversink River. Muswink was drunk and telling Tom that “the war was over.” Tom told him the war was not over for him he drug Muswink out the door and put a bullet through his head.

It is said that Tom died of smallpox in 1796. The Indians, learning of his death, dug up his body and cut it into little pieces and then distributed the remains to various tribes, then gloated over them. The contagious smallpox broke out among them and slew more Indians in his death than in his life.

Some say he killed a hundred Indians. Others say it was only a dozen, but one thing is sure – Tom was looked upon by the settlers as a protector of their homes and the guardian of their wives and children. The settlers were proud to think that one of their own had the courage to face the whole Indian Nation and send many of them to the Great Hunting Ground. Many historians have eulogized his merits, and then on August 28, 1889, his descendants unveiled a monument to his memory in the presence of over 1,000 dignitaries and townspeople in Milford.

On the monument there is an emblem of a wreath, and says that Tom Quick was the first white child born within the limits of the Borough of Milford. It also says “Tom Quick, the Indian Slayer” and “The Avenger of the Delaware.” On the side of the monument is a tomahawk, canoe paddle, scalping knife, wampum, and an inscription which states that, maddened by the death of his father, he never abated his hostility to the Indians till his death 40 years afterwards.

The monument has stood in Milford for more than 100 years. Then, just before Christmas of 1997, someone used a sledgehammer to smash and damage the monument. Borough officials in Milford took the monument down and took it to a secret location. In 1999, two years after the monument was smashed, 200 people with American Indian roots and their supporters descended on Milford for a rally in front of the county courthouse.

One of the Indian supporters said “We are here to ask you to stop thinking of Tom Quick as a folk hero and see him for what he really was: a murderous, hate-filled, racist killer.” The protest squelched any immediate plans Milford Borough Council may have had for restoring the monument.

Anti-monument letters from all over the country poured in and were collected by Borough Council. In 2001 the debate in Milford went national.

Chuck “Gentle Moon” Demund, sub-chief of the Lenape Nation said “This is a monument to a mass murderer and a drunken fool who bragged about killing people.” but failed to recount the countless examples of native savagery vested apon the white settlers.

Milford Borough leaders teamed up with the Pike County Historical Society to restore the monument and to add an interpretive panel. They say that the 9 foot tall obelisk is part of the region’s history and should be put back on display, and rightly so.

Getting to know Douglas Reed..

2008-06-22T20:20:00.008+02:00

Having posted a few excerpts from the writings of Douglas Reed on SAS, I have decided to promote the 'lost' books of this brilliant writer, and encourage you take take a look at some of his profound writing. There is no need to hunt through the dusty shelves of second hand book shops to find these rare books, as they are now free in the public domain!
Of more interest to South African readers would be the book 'The Siege of South Africa', which I would consider compulsory reading for anyone remotely interested in Southern African politics since the end of WWII. I have added a permanent link to the collection of Douglas Reed Books to the political links list at the bottom right, under South African Political Links (...not under the Springbok Hits links), as well as to the header of this post.

The disappearance into almost total oblivion of Douglas Reed and all his works was a change that could not have been wrought by time alone; indeed, the correctness of his interpretation of the unfolding history of the times found some confirmation in what happened to him when at the height of his powers.

After 1951, with the publication of Far and Wide, in which he set the history of the United States of America into the context of all he had learned in Europe of the politics of the world, Reed found himself banished from the bookstands, all publishers' doors closed to him, and those books already published liable to be withdrawn from library shelves and "lost", never to be replaced.

His public career as a writer now apparently at an end, Reed was at last free to undertake a great task for which all that had gone before was but a kind of preparation and education that no university could provide and which only the fortunate and gifted few could fully use - his years as a foreign correspondent, his travels in Europe and America, his conversations and contacts with the great political leaders of his day, plus his eager absorption through reading and observation of all that was best in European culture.

Experiences which other men might have accepted as defeat, served only to focus Douglas Reed's powers on what was to be his most important undertaking - that of researching and retelling the story of the last 2000 years and more in such a way as to render intelligible much of modern history which for the masses remains in our time steeped in darkness and closely guarded by the terrors of an invisible system of censorship.

The Book: Commencing in 1951, Douglas Reed spent more than three years - much of this time separated from his wife and young family - working in the New York Central Library, or tapping away at his typewriter in spartan lodgings in New York or Montreal. With workmanlike zeal, the book was rewritten, all 300,000 words of it, and the Epilogue only added in 1956.

