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The construction of Eugène Marais as an Afrikaner hero

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 30; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0305707042000313059

1465-3893

Sandra Swart,

South African History and Culture

Abstract Eugène Marais (1871–1936) is remembered as an Afrikaner hero. There are, however, competing claims as to the meaning of this ‘heroic’ status. Some remember him as the ‘father of Afrikaans poetry’, one of the most lionised writers in Afrikaans, and part of the Afrikaner nationalist movement. Yet a second intellectual tradition remembers him as a dissident iconoclast, an Afrikaner rebel. This article seeks to show, first, how these two very different understandings of Marais came to exist, and, secondly, that the course of this rivalry of legends was inextricably bound up with the socio‐economic and political history of South Africa. We look at his portrayal at particular historical moments and analyse the changes that have occurred with reference to broader developments in South Africa. This is in order to understand the making of cultural identity as part of nationalism, and opens a window onto the contested process of re‐imagining the Afrikaner nation. The article demonstrates how Marais's changing image was a result of material changes within the socio‐economic milieu, and the mutable needs of the Afrikaner establishment. The hagio‐graphy of Marais by the Nationalist press, both during his life and after his death, is explored, showing how the socio‐political context of the Afrikaans language struggle was influential in shaping his image. The chronology of his representation is traced in terms of the changing self‐image of the Afrikaner over the ensuing seven decades. Finally, in order to understand the fractured meaning of Marais today, the need for alternative heroes in the ‘New South Africa’ is considered. Notes ‘Al die slegte goed kan maar wag tot ek dood is.’ Transvaal Archives (hereafter TAD) Preller Collection, A 787, 41, Marais to Preller, 24 April 1923. This article was presented in the seminar series on Southern African History and Politics (Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, Trinity Term, 2000) and at Stellenbosch University in 2002. Thank you to the Agricultural Research Council, National Botanical Institute, Pretoria, and to Albert Grundlingh, Saul Dubow, Sarah Duff, Hermann Giliomee, Leon Rousseau and, especially, to Stanley Trapido. ‘Dit is [vir] my altyd bietjie skrikwekkend om my eie naam selfs in druk te sien; wees dus genadig met die biografie!’, TAD Preller Collection, A 787, 46, Marais to Preller, 11 May 1923. TAD Preller Collection, A 787, 184, Marais to Preller, 21 March 1927. The letter is composed solely of this sentence. Gustav Preller himself played an important role in the creation of an Afrikaner national identity, as a historian and newspaper editor. See I. Hofmeyr, ‘Popularising History: The Case of Gustav Preller’, Journal of African History, 29 (1988), pp. 521–535, and P. J. Du Plessis, ‘Die Lewe en Werk van Gustav Preller, 1875–1943’ (DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria, 1988). L. Rousseau, The Dark Stream – the Story of Eugène Marais (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 1982), p. 9. Kultuurpolitiek may be defined as the politics of culture, the debates and institutions surrounding the propagation of Afrikaans language and ‘civilisation’. A. Rupert, Eugène Marais Kom die Eer toe, 'n Huldeblyk (Stellenbosch, Rembrandt‐tabbakkorporasie, 1971). Inez Verdoorn was alerted to the cycad by Marais, and named it after him in 1945. Thank you to the Agricultural Research Council, National Botanical Institute, Pretoria. The Natal Mercury, 1 December 1999. The AWB is a