TSH/NAMM/0067

The Voortrekker Cenotaph is located within the Voortrekker Monument is also the central and focal point of the Monument. According to the designer of the Monument and Cenotaph, Gerard Moerdijk the Monument, “serves as 'the symbolic resting place of Piet Retief and his comrades' (voortrekkers who had died in a Zulu ambush) – this resting place is symbolised by the cenotaph that is the focal point of the building.” The Cenotaph is therefore considered a very symbolic and spiritual place to Afrikaners. Using the belief that came to embedded in the victory Battle of Blood River in which the Voortrekkers overcame a strong and outnumbering Zulu army, Voortrekkers perceived this as divine intervention, “The importance of Blood River is explained as being the day on which ‘DEVINE intervention’ (sic) ensured victory, showing that Afrikaners are (together with the Israelites) God’s chosen people.” Therefore, 16 December and what took place at the Battle of Blood River is pivotal to what the Cenotaph represents, “drawing on metaphors of both sacrifice, and religion, the second of which is further emphasised by the beam of sunlight which falls from the oculus in the dome directly on to the cenotaph’s inscription at noon on 16 December each year.” References 
O’Brien, S. I., ‘The Construction of a ‘Bitter Hedge’: Narrative, Nationalism, and the Construction of Afrikaner Identity in the Voortrekker Monument,’ Crossroads, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2013, pp. 29-38.
Rankin, E. and Schneider, R.M., ‘From Memory to Marble: The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument Part I: The Frieze (Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2020).