The story of the book itself - the unusual circumstances in which it was written, and how the manuscript, after having remained hidden for more than 20 years, came to light and was at last made available for publication - is part of the history of our century, throwing some light on a struggle of which the multitudes know nothing: that conducted relentlessly and unceasingly on the battleground of the human mind.

It needed some unusual source of spiritual power and motivation to bringto completion so big a book involving so much laborious research and cross-checking, a book, moreover, which seemed to have little or no chance of being published in the author's lifetime.

Although there is correspondence to show that the title was briefly discussed with one publisher, the manuscript was never submitted but remained for 22 years stowed away in three zippered files on top of a wardrobe in Reed's home in Durban, South Africa.

Relaxed and at peace with himself in the knowledge that he had carried his great enterprise as far as was possible in the circumstances of the times, Douglas Reed patiently accepted his forced retirement as journalist and writer, put behind him all that belonged to the past and adjusted himself cheerfully to a different mode of existence, in which most of his new-found friends and acquaintances, charmed by his lively mind and rich sense of humour, remained for years wholly unaware that this was indeed the Douglas Reed of literary fame.

Of this he was sure, whether or not it would happen in his lifetime, there would come a time when circumstances would permit, and the means be found, to communicate to the world his message of history rewritten, and the central message of Christianity restated.Interpretation: For the rest, The Controversy of Zion, can be left to speak for itself; indeed, it is a work of revisionist history and religious exposition the central message of which is revealed in almost every page, understanding and compassionate of people but severely critical of the inordinate and dangerous ambitions of their leaders.

In the final chapter, under the heading the Climacteric, Douglas Reed remarks that if he could have planned it all when he began writing his book in 1949, he could not have chosen a better moment than the last months of 1956 to review the long history of Talmudic Zionism and re-examine it against the background of what was still happening on the stage of world politics.

For 1956 was the year of another American presidential election in which, once again, the Zionists demonstrated their decisive power to influence Western politics; it was the year in which the nations of the West stood by as helpless spectators as Soviet forces were used to crush a spontaneous revolt and re-install a Jewish-Communist regime in Hungary; and it was the year in which Britain and France, under Zionist pressure, were drawn into the disastrous fiasco of an attempt to capture the Suez Canal, an adventure from which, once again, Israel alone gained any advantage.

Everything that has happened since Reed wrote those last sentences in 1956 has continued to endorse the correctness of his interpretation of more than 2000 years of troubled history.

The Middle East has remained an area of intense political activity and of the maximum falsification of news and suppression of genuine debate, and it was only the few with some knowledge of the role of Talmudic Zionism and Communism who could have had any chance of solving the problem of successive events of major importance, like the so-called Six Day War in 1967 and the massive Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Those who have read The Controversy of Zion will not be surprised to learn that there were clear signs of collusion between the Soviet Union and Israel in precipitating the Israeli attack on Egypt, for it was only because Colonel Nasser had been warned by the Kremlin bosses that Israel was about to attack Egypt's ally Syria that he moved nearly all his armed forces to his country' s northern border, where they fell an easy prey to Israel's vastly superior army.

It seemed as if nothing had changed when in 1982 Israel launched a massive and most ruthless attack on Southern Lebanon, ostensibly for the purpose of rooting out the Palestine Liberation Organisation, but actually in furtherance of an expansionist policy about which Jewish leaders have always been remarkably frank.

By this time, however, the pro-Zionist mythology generated by Western politicians and media in which Israel was always represented as a tiny and virtuous nation in constant need of help and protection, was obviously beginning to lose much of its plausibility, so that few were surprised when the British Institute of Strategic Studies announced that Israel could now be regarded as fourth in the world as a military power, after the USA, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China - well ahead of nations like Britain and France.

More deeply significant was the reaction of the Jewish people, both in Israel and abroad, to an apparent triumph of Zionist arms in Lebanon. While Western politicians and media remained timorously restrained in their comment, even after news of the massacre of an estimated 1500 men, women and children in two Beirut refugee camps, 350,000 of the residents of Tel Aviv staged a public demonstration against their government and there were reports in the Jewish press that controversy over the Lebanese war had rocked the Israel army and affected all ranks.

Of this, too, Douglas Reed seems to have had some presentiment, for among the last words in his book are these: "I believe the Jews of the world are equally beginning to see the error of revolutionary Zionism, the twin of the other destructive movement, and, as this century ends, will at last decide to seek involvement in common mankind" .

