PART FOUR: AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION

POEMS OF THE : POPULAR CULTURE AND THE IN SOUTH AFRICA

One of the most overwhelming cultural constitute the pop culture archive features of the Covid-19 pandemic is future historians consult to understand include the Spanish Flu as part of the the onslaught of media responses that how we began to make sense of the One of Ours, permeate almost every aspect of daily Covid-19 pandemic as it emerged in was not published until 1922, when it life in the . The barrage 2020. 4 of opposing political opinions, the We are not only using pop culture For in-the-moment commentary uncertainty surrounding the collection to navigate the present, though. in 1918, communities turned to of reliable data, the dysfunctional Commentators are using historical relationship between state and federal comparisons to make sense of our absence of radio, music circulated governments, and the general failure current moment, too. A key touchstone in print; new songs often found of the state to provide a coherent for this coronavirus crisis—in the distribution soon after being response—or even to disseminate English-language media and in this composed. The two poems and two trustworthy information—laid bare special issue of the World History cracks in the foundations of American Bulletin time cultural responses to the Spanish society and our contemporary world. pandemic commonly known as the Flu. Although they likely do not Musical parodies provide amusing Spanish Flu.3 Other contributions represent the entirety of the genre— distraction from the 24-7 news cycle in this issue document government much pop culture was ephemeral and and attract large audiences. Singer- policy, mortality, medical treatments, escaped archiving, and is now beyond living memory—this small corpus provides a valuable counterpoint of ingesting bleach as a treatment for to newspaper articles and cartoons. The verses can be read as historical sung to the tune of “A Spoonful of popular cultural responses to the Spanish Flu in South Africa. This emotional responses to the pandemic Mary Poppins—garnered nearly research reveals that linguistically and voice perspectives from diverse and culturally diverse poetry and song weeks after its release.1 Amateur and share common themes in the face of variegated culture-scape. professional musicians alike have a threatening disease. The verses of An anonymous poem published in angry Afrikaners, a mission educated a regional Afrikaans newspaper, a watched by millions on YouTube, Zulu, privileged schoolboys, and a song by a prominent Zulu musician, Facebook, TikTok, and other media. dyspeptic district surgeon coalesce a schoolboy ditty, and a lengthy ode around fear, disruption, and a institutions such as the Getty Museum deep distrust of authority, whether administrative or spiritual. in Amsterdam issued social media challenges to encourage people to form of pop culture in the early for weaving individual narratives into photograph reenactments of famous twentieth-century British colonial a meaningful, encompassing history. artworks in their own homes, then world—which included South Africa post the images online. The results are in 1918, even though white settlers leading historian of the Spanish Flu, astonishingly creative and beautiful.2 negotiated independence in 1910. This online overload—family and likely the school song never entered 1918, but theaters were closed during under ; the sudden transfer of work and education to public health response, seems to have spread of about of popular culture and news media, escaped historical commentary until Covid-19 via Twitter—will all did not enter the public realm until now.5

World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 1 • Page 41 The anonymous poem begins district surgeons wrote that a young schoolboy in the Transkei at with the existential question of “swept like an avalanche through the the time. Sisulu would grow up to be human contact with a deadly District carrying off hundreds if not a prominent member of the African contagious disease: “Spanish Flu, thousands and leaving whole kraals National Congress with Nelson from overseas/ What are you doing desolate in its wake.”10 Mandela; he was sentenced to life in our Fatherland?”6 The opening Medical personnel (doctors, nurses in prison alongside Mandela at the stanzas invoke the poem’s place of and pharmacists) were spread very Rivonia Trial in 1964.14 publication, a newspaper called Ons thinly over huge regions which put Reuben Tholakele Caluza, the Vaderland (our fatherland), which tremendous pressure on the few doctors song’s composer, would have been had only been in circulation for two and nurses available. Magistrates and in the midst of this suffering. Already and a half years. The Afrikaans press native commissioners had to scramble famous when he wrote Influenza 1918, was relatively new, an outgrowth of to get medical supplies brought in he was music teacher at the Ohlange Afrikaner nationalism and political from cities where there were also Institute in KwaZulu-Natal—an organization following the defeat of serious shortages. Once the disease institution founded by Africans and the Afrikaner