Abstract
This thesis attempts to reconstruct the manner and the effects of the forced removal of the Ravele community, from their historical homes in old Mauluma1 along the Luvuvhu River Valley. Luvuvhu is the name given to a river that dominates the area under discussion. The name Luvuvhu’ is retained until, it enters Kruger National Park, where the Vatsongas call it Phafuri - as the river flows through Chief Mphaphuli’s territory. After relocation, the whole area under discussion is now known as Levubu.
Levubu is corruption of the word Luvuvhu by the local white farming community.
Old Mauluma in the Luvuvhu valley was situated on the North Eastern part of Louis Trichardt. More or less 3000 Ravele community members were forcibly removed from their land, between 1920 and 1940 to new Mauluma or Beaconsfields.2 The removal constituted a severe crisis for the members of the community as they were taken from a rich ecological area and resettled 100 kilometres west of old Mauluma, a dry and rocky area.
A study of the Ravele community’s removal from old Mauluma (Levubu area) is especially pertinent at this juncture because of the campaign by the previous owners to reclaim their land. Since the April 1994 election and the promise by the government that dispossessed people could reclaim their land, hundreds of the former Levubu residents (including Ravele community) have demanded compensation or return to their land.
Not surprisingly, the campaign has the support of all those who were removed, but is viewed with suspicion by white farmers in Levubu and surrounding areas. Whether the Ravele community will succeed in their campaign or not is uncertain. However the campaign has highlighted the anger of people who were forcibly removed from their homes. Many of these people believe, naively perhaps, that the wrongs of the past will only be eradicated when they can escape the enforced racial segregation of the past and return to their old location where the Vhavenda and the Vatsonga lived together.
Prof. L.W.F Grundlingh