BoereworsExpress Sep 2021

CAPE TOWN'S STAR
Meganne Young started her
professional acting career in
2013 when she starred in the
television movie The
Challenger Disaster. In 2014,
she made her feature film
debut with The Giver in
which she played Bride. Her
first recurring television role
was in the TV series Black
Sails in 2015 in which she
played Abigail Ashe and was
filmed in Cape Town. She's
now better known for her role
as Rachel in The Kissing
Booth films, which were filmed in Cape Town. Meganne was living
in Cape Town when she was cast in the first Kissing Booth film, but
had moved to Vancouver, Canada, by the time filming started.
Meganne was born in Cape Town, where she spent half her life. Her
father is South African and her mother is Australian. As an expat
child she lived in Nigeria, Switzerland and Sri Lanka - attending
schools in four countries. She graduated from The Overseas School
of Colombo, and enrolled in film school in Cape Town.
She's been open about dealing with anxiety for many years, and
credits focusing on positive relationships to get through the lows,
Going for walks, whether it's 10 minutes down the street, or an
hour-long walk while listening to an audio book - are other coping
mechanisms she uses.
VAN DER MERWE FAMILY
In 1836, Andries Hendrik Potgieter (aka Hendrik Potgieter) led his
group of Voortrekkers out of the Cape, following the Trichardt and
Van Rensburg groups who had left in 1835. The Potgieter group
included Johannes Marthinus (Hans) van der Merwe. By October
1836, they had reached the area of Vegkop, where a battle took
place on 16 October 1836 between the Voortrekkers and the
Matebele (Ndebele). Afterwards, Hans found an infant boy in the
veld, said to be Zulu, and brought him back to the trekkers' laager -
this is according to Peet van der Merwe who was in the first
Dorsland Trek as a child and in 1929 moved to Patattafontein near
Rustenburg. The infant boy was named Oorlog or Slagveld van der
Merwe. Hans was later part of the first Dorsland Trek that settled in
Humpata, Angola. Another version of this story, is that the infant
was named Slagveld van der Merwe, after the Dorsland trekker Gert
van der Merwe. The third version has Hans finding the infant in an
abandoned kraal after the Battle of Blood River, took him home and
named him Slagveld van der Merwe.
The black Van der Merwe families of Ehomba's oral history is that
they were originally predominantly isiZulu speakers, with some
Setswane speakers amongst them, who trekked with the Dorsland
Trekkers in 1874 from the Transvaal across Namibia to Humpata in
the south of Angola. They were also known as the Makvolk (tame
peoples). The Makvolk were mostly labourers who accompanied
the trekkers. It is estimated that there were 130–200 in the Dorsland
treks. They adopted the surnames of the Dorsland trekkers in whose
service they were placed according to the "inboekstelsel" or
indenture system. According to this system, which evolved out of
slavery at the Cape, African children were bound to settlers in the
Transvaal as labourers until they had attained the age of majority.
On 04 January 1881 there were 55-60 families (270- 277 people)
living in Humpata. By 01 July 1883 there were 325 whites and 43
blacks.
In 1884 the Boers expelled the Makvolk from Humpata. The
Makvolk moved to their own settlement, 8 kilometres away. In
1928 the majority of Boer families (350 of the 403) moved to
Namibia, but the Van der Merwes remained in Humpata until 1944
when they moved from Angola to Kaokoland and settled in the
vicinity of the Ehombo Mountains.
They spoke Afrikaans and their vocabulary included old words such
as katel (bed), kooi (bed), altemits (perhaps/maybe), oge (eyes),
vortgaan (go away), taggentag (eighty), maters (friends), oolfant
(elephant), arnoster (rhinoceros), sigwelwe (myself), bekwaald (ill),
gowwermint (government), moeder (mother), ouboet (older
brother), boet (brother), neef (cousin/nephew) and oususter (oldest
sister).
After 1944, as the Ehomba area was dominated by the Ovahimba
people who spoke Herero, the Van der Merwes gradually
intermarried with the Ovahimba.
Ragel van der Merwe lived to be over 100 years old (she was 99
years old in 1980), and could only speak Afrikaans. Her funeral was
conducted by ds. Jacob Schoeman. Born on 04 October 1891 in
Humpata, her parents were Tom Bechuana and his second wife
Katryn Dreyer, a Tswana woman who had accompanied the
Dorsland Trekkers to Angola. Ragel married Jan Slagveld van der
Merwe, the grandson of a Zulu child found on a battlefield or
abandoned kraal in Natal. This child was named Slagveld and raised
by a Boer family that later moved to the western Transvaal.
Slagveld's son, Klein Ruiter, worked for Gert van der Merwe, one
of the Dorsland Trek leaders, and accompanied him to Humpata. In
1912, Klein Ruiter's second son, Jan Slagveld van der Merwe,
married Ragel Thom. The couple lived in Neves and Ombulo before
moving to the Ehomba area in 1943/4.
Ragel's eldest son, Ruyter, became the head of the clan. Two other
sons, Krisjan and Oorlog, worked as stock inspectors for Tom
Sopper, and her second son, Tom, worked as a foreman. During
South Africa's Bush War (1966-1989), Ragel's son, Oorlog, trained
home guards in Kaokoland.
The graves in Ehomba tell the family's story - all Van der Merwe:
Jan Slagveld, Ruiter, Rager (Ragel), Kristiaan... In 2009, two of
Ragel's children were still living - Oorlog and Willemiena.
Willemiena still remembered the trek out of Angola. They trekked
with their wagons and cattle to Swartbooisdrif, where they were met
by wagons from the other side of the Cunene River. Willemiena
died on 31 July 2014. Although most of Ragel's children and
grandchildren married Ovahimba women, they all spoke Afrikaans
and were devout Christians. The family has an old, large Afrikaans
Bible with the inscription: "Aan Outa Slagveld en aja Rachel van
der Merwe met groot waardering vir julle volgehoue gereformeerde
lewenswyse. Van Basie de Smit."
Dorsland trekkers' descendants still have annual memorial events in
Swartbooisdrift.
Oorlog van der Merwe and his mother, Ragel
The world is round and the place which
may seem like the end, may also be the
beginning.
Boerewors Express ● September 2021 8