19 Arrival of (22 November 1838) A2

B2

C2

D N 19 Arrival 26 27 1 25 2

West wall (panel 23/31) 24 3 h. 2.3 × w. 2.34 m 4 23 Restored fractures on the vertical edges Sculptor of the clay maquette: Laurika Postma 22 5

Stages of production 21 A1 W.H. Coetzer, pencil drawing, retained only in A2 (April–June 1937) 6 A2 Reproduction of drawing A1, h. 17.5 × w. 15.6 cm (June 1937) 20 B1 One-third-scale clay maquette, not extant but replicated in B2 (1942–43) 7 B2 One-third-scale plaster maquette, h. 78.2 × w. 77 × d. 8.6 cm (1942–43) 19

C1 Full-scale wooden armature, not extant (1943–46) 8 18 C2 Full-scale clay relief, not extant but photographed; replicated in C3 17 9 (1943–46) 16 10 C3 Full-scale plaster relief (1943–46), not extant but copied in D (1948–49) 15 14 13 12 11 D Marble relief as installed in the Monument (1949)

0 5 10 m Early records SVK minutes (4.9.1937) ― item 4o (see below, ‘Developing the design’) Moerdyk Layout (5.10.1936–15.1.1937) ― scene 16 on panel 22/31 ‘Aankoms’ (Arrival) Jansen Memorandum (19.1.1937) ― item 16 ‘Arrival of Andries Pretorius’

Open Access. © 2020 Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider, published by De Gruyter and African Minds. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110668797-024 402 19 Arrival

Figure 19.1: D. Arrival. 1949. Marble, 2.3 × 2.34 m (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott) Description 403

Description

Two standing males face each other in the centre, framed by two children on the left and a seated woman on the right, all in close to profile views (fig. 19.1). The focus of attention is the taller of the two men, distinguished by his upright stance and height, further enhanced by his top hat, and his urbane appearance. He is clean-shaven and stylishly dressed in a formal tailcoat, with bow tie, waistcoat and full-length trousers, not cropped at the ankle like those of most of the men but strapped under his shoes. It is the Voortrekker Commandant-General Andries Pretorius, excep- tional in the frieze not only because of his attire but also his pistol and sabre. Pretorius touches his hat in salutation while shaking hands with the older bearded Voortrekker, who has come forward to greet him. Behind him, a Voortrekker woman wearing an apron over her dress has been inter- rupted in her work, making butter in a long container on a stand. Her clasped hands held to her breast suggest her strong emotion at the arrival of Pretorius. The two children opposite her gaze up at him in astonishment and admiration, the girl with her hand to her mouth. In the background is a Voortrekker wagon, indicating a laager, and the spirited saddled stallion on which Pretorius arrived, held in check by a black man who holds its reins. Beyond them, a range of mountains con- tinues the landscape of the previous scene, Women spur men on. 404 19 Arrival

Figure 19.2: A2. W.H. Coetzer. Reproduction of first sketch for Arrival. June 1937 (ARCA PV94 1/75/5/1; photo the authors)

Figure 19.3: B2. Laurika Postma. Arrival. 1942–43. Plaster, 78.2 × 77 × 8.6 cm. Maquette (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott) Developing the design 405

Developing the design

The reproduction of Coetzer’s first drawing (fig. 19.2) shows a much more informal welcome for Pretorius than the marble, with quite a number of rejoicing in his arrival; even a dog leaps up to greet him. The general is picked out by his frontal pose and central position against the apex of a tent, but otherwise displays the same hatless attire and jovial habit as most of his fellow Boers. He shakes hands with the bearded Boer who comes to greet him, and places a friendly hand on his shoulder. There are no children, but to the right a young Boer couple run in to welcome him, the woman enthusiastically waving something in the air. While she wears a kappie, he is bare- headed, a combination repeated in another couple to the left. There a woman with raised clasped hands turns animatedly towards her partner. Her apron suggests that she has been interrupted in her daily chores, perhaps represented by a tub on the far right. But a further Boer to her left seems unaware of Pretorius’ arrival and bends to gather carrots, still wearing his hat. Yet another behind him tends Pretorius’ horse, only its head visible. At the Historiese Komitee meeting on 4 September 1937 the following alterations were required:

Arrival of Gen. Pretorius. Gen. Pretorius wore a sabre and pistols (see diary of Erasmus Smit). The flap pants unbutton at the sides; the carrots must be removed; most jackets should be buttoned to the top; draw more dignified figures; (consult the Voortrekker film).866

