From Javanese Court to African Grave: How Noriman Became Tuan Skapie, 1717-1806

Abstract

This article assembles clues related to the life and impact of an eighteenth century exile to Cape Town known as Oupa or Tuan Skapie (Grandpa/ Lord Sheepy). Remembered as a slave sent from Java in the 1770s who tended herds and dug wells on the slopes of Signal Hill in between periods of meditation, it would appear that this subaltern might well have been more than that. Certainly he was successful at concealing his identity (and abilities) from his former jailers and two colonial regimes, finally taking his resting place high on the ridge above Cape Town in 1806, above the space assigned to a more scripturally-charged rival.