Republics by the British took hold, villagers began practicing modeled on the Tuskegee Institute. empire in the South African what we now call social distancing Caluza was also a journalist, and (1899–1902). Despite maintaining in an effort to save themselves. One prominent member of the New power over indigenous Africans in rural observer from the interior of East African Movement. Well on his way post-war negotiations with English- London reported, “For two weeks a to becoming one of the most popular speaking settlers and the British great solemn hush has prevailed, no composers and performers of his day, empire, Afrikaners remained bitter one to be seen, no one to be heard; no Caluza’s music covered an enormous about the appalling treatment of their life on the farms, no work in the lands. range from ragtime music about communities during the war. The Lord influenza and his followers have modern love and urban life to political British use of concentration camps to held the countryside in their grip.”11 songs that reflected the burning issues imprison civilian women, children, Government officials also took of his time. While still a teenager, and the elderly was a rallying cry measures to enforce social distancing he wrote one of the most enduring of Afrikaner nationalism. There by “closing schools, prohibiting African protest songs, lamenting was active support amongst some meetings and indoor church services the 1913 Land Act that dispossessed Afrikaners for the Germans in World for Blacks, postponing court-cases Africans of their land and formed the War I and resistance to the new united and the payment of taxes, and basis of Apartheid-era homelands. South African government, including suspending military recruiting.” The South African Native National an armed rebellion.7 South African Only labor recruitment for the mines Congress, precursor to the African forces quelled the rebellion only nine persisted.12 National Congress, adopted the months before Ons Vaderland began Medical students, both white and song as its official anthem. Caluza’s circulation. It remained an explicit African, volunteered their services, choir made Enoch Sontonga’s Xhosa organ of the National Party and but medical and government hymn Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (God promoted education in Afrikaans. The officials met with hostility in local Bless Africa) popular. It became a newspaper had ties to both prominent communities who distrusted their preeminent anti-Apartheid struggles Afrikaner politicians and intellectuals, motives and methods. A report from song and eventually South Africa’s including in the literature department Umtata noted that, “The people national anthem after the end of of the Dutch Reformed Theological simply would not have us. One stood Apartheid.15 Caluza’s music was so School in Potchefstroom, where the outside his hut and insisted his child popular that many of his songs became poem may have been written.8 The was better; another woman took our part of the standard repertoire of other poem’s explicit religious invocations medicines but said we had come to groups. He was one of the first African accompany the fear that disease may poison them.”13 Africans used folk- composers to record his music and at undermine hard-fought political rights medicine and commercially prepared the forefront of introducing African and folk identity. concoctions, but there was almost music to a global audience. Columbia The Zulu song Influenza 1918 also total hostility to inoculations which Records recorded Influenza 1918 laments a community’s profound officials abandoned as a public health and African-American newspapers, disruption.9 Like white settlers, method because of suspicions about including W.E.B. DuBois’ The Crisis, African colonial subjects experienced the motives for the measure. The promoted his music.16 the upheavals of two major in a suffering was too great; suspicions Given the power differential among lifetime, followed by several outbreaks about white motives and malevolent Afrikaner, Black, and English South of virulent disease culminating in the spirit possession took hold. Some Africans, it is not surprising that the Spanish Flu. Various reports from rural African Christians even abandoned disruption noted in a schoolboy parody regions noted that influenza spread as faith in missionary churches in some was not accompanied by the fear and men returned to their villages from of the most devastated regions. distrust evident in “’Spanse Griep” wartime service or from working The devastation flu wrought on and Influenza 1918. The well-to-do on the mines. The disease spread rural African communities became boarding students even found some rapidly when they participated in the one of the foundational childhood humor in their situation. St. Andrew’s usual rituals and celebrations of their memories of Walter Sisulu, who was Preparatory School was, and still is, cultural and religious lives. One of the World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 1 • Page 42 a private school in Grahamstown one of the lowest mortality rates in at Rice University. A scholar of slavery catering to and creating a new elite.17 the region (less than two