2008-06-21T02:10:00.002+02:00

Flower Power with Marianne North (1830-1890)

2008-06-18T19:43:00.016+02:00

Thanks to a tip from a reader, I present to you the botanical paintings of Marianne North. I have chosen paintings of plants that mean something to me, and not just because they are pretty blommetjies...but read about the artist first..

Marianne North was a remarkable Victorian artist who travelled the globe in order to satisfy her passion for recording the world’s flora with her paintbrush. The result of these epic journeys can be seen in the North Gallery at Kew, where tier upon tier of brightly coloured paintings of flowers, landscapes, animals and birds are arranged. There are 832 paintings, all completed in 13 years of travel round the world.

Marianne was devoted to her father Frederick North who was Liberal MP for Hastings. When he died in 1869 it had a profound effect on her for until then all life had centred on him. In 1871 at the age of 40 Marianne began her astonishing series of trips around the world.
Between 1871 and 1885 she visited America, Canada, Jamaica, Brazil, Tenerife, Japan, Singapore, Sarawak, Java, Sri Lanka, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Seychelles and Chile. Some of the plants she painted proved new to science and one genus and four species were named in her honour. She took a year off from travelling in 1881-1882 to arrange her pictures in the Gallery, which was built at her own expense and designed by James Ferguson, the architectural historian.
Marianne North retired to Gloucestershire, where she died on 30th August 1890.

I have selected my choice of botanical paintings from the South African Gallery.

View of the Mountains from the railway between Durban and Maritzburg, Natal
..I like this painting because it is the picture in my minds eye of the landscapes we travelled through on our way to spend holidays at the sea side. Even though it is of Natal, it reminds me of many places in South Africa.

Bird of Paradise, Strelitzia reginae with Sugar Birds

My Granny in East London had a row of these beauties growing near her wash line. They were always there, all my life right up until she sold her house just a few years before she passed away. That row of Stralitzia's grew into almost a hedge they were so thick and clumped together.

Aloe, Aloe latifolia

Aloe's now what would a 'rockery' be without one or two of these baby's in the back ground to create height... no a 'rockery' is not a Bobby Angel and Barbara Ray concert at Babsfontein, it is a indigenous cactus and succulent garden, usually enhanced with the addition of broken old wagon wheels, rusty old farming implements or brightly painted Gnomes.

Pendulous Sparaxis and Long-tailed Finch in Van Staaden's Kloof.

Okay, now I don't know this pretty pink bell shaped flower..but...I do know the birdie! Long tailed finch is just the lala name for it, I knew this bird as a 'Flapp'. Where I lived in Lichtenburg and Mafeking we used to see many of them flying around the farm lands and across the veld. Sometimes those tail feathers were so long and heavy the bird sukkeled to fly. Many years later, after I was married, I used to work as a display artist for Edgars and I travelled to all the small little Edgars stores in the West Transvaal, my area was from Potch, Stilfontein, Klerksdorp, Lichtenburg, Mafeking, Wollies and Schweitzer Reineke...in all my travels in the years I was with Edgars, I never saw one Flapp flying in the veld...I don't know why...they just became scarce. So sad, because they were really beautiful!

Proteus, Protea mellifera . Well what can one say about the Protea, it is only our national flower. This one in this painting is the small pink one, but my fav is the very big one, but Marianne North didn't do it justice in her painting of it, so I will put a good photo of one up in the side bar where it deserves a permanent display!

The Kaffir Plum, painted in the Perie Bush, South Africa .. I don't know this plant either, but I love it's name...it looks like a cuzzin of a num num..but I wouldn't take a chance to eat it..it might give you jippo guts..I know if you eat the 'fruit' of a cycad you can die of tummy ache and spuitpoep that lasts for days.

Amantungula in Flower and Fruit and Blue Ipomoea, South Africa ..now this red fruit with the little white star flower is a num num..! ...oh boy...I know num num's from when I was very little, and I could swear the artist sat up at the Hob Nob by Bonza Bay and looked out across the lagoon toward the beach when she painted this...it looks so much like that spot. I used to go with my grand father, he was actually a step grand pappie, and I always called him John, and he used to take me with fishing down at Bonza Bay and the num nums used to grow in the thick bush near the beach. You can eat them, they have like a spongy texture, and a funny taste that I haven't tasted for so long I can hardly remember it. A person was always very lucky if you could find a ripe one, because there were lots of num num hunters around. Black num num hunters who would eat the fruit green instead of leaving it to ripen because they were scared someone else would get to it before them...I bet a person can't take the doggies for walkies at 5:00 in the morning on the beach at Bonza Bay anymore..! The pretty blue trumpets are Morning Glory's..it's a creeper, I actually have them growing on the stoep here where I am, they are great.. who can say no to a beautiful Morning Glory..?

