History

Leon Rousseau (1974): Die Groot Verlange – Die verhaal van Eugene Marais. Translated as The Dark Stream. The story of Eugene Marais.

Eugene Marais's name is synonymous with the Waterberg and the evocative essay describing his arrival here - “The road to Waterberg” (can be downloaded here) - is one of his best-known works. Leon Rousseau's book shown alongside pieces together the story of the ten years he spent here. Johann Lodewyk Marais' 2009 piece adds to this.

At the age of 36 (in 1906 or 1907) he made the move from city life, attracted, perhaps, to the Waterberg by the idea of prospecting as he established himself on a farm outside Naboomspruit where a number of prospectors were investigating a tin deposit. This was the farm Doornhoek and he bought a prospecting licence from the owner, built himself a shack on the property and teamed up with another prospector. A ravine ran through Doornhoek and in it lived a large troop of baboons that became the focus of his interest and the subject of an enduring study the results of which, years later, was published under the title “The soul of the ape”.

Doorhoek was taken over in 1908 by a Johannesburg-based mining company and he had to move on. By then he'd befriended several neighbouring farmers and one nearby couple, Gys and Maria van Rooyen invited him to live on their farm, Rietfontein. Rietfontein is the present-day site of Die Oog and several other hot spring resorts and it was to provide Eugene Marais with a base for much of the time that he lived in the Waterberg. As time went on he became well known in the area, serving as the medical officer for the Doornhoek mine for a couple of years, attending to the medical needs of farmers in the area, keeping a range of animals including baboons, crocodiles and warthog, dabbling in farming with cattle and horses, going on hunting trips with friends, writing numerous essays and poems that were published in newspapers and magazines and all the while continuing his studies of baboons and other animals. He also made a study of termites on Rietfontein and published this as “Die siel van die mier” (The soul of the white ant) in Die Burger and Huisgenoot. The study was to become the basis of a classic case of academic plagiarism when, in 1926, a Dutch scientist published it almost word for word under his own name.

Eugene also spent half a year living with Gys's brother Piet who lived not far away on Purekrans, the farm where the endangered cycad, Encepholatus eugene-maraisi, that is named after him, is to be found. Throughout his adult life Eugene Marais was debilitated by his addiction to morphine and in his last years in the Waterberg when his drug supply became problematic, withdrawal symptoms played havoc with his physical and mental health. When the news that he was reaching the end of his tether reached his friends in Pretoria, his son fetched him from Rietfontein and brought his father back to town. And so, in early 1916, Eugene Marais left the Waterberg, never to return.

The map alongside shows the area where Eugene Marais spent most of his time in the Waterberg.

Eugene N Marais (1969): The Soul of the Ape. Human & Rousseau.

Eugene Marais was a complex man. He was a well-respected poet, early Afrikaner intellectual, journalist, advocate, hypnotist and naturalist. And he was a tormented drug addict.

The Soul of the Ape is an incomplete manuscript, published 33 years after his death. Marais made observations of baboon social behaviour in the early 1900 and was by all accounts working on the manuscript by 1922. He died in 1936.

He used the Darwinian method (see Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selections in Relation to Sex, Ch III and IV, 1871), of describing the behaviour of lower animals to understand the behaviour of man.

This incomplete, and therefore unrefined, manuscript should be seen as a very early exposition in the modern discipline of evolutionary psychology. However, it is not about the psyche of baboons, it is rather an attempt to understand the psyche of mankind. One can only surmise that he was trying to understand himself.

Johann Coetzee, July 2018

Louis Trichardt (2016): Swaershoek in die Waterberg – Afrikanner erfenis of niemandsland? Privately published.

The author is a fifth generation descendent of the famous trekker of the same name. His father (or perhaps it was grandfather?) married into the Enslin family who were one of the five families that constituted the trekker group known as the 'Jerusalemgangers'. This group left Marico in 1858 on a journey intended to take them to the Holy Land but on reaching the Nyl river (so-named by them according to legend) they instead settled in the district, some close to Nylstroom others spreading out further west. The Enslins settled on Renosterkloof at the base of Trichardt's Pass where their descendents continue to live today. The book traces the tumultous events in the lives of the successive generations. Swaershoek is so-named after the five swaers (brothers-in-law) who constituted the Jerusalemgangers.

FARM NAMES - Many of the registered names for Waterberg farms carry animal names. There are, for example, 16 (like the one alongside) that use the name renoster (rhinoceros) tagged to -kloof, -poort, -kop, -hoek or -hoekspruit, -spruit, -drift, and so on. Twenty-one use the name buffel (buffalo) and top of the list is hartbees or hartebees in which 24 farms in the Waterberg are thus-named.

Other animal's names are also used but less frequently, eland being used in 7, gemsbok 6, lion (leeu-), zebra (kwagga-) and duiker 4 each, elephant (olifant-), reedbuck (rietbok-) 3, and steenbok 1. It does suggest that in the late 1800s when the Waterberg farms were surveyed and named, lion and elephant had almost disappeared from the district but rhino and buffalo were still found sufficiently widely to have farms named after them.

Trees get some recognition: boekenhout and tambotie (each used for 5 farm names) geelhout (for 4), fig (vyeboom, 3) and marula (maroela, 1). Unsurprisingly, given the rocky and/or sandy nature of much of the Waterberg, sand and rock feature strongly in farm names – there are 16 bearing the name sand (Zand-) and 16 with rock (Klip-).

Perhaps the most curious of all the farm names in the Waterberg is Kiss-Me-Quick-And-Go My-Honey 794 LR which lies just north of the Kloof Pass. The story behind this name is covered in RF Odendaal's book "Noord Transvaal op Kommando", reviewed below.

R.F.Odendaal (2000): Noordtransvaal op kommando. Jotha Printers.

In this relatively voluminous treatise, the author endeavours to reconstruct the participation of the "burgers" of the former Northern Transvaal in the Anglo Boer War of 1899 to 1902. He discusses perceived ambivalent conceptions about the behaviour of certain individuals, large-scale division amongst the white population, the role of traitors, the scorched earth policy employed by the British soldiers, the internment of women and children in concentration camps and the resultant post-war bitterness and poverty. A major part of the book deals with the influence of individuals, especially Boer leaders such as Generals Beyers, Viljoen and Botha.

Braam Beneke, April 2018.

R.F.Odendaal (2000): Waterberg word gekersten. Privately published (with technical assistance from Jotha printers).

The author attempts to piece together the demographics of the Waterberg region during the middle to late 19th century in an effort to shed more light on the endeavours of various church organisations and individuals to spread the Christian doctrine to the then widespread local population. He sets the tone by applying several postulations, derived from various sources, amongst others official and unofficial publications and whatever other material available. At the heart of these postulations is the frequent wars and skirmishes between local indigenous tribes, the repeated droughts and overgrazing which led to a degree of nomadicism. The Anglo Boer war at the turn of the century, in which the British forces applied a scorched earth policy, caused terrible havoc and destruction to further unsettle the already sparse population, both black and white. He further speculates that even the slavery committed by the ruling local tribes had a profound effect on the population demographics of the Waterberg during that time. This brings him to conclude that the Waterberg region during most of the 19th century was, as he describes it, "woes en leeg" (desolate and empty).

Braam Beneke, April 2018.