right‐wing revolutionary faction dedicated to the ideal of white hegemony. See the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging's website, http://www.lantic.co.za. Sculpted by Willem Nezar in 1975. One who is a hero to Afrikaners, but also, in this case, one who was both Afrikaans and a hero to a broader, scientific community. R. Marais, ‘Die Kanonisering van Eugène N. Marais as Digter’, Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging, 1, 1 (March 1993), p. 11. This period saw the creation of the Afrikaanse Taalgenootskap for the Transvaal (1905), the Afrikaanse Taal Vereniging (1906), the founding of the SA Akademie (1909), the recognition of Afrikaans by provincial councils in 1914, including the schools, and its acceptance by the churches between 1916 and 1919, and by parliament in 1925 as the joint official language with English. The publishing house Nasionale Pers promoted the idea that it had been established by a ‘number of fervent nation‐feeling Afrikaners’ from ‘all classes’ who wanted not to make a profit but rather to ‘see better provision being made for the supply of Afrikaans reading material to the Afrikaans volk’. ‘Waarde vir u Geld’, Die Huisgenoot, July 1921. The Second Language Movement comprised a loosely associated, predominantly male group, working to foster a sense of Afrikaner identity, chiefly through post‐war promotion of the entrenchment of Afrikaans as an official language. TAD Preller Collection, A 787, Marais to Preller, Heidelberg, 11 December 1926. Malan probably refers to D. F. Malan. Jeppe had been active in Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) politics and by this stage had become Judge of the Water Court. TAD Preller Collection, A787, Preller to Malan, 14 December 1926. The term ‘cultural entrepreneur/broker’ is used and theorised by C. Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), p. 45. Marais, ‘Die Kanonisering van Eugène N. Marais’, p. 11. Lindenberg, ‘Herout of Twintiger? in 1965’, Inleiding tot die Afrikaanse Letterkunde (Pretoria, Academica, 1972), p. 20; J. L. Kannemeyer, Geskiedenis van die Afrikaanse Literatuur (Pretoria, Academica, 1988 [1984]), pp. 222–240. Marais, ‘Die Kanonisering van Eugène N. Marais’, p. 11. Dekker and Antonissen, for example, adopt this image of Marais as the first significant Afrikaans poet, independent and unaffiliated. G. Dekker, Afrikaanse Literatuurgeskiedenis (Cape Town, Nasionale Pers, 1947), R. Antonissen, Die Afrikaanse Letterkunde van Aanvang tot Hede (Cape Town, Nasou, 1964). It is debatable whether his poetry falls over three or four generations. Kannemeyer, Geskiedenis, p. 222, maintains only three, while René Marais contends four generations in ‘Die Kanonisering’, p. 12. Kannemeyer himself, however, has labelled the 1930s as a new phase in the development of Afrikaans literature. F. G. M. Du Toit, Eugène Marais – Sy Bydrae tot die Afrikaanse Letterkunde (Amsterdam, N. V. Swets, 1940), p. 102. ‘Ode to the Paarl’ and ‘The Soldier’s Grave', Paarl District Advertiser, 14 October 1885 and 7 November 1885. See Paarl District Advertiser for ‘South Africa’, 26 March 1886; ‘Majuba’, 29 September 1886; ‘There Shall be no More Sea’, 13 October 1886; ‘On Revisiting a Spot where the Author met his Girl Sweetheart, Years Ago’, 29 January 1887; ‘Hymn for a Stormy Night at Sea’, 23 February 1887; ‘Anglified Africanders’, 15 March 1887 and ‘Love’, 11 May 1887. ‘Gert Senekal’, Land en Volk, 8 September 1891 and ‘Di Meisies’, ibid., 15 September 1891, under the pseudonym ‘Afrikanus Junior’. These poems fall within the tradition of the First Language Movement. Land en Volk, 5 May, 19 May and 23 June 1905. Marais is venerated in D. Denoon, A Grand Illusion – The Failure of Imperial Policy in the Transvaal Colony during the Period of Reconstruction (London, Longman, 1973), p. 84, as ‘a founder of Afrikaans as a literary language’, and by H. H. Hewison, Hedge of Wild Almonds (London, Heinemann, 1989), p. 234, as a writer ‘whose poetry had proved that Afrikaans was a language in its own right’. D. W. Krüger, The Making of a Nation (Johannesburg, Macmillan, 1969), p. 20. He also wrote a hagiographical account of Marais’s attempt to carry weapons and ammunition to a Boer commando in 1902. See D. W. Krüger, ‘Dr. Schultz en Eugène Marais Probeer om deur Oos‐Afrika die Boerelinies te Bereik’, Die Huisgenoot, 11 January 1946. Marais was in fact later to write a poem ‘Klaas Vakie’ in Die Brandwag, 15 July 1910. ‘Die schrijwer daarvan …is ’n ongeleerde Boer, wat nimmer of nooit Hollands kan schrijft nie, maar hij is ongetwijfeld 'n digter. Dit is maar net 'n brokkie, getiteld, “'n Winternag”, maar jij kan daarna luister.' See M. S. B. Kritzinger, ‘Eugène N. Marais as Digter’, Ons Tydskrif, May 1936 and Du Toit, Eugène Marais, p. 120. In 1936, Kritzinger attempted, in ‘Eugène N. Marais as Digter’, to explain away this political stratagem by contending that the political climate prevented Marais from revealing his identity. This is clearly not the case, as Marais openly published direct criticism of the Milner regime, and ‘Winternag’ has no overt political content. Preller's ‘Introduction’ in E. N. Marais, Gedigte (Cape Town, Nasionale Pers, 1934), p. 8. Indeed, C. M. van den Heever, ‘Critique of Die Swart Verraad’, De Vaderland, 10 June 1933, maintained that its publication heralded the beginning of the Second Language Movement. Die Vaderland, 31 March 1936. Kritzinger, ‘Eugène N. Marais as Digter’. A. Thorpe, Eugène Nielen Marais – Gedigte/Poems (Pretoria, J. L. Van Schaik, for Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1956). In the 1934 edition, for example, Preller refers to ‘’n Winternag' rather than the correct ‘Winternag’; he also refers to its ten lines, whereas it consists of eighteen lines; and he quotes Marais's birthdate as 1872 instead of 1871. D. F. Malherbe quoted in P. J. Nienaber (Johannesburg, Afrikaanse Pers, 1947), p. 12. C. M. Van den Heever, ‘Die Eensame onder die Afrikaanse Kunstenaars’, Die Vaderland, 3 April 1936. G. Dekker, ‘Review of Gedigte and Versamelde Gedigte’, Die Nuwe Brandwag, May 1933. ‘Hy was digter … voor enige Afrikaanse digter. Maar tog is dit alles, ten spyte van sy bereisheid, so innig verbonde met die Afrikaanse grond, dat ’n mens hierin en in ander gedigte nog altyd die digter van Afrikaanse bodem sien.' A. H. Jonker, ‘Eugène N. Marais’, Die Burger, 1 April 1936. ‘as kragtige propagandamiddel in die toenemende stryd om die erkenning van die moedertaal’. D. F. Malherbe, Die Volksblad, 11 April 1936. The use of pen names was common practice during the First Language Movement. See, for example, the poems in S. J. du Toit's Afrikaanse Gedigte, Byeenversameld uit wat in di Laaste 30 Jaar Verskyn is: 1876–1906 (Paarl, Paarl Drukpers, 1906). Paarl District Advertiser (9), Land en Volk (5), De Volkstem (1), Die Boerevrou (1, reprinted from De Volkstem), Die Brandwag (2), Die Burger (1), Die Huisgenoot (5) and Ons/Die Vaderland (3). He used the pen names ‘Klaas Vaakie’, ‘Eugène, O.F.S.’, ‘Afrikanus Junior’, ‘H.v.R.v.O.’, ‘V.R.’ and ‘Niggie van A. G. Visser’. Today there exists no complete collection of the poems published in his lifetime, let alone the nine poems discovered posthumously. Certain poems are even omitted from his collected works edited by Leon Rousseau, E. N. Marais, Versamelde Werke (Cape Town, Nasionale Pers, 1984). In 1933, Van Schaik published Marais's Versamelde Gedigte, consisting of 30 poems, the first to be selected and edited by Marais himself. Versamelde Gedigte underwent changes as it was reprinted – the 1934 edition, for example, included ‘Wanneer