We do not know whether Coetzer followed these instructions, as no finished drawing by him sur- vives, but the small plaster maquette made by Laurika Postma (fig. 19.3) responds to at least some of the critique of the Historiese Komitee. Her design in general terms became the model for the full- scale relief. Dignity is ensured by a more balanced composition with Pretorius and a welcoming Boer in the centre, flanked by figures on either side. The dominant figure of the tall commandant is clean-shaven but with longer hair that curls over his ears, and he wears more formal attire with a long jacket falling in folds and strapped-down trousers. As requested by the Historiese Komitee, he is armed with a pistol and, on his far side, we can see the hilt of his sabre, with the blade also visible in the gap between his legs. Pretorius still shakes the hand of the approaching Boer, who has removed his hat respectfully, but instead of placing his left hand reassuringly on the man’s shoulder, he decorously tips his tall hat. The woman who turned excitedly towards her partner is now seated on her own in the right foreground, looking up at Pretorius, her raised hands clasping her bunched-up apron, the container with her butter-making abandoned for the moment. On the other side a boy with a bucket and the smaller girl in front of him look up in awe at the new arrival, taking the place of the four figures (and the carrots) on the left of the drawing. Only one figure, who waves a hat in the background, survives from the young couple that ran in on the right. Alongside, in place of Coetzer’s tent, are two covered wagons, one behind the other, the prominent rear wheel of the front wagon encircling the young boy’s head. Between the wagons and the group in the fore- ground stands Pretorius’ horse, its reins now held by a black servant in shirt sleeves, who holds his master’s gun in his other hand. As in the drawing, there is no space for a landscape background, but none of the figures are cut off by the frame as Coetzer portrayed them, so that the composition is more closed and compre- hensive, and also more static. It is typical of the clay maquettes that none of the figures are incom- plete, and they sometimes even encroach into the next scene to make this possible in the final frieze. Indeed, this happened when Arrival was reworked at full scale (fig. 19.4). The backs of the Boers from the flanking panels of Women spur men on and The Vow intrude on both left and right respectively. The bent elbow of the Boer woman in the former panel fits neatly into the concave of

866 ‘Aankoms van Gen. Pretorius. Gen. Pretorius het ’n sabel en pistole aangehad (Sien Dagboek van Erasmus Smit.) Die klapbroeke is aan die sye losgeknoop; die wortels moet uitgehaal word; die meeste baadjies moet tot bo toege- knoop wees; teken waardiger figure; (Raadpleeg die Voortrekker-rolprent.)’ (Historiese Komitee, 4.9.1937: 4o). The ‘rolprent’ refers to Gustav Preller’s silent film De Voortrekker, produced in 1916. 406 19 Arrival

Figure 19.4: C2. Arrival. 1943–46. Clay. Full-scale relief (photo courtesy of Kirchhoff files; photo Alan Yates) Developing the design 407

10 Willem van Heerden 11 Trudie Kestell, daughter of Father Kestell and clothing expert 12 Andries Pretorius, after a cartoon drawing of him

Figure 19.5: Models for portraits (Potgieter 1987, 32) Figure 19.6: Portrait of Willem van Heerden as Boer welcoming Pretorius in Arrival. Marble, detail of fig. 19.1 (photo Russell Scott)

the boy’s neck in Arrival, and obscures part of the wagon wheel that earlier seemed to form a halo around his head. While the maquette made Coetzer’s drawing more decorous, it is markedly more relaxed and naturalistic than the large clay version (fig. 19.4). Although retaining all the figures, except the one waving his hat in the background, the full-size composition has been further clarified and formal- ised in its details, poses and overall arrangement. For example, Pretorius now wears a tailored tail-­ coat, and his sabre is more visible, the hilt hanging below his hip with the blade extending behind him. As though in a staged tableau, the two children on his left replicate each other’s poses, the girl now a little taller so that her head fits deftly under the boy’s chin. There is an overall sense of propriety, evident even in the neater hairstyles of the participants, particularly that of Pretorius who has been shorn of his curls so that his ears are visible. With only an old cartoon to work from, the sculptors have endowed the commandant with rather bland features. The face of the elderly Boer who greets the commandant is more individualised, though, and obviously a portrait, a man called Willem van Heerden according to Hennie Potgieter (fig. 19.6), and so is the face of the seated woman, modelled on Trudie Kestell, well known to the sculptors as she gave advice on correct Voortrekker clothing.867 The background has been tidied up, with only one wagon. The black man, who is shown in perfect profile, no longer holds a gun and controls the horse with both hands; he wears a belted jerkin over a long-sleeved garment instead of workmanlike shirt sleeves. The paral- lel arrangement of wagon, horse and servant is echoed in the mountains on the horizon that tie in with the landscapes in the flanking scenes. The large clay panel acquired an even greater sense of gravitas when it was copied into Carrara marble in Florence (fig. 19.1). But there is one significant difference: in the marble the black atten- dant’s dress is disrupted by the vertical cut which separates panels 23 (Arrival) and 24 (The Vow).

