History

Nalane was formed in February of 1998 by Fezekile Futhwa. It was born out of the realisation that there was almost no sites available covering the aspects of Afrikan history, from a cultural perspective.


Having done an extensive research on all sites that even remotely resemble Afrikan heritage, I was motivated to start a site that would cover this topical area. My primary focus was to provide a site on which people could get free information while at the same time allowing anyone the ability to contribute to the site.


The first site established was known as the Afrikan Virtual Resource Network, which covered the amaXhosa heritage. Well the site actually only covered Afrikan religion from an amaXhosa perspective. The second version of the site, known as the Afrikan Virtual Resource, also had a short but brief isiXhosa version running.


Following the feedback on the site, positive and sometimes harshly bad, I established the Basotho Resource Network. The Basotho site has always been authored in Sesotho and I am yet to provide a translation into any language.


Both sites were rebranded Nalane around 2002 when I acquired the www.nalane.net domain.


The Basotho site has received more attention than the amaXhosa site, unintentionally so. My passion for language has led me to extensively contribute to writing the site fully in Sesotho, while the amaXhosa site remained largely ignored. The majority of content on the Basotho site is original work for which I hold full copyright. I use reference material in the form of published books for the Diboko section of the site.


My writing of the Basotho site fully in Sesotho was testament to sceptics that a site can exist entirely on its own when authored in an Afrikan language. I do feel sorry for people who would like to use the Basotho site but are unable to due to the language barrier. I will one day prioritise providing a translation for the site.


2009: And The Present.


In February of 2009 I decided to refocus on developing Nalane as a reference site for all matters relating to culture, customs and tradition. All sites were moved in the www.nalane.org.za domain and started working on the next release of the site. I still wanted to write more content for the site but the look and feel was more critical as the first step in the right direction.


I am not a web designer and I dislike visual designs immensely. They take a lot of time that I don't have patience for.


I have tried to bring people on board to assist in whatever way is possible in growing and developing the site. So far, that effort has not paid off. Since Nalane is a project I have been running entirely on a voluntary basis, selling participation to people seemed rather not appealing. This is why it takes me so long to grow the site as I am responsible for all aspects of the site.