dit Reën op Rietfontein’ and the 1936 edition saw the addition of ‘Diep Rivier’. The definitive version of 1936 contained 32 poems, omitting 22. Rousseau's Versamelde Werke uses all of these and adds two to the total, 35 of them in English. See also Kritzinger, ‘Eugène N. Marais as Digter’. See D. van Reybrouck, De Plaag – Het Stille Knagen van Schrijvers, Termieten en Zuid‐Afrika (Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 2001) and S. Swart, ‘A “Ware Afrikaner” – an Examination of the Role of Eugène Marais (1871–1936) in the Making of Afrikaner Identity’ (DPhil thesis, Oxford, 2001). The collection of articles appeared in book form as Die Siel van die Mier in 1934 and by 1948 had undergone four reprints. This article uses E. Marais, The Soul of the White Ant (London, Penguin, 1973 [1937]) and M. Maeterlinck, The Life of the White Ant (London, George Allen, 1928 [1927], trans. Alfred Sutro). For a discussion of these points, see Swart, ‘A “Ware Afrikaner” ’, chapter four. Quoted in du Toit, Eugène Marais, p. 184. In Johannesburg alone, the number of Afrikaners increased from 86,700 to 163,575 between 1926 and 1936, the year of Marais's death. E. L. P. Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad, II (Pretoria, Haum, 1986) p. 17. As D. F. Malan declared at the Great Trek Centenary celebrations on Blood River Day, 16 December 1938, ‘Your Blood River lies in the city’. Quoted in A. Grundlingh and H. Sapire, ‘From Feverish Festival to Repetitive Ritual? The Changing Fortunes of Great Trek Mythology in an Industrializing South Africa’, South African Historical Journal, 21 (1989), p. 23. Grundlingh and Sapire have shown how the Great Trek proved a changing reference point to meet changing historical exigencies. They analysed the Great Trek mythology over a period of 50 years against a backdrop of successful ethnic mobilisation of Afrikanerdom in the 1930s and the subsequent mutations of the mythology in an increasingly industrial society as the material basis for beliefs changed. Quoted in Grundlingh and Sapire, ‘From Feverish Festival to Repetitive Ritual?’, p. 23. B. Butler, The Myth of the Hero (London, Rider and Co., 1979) p. 7. T. Nairn, The Break‐up of Britain (London, New Left Books, 1977), p. 340 and B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, Verso 1991 [1983]), p. 80. This argument was used in Grundlingh and Sapire, ‘From Feverish Festival to Repetitive Ritual?’, p. 24, when asking why the public responded to the Centenary celebrations, probing popular motivation. Other appealing alternatives existed – such as socialism and ‘South Africanism’, promoted by both state and capital. Both failed, perhaps because they lacked reference to a communal past. The historical dimension was missing, and neither ideology could provide the body of historical mythology made available by Afrikaner nationalism. For a discussion of ‘South Africanism’ as an ideology, see B. Bozzoli, The Political Nature of a Ruling Class: Capital and Ideology in South Africa 1890–1933 (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 204–205, 243. This phenomenon has received great attention – see, for example, Grundlingh and Sapire, ‘From Feverish Festival to Repetitive Ritual?’; Stals, Afrikaners in die Goudstad, II, p. 17, and J. Joubert, ‘Blanke Arbeid in die Sekondêre Industrieë aan die Witwatersrand 1924–1933’ (D. Litt thesis, Rand Afrikaans University, 1987). Nairn, The Break‐up of Britain, p. 340. Grundlingh and Sapire have used this argument in their review of the changing fortunes of the Great Trek myth, ‘From Feverish Festival to Repetitive Ritual?’, p. 22. See H. Adam and H. Giliomee, The Rise and Crisis of Afrikaner Power (Cape Town, David Philip, 1979), p. 110. For an example, see S. W. Pienaar and J. J. J. Scholtz (eds), Glo in u Volk: Dr D.F. Malan as Redenaar 1908–1954 (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 1954), pp. 122–123. In describing how the upper level was dispossessed of power, dominees lost control, lawyers lost clientele, teachers were trapped in the ‘50–50’ (50 per cent Afrikaans, 50 per cent English) educational system, and civil servants needed English skills to get ahead, O’Meara has argued that they promoted Afrikaner Nationalism as a way forward to regain control. D. O'Meara, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital, and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934–1948 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 55; see also Adam and Giliomee, Rise and Crisis of Afrikaner Power, pp. 110–111 and T. Dunbar Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1975). Meaning ‘Ox‐wagon’, ‘Jawbone’ (representing a kind of ox‐wagon) and ‘Centenary Festival’. J. D. Kestell, Die Voortrekkers – ’n Kort Geskiedenis Verhaal (Pretoria, J. H. de Bussy, 1926). Preller's biography of the voortrekker Piet Retief had already run into ten printings and 25,000 copies by 1930; his six volumes of edited voortrekker reminiscences and his edition of the diary of Louis Trichardt and biography of Andries Pretorius were also very popular. See G. Preller, Piet Retief (Cape Town, Nasionale Pers, 1930); Voortrekkermense, 6 vols (Cape Town, Nasionale Pers, 1918–1938); Dagboek van Louis Trichardt (Cape Town, Nasionale Pers, 1938) and Andries Pretorious (Johannesburg, Afrikaanse Pers, 1940). ‘Van Oudae en Oumense in Pretoria’, Ons Vaderland, 15 January 1930. ‘Oumense’ refers to ancestors in a cultural sense. Barrow (1764–1848) was an English traveller and geographer who made derogatory observations of the Boer farmers in the Cape. Rousseau, Dark Stream, p. 319. I. Hofmeyr, ‘Building a Nation from Words: Afrikaans Language, Literature and Ethnic Identity’, in S. Marks and S. Trapido (eds), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth‐Century South Africa (London and New York, Longman, 1987), p. 109. Translated. TAD Preller Collection, A787, S. P. Auwyk to Preller, April 1936. TAD Preller Collection, A787, Marais to Preller, 12 April 1923. Y. Jooste, ‘Eugène Marais, my Uncle’, Jaarboek Africana Vereniging van Pretoria, 10 (1992), pp. 1–3. J. H. Viljoen, 'n Joernalis Vertel (Cape Town, Nasionale Boekhandel, 1953). A. H. Jonker, ‘Eugène N. Marais’, Die Burger, 1 April 1936. M. S. B. Kritzinger, ‘Te Danke aan Preller’, Volkstem, 4 April 1936. Die Brandwag was published from 1910. W. de Kok, in Marais, The Soul of the White Ant, p. 13. Translation from the Afrikaans. G. Preller, Historiese Opstelle (Pretoria, J. L. Van Schaik, 1925), p. 183. G. Preller, Historiese Opstelle (Pretoria, J. L. Van Schaik, 1925). Ibid., p. 180. Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 204–206. Discussed in Swart, ‘A “Ware Afrikaner” ’, chapter five, ‘ “Bushveld Magic” and “Miracle Doctors” – A Discussion of Eugène Marais’s and C. Louis Leipoldt's Work in the Waterberg, c. 1906–1913'. See also M. Grobbelaar and H. Roos, ‘Eugène Marais: Estetisis en Dekadent?’, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 30, 4 (November 1992), pp. 64–74. ‘Sy smaak was eenvoudig, soos ons almal s’n'. Preller quoted in du Toit, Eugène Marais, p. xiv. Ibid., p. xiii. ‘Hy wou in die veld wees, in die wilde natuur, en hoe nader daaraan hoe liewer, maar om waar te neem en te bewonder, nie om dood te maak nie’. Du Toit, Eugène Marais, p. xiii. This corresponds with the argument that at this time there was a need to re‐invent the Afrikaner as a man of the veld, explored in Swart, ‘A “Ware Afrikaner” ’, chapter four, ‘The Ant of the White Soul – Popular Natural History and the Politics of Afrikaner Identity, with Particular Reference to the Entomological Writings of Eugène Marais’. ‘Hy het altyd Boer gebly… tuis op ’n perd.' C. A. Groenewald, ‘Enkele Herinnerings aan ’n Groot Digter: Eugène Marais', Die Suiderstem, 7 September 1937. Du Toit, Eugène Marais. Ibid., p. vii. ‘EM het die erkentlikheid van sy volk verdien deur onverwoesbare werk aan ons intellektuele besit.’ G. S. Preller, ‘Vroeë herinneringe aan E. N. Marais’, Ons Tydskrif, May 1936. W. Saint‐Mande, War, Wine and Women (London, Cassell and Company, 1932). This incident is comprehensively discussed in J. C. Steyn, Trouwe Afrikaners – Aspekte van Afrikaner‐nasionalisme en Suid‐Afrikaanse Taalpolitiek (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 1987). See also E. Kahn, ‘When the Lion Feeds – and the Censor Pounces’, South African Law Journal, 83, 3 (1966), p. 311, and D. Joubert, Teer‐en‐Veer (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 1972). To the Academy in Pietermaritzburg. Quoted in Steyn, Trouwe Afrikaners, p. 149. Saint‐Mande, War, Wine and Women, pp. 295–296. Die Volkstem, 11 April 1932. The role of women in defending ethnic identity through women's institutions has been examined by J. Butler, ‘Afrikaner Women and the Creation of Ethnicity in a Small South African Town, 1902–1950’, in L. Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (London, James Currey, 1989). Translated. Ons Vaderland, 15 January 1932; repeated in Die Vaderland, 6 April 1932 (‘Ons’ had changed to ‘Die’ in the newspaper title). Pretoria News, 5 April 1932. Pretoria News, 9 April 1932. Die Volksblad, 9 April 1932. Pretoria News, 26 April 1932. Die Vaderland, 21 April 1932. Die Burger, 24 May 1932. The Pretoria News reported erroneously that Lamont was both a professor and released naked into Church Square. Lamont later emigrated. The Star, 23 May 1932, was indignant; Die Volkstem 24 May 1932 was critical of the incident; Die Vaderland, 25 May 1932, maintained that not only was the tarring‐and‐feathering un‐Christian, it was also un‐Afrikaans (although in a later article, 28 May 1932, it was more critical of the English press and less apologetic); Die Weste, 27 May 1932, the nationalist paper from Potchefstroom, was highly critical of the English press; and the Free State The Friend, 2 June 1932, regarded the men as heroes. Die Vaderland, 25 May 1932 Die Burger, 17 August 1932. Reitz (1877–1946) was the eldest son of President Reitz, brother of Deneys Reitz, and an author and politician. He fought in the South African War and was exiled to India, later elected to the Transvaal Provincial Council and then to the House of Assembly as Nationalist member for Brits. In 1932 he co‐published, with Harm Oost, Ons Land en Ons Volk: 'n Nasionale Jaarboek, 1931 (Johannesburg, Afrikaanse Pers Boekhandel, 1932). ‘Ons wou almal hoor wat [Marais] sou sê.’ He added that Marais was very out of practice and his ramblings caused his popular image to crumble. C. J. Mieny, Leipoldt en Marais – Onwaarskynlike Vriende (Pretoria, Lotter, 1988), p. 50. Carolus ‘Karel’ Trichardt was a celebrated early trekker. See, for example, The Star, 21 June 1932 and Die Burger, 24 June 1932. Lamont was to write in 1933 from Oxford to The Star that he did not receive the full amount and was busy with a new book, Halcyon Days in Africa, which would deal with the ‘experiences of a lecturer at a university’, The Star, 6 July 1933. Halcyon Days was duly published (London, Eric Partridge, 1934). Safe from wagon grease, Lamont has one of his characters refer to Nationalists as ‘fanatical, uncultured, mendacious, double dealing boors…’ and offered the advice: ‘Keep clear of a cobra, a toad, a viper and the Nationalists’ (p. 93). The debates within the University of Pretoria are discussed in Steyn, Trouwe Afrikaners, p. 150. Editorial Notes, The Agricultural Journal of the Union of South Africa vii, no. 