867 See Part I, Chapter 3 (‘Harmony Hall’). 408 19 Arrival

Figure 19.7: Route of the ‘Winning Commando’, showing the Boer laagers at the Little near Sooilaer where Andries Pretorius was appointed head commandant (Liebenberg 1977, 24–25) Reading the narrative 409

Reading the narrative

The scene focuses on the arrival of Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius (1798–1853)868 at the laager of the Voortrekker leader Jacobus Christoffel (Koos Grootvoet) Potgieter (1801–?),869 situated on the east bank of the Little Tugela River, opposite Gerrit Maritz’ ‘Sooilaer’, and some eighteen kilometres west of today’s Estcourt (fig. 19.7).870 The representation is based on a short record in Erasmus Smit’s diary for 22 November 1838:

In the afternoon there arrived back in our camp on horseback a very worthy fellow emigrant, Andries Pretorius (like a well equipped dragoon with sword and pistols). His Excellency, although somewhat wearied, attended the evening service which was then held in the field tent of the late J.D. Hatting, where His Excellency had offsaddled to stay.871

Why was this scene chosen to be part of the narrative of the frieze? The Boers were in great need of a new leader after had ordered the Zulu to murder Retief and all of his men at kwaMatiwane and a great number of their unprotected women and children in the Bloukrans area. They had also suffered further losses of prominent Voortrekker leaders: Gerrit Maritz had died, was killed at Italeni, and , who had never favoured settlement in Natal, had returned to the Transvaal area after that defeat.872 Pretorius was regarded as the appropriate person to take up the leadership. sr provided the following account, which was first published in Die Volkstem, 11 December 1917:

Because the first commando [Vlugkommando, see ] was regarded as a failure, and the people in Natal were still suffering and living in constant uncertainty, commandant-general Gert Maritz urged his fellow to form another commando to try to punish the Zulus. Charl Cilliers and others were sent back, Cilliers with the request or an appeal to Graaff-Reinet in the Colony to Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius.873 He had already visited Natal and arrived with a lot of people from the Colony. On his way more people had joined him, so that they were seventy in number when he arrived at the laager of Maritz at the Klein Tugela.874

In his book Andries Pretorius in Natal, B.J. Liebenberg makes no claim that Pretorius was identi- fied in advance as a man who would lead the Boers to victory over Dingane, and requested to join the trekkers as their head commandant. Rather, he points out that, while his good standing made Pretorius an excellent choice, his arrival at the Little Tugela camp offered a fortuitous solution to a situation where there were a number of suitable potential leaders, such as Karel Landman, Hans de Lange, Gert Rudolph and Jacobus Potgieter, but none wanted to give way to allow another to lead.875 Whether or not Pretorius was invited to take this position for the Natal Voortrekkers in

868 DSAB 2, 1972, 559–567; Liebenberg 1977, 11–23; Visagie 2011, 376–377. 869 Visagie 2011, 367. 870 For the J.C. Potgieter laager, see Liebenberg 1977, 16–17; Visagie 2014, 111–113. For ‘Sooilaer’, see Thom 1947, 246– 248, figs opp. p.252; Oberholster 1972, 254 no. 31g; De Jongh 1977, 157–158, 163; Liebenberg 1977, 16–17, 24–25 with map; Anderson 2014, 20–21; Visagie 2014, 111–113. 871 Smit trans. Mears 1972, 147–148 (Dutch text: Smit ed. Scholtz 1988, 170). For J.D. Hattingh, see Visagie 2011, 213–214. 872 For a summary of the Boers’ sufferings between February and November 1838, see Laband 1995, 89–97. 873 Nathan (1937, 239) dates this to 18 April 1838. Letters with appeals for assistance were sent to the Colony, from Maritz, for example, who wrote to his old friends in Graaff-Reinet, which might well have included Pretorius. 874 ‘Aangezien het eerste commando ’n mislukking bleek, en de mensen in Natal nog voortdurend moesten lijden en in onzekerheid leven, deed commandant-generaal Gert Maritz ’n beroep op sijn mede-Afrikaners, om weder ’n kommando op de been te brengen en te trachten de Zoeloes te straffen. Charl Cilliers e.a. werden teruggezonden, Cilliers met het verzoek of’t beroep naar Graaff-Reinet in de Kolonie, naar Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius. Deze was reeds op ’n bezoek in Natal geweest, en kwam toen met ’n klomp mensen uit de Kolonie. Hij kreeg nog met zijn uitkomen er meer bij, zodat zij zeventig in aantal waren toen zij bij Maritz z’n lager aankwamen, dat aan de Klein Toegela lag’ (Preller, Voortrekkermense 4, 1925, 96–97). For Pretorius’ early visits, see DSAB 2, 1972, 559. 875 Liebenberg 1977, 19–21. 410 19 Arrival

