Ultimately water is about sustaining life and it is because life is precious that creating awareness around water is important. As a 23 year old unmarried South African art student expecting my first child, my perception of the value of life has completely changed. It is due to this new appreciation of life that this water awareness project is of such importance to me.
Not only does water give life, it also gives birth to the construction of cities, since people move towards water. It is due to this fact that the city of Pretoria was established because of its abundance of water.
The name of the raft, She, was inspired by the tale of South Africa's Rain Queen, Modjadji -pronounced Moo-Jad-She. World renowned author, Rider Haggard, wrote a novel called 'She' in the 1880's that drew attention to the remarkable Rain Queen of the Lobedo people of South Africa.
The tale of the South African Rain Queen has it that the kingdom of the Karanga people experienced some conflict in the 1580's when the king Monomotapa discovered that his daughter, Dzugundini, was expecting an illegitimate child. In order to avoid a civil war in his kingdom he gave his daughter a magic horn that could make rain. This gift would protect her against any enemies.
Mother and her illegitimate child fled to the south from Zimbabwe and established a new kingdom further south towards South Africa. Two hundred years later, then chief Mugodo was warned by ancestral spirits that his sons was plotting to kill him. In order to avoid this and to fulfill the desires of the ancestral spirits, he had his sons murdered and married his daughter to produce a heir to the throne. A new dynasty of women was founded when a daughter was born out of the marriage, this was the first Modjadji, and ever since a new Rain Queen inherits the throne when a daughter is brought into the world.
The late Queen Modjadji died in 2001 and is survived by a son. She was a direct descendant of the once powerful royal house of Monomotapa, which ruled over the Karanga people in Zimbabwe in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is not known whether her son will succeed her since both her daughters had died and the female dynasty cannot continue.
Not only does water give life, it also gives birth to the construction of cities, since people move towards water. It is due to this fact that the city of Pretoria was established because of its abundance of water.
The name of the raft, She, was inspired by the tale of South Africa's Rain Queen, Modjadji -pronounced Moo-Jad-She. World renowned author, Rider Haggard, wrote a novel called 'She' in the 1880's that drew attention to the remarkable Rain Queen of the Lobedo people of South Africa.
The tale of the South African Rain Queen has it that the kingdom of the Karanga people experienced some conflict in the 1580's when the king Monomotapa discovered that his daughter, Dzugundini, was expecting an illegitimate child. In order to avoid a civil war in his kingdom he gave his daughter a magic horn that could make rain. This gift would protect her against any enemies.
Mother and her illegitimate child fled to the south from Zimbabwe and established a new kingdom further south towards South Africa. Two hundred years later, then chief Mugodo was warned by ancestral spirits that his sons was plotting to kill him. In order to avoid this and to fulfill the desires of the ancestral spirits, he had his sons murdered and married his daughter to produce a heir to the throne. A new dynasty of women was founded when a daughter was born out of the marriage, this was the first Modjadji, and ever since a new Rain Queen inherits the throne when a daughter is brought into the world.
The late Queen Modjadji died in 2001 and is survived by a son. She was a direct descendant of the once powerful royal house of Monomotapa, which ruled over the Karanga people in Zimbabwe in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is not known whether her son will succeed her since both her daughters had died and the female dynasty cannot continue.