Dongas road protest group
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The Dongas Tribe were a UK road protest group in England originally noted for their occupation of Twyford Down outside Winchester, Hampshire. This was a protest against the M3 motorway extension which destroyed some "government protected" rich ecological sites and ancient monuments there. The name Dongas comes from the Matabele word for "Gully". This had somehow been given by Winchester locals to the deep drovers' tracks on Twyford Down.
Following "Yellow Wednesday", when hordes of police and security guards invaded the camp to bulldoze the area, the Dongas left Twyford Down for Bramdean Common.
They constituted about twenty people in their early twenties. Some of the Tribe maintained an involvement in various subsequent road protests (Solsbury Hill, North Wales, Newbury bypass), but gradually morphed into a semi-nomadic "tribe", travelling the South West of England on foot, squatting various hill-forts and putting on seasonal gatherings in an attempt to reawaken a sense of connectedness with the land. The last of the nomadic Dongas were travelling in Cornwall until the end of 1999, after which some of them moved to France to continue their nomadic lifestyle.[citation needed]
Some of the original Dongas of the mid 1990s were superb[citation needed] musicians who made a living[citation needed] by busking, sometimes using ancient sounding original[citation needed] folk tunes from Britanny in France. One, at least, has since turned semi-professional[citation needed] musician with a band called Mordekkers. Several of the Dongas can be seen at the Big Green Gathering festival in Somerset, England.
