THE HISTORY BEHIND THE SARIE MARAIS FOLK SONG

“Sarie Marais’ is a traditional South African folk song, created during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). In 1901 or 1902, in a farmhouse near Vryheid or Utrecht, soldiers of General Louis BOTHA’s commando gathered around a piano. The piano player was Ella DE WET, the wife of Botha’s military attaché Nicolaas Jacobus DE WET. The soldiers sang along, picking out popular tunes from a book of American folk songs, “The Cavendish Song Book”. They sang “Carry me back to Tennessee” (aka Sweet Ellie Rhee). Someone suggested that they should compose their lyrics in Afrikaans. The idea was enthusiastically received, and between Ella and the soldiers, they came up with the lyrics:

My Sarie Marais is so ver van my af
Maar ek hoop om haar weer te sien;
Sy het in die wyk van die Mooirivier gewoon
Nog voor die oorlog het begin.
Chorus:
O bring my terug na die ou Transvaal
Daar waar my Sarie woon:
Daar onder in die mielies by die groen doringboom,
Daar woon my Sarie Marais!

Other verses were added later:

My Sarie Marais is so ver van my af
Maar ek hoop om haar weer te sien;
Sy het in die wyk van die Mooirivier gewoon
Nog voor die oorlog het begin.
Chorus:
O bring my terug na die ou Transvaal
Daar waar my Sarie woon:
Daar onder in die mielies by die groen doringboom,
Daar woon my Sarie Marais!
Ek was so bang dat die Kakies my sou vang
En ver oor die see wegstuur,
Toe vlug ek na die kant van die Upington se sand,
Daar onder by die Grootrivier.
Chorus
Die Kakies is mos net soos ‘n krokodil, ‘n pes,
Hulle sleep jou altyd water toe;
Hul gooi jou op ‘n skip vir ‘n lange, lange trip,
Die josie weet waarnatoe.
Chorus
Verlossing het gekom en huis toe gaan was daar,
Terug na die ou Transvaal;
My lieflingspersoon sal seker ook daar wees
Om my met ‘n soen te beloon.
Chorus

Another account has it that the Afrikaans journalist and poet Jacobus Petrus TOERIEN heard “Sweet Ellie Rhee” sung by Americans working in the Transvaal gold mines. He then wrote the lyrics and dedicated them to his wife, Susara Margaretha MARÉ (aka Sarie). The name Maré was later changed to Marais, possibly by the printer or publisher.

Two women have been mentioned as being the real Sarie Marais – Susara Johanna Adriana MARÉ, known as Sarie (1840–1877), and Susara Margaretha MARÉ, known as Sarie (1869–1939).

NEL

Susara Johanna Adriana MARÉ was born in Uitenhage on 10 May 1840, the daughter of Johannes Albertus Gerhardus MARÉ/MAREE and Susara Johanna Adriana KOK. She married Louis Jacobus NEL on 25 October 1858 in Greytown. She met him in Umvoti Poort while visiting her uncle. The couple undertook a year-long trip by ox-wagon to Uitenhage to Sara’s parents before settling at the Nel farm, Welgegund, in the Kranskop district near Greytown. Susara had 11 children before she died in childbirth on 27 December 1877 at the age of 37. She was buried near the old homestead on the farm Welgegund. One of her sons was the field chaplain Paul NEL, who was present at the Vryheid farm in 1901. The soldiers supposedly decided on naming the Afrikaans song “Sarie Marais” to honour their field chaplain, who often told stories around the campfire about his childhood and his mother, Sarie MARÉ, who died young. Paul was a minister in Jeppestown before the war, where many of General Louis BOTHA’s men lived. Near Kranskop on the road between Greytown and the sea is a large sign indicating the place where Susara’s grave is. In the mid-1970s, Jac UYS of Pietermaritzburg, a member of the Natal Historical Society and the Voortrekker Monument Council, discovered the grave. Buried alongside Susara is Aya Jana, who survived the Battle of Blaaukrantz by feigning death despite being prodded with assegais. She was brought up by Susara’s aunt and uncle, with whom she lived until the age of 93.

Louis Jacobus NEL was born on 25 January 1835 on the farm Commandofontein near Adelaide, the son of Gerrit Cornelis NEL and Elizabeth Fredrika NEL. He was known as Vaal Lewies (pale Louis). He died on 11 July 1917. His second marriage was to Hester Cecilia HAVEMANN (1864-1915) on 09 December 1878 in Greytown. Susara Johanna Adriana MARÉ never lived in the Transvaal, which doesn’t match the chorus.

