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Towards an Intellectual Biography of Dr Vera Bührmann (1910-1998)

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Towards an Intellectual Biography of Dr Vera Bührmann (1910-1998) From Volksmoeder to Igqira: Towards an Intellectual Biography of Dr Vera Bührmann (1910-1998) A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the awarding of the degree Master of Arts in History Name: André Louis Landman Student Number: 3524194 Department: History Institution: University of the Western Cape Supervisor: Prof. Andrew Bank Keywords: Afrikaner nationalism; amagqira; Analytical Psychology; autism; biography; Cape of Good Hope Centre for Jungian Studies; Carl Gustav Jung; child psychiatry; cross-cultural psychiatry; Dietse Kinderfonds; German war orphans; Ossewa-Brandwag; racial ideology; Sir Laurens van der Post; South African War (1899-1902) https://etd.uwc.ac.za/ DECLARATION I, André Louis Landman, declare that ‘From Volksmoeder to Igqira: Towards an Intellectual Biography of Dr Vera Bührmann (1910-1998)’ is my own work, that it has not been submitted for any degree or examination in any other university, and that all the sources I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by complete references. André Louis Landman 5 November 2019 https://etd.uwc.ac.za/ Acknowledgments My sincere thanks are due to the following people: • Prof. Andrew Bank, for his patient guidance and for the example of rigorous archival research he has set over many years; • Mrs Sue Ogterop, for her expert librarianship, and for listening to my many stories about Vera Bührmann; • Mr Johann Bührmann, who kindly made digital copies of photographs and letters in his possession available to me; • Mrs Reinette (Biebie) van der Merwe, for permission to use images from the Bührmann Familieboek; • ‘Anonymous’, who very generously made available to me transcripts of the many hours of interviews she conducted with Vera Bührmann; • Mr Fred Borchardt, current President of the Southern African Association of Jungian Analysts, for allowing me access to the SAAJA historical archive; and • the many archivists who willingly assisted me with physical and digital archival materials: Clive Kirkwood (University of Cape Town Libraries), Huilbrecht Lombard (University of the Free State), Zabeth Botha (Erfenis Stigting), Annette Kellner, Maryna Rankin and Evert Kleynhans (North-West University), Nicole Babcock (W. Bruce Fye Center for the History of Medicine, Rochester, MN), David Luck (Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Beckenham, England), and Nicolas Baldwin (Archive Service, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, NHS Foundation). i https://etd.uwc.ac.za/ Abstract This biography of Dr Vera Bührmann is an intersectional and interdisciplinary investigation of an unusual Afrikaner woman who occupied several unusual places in South African society. Through rigorous archival research and a wide reading of English and Afrikaans secondary sources, I examine the mythology that has grown up around Dr Bührmann and expose contradictions and inaccuracies inherent within these myths. I adopt a chronological approach but focus on certain key motifs. I dwell on her family background in order to demonstrate the depths of the Afrikaner nationalist tradition to which she was heir. I uncover the impact that physical anthropology had on her during her initial medical training at Wits and UCT in the 1930s. I highlight the intensity of her commitment to, and leadership roles in, the Ossewa-Brandwag and Dietse Kinderfonds, both extremist right-wing Afrikaner nationalist organisations. Vera’s marital crises reveal something of her ‘human’ side but are an important component of her story because she reinvented herself following her divorce in the early 1950s, furthering her medical qualifications as well as training as a Jungian analyst. I investigate the various fields in which she worked following her return to South Africa in late 1959 but focus on her cross-cultural psychiatry research with a Xhosa igqira in the 1970s and 1980s since much of the mythology that surrounds her is based on publications that flowed from that research. I engage critically with her published works and associated archival records and present evidence which shows that the view that she underwent a ‘Damascus Road’ experience with respect to her racial politics is unfounded. The racial politics of her ancestors and the ideology of the radical right-wing Ossewa-Brandwag remained with her throughout her life, despite attempts (by Vera and others) to camouflage it. In addition, I show that her use of Jungian depth psychology as a framework for cross-cultural psychiatry research contributed to the reification of apartheid racial politics. This study draws attention to the many pioneering achievements of this remarkable woman but argues that a more nuanced approach to her legacy is needed in light of the evidence of her persistent racial prejudice. ii https://etd.uwc.ac.za/ Table of Contents Acknowledgments I Abstract II Introduction 1 Chapter 1. The Ancestors 12 Chapter 2. The Making of an Afrikaner Woman Doctor (1910-1936) 32 Chapter 3. Nailing Her Colours to the Mast: Vera’s Involvement with Afrikaner Radical Right- Wing Organisations, 1940-1948 56 Chapter 4. A Decade of Change (1949-1959) 85 Chapter 5. Bringing Jung to Africa: Vera Amongst the Amagqira (1975-1995) 100 Chapter 6. Conclusion 141 Bibliography 146 Appendix 1. Genealogical information 159 Appendix 2. Publications by M. Vera Bührmann 160 iii https://etd.uwc.ac.za/ Table of Figures Figure 1.1: Johannes and Johanna Bührmann and children, circa 1917…………………………...….12 Figure 1.2: Map of Ermelo district showing De Emigratie, circa 1905……………………………….16 Figure 1.3: Hendrik Teodor Bührmann………………………………………………………………..20 Figure 1.4: Vera’s mother, Johanna, in 1902 with her children during her parole in Durban during the Anglo-Boer…………………………………………………………..28 Figure 2.1:Vera (right) with her younger siblings, De Emigratie, circa 1915………………………....35 Figure 2.2: Vera with her sisters Pat and Aletta, c. 1930……………………………………………...38 Figure 2.3: Vera on horseback, De Emigratie, circa 1938……………….………………………….…40 Figure 2.4: Vera as a student at UCT, circa 1935…………………………………………………..….51 Figure 2.5: UCT Medical School class of 1935……………………………………………………..…53 Figure 3.1: George van Niekerk, Vera’s husband………………………………………………….….60 Figure 3.2: Vera in traditional voortrekker costume, circa December 1938..........................................63 Figure 3.3: Vera examining German children, circa August 1948…………………………………….78 Figure 4.1: Vera consulting at the Hercules Clinic, Pretoria……………………………………..……88 Figure 4.2: Google NGram graph….……………………………………………………………..……91 Figure 5.1: Vera Bührmann’s publications 1952 to 1973……….………………………….…………..111 Figure 5.2: Vera Bührmann’s publications 1977 to 1998……………………………………….……111 Figure 5.3: Lenye location where the homestead of Mongezi Tiso was located………………..……119 Figure 5.4: Mr Mongezi Tiso…………………………………………………………………..……..119 Figure 5.5: Vera Bührmann and Sir Laurens van der Post, Cape Town, 1991…………………..…...138 iv https://etd.uwc.ac.za/ Introduction ‘Life-writing, whether of the famous or the obscure, is no doubt largely born of curiosity,’ wrote Peter France.1 It was indeed curiosity that prompted this investigation into the life of the late Dr Maatje Vera Bührmann. I had never heard of Vera (as she was almost universally known) until I took up a position in the Manuscripts and Archives Department (now Special Collections) of the University of Cape Town (UCT) Libraries in January 2007. A small collection of her papers is housed there.2 Over the years, I had occasion to consult these papers in order to assist researchers with queries. In this way, I gradually became aware of Vera’s unusual story. From these papers, I learned of her pioneering work with autistic children in the 1960s and early 1970s. I learned of the cross-cultural psychiatry research she undertook, starting in 1975 when she was already well into her 60s. Although anthropological field work was not something new, an elderly white woman living in an old Volkswagen Kombi camper in a remote part of what was then a ‘homeland’ (Ciskei)3 for weeks on end while observing the methods of a Xhosa igqira (healer) was an unusual occurrence in apartheid South Africa, particularly considering that this elderly woman was an Afrikaner. I discovered that during the mid-1980s she was one of the prime movers behind the establishment of what is now the Southern African Association of Jungian Analysts (SAAJA), an internationally accredited association that provides postgraduate training in Jungian psychotherapy for mental health professionals. Psychology was one of my undergraduate majors and, although Jung was never part of the formal curriculum, I had read much that he wrote and that has been written about him. This connection thus piqued my curiosity further. The archival papers housed at UCT Libraries range from 1963 to 1996. The bulk of the materials date from the 1970s and 1980s and are mainly concerned with Vera Bührmann’s cross- cultural psychiatry research. As my curiosity grew, I delved deeper into parts of her life not covered by these papers. From my extended reading I learned that in the 1940s she had been a member of the 1 P. France, ‘From Eulogy to Biography: The French Academic Eloge’ in P. France and W. St Clair, eds., Mapping Lives. The Uses of Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 83. 2 UCT Libraries, Special Collections, BC1164, The Vera Bührmann Papers. An online finding aid to this collection is available at https://atom.lib.uct.ac.za/index.php/vera-buhrmann-papers. 3 ‘Homelands’ were territories within South Africa set aside for designated black ethnic groups. Self-governing homelands became a central tenet of the ruling National Party’s policy of ‘separate development’. 1 https://etd.uwc.ac.za/ radical right-wing Afrikaner organisation known as the Ossewa-Brandwag (OB). I discovered that after the Second World War she was an integral part of a child immigration/adoption scheme which hoped to bring 10 000 German war orphans to South Africa. Going even further back, I read of the roots of the Bührmann family in the old Transvaal Republic, and the part that the family – and the family farm – played in the South African War.4 The more I discovered about the life and times of Vera Bührmann, the more my interest in her story grew.
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