percent) and and human trafficking, she is the author of Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in During the outbreak, the boys were the explanation is most likely that the the Dutch East India Company. She is a past vulnerable to illness and death, but nearest connecting railway system to secretary of the WHA and a former editor of they commented most pointedly on Port St. Johns was to Natal and Durban the Journal of World History. the fact of doing their own domestic rather than to Cape Town—one of work. the hardest hit regions in the country. What is more, officials speculated that ENDNOTES Oh would you like to hear the 1. tale of Spanish influenza, South Africa was hit with two strains Randy Rainbow, “A Spoonful of of the influenza simultaneously, the Clorox,” YouTube, April 25, 2020. www. virulent strain entering from Cape youtube.com/watch?v=DPDPzbLFeP4. When everybody great and small 2. Raisa Bruner, “How People Imitating must do his own Sebenza… Town and a milder strain entering Masterful Paintings Launched a via Durban and affecting Natal. This Sweeping Trend from Italy to Iceland,” For all of us we did our bit, old accounted for regional variations in Time, April 10, 2020. time.com/5817117/ boys and new pots too the .21 Querney’s ode coronavirus-art-history/. is a pointed critique of the official 3. “Pandemic: The Story of the We swept the floors and made the handling of influenza. Many public 1918 Flu,” BBC World Service: The beds when we had Spanish ‘flu.18 health issues emerge in the verses. Documentary, Radio Broadcast, April What stands out, given his position 26, 2020. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ w3cswdhh. Illness among Africans probably as a district surgeon, is his belief that 4. caused a labor shortage, hence the senior officials blamed his fellow Patricia Clifford, “Why did So Few district surgeons for their handling Novels Tackle the 1918 Pandemic?” need for the boys to do their own Smithsonian Magazine, November 2017. chores, an unlikely occurrence in of the . The poem’s final www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ normal circumstances at this elite line suggests that the Influenza flu-novels-great-pandemic-180965205/. institution. The song’s composer Commission’s conclusions would 5. Howard Phillips, “‘Black October’: isn’t known; perhaps a teacher trying ultimately be flawed because of The Impact of the Spanish Influenza to keep up the boys’ spirits? Or the insufficient information. Querny Epidemic of 1918 on South Africa,” boys themselves? Howard Phillips asserts that the only reasonable PhD diss. (University of Cape Town, collected the lyrics from a former conclusion is not to allocate blame, 1984) subsequently published as ‘Black headmaster, C.G. Mullins, whose but rather assign a verdict of P.U.O.— October’: The Impact of the Spanish personal memories help to preserve pyrexia (fever) of unknown origin. Influenza Epidemic of 1918 on South evidence of the race- and class- These four compositions and their Africa (Pretoria: Archives Year Book audiences differ in terms of genre for South African History, Government based differences in reactions to the Printer, 1990); , Pox, and pandemic. and publication venue. Read together, : A Jacana Pocket History Perhaps the strangest, and by far though, common threads connect of in South Africa ( the longest, of the verses about the the verses: not just through the Park: Jacana, 2012); and In a Time of Spanish Flu was an ode penned by Spanish Flu as an event, but through Plague: Memories of the ‘Spanish’ Dr. Thomas Querney published in interconnected themes. Though the Flu Epidemic of 1918 in South Africa the South African Medical Record.19 authors were differentiated by race, (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, He was not a prominent figure in the class, ethnic identity, generation, and 2018). See also Howard Phillips and South African medical profession; it geography, their verses all reveal the David Killingray, eds., The ‘Spanish’ would require a genealogist’s devotion degree of disruption wrought by the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919: New to discover more details about his disease in their communities. Although Perspectives (London and New York: 20 the St. Andrew’s parody is a bit of an Routledge, 2003). life. He was the reporting district 6. Anonymous, “’Spanse Griep,” Ons surgeon and also port health officer outlier because it was not written for Vaderland, January 1, 1918, 8, cited in for Port St. Johns, still a working a public audience, we nevertheless Philips, “Black October,” 144. port at the time of the Spanish Flu. see an upending of hierarchies. Fear 7. Sandra Swart, “‘Desperate Men’: The disease, however, spread into the and distrust are palpable in the lines The 1914 Rebellion and the Politics rural areas via railways from larger penned for adult audiences. These of Poverty,” South African Historical port cities. Phillips estimates that two deep emotions circulated via a form Journal 42 (May 2000): 161-175. main groups carried the influenza of popular culture that resonated 8. Die Vaderland, Wikipedia, accessed to the region—members of the strongly in the early twentieth century, May 18, 2020, af.