Figure 19.8: Andries Pretorius with Figure 19.9: Black servant holding reins of Pretorius’ horse in Arrival. sabre and pistol in Arrival. Marble, Marble, detail of fig. 19.1 (photo Russell Scott) detail of fig. 19.1 (photo Russell Scott) Reading the narrative 411

advance, he had reconnoitred the area in late 1937, and even bought a farm, Summer Hill, from one of the Englishmen at Port Natal,876 so had already been planning to return with his own trek. But it took him some time to complete arrangements before he could leave the Cape permanently, not least to sell his two farms, Hoeksfontein and Wilde Paarde Fontein, adjacent to his home Lets­ kraal in the field cornetcy of Voor-Sneeuberg, about thirty kilometres north-east of Graaff-Reinet.877 Eventually Pretorius and his party left the Colony in October 1838.878 Shortly after his arrival in the laagers at the Little Tugela River in November 1938, the Volksraad unanimously elected Pretorius as ‘chief officer, or Commandant (Hoofd-Officier of Kommandant) of the commando to march’ against Dingane, later called the ‘Wenkommando’ (Winning Commando).879 Thus the scene is imperative to prepare the viewer for the narrative high point of the frieze, the Battle of . Significant for the scene’s reading is the dress and demeanour that characterise the parts the figures had to play. Pretorius himself, taller than the other figures and somewhat out of place with his top hat and formal tailcoat, oddly accompanied by pistol and sabre, stands out amongst his new compatriots (fig. 19.8). His appearance defines his role: while his impeccable presentation is improbable after a long journey through the wilderness, it serves to distinguish him as a ‘heer’ (gentleman), stressing not only his social standing but what he had to give up to come to the aid of the Boers, and his weapons foretell his military prowess. His fine stallion in the background and the black servant who looks after it add to his superior status (fig. 19.9).880 In contrast, the four figures around him are in typical Voortrekker attire, which together with the everyday accoutre- ments of bucket and butter container underlines their hard-working lives, briefly interrupted by Pretorius’ arrival. They represent different generations, young and old, male and female, all shown with their eyes fixed on their new leader, receiving him with varying expressions of emotion. The onlookers are set up to make clear that the Voortrekkers’ hope is pinned on the authoritative figure of Pretorius.

876 DSAB 2, 1972, 559. 877 Voortrekker argiefstukke 1937, 18–21 ad R.13/37, with the sale contract of Hoeksfontein and Wildepaardefontein (see also Visagie 2011, 376). Preller (Pretorius 1940, 24) refers only to the sale of his farm Letskraal (Liebenberg 1977, 11–13), followed by a summary of Pretorius’ substantial possessions. See also http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ th/read/SOUTH-AFRICA-EASTERN-CAPE/2007–04/1176404896. 878 For the route and dates, see DSAB 2, 1972, 559; Liebenberg 1977, 11–15. 879 Chase, Natal 2, 1843, 56 (Journal of the Expedition of the Emigrant Farmers under their chief commandant A.P.[sic]W. Pretorius … against Dingaan, King of the Zoolas, in the months of November and December 1838 … kept by … Mr. J.G. Bantjes, the Clerk of the Representative Assembly, who acted during the Expedition as the Secretary to the chief commandant, Pretorius); Bird, Annals 1, 1888, 438. For the process of his appointment, see Liebenberg (1977, 19–22), who further states that Pretorius was ‘Kommandant Generaal’ (commandant general) only since 15 May 1840. 880 As in Blydevooruitsig, this rare inclusion of a black man reminds us of the numerous servants who played a cru- cial role in the trekkers’ success.