English: Front view of the Voortrekker Monument, Pretoria, South Africa. It was completed in 1949 and contains a marble frieze consisting of 27 panels, commemorating events of the Great Trek in which farmers of Dutch origin emigrated from the Cape Colony to inland regions between 1835 and 1852. At the centre of the monument is the cenotaph, the symbolic tomb of the Voortrekker governor Piet Retief and his delegation, who were massacred in 1838. It bears the inscription "We for thee, South Africa", and is illuminated annually at noon, the 16th of December, by a beam of sunlight directed through an aperture in the cupola. Prior to 1994 which heralded a new dispensation, December 16th was celebrated as the "Day of the Vow", commemorating a victory over Zulu forces at the Battle of Blood River; it remains a holiday but is now called "Reconciliation Day". A circular wall with wagons reliefs, representing a Voortrekker laager, surrounds the monument.