Kuruman is named after the San Chief Khudumane who lived
in the area in the 1700s.
Attractions
Also see the
neighbouring towns
Kuruman is known as the Oasis of the Kalahari,
or also as the Texas of South Africa.
Wonderwerk Cave and Rock Paintings
The Wonderwerk Caves are about 40km south on the R31
to Danielskuil.
The cave is 140m long. Archeological artefacts found span many hundreds
of thousands of years, ranging from Acheulean handaxes and cleavers to Later
Stone Age artefacts. There is archaeological evidence of the use of fire
and of extinct species.
Red and yellow ochres were used for the rock paintings. The site was declared
a Grade 1 National Heritage site.
Moffat Mission Station
The original church, built by the Robert Moffat
in 1831, has mud floors and wooden beams supporting a thatch roof. For a
long time it was the largest building in the Northern Cape.
The church was declared a national monument in 1939.
The house of Mary Moffat Livingstone (married to
David Livingstone) can be visited.
Kuruman Eye
The Kuruman eye is a fountain flowing from an underground
dolomite cave (about 271 m long) that deliver about 20 million litres of
water per day. The water gushes into a pool that supplies the town with
water. The Eye feeds seven
irrigation channels. This fountain is most likely the biggest natural fountain
in the Southern Hemisphere.
In the pond lives an endangered species of cichlid
fish. There are also goldfish, carp, barbel and blue kurper
in the pool.
Mystery: where does all this water come from?
The Kalahari Acacia-Baikiaea woodlands ecoregion receives about 300 mm (in the southwestern region) to 600 mm (northern region) of rain annualy. In the greater region there are many such fountains, such as at Groot Marico, and it remains a mystery where all this water comes from, as there just is too little rainfall to feed all the fountains.
One possibility is that the source of water is the Okavango Delta, about 1000Km north, in Botswana. About 11 cubic kilometres (11,000,000,000,000 litres) of water flow annualy into the delta. It has been calculated that approximately 60% is taken up by plants, 36% by evaporation, 2% flows into Lake Ngami, and 2% (or 220,000,000,000 litres) percolates into the aquifer system.
Where does this 2% go? If the source is the Okavango Delta, there must be sub-teranean rivers 1000Km long.....
Bird Sanctuary and Nature Reserve
On the Hotazel road there is a Bird Sanctuary and Nature Reserve (2000
hectares) with a wetland.
Birds: 115 species, such as duck, ibis and heron.
Game: blesbok, blue wildebeest, duiker, eland, gemsbok, giraffe, impala,
kudu, ostrich, red hartebeest, sable antelope, springbok, steenbok, waterbuck,
zebra. Caracal (or lynx), black-backed jackal.
Trees: mainly camel-thorn, wild sage and umbrella-thorn.
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History
Kuruman is also known as Gasegonyana, meaning Small
Calabash. Khudumane, the san chief after which the town is named,
was killed by the Tlapin tribe on the hill overlooking the town.
Some Europeans settled here in the mid 1800s, mostly
missionaries. They tried to duplicate their European lifestyle, much to
the amusement of the local Tswana people.
Robert Moffat
Robert Moffat
(1795-1883) was a Scot who arrived in southern Africa in 1816 to work for
the London Missionary Society. After working in the Namaqualand for a while,
he stayed a while in Cape Town where he married Mary Smith (1795-1870).
In 1820 the Moffats worked in Griquatown, and later in Kuruman among the
Botswana people.
He translated the whole of the Bible as well as Bunyan's
The Pilgrim's Progress into the Setswana language.
The Tswana Bible was printed on their own printing press.
The Moffat's daughter, also Mary, married the adventurer
David Livingstone.
The Moffats lived more than 40 years in Kuruman, and
more than 50 years in Africa. When they retired, they returned to Britain.
Mary Moffat
Mary Moffat (1795-1871) was born in Dukinfield, Scotland.
She met Robert Moffat in 1816 when he worked at Plantation Farm in Dukinfield.
When Robert left for the Cape of Good Hope to work for the London Mission
Society, she followed him and they got married in Cape Town.
David Livingstone
David Livingstone (1813 – 1873) was born in Lanarkshire
(Scotland) and also worked for the London Missionary Society at Kolobeng
(40km from Gaborone) in present Botswana. Livingstone is more known for
his adventurous travels than for his mission work. It is estimated that
altogether he travelled around 50'000Km through the African bush.
Livingstone was the first European to see the huge waterfall,
Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means the smoke
that thunders. He named it after Queen Victoria, and today it is
generally known as the Victoria Falls.
His personal motto was typical of the European colonists
of the time: the three C's: "Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation."
Mary Moffat Livingstone
Mary Moffat Livingstone (1820-1862) was born in Griquatown
when her parents lived there. In 1845 she married David Livingstone. They
had six children, but David was away from home for such long periods on
his expeditions, that she was basically a single mother. She was sickly,
and died young, age 42.
Kuruman
Robert Moffat bought land from Chief Motibe of the Tlapin
tribe to establish a mission.
The town was laid out in 1887 by Captain Levenson. It
became a municipality in 1916.
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Nature
Kuruman is in the Kalahari
Acacia-Baikiaea woodlands ecoregion (WWF AT0709).
The area surrounding Kuruman is semidesert thornveld.
The town lies on the Ghaap Plateau (1131m above sea level).
Rainfall: 420mm per annum
Temperature: extremes from hot to cold, with frost in winter.
Economy
Mining: asbestos, manganese, haematite, crocidolite (richest deposits
in the world), iron, tiger eye is mined in the area.
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