The Cochoqua Kingdom Council reinstated the historical and influential Ankaisoa Tribal Leadership.
This took place during a !Nau (inauguration) ceremony on Sunday 19 December at the main kraal of the Cochoqua in Mamre.
Chief !Khaesen, Kevin Maart was sworn in as the Paramount Leader of the Ankaisoa Tribe (sub-tribe of the Cochoqua) that were dominant in colonial days in the area that stretches from Yzerfontein, along the West Coast to Saldanha and Elands Bay and then to the East to Piketberg.
According to many sources in the authentic Khoisan community, Oedesoa, the king of the Cochoqua Tribe, hailed from the Ankaisoa tribe and was buried in 1685 in the Hoedjies Bay area (Saldanha). The senior military leader of the Cochoqua in the time of Oedesoa in the earlier colonial period, Gonnema, was also buried in traditional Ankaisoa territory, in the town of Redelinghuys in 1689.
Paramount Chief David Johannes said the inauguration will go down in history as one of the turnkey events for the restoration and reclamation of Ankaisoa KhoiSan dignity in the West Coast. “This is because the !Nau is affording the Cochoqua the opportunity to portray the KhoiSan not in a static primordial state of undignified existence, but like all other indigenous people, in a continuous changing condition of adapting to the social and cultural challenges of our time,” Johannes said.
