the fish traps
material available in situ, some are constructed using beneficial natural features, such as boulder spits or natural gullies where a wall is simply built to close off a natural feature, and a few are simply ponds where boulders have been removed to form a depression in a boulder field. Their shapes are either angular, or curved (…) and are either singular or a number of traps built in a complex interlaced fashion.
Kemp adds saying that the vywers can rely on natural structures for some of their forms, be entirely made, or pond-like with boulders removed. Cape Recife Nature Reserve (Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality) We begin by describing the Cape Recife case study because it was the first site visited and surveyed by the students. The first visit was organized by Chief Xam ≠ Gaob Maleiba and Chief Margaret Coetzee accompanied by a local guide and the then curator of the Bayworld Museum in Port Elizabeth. The site visit was conducted on 05/08/2016. This site visit was followed by further visits because the place is particularly fascinating and possesses an indescribable spiritual aura and a sense of suspension of time which are truly unique. The site is located on a peninsula that juts out into the ocean where the full force of the wind and waves and the fragility of humans before these natural forces can be experienced. The area where the fish traps are located is a nature reserve under the supervision of the Municipality. Cape Recife is the first site which was surveyed by the architecture students working under the supervision of Senior Lecturer Donald Flint. This is because of its proximity to the university campus, its ease of access, and because these traps are not particularly complex. This allowed us to perfect the surveying method which we subsequently used at the Oyster Bay site. The first survey conducted by the students on 3 February 2018 was followed up by a subsequent survey on 28 November 2020 with Lucy and Hansie Vosloo. This became necessary because of the discovery of two more sites located not too far from the first. A massive sand shift which occurred in the final months of 20209, revealed traces of unknown Indigenous infrastructure but also completely covered the site we had previously surveyed. This event highlights how shifting topography is an intrinsic characteristic of this area. This event did, however, cause us to reflect on the worrying deterioration of the fish traps owing to rising sea levels and stronger currents caused by climate change. At Cape Recife we identified three different sites where the traps were located (image 68), more or less at 200 metres from one another surrounding the point of the cape where the bay of the Nelson Mandela Municipality ends. Comparing the aerial photography, the videos and direct observations made during our numerous visits to the site we were led to suppose that at site 1, the most westerly, (image 60) a single-room trap is
9 I have been visiting this area regularly since 2016 and this was the first time I had witnessed this phenomenon. It completely altered the topography of the area from the dunes to the shoreline, covering entire areas in sand and rendering the landscape unrecognisable.
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