Discovering cabinets of curiosities in dusty Calvinia

Once the drought that had crippled the Northern Cape for more than six years had been relieved, it was time to go in search of the Golden Fleece of the Karoo and other oddities in the local museum

Walking in the Tygerberg

Reserve

Sheep’s tails by celebrated

chefs

Autumn, 2021: The streets of Calvinia shine with remnants of overnight rain. Locals thank us for bringing yesterday’s thunderstorm, and by now we have learnt not to protest. Maybe we are rainmakers of some kind. We are on a mission to track down a sheep called The Poggenpoel.

At 8am, Calvinia Museum curator Memci van Wyk and her assistant, Adonis de Wee, are opening the doors to the erstwhile Jewish synagogue. This museum is so eccentric it can leave you smiling for days.

Take, for instance, the section dedicated to the Lombard Quads of Loeriesfontein. Born in Calvinia in 1951, Klasie, De Waal, Jan and De Villiers all turned 70 sometime last year. The Philadelphia Inquirer caught up with the six-year-olds in 1957; the American newspaper reported that the Lombard Quads used to sing and rock each other to sleep at night. Now that’s a show one could sell tickets to.

The quads were identical, so much so that when they were babies, the hospital pinned name tags to them. Apart from a collection of family photographs in the Lombard Room, four child-sized dolls dressed in bow ties, waistcoats and cricketing whites (each holding a shepherd’s crook), four walking rings, four cots, four christening robes, four baby’s bonnets and what looks to be four toddler-leashes are on display.

The Jewish community

Here’s Trekboer Corner, with an ageing diorama of a settler couple completely engrossed (as they have been for many, many years) in preparing supper in their outdoor asbos skerm (lye bush shelter). There’s even a glow in the fire.

Not long after the Trekboers came to live here permanently, the Jewish smouse (travelling traders) arrived. Many of them stayed on, opening various enterprises that ranged from general goods stores to – later – automobile shops. Others were farmers, photographers, hoteliers, chemists and doctors.

The imposing Calvinia synagogue, built in 1919, was eventually donated to the municipality for use as a museum in 1970. The 120-odd Jewish families who lived here once are commemorated as a community in a special section of the museum.

Snake-oil salesmen

A relatively small but significant glassed-in box has found its way to the Jewish section. Inside is a four-legged ostrich chick, its little beak resting on a stick.

A Calvinia carpenter, remembered only as “Du Preez”, glued two artificial legs to the stuffed chick more than a century ago, back when snake-oil salesmen were just as thick on the ground as they are today.

Du Preez used to move from farm to farm, doing the odd carpentry job. To make a few bucks on the side, he took his four-legged ostrich with him, and charged the farm children a penny each to see it. It finally became the possession of a prominent local, Max Rosenblatt, who donated it to the museum. And to this very day, people continue to pay to see this wondrous apparition.

Old-time wheels

Outside stands a Victorian-era version of a camper van, a smous wagon that served as both the trader’s sleeping quarters and stock room. It is simply a container-sized wooden box on metal wheels drawn, one surmises, by a sturdy team of oxen. Right next to it is the classic 1952 Ford V8 bakkie, with its distinctive white grille. In the Wool Boom days, it was a farmer’s favourite, full of style and attitude.

That very model was Ford’s maiden crossover from farm-only vehicle to general market jammy. To lure buyers from the city, the Ford marketing team went into top gear, touting all the comforts of what they dubbed the Million Dollar Cab, because of its huge redesign budget.

Holding court near the entrance of the museum building stands the Makadas Class 24 steam loco that used to haul Calvinia’s wool to Williston, then to Hutchinson and finally onto the main line to the markets of old Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha.

Why “Makadas”? Theories abound. The English version is that a fireman told his driver to “Make a dash!” The Afrikaans version is that Makadas is the rhythmic sound made by the train as it gathered speed.

Back stories abound

Memci, born and bred in Calvinia, has been the curator of this museum for a decade. She keeps a record of the 1,700-odd items in storage and on display here.

“Everything has a story,” she says. “And it is such a joy when you find that story.”

Like the possible background to an unsigned painting donated by one Amina Adams. It’s of a wagon in the veld, manned by people of colour. Trekboers, one discovers, came in all shades.

This particular group in the painting are possibly Basters trekking northwards from the Colonial Cape to the wilder spaces along the Orange River.

Adonis is Memci’s right-hand man. He was born on a nearby farm, picking up some skills like wire fencing, painting, meat processing and product packing. He ensures the gardens are looking as beautiful as a drought cycle will allow. Together, they keep this classic Karoo Imaginarium shipshape.

The Poggenpoel

“But where’s the fluffy sheep?” we ask Adonis.

There, under glass, is the scruffiest Merino you ever saw: The Poggenpoel. We feel like the Greek Argonauts of old. We have found the Golden Fleece.

This fellow once belonged to Danie Poggenpoel up in the Roggeveld Mountains. It went AWOL for a few years and skipped many shearing seasons. It was so tatty that the farmer kept it like that and, when it died, had it stuffed and donated to the Calvinia Museum.

The Poggenpoel Sheep lives on, behind glass and under the watchful eye of the Calvinia Museum curator and her able assistant.

This is an extract from Karoo Roads III – The Adventures Continue, by Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit.