The Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Mr. Nathi Mthethwa has expressed a need for the preservation of the legacy of Credo Mutwa for future generations. Minister Mthethwa says government will ensure the valuation of the artwork doneby Baba Mutwa by a qualified expert before it could be housed in a conducive environment. He was delivering a keynote address during the handover ceremony of an upgraded house to the Mutwa family at Magojaneng village on Friday, 22 November 2019. Minister Mthethwa was accompanied by the Northern Cape Premier Dr. Zamani Saul, theMEC for Sport, Arts and Culture Ms. Bernice Sinxeve and other dignitaries.
Baba Credo Mutwa was born in the South Coast of Kwazulu Natal over nine decades ago. He moved to live with his father in Johannesburg in his youth when his biological mother passed on. He moved back to live with his grandmother in Kwa-Zulu Natal when his calling to be a traditional healer surfaced. He received training both in Kwa-Zulu-Natal and Swaziland.
As a Traditional Healer uBaba moved back to Gauteng and started a family while living in Soweto. Baba received a piece of land in the sixties from the Opperheimer family where he established his model African village. Baba Mutwa constructed huts and other houses to represent the ways which different African communities, from Zulu, Sotho and Arabs build their homesteads.
It was during this period that Baba wrote his epic Book titled: Indaba My Children. In the book Baba Mutwa is educating people about the way of life of African People from the cradle to the grave.
Minister Mthethwa told the crowd that his department will work to ensure that the copyright of this great book is returned to the Mutwa family so that the royalties accrued from the sale are credited to the rightful owners.
Baba Mutwa moved from Soweto in 1976 and established another cultural village outside Mahikeng in the North West. In the cultural village in the North West Baba Mutwa continued with his theme of depicting the way of life of African communities through their homebuilding.
Baba finally moved from the North West and settled in Magojaneng village in the Northern Cape where he is getting recognition for his long and illustrious life.
In his lifetime the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture has awarded Credo Mutwa the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution in preserving the African Cultural Legacy. This was conferred to him in 2018.
In over 9 decades of his life Baba has lived in more than 4 Provinces. In each place that he has touched he leaves a legacy for generations to come. The Minister encourages the society and scholars in all the provinces where Baba Mutwa lived to engage his work in order to better understand the evolution of our Africaness.