Clivia miniata and Moths ..Ahhh..a Clivia...oh what a queen she is..!...my Ouma was mad about a them, but they grew better at the coast than up country. Now I had a Clivia, and when it made seed I gave the seed to my uncle Chris, he was my Ouma's younger brother, and he had a very green thumb. He grew Clivias from seed, which is quite something let me tell you...actually he could grow anything. Him and I shared a 'thing' for Lithops..I think they are very naughty little plantjies..but I never mentioned to uncle Chris what I thought they looked like..*wink wink*

I actually have a whole lot of photos i took at the nursery here near me of the Lithops, little porno plantjies, imported to Germany from South Africa... They also remind me of Professor Christo Pienaar...remember him on Veld Focus...siestog, he is also dead long ago..*sigh*

nou ja..

Mooi bly julle

Groete

Jou Antie Rave

Another kind of Arabian Nights..

2008-06-16T22:57:00.008+02:00

"All the splendor and squalor, the beauty and baseness, the glamour and grotesqueness, the magic and the mournfulness, the bravery and the baseness of Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab passions, love, war and fancy, entitle it to be called 'Blood, Musk and Hashish'."
- Sir Richard F. Burton, Arabian Nights, Vol. 10, p. 140

British marines returning from an operation deep in the Afghan mountains spoke of an alarming new threat - being propositioned by swarms of gay local farmers.

Had they read Burton, they would have been prepared. But with PC education, how could they have been? The mixed Arab-Negro (North African) propensity for sodomy becomes quite comprehensible when one considers more recent history, like the rape-murder of thousands of civilians by Moroccans in Monte Cassino, Italy during WW II. Many of those raped were boys and men. In the days before PC-ness, these strange leanings could be faithfully and accurately reported. It used to be commonly observed that racial admixtures have an odd tendency toward sodomy and the sexual humiliation of women.

An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village."

While the marines failed to find any al-Qaeda during the seven-day Operation Condor, they were propositioned by dozens of men in villages the troops were ordered to search.

"We were pretty shocked," Marine Fletcher said. "We discovered from the Afghan soldiers we had with us that a lot of men in this country have the same philosophy as ancient Greeks: a woman for babies, a man for pleasure,."

Originally, the marines had sent patrols into several villages in the mountains near the town of Khost, hoping to catch up with al-Qaeda suspects who last week fought a four-hour gun battle with soldiers of the Australian SAS. The hardened troops, their faces covered in camouflage cream and weight down with weapons, radios and ammunition, were confronted with Afghans wanting to stroke their hair.

"It was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."

At one stage, troops were invited into a house and asked to dance. Citing the need to keep momentum in their search and destroy mission, the marines made their excuses and left. "They put some music on and ask us to dance. I told them where to go," said Cpl Richard. "Some of the guys turned tail and fled. It was hideous."

The Afghan hill tribes live in some of the most isolated communities in the country. "I think a lot of the problem is that they don,t have the women around a lot," said another marine, Vaz Pickles. "We only saw about two women in the whole six days. It was all very disconcerting."

A second problem the British found came minutes after the first helicopter touched down at one of the hilltop firebases, when local farmers appeared demanding compensation for goats they claimed had been blown off the mountains by the rotor blades. "Every time we landed a Chinook near a village, we got some irate bloke running up to us saying his goat has just got blown off the mountain ridge by the helicopter - and then he demanded a hundred dollars compensation," said Major Phil Joyce, commander of Whisky Company, one of four companies deployed.

As patrols moved away from the landing zones, the locals began pestering Afghan troops attached to the marines with ever more outrageous compensation demands - topping off at a demand from one village elder for $500 (£300) for damage to a tree by the downdraft from helicopters.

But the marines were under orders to win the "hearts and minds" of local farmers in what is one of the few remaining Taleban bastions. "I managed to barter him down to two marine pens, a pencil and a rubber," Major Joyce said. "He went away quite happy ."