2, Pretoria, February 1914, p. 151. TAD Preller Collection, A787. Translated. TAD Preller Collection, A787, 128, V. A. van der Spuy to Preller, 24 April 1936. C. J. Langenhoven's poem, ‘Die Stem’ (The Voice), had been set to music in 1921 and had been used by the South African Broadcasting Corporation in addition to ‘God Save the King’ (it was played in addition to ‘God Save the King’ at the opening of parliament in 1938). TAD Preller Collection, A. Eloff to Preller, 18 June 1936. Apparently the Marais family wished to raise their own; his son negotiated unsuccessfully with the editor of Die Vaderland. TAD Preller Collection, Albert van Ginkel to Preller 25 April 1936. ‘En wat word ons gou vergeet. Wie praat nog oor Tielman Roos? Tog seker ’n figuur wat populêr was. Ek was op sy Memorial Service…'t Was pynlik om die leë saal te sien.' TAD Preller Collection, A 787, A. Eloff to Preller, 18 June 1936. ‘Eugène Marais Borsbeeldfonds’, Die Volksblad, 17 November 1944. Thompson has shown that as Great Britain ceased to be a major power, anglophobic rhetoric was replaced by anti‐black ideology. L. Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1985), p. 40. There was interest from a few academics: P. J. Nienaber, Eugène Marais – Die Groot Eensame (Johannesburg, Afrikaanse Pers Boekhandel, 1951); J. van Melle, ‘Die Boesmanverhale van Eugène Marais’, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 3, 3 (1953). Review of Burgers van die Berge by C. G. S. de Villiers, Die Huisgenoot, 3 June 1938. Dekker, Afrikaanse Literatuurgeskiedenis, p. 55. M. S. B. Kritzinger, front page review of Burgers van die Berge, Die Volksstem, 23 April 1938. It is interesting that this chronology elegantly models Thompson's hypothesis in The Political Mythology of Apartheid, p. 206, that there is usually a time lag of a generation before events translate into myth. Robert Ardrey (1908–1980) studied natural and social sciences at the University of Chicago, producing African Genesis (1961), The Territorial Imperative (1966), The Social Contract (1970) and The Hunting Hypothesis (1976). See University of California, Los Angeles, University Research Library, Department of Special Collections, Robert Ardrey Papers (Collection 957). Ardrey was married to an Afrikaans‐speaking actress. S. J. Gould, Ever Since Darwin – Reflections in Natural History (Middlesex, Penguin, 1980, [1977]), p. 238. Zuckerman argued that constant female receptivity was the very foundation of primate society. See Functional Affinities of Man, Monkeys and Apes (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1933). He quotes Freud in S. Zuckerman, The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes (London, Kegan Paul, 1932), p. 290. Zuckerman, The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes, p. 205. Ardrey, African Genesis, pp. 64, 70. Marais had read Freud's Studien über Hysterie (1895), in which it was averred that hysteria could be treated with hypnosis, and his Traumdeutung, on the significance of dreams, and it has been suggested that he also read Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens (Psychopathology in Daily Life) and Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (Three Treatises on the Sexual Theory). See L. Rousseau, Die Dowwe Spoor van Eugène Marais (Cape Town, Ibis Press, 1998), p. 33. In Natuurkundige en Wetenskaplike Studies and Sketse uit die Lewe van Mens en Dier, Marais explored the treatment of medical conditions through hypnosis and dreams. See ‘Die Pad van Drome’ (Laramie, die Wonderwerker). The centrality of pain to existence is the central theme in Marais's work, recurring in ‘Salas Y Gomez’ (Die Huis van die Vier Winde), ‘Die Woestyntrek van die Herero’s' (Sketse uit die Lewe van Mens en Dier), ‘Die Lied van Suid‐Afrika’ (Die Siel van die Mier), and ‘De Boom in het Midden van den Hof’. Life magazine serialised The Social Contract, and The Territorial Imperative proved very popular in US secondary schools. See D. Haraway, Primate Visions – Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science (London, Verso, 1992), p. 395. Arthur C. Clarke made use of Ardrey's work in Kubrick's 2001– A Space Odyssey. See A. C. Clarke, Lost Worlds of 2001 (New York, New American Library, 1972). T. T. Cloete, Eugène N. Marais (Cape Town, Nasionale Opvoedkundige Uitgewery, 1963); W. S. H. Du Randt, Eugène N. Marais as prosaïs (Cape Town, Nasou, 1969); E. Lindenberg, Versamelde Gedigte van Eugène N. Marais (Pretoria, Academica, 1966) and M. Nienaber‐Luitingh, Eugène Marais (Cape Town, Human and Rousseau, 1962). ‘Die Nuwe Afrikaner: sy Hede is in die Stede’ (The New Afrikaner: his Present is in the Cities), Die Huisgenoot, 28 May 1965; ‘Word ons Afrikaners te Ryk?’ (Are we Afrikaners becoming too rich?), Huisgenoot, 12 July 1968; ‘Stand en Klas by die Afrikaners’ (Standing and Class among Afrikaners), Die Huisgenoot, 10 November 1961 and 17 November 1961. S. Jones and A. Müller, The South African Economy, 1910–1990 (London, Macmillan, 1992). E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (London, Canto, 1997 [1983]), pp. 4–5. S. Greenberg, ‘Ideological Struggles within the South African State’, in Marks and Trapido (eds), Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism, p. 393. D. Posel, ‘The Language of Domination, 1978–1983’, in ibid., p. 419. In the face of the growing espousal of consumerism, the soul‐searching of some factions continued as Afrikaner prosperity increased. Adam and Giliomee, The Rise and Crisis of Afrikaner Power, pp. 7–8, capture the divergence in self‐image by considering two popular images of the Afrikaner in 1979: a ‘rugged rifleman of the Boer war’, who still places ‘his beliefs before his pocketbook’ and an ‘Afrikaner elite behind BMW and Mercedes steering wheels’. C. R. Liebenberg, The Teaching of History at South African Secondary Schools (Pretoria, Human Sciences Research Council, 1972), pp. 23–24. The conference was on ‘Problems in the Interpretation of History with Possible Reference to Examples from South African History such as the Battle of Blood River’. Terreblanche told the press: ‘We as young Afrikaners are tired of seeing … everything that is sacred to the Afrikaners desecrated… by liberal politicians, dissipated academics and false prophets’. Sunday Times, 1 April 1979. There were efforts to create a narrative of collective white effort, with a resultant emphasis on Marais's home language – certainly, the manuscripts of poems like ‘Mabalel’ justify the contention that Marais thought in English. Rupert, Eugène Marais. The post has been held by one incumbent since 1971, Professor J. du P. Bothma. G. Olivier, ‘N.P. van Wyk Louw and R. F. A. Hoernlé’ (unpublished paper, Institute for Advanced Social Research, University of the Witwatersrand, 30 May 1994). For other views of van Wyk Louw's role see, for example, M. Sanders, ‘ “Problems of Europe”: N. P. van Wyk Louw, the Intellectual and Apartheid’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 25, 4 (December 1999). The sestigers (literally: ‘the Sixties generation’) were young urban Afrikaners who voiced opposition to their conservative elders through literature. The significance of this development was not lost on a people whose political identity had itself grown out of a linguistic and cultural movement. ‘Van die grootste prosa in ons taal’, quoted in F. I. J. van Rensburg, Die Smal Baan (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 1971), p. 83. Interview with Rousseau, Cape Town, November 1998. Rousseau's biography remains the most important source on Marais. With Fugard as Marais and Marius Wey