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Die_Vaderland. South African Native Labour Corps revealing a time and place specific 9. returning from after World way people used culture to make Austin C. Okigbo, “South African sense of a crisis. Weaving a history Music in the History of Epidemics,” War I, and black laborers who fled Journal of Folklore Research 54, no. 1-2 the major urban centers and the mines from these disparate verses offers (2017): 87-118. in Kimberley as the disease spread. a way to think about narrating the 10. District Surgeon for Umtata, These carriers were overwhelmingly history of our present as it is currently March 3, 1919, cited in Phillips, “Black men, but as Reuben Caluza’s song being collected in millions of stories October,” 156. reminds us, the disease spread rapidly on social media. 11. Methodist Churchman, November through the population. 18, 1918, 3, cited in Phillips, “Black The District of Port St. Johns had Kerry Ward is associate professor of history October,” 157. World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 1 • Page 43 12. Phillips, “Black October,” 159. 13. Phillips, “Black October,”163-168. 14. Elinor Sisulu, Walter and Albertina South African Verses from 1918 Sisulu: In Our Lifetime (Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 2002), 45. ‘Spanse Griep 15. David Coplan, In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music Spanish Flu, from overseas, and Theatre (Johannesburg: Raven What are you doing in our Fatherland? Press, 1985); Veit Erlmann, African Have we not suffered enough Stars: Studies in Black South African We fought so hard for our rights. Performance (Chicago and London: So many women, children, and men University of Chicago Press, 1991), 119- Are through hunger, murdered, bullet and sword, 120; Christine Lucia, The World of South Hunted in the valley of death. African Music: A Reader (Newcastle: Their fate lamented by their people. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2005), 175. 16. Spanish Flu, you are another dagger Erlmann, African Stars, 143-145. In the pierced heart of a people, Caluza eventually traveled with his choir Whose wound does not want to heal at all to the United States. Caluza studied for a B.A. in Music at the Hampton Because their loss is already too great. Institute in Virginia before enrolling Spanish Flu, go away from here in Columbia University for an M.A. in Because if you last any longer Music Education which he completed Then there will only remain, here and there before returning to South Africa in 1936. A few survivors among our murdered people. “Caluza, Reuben Thokakele (Thola),” Anonymous1 in E. J. Verwey, ed., New Dictionary of Translation by Kerry Ward South African Biography, vol. 1 (Pretoria: HSRC Press, 1995), 38-40. 17. R. F. Currey, St. Andrew’s College Influenza 1918 Grahamstown: 1855-1955 (London: Basil Blackwell, 1955); C. G. Mullins and In the year nineteen eighteen W. M. Levick, The “Prep” Story—Tells We’re killed by the disease called influenza the Story of St. Andrew’s Preparatory Which finished our beloved relatives School Grahamstown from 1885-1970 Mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers (Grahamstown: Grocott & Sherry, In other households no one was left 1975): Lorraine Mullins, ‘I’ll Sing you It took young women and men One-Oh!’: The History of St. Andrew’s It chose the beautiful ones Preparatory School, Grahamston It even took the good looking men. (private publication, Grahamstown: St. Andrew’s Preparatory School, 2011). It took the teenagers 18. Sebenza translates as work or It took even the young maidens labor. Interview with C.G. Mullins, It took the engaged ladies Grahamstown, December 13, 1981, It took the strummers (bridesmaids) Phillips, “Black October,” 438. Even the grooms 19. Thomas Querney, “An Ode to the It was like there was a black cloud over the earth Influenza Commission,” South African Medical Record 8 (February 1919): 42- Just as it comes to collect young women and men 43. 20. It burned out the elders, while it finished the youth Dr. Thomas Querney, District Mothers, fathers left the orphans Surgeon, “Port St. Johns,” Cape of Miserable with no one to help Good Hope. Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the Colony on the So today we’ve forgotten the great help Public Health together with the Health It was like this long ago Reports of District Surgeons and Local With those who went to Canaan Authorities. For the Half-Year ended When they faced difficulties 30 June 1904 (Cape Town: Cape Times They felt sorry for their wrong doings Limited, Government Printers, 1905), When things go well they go with joy 119-121. They didn’t think about their creator 21. Phillips, “Black October,” 293. Only they were successful who worshiped him. Reuben Tholakele Caluza2

1. Anonymous, “’Spanse Griep,” Ons Vaderland, 1 January 1918, 8; cited in Howard Phillips, “‘Black October’: The Impact of the Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918 on South Africa,” PhD diss. (University of Cape Town, 1984), 144. 2. Translation from Austin C. Okigbo, “South African Music in the History of Epidemics,’ Journal of Folklore Research 54, no. 1-2 (January 2017): 87-118.

