Cata Village Museum

About Cata Village Museum

The rural Xhosa village of Cata lies close to the town of Keiskammahoek in the Amatole Mountains, surrounded by indigenous forest and grasslands. The local community have re-organised themselves, after forced ‘betterment’ removals during Apartheid, when the people of Cata had to abandon their kraals, their grazing rights, and fields.

The Cata Museum is central to their story and lies in the heart of the village. It describes the process by which the community fought to reclaim their land (at a time when the state did not recognise betterment removals for restitution), their subsequent co-operation to form a trust, and the way in which their lives have changed for the better.

The community have built a community hall, new classrooms for the primary school, converted a wattle jungle into a plantation, upgraded irrigation works, promoted local homestead agriculture, built a series of chalets to rent out to visitors, and set up their heritage museum.

The museum has both an indoor and outdoor element. Indoors are world-class artefact and photograph exhibits depicting life before the removal, and an accurate model of a pre-betterment homestead. It focuses on the community’s restitution process, the signing of the Cata Settlement Agreement, and the role of the Vulamasango Singene campaign.

Outdoors is a 2 km guided walk along a heritage trail that takes in the scenery with intermittent information boards en route, covering the social and natural history of Cata. The walk reaches the ruins of pre-betterment homes and the Cata toposcope.