Sutherland ‘witch’ goes on hexing
Sceptical townsfolk won’t deter Marné from pagan beliefs
● It was the tattoos disappearing into her blouse that got tongues wagging. Just how far down did they go? Other than that, Marné Marais looked like just another buitelander [outsider] from Cape Town with her slipslops and sunhats when she first arrived in Sutherland, the Karoo dorp known for its brilliant canopy of stars.
Then came Marais’s dog, called Voodoo, a black rooster called El Diablo (The Devil in Spanish) and five black chickens. Her new home was also black — the old pastor’s house, nogal, right next to the Dutch Reformed Church.
Even the weathercock on her roof was strange: a figure with a pointed hat riding on a broomstick. It was no surprise, therefore, when in 2017 Marais opened a guesthouse called Die Heks se Huis [The Witch’s House].
It was all too much for one resident, who let fly on the Sutherland Snuffelgids Facebook page with an accusation that Marais was a Satanist.
To her surprise, though, the overall reaction to Sutherland’s first practising Wiccan has been enthusiastic. Children call her Tannie Heksie, she runs a renovation business called Witchy Worx and has served on the board of an old-age home and on the community police forum.
Questions about “the Sutherland witch” generally evoke a chuckle from townsfolk, although approval is not unanimous. “No comment,” said one elderly resident, “her time will come.”
Local historian Eddie Marais (no relation), on the other hand, says: “Marné is very interesting and very outgoing, and she does a lot for other people.”
Marné, 53, says she is not too concerned about what people think. “Maybe it is an age thing or maybe just too much Karoo fresh air, but once in Sutherland I decided to hell with keeping my ‘witchiness’ in the cauldron to please others,” she said.
Four guest cottages on her property, painted a jaunty purple, are opposite the Sutherland Hotel and feature an eye-catching art installation, an accident scene featuring a fake witch splattered against a wall.
Her house is a mix of antique furniture, modern art and pagan bric-a-brac — crystals, stones and staffs. Lounge reading material has everything from Rolling Stone magazine to Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson.
But there is nothing gimmicky about Marais’s spiritual beliefs: she attended the College of Wicca and Old Lore in Denver, US, and has been practising as a solitary Wiccan for the past 21 years.
She observes pagan festivals, practises daily mindfulness techniques and even organised a new festival, the Vries Jou Gat Af Fees (Freeze your Butt off Festival) in midwinter in the town, which is famous for its below-zero temperatures.
Wicca is a modern form of paganism, or Western esotericism, often associated with pantheistic beliefs. But Marné says: “It is not a hocus-pocus thing — the magic is the power that is in everybody. We actually all believe in the same thing, there are huge similarities. It is just all our egos that jump in and say, ‘mine is better than yours’.”
Marné grew up in Stellenbosch and remains close to her family, who respect her beliefs. She spent years travelling and once ran a boutique hotel in Costa Rica. She said her long stint overseas made her homesick for small-town SA and she consciously sought out the calm of the Karoo.
“My boerboel, Voodoo, and I arrived in Sutherland on January 2 2017 on a very hot Karoo day. Within a couple of hours the town was humming about the ‘blou vrou’ with her dog. I assumed they called me blou vrou as both my arms and chest are tattooed with moon images as well as the pentagram.”
She said naming her home The Witch’s House was partly intended to inject some “oo” back into the Karoo. “Thinking back, it was a rather bold move in such a small, conservative community, but then, I have a very wild, naughty side to me that loves to shock people from time to time.”
Visitors might be disappointed to know Marné spends most of her time tending to a growing list of Witchy Worx clients impressed by her artistic flair. She recently did some work for the star attraction outside the town, the Southern African Large Telescope.
Another Karoo newcomer is Tjol Herbs, owner of the Ou Tolhuis on the Verlatenkloof Pass, 20km from Sutherland, which he has converted into a drinking hole, Tjol se Gat.
“They call us incomers,” Herbs says, adding that Marné is exactly what Sutherland needs. “Because she is a bit different there were people who didn’t like it. But it is magic what she has done for the town.”