Andrew Mokete Mlangeni (95), the last surviving co-defendant convicted with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Denis Goldberg and four others at the Rivonia Trial of 1963-1964, has died on 21 July 2020. His death came shortly after the death of Goldberg, who passed away on 29 April 2020. Mlangeni’s death signals the end of an era for South Africa’s liberation struggle since he was so closely associated with Mandela’s generation.
Bud Mbelle (Credit: Wits University)
Horatio Isaiah Budlwana (Bud) Mbelle was the first Organising Secretary of the South African Coloured Rugby Board and the brother-in-law of Sol Plaatje. Mbelle was born in Burgersdorp, Cape Colony on 24 June 1870. He grew up in the Herschel district in the Eastern Cape and was educated at the Wesleyan Methodist Primary School and the Healdtown Institution, near Fort Beaufort from 1886 to 1888, where he qualified as a teacher.
On 20 July 1963, South Africa played Australia for the first time in a rugby league test. This history-making test was the fifth game of the Australia – New Zealand Tour of the Rugby League Springboks, the national team of Rugby League South Africa.[1]
The tour results up to that point indicated that the visitors had won exactly half of the games played. While the Springboks, under the captaincy of former rugby union test player Dawie Ackerman, had won comfortably against Northern Division (20-10) and Monaro (41-2), it was tough going against Sydney (5-49) and Queensland (16-32).
On 10 July 1963, the first South African rugby league national team, the Rugby League Springboks, played against Monaro at the Manuka Oval in Canberra, Australia. This game, the second of their thirteen match tour through Australia and New Zealand, was the first attempt towards regular international tours.
The depiction of buffalo (Syncerus caffer) in San rock art is extremely rare throughout southern Africa and as a result its role in San cosmology has not previously been considered in publication. However, the mere appearance of buffalo in San rock art suggests that there must be a motive for its portrayal since animals assume symbolic associations in human thought. San artists depicted animals because they have meaning. An example of this is the eland, which is a multifaceted symbol in San culture as it is associated with girls’ puberty rituals, boys’ first kill ceremonies, marriage rituals, rain-making and the practices of the religious specialist.