This is an interview extract from a focus-group interview with Gert van Zyl, Katrina van Zyl & Klaas van Zyl. In the interview Katrina van Zyl links riel performances to rain-making in the Bushmanland. She explains that the the riel is actually an eight-day riel, that’s how the old people did it. When they played and danced for eight days, after that eight-day dance, it rained. So, the riel is actually a rain riel because it was their expectation that it would rain afterwards. That is what they believed that the rain would fall after the eight-day dance. The interview was recorded by Engela Britz on January 20, 2018, in Brandvlei, Northern Cape, South Africa.This interview extract accompanies Engela Britz's (2019) minor dissertation entitled "Songs in the Dust: Riel Music in the Northern and Western Cape, South Africa. An Afrikaans translation of the interview is recorded below:
Die riel is eintlik ‘n agt-dae riel, het die
grootmense hom gevat, want as hulle nou daai agt dae gespeel het en hulle’t
gedans, my suster, na daai agt-dae dans, dan reën dit. So, die riel is eintlik
‘n reën riel want dit het eintlik, daarna, dit was eintlik ‘n verwagting van
hulle af. Dit is eintlik hoe hulle geglo het – die reën sal val na die agt-dae
dans.