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Ask ten people in KwaZulu-Natal what heritage means to them and you are unlikely to get the same answer twice.
For one person, it is the meal they can make without measuring a thing. For another, it is a surname, a song, a prayer, a place or a story repeated so often that nobody quite remembers who told it first.
It can be the isiZulu expression that does not land properly in English. The family recipe nobody has written down. The outfit brought out for one important day. It can also be the uncomfortable parts of our history, the things we would rather not carry but cannot afford to forget.
Over the past few weeks, Time Out Durban has spent a lot of time asking people about heritage for our series. Not always in those exact words, but the question has found its way into conversations about music, food, family, townships and the city itself.
What became clear through these conversations is that heritage rarely sits still.
Before 24 September belonged to the whole country, it carried a particular meaning here in KwaZulu-Natal. The date was observed as Shaka Day in honour of King Shaka kaSenzangakhona, one of the most consequential figures in the history of this province.
Shaka ruled from 1816 until his assassination in September 1828. During those 12 years, he transformed what had been a relatively small Zulu chiefdom into a powerful kingdom. He reorganised the amabutho regimental system, changed military strategy and brought numerous Nguni chiefdoms under Zulu authority through both diplomacy and conquest.
His influence can still be found in the name of this province, in ceremonies, praise poetry, clan histories, monuments and the way many people understand the formation of the Zulu nation. His legacy is neither small nor uncomplicated. The expansion of the kingdom also brought conflict, displacement and enormous upheaval across the region. Remembering him properly means making room for the power of what he built and the human consequences of how it was built.
That history is central to why 24 September matters in KZN.
When Shaka Day was left out of the proposed public holiday calendar after South Africa became a democracy, the Inkatha Freedom Party objected. A compromise followed. The date was retained, but its purpose was widened, becoming Heritage Day under the Public Holidays Act of 1994. It was observed nationally for the first time in 1995, with South Africans encouraged to recognise the many cultures, languages, histories, beliefs and traditions that make up the country.
Then came Braai Day.
The Braai4Heritage campaign was launched in 2005 with the idea that gathering around a fire was one custom South Africans from many backgrounds could share. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu later became its patron and national spokesperson, and the nickname found its way into the national vocabulary.
For many people, 24 September now means meat on the fire, folding chairs, family and the serious business of deciding who can actually be trusted with the braai tongs.
But it has also left us with a fair question. When Heritage Day becomes Braai Day, do we gain a shared ritual or lose some of the stories the public holiday was created to hold?
Perhaps both things can be true. A braai can be part of how we celebrate without becoming the entire definition of the day. Food is heritage. So are language, faith, music, architecture, memory, difficult history and the places that shaped us.
That is what our Heritage Series has reminded us.
When saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane spoke about the KZN roots behind his most personal album, Umlazi and Nongoma were not simply places on a map. They were part of the sound, carried into the studio through memory, lineage and identity.
For multidisciplinary artist Sethembiso Zulu, heritage belongs to the people. His work explores African spirituality, ancestral memory and the histories held in the places people inhabit. He described art as a living archive, capable of holding the dreams, trauma and emotions that formal records do not always capture. That makes one think about all the history that survives outside official records. Not everything worth preserving will be found in a museum. Sometimes the archive is a person, a ritual, a photograph or a story that has survived because somebody kept telling it.
Food told us the same thing in a different language.
At Yudhika Sujanani’s curry masterclass, a little salt added to onions was enough to start a room full of Durban women talking. Everyone had a way their mother or grandmother had taught them. Still, they were willing to watch, question, and add something new. The recipes had not been abandoned; they were being allowed to grow.
That idea came up again when Yudhika later told us that keeping heritage alive is about preserving techniques, not trapping recipes in the past.
And at The LivingRoom, Gogo Thandi Mchunu’s food knowledge entered a fine dining kitchen. The setting changed, but the knowledge was still hers. There was something wonderful about watching dishes often treated as ordinary receive that kind of attention, without losing the woman and the experience behind them.
Heritage is easy to romanticise when it tastes good or sounds beautiful. But it also asks us to look properly at where we live.
Our Durban Beyond the Beach series began at KwaMuhle Museum, inside a building once used to administer a system that controlled Black labour and movement in the city. That history explains parts of Durban that a drive along the promenade never could.
From there, Inanda complicated the picture further. Within a relatively small area are Gandhi’s Phoenix Settlement, John Dube’s Ohlange Institute, the place where Nelson Mandela cast his first democratic vote, Inanda Seminary and Ebuhleni, an important centre of the Shembe Church. These histories sit alongside the homes, roads and everyday lives of the people who live there now. It reminded me that heritage sites do not exist outside communities. They sit among people getting to work, raising children, practising their faith, building businesses and making plans for the weekend.
Then, in KwaMashu, heritage looked like Meat on the fire at Mkhize Rooftop and thousands of supporters turning a rugby match at Princess Magogo Stadium into a local occasion.
Even a building can hold this tension between keeping and changing. The Peppermint Palace in uMhlanga, built in 1972 and known to generations of people who have driven along Ridge Road, has been restored and turned into a boutique bed and breakfast. Its purpose has changed, but its place in the memory of the coastline has not simply been knocked down and replaced.
None of these stories give you one neat definition. We are glad they do not.
Heritage is what we inherit, but it is also what we choose to keep, question, change and pass on. Sometimes it is ceremonial. Often, it is so woven into an ordinary day that we do not call it heritage at all.
So, what does heritage mean to you?
Maybe the answer is already in your kitchen, your playlist, the language you speak when you are home, the way you worship, or the part of KZN you keep returning to. Perhaps it lives in something your family has always done, or in something you have decided will be done differently from now on.
That last part matters too. We are not required to preserve everything exactly as we received it. Some traditions deserve protection. Some need room to change. Others need to be questioned honestly, especially when they silence, exclude, or harm people. Inheriting something does not remove our responsibility to decide what we will do with it.
Heritage Day gives us a moment to dress up, gather, cook, and remember. But the real work happens after the public holiday. It is in learning the name behind a building, asking who taught your mother to cook, listening when an elder tells a familiar story again, and making sure children know that their history did not begin with them.
So perhaps heritage is not only what was left for us. It is also the evidence we leave behind that we were here, that we paid attention and that we thought carefully about what the next generation should receive.
Whatever your answer is, it does not have to fit neatly into one day.
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