World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 1 • Page 44 St. Andrew’s Preparatory School Flu Parody (To the tune of “When His Day is Done”) Oh would you like to hear the tale of Spanish influenza, When everybody great and small must do his own Sebenza.* We’ll tell you all about it in our own Preparatory And when we’re finished you can see how smart we all can be. For all of us we did our bit, old boys and new pots too We swept the floors and made the beds when we had Spanish ‘flu. Anonymous3

*(sebenza translates as labor)

3. Interview with C. G. Mullins, Grahamstown, December 13, 1981, Phillips, “Black October,” 438.

An Ode to the Influenza Commission ‘Tis well that in these stressful days of rest, The Influenza should be on Commission; The District Surgeons are an easy mark, And evidence be taken how this pest A fertile source of adverse exploitation; Escaped its captors and here gained admission. Tho’ here may sound a yelp and there a bark, Just that! Please don’t consider in your quest You need not fear Beserk retaliation. Its whereabouts or doing in transition. So banish from your minds all care and cark, Work of this kind if worthy of the name, And pour on them the blame to saturation. Lies chiefly in the doling out of blame. What your acumen will surely observe is— They’ve no one to support them—in the Service. And what a field is here, though somewhat wide— A latitude that’s helpful in these cases— As in review before your massive kens Your Cape to Cairo net cast in the tide. There pass the medicines and the serum cures, Is sure to gather in some venial races, The Amboceptors and the Antigens, Whose sun-warmed blood will probably decide And other forms of hypodermic lures, To throw your blame and scolding in your faces. Endeavour to preserve the classic “Mens ‘Twere best, perhaps, to take a nearer view, Sana”—advice that’s gratis and endures. The upper end of Africa’s Nahpoo! But if rejecting Sera is your bent, You might at least return the “Complement.” To start with Capetown, Pasteurized and gay, The Union-Castle folk might need attention. And when your minds with facts that leave you cold The Cape Times, Harbour Board and Table Bay, Are sated, and you need a little “pep” The M.O.H.—apostle of prevention, To warm you up, I would a tale unfold And others too, not very far away, That should prove overheating—take a step Quite well deserve an honourable mention. Aside from beaten tracks, and there behold ‘Tis quite a work of supererogation A State Department known as Prisons Dept: To think about the Mayor and Corporation. Where native guards are paid two bob per day To feed their families as best they may. Then there’s the C.G.R. (good dividends); The Station too—no thing of lath and plaster But that’s a side-line. You may never need The home of greetings from one’s dearest friends, To take a Departmental sudorific, A spot but seldom noted for disaster. Some better ones there are—a different breed. But, Gentlemen! As much on you depends, That make one seat—they’re equally specific. Take careful notes about the Station Master. For instance, there are women, wine, and “weed.” The Influenza germ, whose goose you’re cooking Whose action may be gentle or terrific. May just have dodged him when he wasn’t looking. Avoid a chill for cold feet—I’ve heard say— Are the progenitors of feet of clay. Johannesburg and Kimberley and Bloem- Fontein and places North, South, East and West. And when at length, in course of weary years, Like Piquetberg and Smithfield, where there’s room There comes an end to your germ rumination, And housing for the germs of dire unrest, And those involved have passed between the shears All these are worth a swizzle with your broom, Of your cast-iron blame and condemnation, Provided that you handle it with zest. Before you hurl your verdict at our ears, But let me whisper in your septic ears, And fix the blame beyond all revocation, The blame this time does not rest on De Beers. Be kind and pause, and moderate the blow. And wangle in a verdict—P.U.O. Dr. Thomas Querny4 4. Thomas Querney, “An Ode to the Influenza Commission,” South African Medical Record (February 8, 1919): 42-43. World History Bulletin • Vol XXXVI • No. 1 • Page 45