>The Taleban gone, the tradition of sodomy returns to Kandahar. Bearded men, accompanied by their “ashna” (beloved boys) are again openly visible on the streets.

The Taleban had forbidden the Pashtun tradition of “ashna”, the grooming of favourite boys for sexual pleasure. In one of his first acts in 1994, Mullah Omar freed a boy who was being fought over by two Mujaheddin warlords in Kandahar, who had started firing artillery rounds at each other’s positions, destroying part of the city. Called to mediate in other such affairs, the Taleban movement quickly implanted itself in Kandahari society.

The Taleban quickly applied their medieval rules to those caught practising sodomy: they were forced to stand under a stone wall, which was felled on top of them. Eye witnesses in Kandahar speak of the change under the Taleban, and the subsequent return of the ashna.

One witness is the soldier Torjan. “In the later Mujaheddin years”, he told the British newspaper The Times, “more and more soldiers would take boys by force and keep them for as long as they wished. When the Taleban came, they were very strict about the ban”. However, the streets of Kandahar are now full of bearded men (usually married with families), walking openly accompanied by 15- or 16-year-old boys.

The ashna are approached in the street, in cinemas or football stadiums, and are coerced into sex by the offer of a drink, a piece of clothing, jewellery, money or a fighting pigeon, with which they can make a comfortable living. In the poverty-stricken world of Afghanistan, survival is the order of the day.

In their quest to help feed their brothers and sisters, these boys are marked for life by the paedophiles who prey on them to raise their social status: a poor man seen with an ashna is considered to have increased in social level.

There is a local saying that birds fly over Kandahar using only one wing, the other covering their posterior. Now the population claims “Birds flew with both wings under the Taleban…but not any more”.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru

Anyone who has lived in the Middle East could have told them this! The women are homosexual too! Although, this is a generalization, the thing about generalizations is that they are true of large portions of the populace. Homosexual is not really the right word, since they don't really consider it this. It is outlawed by the Koran, but like Catholics and the pill, it is largely an ignored prohibition. In countries where the sexes are so segregated (the home is separated into male and female rooms and when you visit the home, you go with the women to visit and your husband goes with the men) that they do not know or particularly care for one another. So they find amusement among their own kind.

It is so common, that a story from my 4 years in Saudi may illustrate: We lived for a time in a large Arab town (as opposed to a company compound like Dhahran) called Al Khobar. I was having real problems with the neighborhood boys, the 6-12 year olds. They were very destructive and roamed the neighborhood, bored and breaking out windows and smashing parked cars. My husband was a contractor in partnership with an Arab and we had rented an entire 6 unit apartment building for our own housing and for our higher level employees. The bottom floor was still empty.

After the men had gone to work, the boys would bang on the windows, breaking some, and once came in the building and slapped my daughter when she answered the door. We had tried everything, including speaking with parents and community leaders. But of course, young boys are not disciplined for harassing women. Sometimes, if I had to venture out, they would throw rocks at me with my baby in my arms! Our forman, a Yemeni, told us he would take care of it. He sat on the front stoop one day, and when the boys came around, he called and signaled to them to come over. This was an invitation to engage in sex that the boys all clearly understood, it being a common practice for men to fondle boys. They steered clear of our house after that.

In another case, my daughter used to go to an Arab neighbors house to play with their daughters when she was about 7. I had to put a stop to it when she told me they all took a bath together (children and women)! This from women that won't even take off a veil in front of a strange woman! They were obviously setting her up for sexual encounters, in fact, I consider what they did to be sexual abuse.

My daughter was too innocent to think of it in those terms at that age, so I did not make a big deal of it and make her feel victimized. Also, complaining to anyone would have probably resulted in her (or me) being jailed, not the Arabs! I just told her it was "weird" and that they should play over at our house from then on. You can imagine what 2-4 young, illiterate women do to amuse themselves when married to an old man and left home all day, unable to go out, work, or go to school. The homosexuality among the women is even more common, but less spoken of. I have many other stories from my time there that are illustrative of the common nature of homosexuality and pedophilia.

Tradition

2008-06-15T11:00:00.006+02:00

Have a look at this vid clip below. It's quite funny. Although it shows Jewish peasants in Russia, in some ways it reminds me of the Afrikaans communities I knew. Small, close knit, united in language, faith and tradition. All the characters that made up the community, the dominee, the doctor, the butcher, the grocer,the Co-op and of course, the kerk being the moral guidence system and watchdog. These pics of the church...that is the NG Moeder Kerk op George. I lived right next door to that church once apon a time.

