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The present exhibition
in the African Cultures Gallery was installed in the early 1970s, and
was intended to show the essential features and patterns of material
culture among the various groupings of indigenous people in southern
Africa. These groupings were defined according to cultural and
linguistic criteria that were intended to enable the reconstruction of
social systems that no longer existed at that time, but this caused
the displays to present cultural patterns as if they were static and
timeless. Additions to the exhibition made during the 1980s and early
1990s, such as the display of a Nama camp, sought to counter this
impression by incorporating a historical dimension. Though the
exhibition does not represent the ways of life of contemporary rural
and urban South Africans, it shows the vital role played by
traditional knowledge of natural resources and their utilization in
the past by the indigenous inhabitants of southern Africa.
The famous but controversial diorama of 19th-century /Xam
hunter-gatherers in the Karoo region of the Western Cape is closed to
the public pending a decision on its future to be taken after
consultation with representatives of indigenous South African people
and other stake-holders.
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