Iemand het my gister gevra hoekom ons die Forum die POSKLIP forum genoem het. Soos die POSKLIPPE (1501 – 1652) in Die Kaap van Goede Hoop, is die Huidige Posklip Forum ook n plek waar mense kom om iets “Neer Te Sit” en dan later terug te kom om te kyk of daar iets vir hulle “Gelos” is.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, led by the explorer Bartolomeu Dias. Table Bay, for over one hundred years known as Saldanha (named after one of Albuquerque's sea captains), became a convenient harbor on the long, hard and dangerous sea voyage to the East. Here letters were left and exchanged with ships sailing back to Europe. Frequently, packets of letters were left under postal stones inscribed in French, Dutch and Danish, which became the first, unmanned, post offices of the Cape.
July 7: In 1497 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama anchored in Mossel Bay and named it the “Bay of Herdsmen”. Four years later another Portuguese navigator, Joao da Nova, put into the bay and found that a message had been left for him, in an old shoe which had been left hanging from a tree, a White Milkwood, growing near the water springs. The letter was from Pedro d’Ataide, a captain in the fleet of Pedro Alvares Cabral, who had passed this way on 5 March 1501. Although this method of communication was never adopted, the tree has subsequently become known in local mythology as the “Post Office Tree”.
1527. The custom of leaving a flat rock upon the shore of Table Bay, inscribed with the names of the ship, its captain, and the dates of their visit, appears to have begun as early as 1527, when a French vessel left in Table Bay a slab of rock inscribed “Ity est arrive david digaed de Dieppe 8 10th de Fevrer 1”. The practice of leaving a packet of letters beneath an inscribed stone appears to have been well established by 1591, when Admiral George Raymond, accompanied by Captain James Lancaster, reached Table Bay and there, we are told, left behind flat stones inscribed with the names of their ship and its captain, and the dates of their arrival and departure.
The letters were wrapped in waxed canvas and, apart from the address, the letters DGG were written on them – for “Door God geleyd” - “Guided by God”.
Vir die persone wat in seels belangstel. Die eerste seels in die Kaap was driehoekig. Dit wys 'n vrou wat op n POSKLIP sit met 'n anker langs haar. Dit is vandag ook een van die 13 duurste seels ter wereld. Pryse begin by $40 000.