A Cultural-Historical Appraisal of Three Selected Sacred Spaces of the Eastern Free State: A Phenomenological Approach

Abstract

The existence of cave sites in the eastern Free State poses a number of challenges to cave dwellers, cave pilgrims, heritage practitioners, and landowners and for the continued preservation, management and restoration of the caves.This study investigates the history and contemporary significance of Mantsopa, Mautse, and Motouleng caves.The caves have special religious significance for some African indigenous religious persuasions, indigenous knowledge systems and traditional healers, in relation to the veneration and reverence of ancestors.This is a qualitative descriptive study and was conducted to describe the locality, history and importance of the caves, with an interrelated theoretical and conceptual framework focused on concepts from African Religion, landscape, and social identity.It also includes a brief focus on contestations between cave dwellers and cave pilgrims on the one side and landowners of the lands on which the caves are situated.An interpretive phenomenological analysis of data in terms of available scholarship, was deployed.The purpose of the study was to identify and briefly analyse aspects of the significance of the caves for African religious and indigenous knowledge experiences and practices.A secondary purpose was to assess challenges concerning contestations about the caves between cave dwellers and pilgrims, and landowners, and to find out how these sites could be protected, both physically and legally, and also how existing protests and contestations by cave pilgrims may be dealt with constructively.It is recommended that access is negotiated with the landowners, and awareness regarding the religious and cultural practices and beliefs of the cave pilgrims are created to ensure the continuation and appreciation of African traditional religion and indigenous knowledge systems, in these sacred spaces.

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