Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika Traditional Geocache
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Easy roadside cache.....
Enoch Sontonga, a teacher and lay preacher from the Eastern Cape, died in obscurity 100 years ago, aged just 33. But he left an indelible legacy. His hymn, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika (God bless Africa), went on to become Africa's most famous anthem of black struggle against oppression.
A prayer for God's blessing
Sontonga wrote the first verse and chorus of Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, a prayer for God's blessing on the land and all its people, as a hymn for his school choir in 1897.
The famous song has since been reworked and adopted as South Africa's national anthem, translated into numerous African languages, including Swahili, and incorporated into the national anthem of Zambia, Tanzania and Namibia.
On 8 January 1912, at the first meeting of the South African Native National Congress, the forerunner of the African National Congress, it was sung after the closing prayer.
Solomon Plaatje, a founding member of the ANC, recorded the song in London in 1923. In 1925 the ANC adopted the song as the closing anthem for their meetings.
The song was published in a local newspaper, "Umthetheli Wabantu", on 11 June 1927, and was included in the Presbyterian Xhosa hymn book as well as a Xhosa poetry book for schools. Seven additional stanzas in Xhoza were added by the poet Samuel Mqhayi, and a Sesotho version was published by Moses Mphahlele in 1942.
Prior to South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, the country's official anthem was Die Stem van Suid Afrika (The Call of South Africa), composed by Afrikaans poet CJ Langenhoven in 1918. Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was the unofficial anthem, sung by the majority of the population. In 1994, the two anthems were amalgamated into one.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Abg sbe gur fubeg ....