TOERIEN

Susara Margaretha MARÉ was born on 15 April 1869 on the farm Eendraght in Suikerbosrand in the Heidelberg district. She was the daughter of Jacob Philippus MARÉ and Cornelia Susanna Jacoba ERASMUS. His father was later a member of the executive council of the Transvaal, after whom a street in Pretoria was named. Her parents were Voortrekkers that settled in the Suikerbosrand area before the town of Heidelberg was founded. The largest concentration of Voortrekkers was in the Mooirivier ward, where the town of Potchefstroom was established. At this time there were five wards in the Transvaal: Mooirivier (Potchefstroom), Magaliesburg (Rustenburg), Marico (Zeerust), Ohrigstad and Zoutpansberg (Pietersburg). Suikerbosrand was located in the Mooirivier ward, which stretched from Potchefstroom to the present-day Wolmaransstad and Makwassie.

Susara met Jacobus Petrus TOERIEN in about 1884, when he was in Pretoria to interview her father. They were married on 19 December 1884 and settled in Potchefstroom. He wrote under the pseudonym Jepete for “Ons Kleintje”. Susara and Jacobus had 16 children, of whom 8 survived to adulthood. Jacobus heard “Sweet Ellie Rhee” sung by Americans working in the Transvaal gold mines. He is said to have written the Afrikaans lyrics in the period between the first and second Anglo-Boer Wars. The name Maré was later changed to Marais, possibly by the printer or publisher. After Jacobus’s death on 03 May 1930, Susara went to live with her daughters in Bloemfontein. In later life she was known as Tant Mossie. She died on 22 December 1939 at the age of 73 and was buried in an unmarked grave at the National Women’s Monument. Years later, Joan ABRAHAMS (Tant Mossie of Bloemfontein) decided to do research on her and found the grave. As a result, a headstone was erected on 10 October 1995 and a thorn tree planted.

The Maré family were members of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, but Sarie’s half-brother Japie (1878–1902) was a student at the Teologiese Skool Burgersdorp at the time of his death. He was wounded on 19 December 1901 during the storming of a blockhouse at Elandspruit near Dullstroom in the Eastern Transvaal. He died on 11 February 1902 in hospital at Machadodorp.

There is no known record that Ella DE WET ever claimed to have written the words; she only helped to publish them. The Afrikaans lyrics were first published in 1927 in the Groot Afrikaanse-Hollandse Liederbundel by Joan VAN NIEKERK. In 1937, “Sarie Marais” (arranged by Ella DE WET) was published in the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK)’ first Volksangbundel. It was then mentioned that the Bezuidenhoud Sisters wrote the song, but no such information exists to prove this. In 1937, Susara Margaretha MARÉ, wife of Jacobus Petrus TOERIEN, was said to have admitted to a reporter at Bloemfontein’s “Die Volksblad” newspaper that the song was written about her by her husband. Mrs Toerien was very religious, and she asked the reporter not to make a fuss about it. She also asked him to first present the report to her before publishing it. However, when the reporter arrived later, she did not want it to be published, and it wasn’t. The matter was left there until a letter writer in “Die Volksblad” claimed that the author of the song was a “papbroek” because one of the song’s lines was, “Ek was so bang dat die Kakies my sou vang.” The line was originally “Sy was so bang dat die kakies my sou vang.” This letter upset the Toerien daughters because, they said, “Our father was definitely no papbroek.” A heated exchange of letters followed, and the three sisters later remained silent.

In 1962, Tobie BRUMMER wrote an article in the “Die Burger” of 13 January 1962 about his search for the real Sarie. His research led him to a dossier, compiled by J.P. TOERIEN of Bergvliet, about Sarie Marais. He was a cousin of the Toerien sisters. This dossier is preserved at the Nasionale Afrikaanse Letterkundige Museum en Navorsingsentrum (NALN) in Bloemfontein. It contains, among others, the articles of Renier, columnist for Die Volksblad; Jan BURGER, columnist for an English-language newspaper; Lawrence GREEN; and Drs P.J. and G.S. NIENABER.

In 2021, the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK) honoured her grandson, Japie TOERIEN (89), of Centurion, with an award for his grandfather at a function at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. The FAK recognises Jacobus Petrus TOERIEN as the author of the lyrics in their FAK-Sangbundel. According to Japie, his grandfather originally wrote the song as a poem before he and Susara got married. In the 1960s, the three Toerien sisters of Bellville, Jeanette, Garty and Dana, and their two surviving brothers had no doubt their father wrote the Afrikaans words. A granite plaque with the words of “Sarie Marais” is in the FAK’s Afrikaans song garden. Japie’s grandfather died before he was born, but he knew his grandmother. He was eight years old when she died in December 1939.

