“The timing is a Godsend with the international Boogie board championships about to airlift next month on Onrus Beach . . .”
These are the words of Shiloh Noone, owner of a small stone building on a remote estate that he has turned into the Matshana Museum, an applicant to the Guinness Book of World Records for the smallest museum and now also a Unesco Icon qualification. No stranger to the Hermanus coffee shops and restaurants, he is often seen jaunting around in his 1969 Landrover sharing wild tales of past excursions.
This eccentric musicologist, writer, adventurer and chess teacher boasts a four-star Rolling Stone award for his rock encyclopaedia Seeker’s Guide to the Rhythm of Yesteryear and recently shocked the publishing fraternity by outpacing author Wilbur Smith for five months last year with his African story, the Naledi published A Bicycle, a Chess set, an African River, (#1 seller at Exclusive Books Cavendish and Somerset Mall).
Matshana Museum
The Matshana Museum is a non-profit portal of tribal arts largely established to educate the youth, but has been courted by members of government, rock n roll celebrities and actors. Noone smiled when he informed Hermanus Times about the time one member of the band ZZ Top looked for Anglo-Zulu War artifacts. “We’ve had a member of ZZ Top, The Beach Boys and Crowded House visit the museum,” he said. “The late Henry Cele (Shaka Zulu actor) also donated a drum from the Michael Caine movie Zulu. A few weeks ago I got a call from a film company wishing to bring Tom Cruise out and I was asked if the artifacts were for sale; I replied ‘Mission possible’ yet I am still waiting for the helicopter to arrive.”
Noone says the museum’s artifacts, collected over many years, are fruits of various expeditions, the first a foolhardy attempt to live with Kung (San) in the Kalahari in 1978. Noone had to be airlifted out by Rio Tinto four months later after his legs had become paralysed. A more mature excursion followed with Sir Laurens van der Post, to whom the recently published African story is dedicated for sharing meaningfully in his African quest. The elder anthropologist donated many of his San artifacts to Noone, and they now have a home at the Matshana Museum.
His next excursion was to join Charles Vaucher in his Lake Nakuru, Kenya adventure, followed by a tragic excursion up the Amazon River in which lives were lost. Artifacts from the latter also adorn Matshana, coupled with an elaborate collection of Anglo-Masai implements traded with author Cavendish O’Neil (Lion in the Bedroom) in the ’80s. Noone, who also administers social media on the international Anglo-Zulu War alongside esteemed author Ian Knight, says Matshana has, from the start, showcased mainly Zulu artifacts, even though it is a global resource displaying objects from across the world – Celtic, Mayan, Touareg, Doggone, even Native American and Australian.
Matshana message of hope
“Hermanus has to reclaim its business posture with unique trending,” Noone declares. “I was enthralled by the recent Burgundy heritage story, its restaurant building being right next door to the iconic De Wet Museum. “I see the Book Cottage repositioning next door to the popular Rossi’s along the new tourist walkway. (Read the plaques on the ground.) Let’s not forget my good friend Stehaan, who owns the Land Rover garage in Voëlkop and developed the first electric Land Rover. I mean, we have legends in this town we are not even aware of.”
From a more controversial tribal perspective, Shiloh says: “I would like to see the Moravian Church give back some of the land to the Quena Khoikhoi and establish a tourist site in the heart of the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, where the roads are being wonderfully restored.”
He also feels passionately about the site Knoflokskraal near Grabouw. “I say hats off for keeping it purely Quena, and what an opportunity for a museum-cum-organic vegetable-and-herb stand literally on the N2, and where are the bright-eyed Madiba-aligned NGOs in all of this? After all, we have work to do!
“The Matshana Museum is one very small part of a bigger picture that hovers over this unique area, and all are welcome to visit. Due to its size, not more than three visitors at a time, one visit will take an hour, as the stories accompanying the artifacts are compulsory.”
For more information, email Shilohnoone@gmail.com or phone 079 609 4700.