Bo Kaap Area Information

Monthly Bo-Kaap Crafts & Food Market Day

A monthly community food and craft market is held usually the first Saturday of the month in the heart of the Bo-Kaap, between 10am-2pm at the Schotschekloof Civic Centre, Upper Wale Street, in Bo-Kaap.
Entrance is free, so that you support the local community.
This is the perfect place to mingle with the residents of this historic area for a truly cultural experience.
There are food demonstrations, where you may even learn to make the ‘curry in a hurry’ !
Available are tasty traditional foods, biscuits, cakes, samoosas, crafts, gifts, pickles, smoked snoek, dried fruit, jewelery and lots more on sale. You may place orders with the stall holders for traditional Malay dress-maker customised designed clothing and other handmade craft items.
You welcome to sit down and enjoy coffee and koesisters or curry and roti.Have a look at some of the interesting home-made products on exhibition at our Market Day

Coon Carnival

Each year on the 2nd of January the Bo Kaap celebrates a big street party, the “Coon Carnival” in the centre of town. It was originally introduced by the Muslim slaves who celebrated their only day off work in the whole year. Nowadays men, woman and children march from the Grand Parade to the Green Point stadium, singing and dancing. They are clad in colourful, shiny suits, white hats and carry a sun umbrella.

Food

Cape Malay Cuisine is very popular. It is the use of very aromatic spices and herbs that makes Cape Malay cooking so unique. Over 300 years ago,’malay slaves’ brought frangance and flavour of various spices and hearbs such as cloves, all spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, ginger and corriander to their foods!

Architecture of Bo Kaap

History: BoKaap’s character started emerging during the period of 1790 and 1840.
The houses are characterized by either Dutch or British influences. The earlier houses are situated along lower BoKaap between Dorp Street down to the foreshore. Houses are mainly semi-detached but free standing homes can also be found. The people who settled in BoKaap were craftsman, free traders and freed slaves.

Noon Gun

Soon after the English occupation of the Cape in 1795, the Dutch guns were removed from Imoff at the castle and replaced by the latest English 18 pounders designed by Captain Thomas Blomefield. A time signal has been fired in Cape Town by one of these guns since 1806.

The daily noon gun is now Cape Town’s oldest living tradition and the two guns used are the oldest guns in daily use in the world.
The daily gun was fired as a time signal for ships anchored in the bay, but every Capetonian came to rely on the gun for the accurate time. Pocket watches were scarce and inaccurate during the 19th century and in the outlying towns, where time was loosely divided into four parts: day, night, morning and afternoon. A traveler from Cape Town could expect to be asked if he had the correct ”gun time”. Being fired from the observatory, the accuracy of the noon gun was never questioned and was accepted as the ultimate in accurate time.

As Cape Town developed and grew, the noise of the gun became too loud and violent for the city center and the guns were moved to Lion Battery. The first was fired on 4th August 1902. These same guns are still in use today. They are loaded every day by the South African Navy at about 11h30 with 3,1kg bag of gunpowder.The second gun is loaded as a stand – by gun in case the first misfires.

People

The inhabitants of Bokaap are made up of both Muslim’s and Christian’s, but it is the place that forms the hive of where the Cape Muslim Community started. Bokaap has a unique culture which has developed over two century’s. There are definite influence of western culture and the people of Bokaap adjust accordingly with the ever changing world. Bokaap is home to a population of just over 6 000 people.

The people that form this exciting culture are the descendants of slaves from Indonesia, Java, Celebes, Bali from the Indonesian Archipelago brought over by the Dutch East Indies Company.
This does not imply that Bo-Kaap has remained pristine pure as Muslim area after two centuries of Islamic influence.

There has emerged a new culture, an interesting blend of the East and West. What Bo-Kaap illustrated is the dynamism of human life and how Islam adjusts to accommodate its adherent to a changing environment and a Non- Islamic culture.

Bo-kaap is a small residential area above the Central Business District. It has a population of over 6000 the majority of whom, more than 90%, are Muslim. Various people give Bo-Kaap. It is called Bo-Kaap, the Malay Quarters and Slamsebuurt.

The people of Bo-Kaap are proud of their homes. As you can see in the pictures below they’ve restored most of the old houses and they’ve added a bit of a modern touch to it too!

Museum

No. 71 Wale street is today known as the Bokaap Museum. The land on which the house stands was granted in 1763 and constructed and owned by Jan De Waal who also built a number of small houses for hire/letting (huurhuisies). The “huurhuisies” were the first constructed houses in Bokaap. The house was restored to represent a “Malay dwelling” of the 19th Century.

The additions that were made to the structure were removed and the dwelling was returned to it’s original state. Yellowwood flooring and ceiling boards were used. Restoration was done on the original teak-windows, teak-shutters, fanlight and doors. Even the roof has been covered in yellowwood to give the feeling of the old Cape Dutch beams. Restoration was done to the wavy/curvilinear parapet to give it back it’s original state.

A visit to this Museum is a must as it feel as though you stepping back in time.

It is one of the oldest buildings in Wale Street 71 houses the “Bo-Kaap Museum”. It is furnished as a house of the 19th century period and hopes to document the history of the “Cape Malays.” The museum is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 9:30 to 4:30. Tel 021-4243846.

History

The residents of Bo-Kaap are mostly descended from slaves who were imported to the Cape by the Dutch during the the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They reigned from Africa, Indonesia, Java Malaysia, and elsewhere in Asia. They were known as “Cape Malays”, which is an incorrect term as most of BoKaap’s residents are not entirely of Malaysian descent. There are still traces of Indonesian vocabulary in BoKaap’s dialect such as “trim-makaasi” thank-you and “kanalah” please! There are also many words which have also been substituted with Afrikaans.
Slaves:
The Dutch imported slaves who were political exiles, convicts, skilled craftsmen, artisans, famous scholars and religious leaders. Islam, who roots started in Saudi Arabia some 1400 years ago was brought to the Cape in the 1700′s.
Skill, Talents and Cuisines:
Skills and talents passed down from generation to generation accompanied these slaves. Not only skilled craftsman but superb cooks and cuisines blossomed. The Cape Malay Cuisine are not only delicious but unique and has played a huge role in South African dishes. The dishes are a combination of asian, arab and european which makes people view food in a different light.

Travel Information

Traveling to South Africa especially Cape Town is an unforgettable experience. It happens so often that many holidaymakers return to Cape Town more than once. In anticipation for your trip to Cape Town and BoKaap we would like to enlighten you of what to see and expect. Below are some references and helpful guidelines concerning the airport, visa info, inoculations.
Airport: Cape Town International Airport is the main airport in Cape Town. The airport is safe and is on par with international standards. It has been newly renovated and boasts numerous awards such as ‘Africa’s Leading Airport’ from 1998 till 2001 at the World Travel Awards. In 2002 it won the ‘African Aviation Award’. The airport is approximately 20km from the city center.  SAA(South African Airways) is our main airline, and has flights from all major cities from around the world.
Visa Requirements: Travel Visa is required for non-South African’s wishes to visit. Please check with the South African Embassy or Consulate in your home country.