Mrs Ella UNSWORTH, Jacobus Petrus TOERIEN’s youngest daughter, lived in Windhoek in the 1960s. Shortly before her mother’s death in 1939, the children were asked to destroy a container with old documents belonging to their father. Ella, who was instructed to destroy the container, looked inside and saw, among other things, a poem that her father had written about her mother when he was still courting her. She also saw other poems in it. According to the Toerien sisters, the original words of Sarie Marais and the one that Ella saw were probably the original copy. According to Dana, their mother always said that the secret of Sarie Marais would be solved after her death, but she later decided otherwise, because it always hurt her to see everyone singing a love song written for her.

Jacobus Petrus TOERIEN was born on 18 November 1859 in Paarl. He completed his schooling at Paarl Gymnasium. He first worked as a bank clerk and then became a subeditor for “Di Patriot,” attached to the printing firm D.F. du Toit & Co. In his younger days he was a member of a debating society in Paarl, where his serious nature led to him being nicknamed “Die Filosoof”. In about 1883 the Afrikanerbond sent him to Pretoria as editor of a Dutch newspaper that he was to establish there, “De Republikein”, which appeared every week on Wednesdays. In addition to his work at the newspaper, he was secretary and general manager of a tobacco factory in Pretoria. He was also secretary of the Leeuwpoort Goudmijn Maatschappij Beperk. Jacobus also founded Het Koloniaal-Transvaal Syndicaat with the aim of prospecting for precious metals and stones in the districts of Middelburg, Lydenburg and Waterberg. He also speculated on the stock market but lost all his money. By 1896 he had settled in Middelburg in the Transvaal and established a newspaper company, publishing, among others, the Barberton and Middelburg Herald and the Belfast Heraut. He was also the editor of religious publications such as Middernag and Maranatra. He used the pseudonym Jepete for his writing. During the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), he joined the Middelburg Commando. He saw active service in the Steenkampsberg in the district of Lydenburg and later on the Natal front. Jacobus died of malaria on 03 May 1930 in Middelburg, where he was buried in grave 1249 in the old cemetery. To honour his memory, the undertaker AVBOB donated a headstone for the grave, which was unveiled on 16 December 1995.

The song quickly spread as the war ended and soldiers returned home. “Sarie Marais” was incorrectly played as South Africa’s national anthem at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. It later became world famous as thousands of South African soldiers sang it in World War I and II. Perle Siedle GIBSON, the Lady in White, stood on the pier at the entrance to Durban harbour and sang “Sarie Marais” to the troops on board ships entering and leaving during World War II. Versions are also sung in Italian, French and Russian. Captain F. Vivian DUNN made an arrangement of it for military bands in 1937. It was officially adopted by the British Royal Marines in 1952 as the March Past of the Royal Marines Commandos and is played after the Regimental March on ceremonial occasions. Their therapy ship is also called Sarie Marais and belongs to the Royal Marines at Stonehouse Barracks. It is also the regimental march of Paraguay’s signal corps. The French École Militaire Interarmes also sings the song in French. The South African military bands, as well as the French Foreign Legion, play this march during parades.

The song has been sung by Jim REEVES and Kenneth McKELLAR in Afrikaans. Reeves performed the song in the 1963 film Kimberley Jim.

An Afrikaans women’s magazine first appeared on the shelves on 06 July 1949. The magazine launched a competition and asked the public to suggest names. A woman from Kimberley suggested the name “Sarie Marais”, and she won the prize. People referred to the magazine as Sarie, and in February 1976 it dropped Marais from its title. It is still known as Sarie to this day. There were hotels and apartment buildings named Sarie Marais. During the first international broadcast between South Africa, Britain, and America during the birthday of Isie SMUTS, the wife of the prime minister General Jan SMUTS, “Sarie Marais” was sung by Gracie FIELDS. It is also the official song of the Girl Guides of Sri Lanka, who heard the Boer prisoners of war performing it during their internment in Ceylon. Germans cultivated a pink rose called Sarie Maries, which is planted in the School of Armour in Tempe, Bloemfontein. ‘Sarie Marais’ was also the title of the first South African talking film, directed by Joseph ALBRECHT in 1931. The 10-minute film was shot in Johannesburg and is set in a British POW camp. The Boer prisoners of war are entertained by one of their own singing “Sarie Marais”. In 1949, Francis COLEY directed a remake of this film. In the 1970s and 1980s, South African musicians were awarded a Sarie. A high school in Kobe, Japan, has it as their school song.

What is not disputed is the origin of the song. The words of “Sarie Marais” were set to the ballad “Carry me back to Tennessee” (aka Ellie Rhee). The lyrics of the original song were written by the American Septimus WINNER (Alice HAWTHORN).