Sometimes I think it is also traditions that is the stuff that glues people together. Not just love. Maybe now days as people become more wise and modern, they shed those old funny traditions which are considered old fashioned, and so in the end everyone goes his way, and does their thing, and so often even family ties is no longer enough to keep us together. My brother in law said to me last week, he thinks people are only involved in their immediate family, and are not even bothered with the extended family anymore...everyone is spread thin all over the country and across the globe. So if there is no bond among family, where will there ever be a bond among communities, look at the pathetic turn out to national celebrations, Day of the Vow and all that...it is as if now there is no more faith, no more heimat, there is no more 'tradition'..

Stark..!

2008-06-14T11:28:00.003+02:00

This is my favourit German 'band'...it's actually no band at all, but a music project between the shy and reserved Annette Humpe, who is the song writer and mucisian, and the singer Adel Tawil. Annette is the sister of equally talented Inge Humpe, who together with Tommi Eckart are the Popduo 2raumwohnung.

This particular song is mine and Gawies fav and should be translated into Afrikaans and covered by Steve Hofmeyr!...mooi luister Steve..!

Ball's....Mrs. Ball's..

2008-06-12T15:31:00.013+02:00

Expats can be so funny, I actually believe it has been the expat community that have given Mrs Ball's Chutney the culinary cult status it now holds. I would not be in the least surprised if some time in the future a bronze statue of Mrs Amelia Ball is put up outside the Fish Hoek library...

But lets face it, what is a curry without a dollop of chuties?
As chutney goes, in South Africa, and among the majority of the expat community, Mrs Ball's Chutney is queen...and when Saffas leave S.A. they either track down a South African grocer, an on-line supplier or get family back home to parcel up a stock.

There are many different brands of chutney on supermarket shelves in S.A..and to be honest, any decent tuisnywerheid will stock a variety of primo de lux home made chutney. However, when it comes to commercial products, my favourite is the Wellingtons sultana chutney. But since that is impossible to obtain in my neck of the woods, I buy Mrs Ball's in bulk, as it is a quality product that has remained the same since I was a kid. It is the national staatmaker and there is no foreign made substitute to be found at the local Indian and Asian speciality grocers. The products available are not even close, and even Patak's isn't a patch on any of the South African products...and certainly not even close to Mrs Ball's.

But did you know, the success story of Mrs H.S. Ball's Chutney has very humble beginnings.

In 1852 when the SS Quanza was ship-wrecked off East London, South Africa, en route from Canada to Australia, Captain Adkins and his wife were lucky to escape with not only their lives but also the blueprint for what was to become one of South Africa's most unique and priceless culinary icons. Captain Adkins and his wife settled in King Williamstown. In 1865 their daughter, Amelia, was born who was later to marry Mr Herbert Sandleton Ball, a railway superintendent form Cape Town. As part of her coming of age, the young bride was given the coveted secret chutney recipe.

When The Great War broke out in 1914, the Ball's chutney was being made on a small scale and was either given as gifts to friends or sold at church bazaars. So popular became its wholesome, piquant and fruity flavour that the Ball kitchen was transformed into a makeshift production line. As demand continued to soar, Amelia and Herbert sought the assistance of Cape Town businessman Fred Metter, who procured both the octagonal jar and the oval label with which today's chutney lovers are so familiar.

In this house in Cape Town, Amelia Ball began making the chutney we know today as Mrs H. S. Ball’s Chutney

Notions to name the product "Mrs H.S. Ball's Chutney" were uncontested as were those to add the Ball family crest to the top of then label. The Woodstock factory opened in 1917 to meet escalating demand, and as exports to Great Britain increased, an even bigger facility was later opened in Deep River.
Amelia Ball died in 1962 aged 97.

The Afrikaans word for chutney is 'blatjang'. The word has its origin in the Javanese sambal 'blachang' that was imported before chutney was produced in the Cape. Blatjang is the pride of the Cape Malay kitchen, and it has been described as a "bitingly spicy, pungently aromatic, moderately smooth and a very intimately mixed association of ingredients".

Today, Mrs H. S. Ball's Chutney world famous, and is available world wide from Dulstroom to Dubai, it is exported to many countries, including Sweden, UK, Australia, and USA.