Upington, Marydale, Stofkraal and Draghoender
This is just a quick little indulgence in postmarks at a time when I am busy writing about the German invasion of the Union and the Battles of Upington and Kakamas in early 1915. I used the postcard below to show Upington and Wagon Drift, one of several fords across the Gariep (Orange River) that the GSWA Schutztruppe were attempting to capture.
What interested me was the senders's address -
A. C. Olivier,
Rooi Sand, (Afr. Red Sand).
PB Stoff Kraal, (PO BOX Dust Kraal)
Marydale,
C. Colony.
Marydale lies 120 km south-east of Upington. It is 3km from the Draghoender Railroad Station. (I am told 'Draghoender' is a corruption of 'Dragoon', specifically the Dragoons of the Batavian era who while delivering mail sowed their seed with willing or unwilling Khoi women who nine months later named the offspring 'Draghoender' after the long departed, laughing cavalier. 'Hoender' is Afrikaans for 'hen' or chicken. With the Dragoons peacock finery and swagger, the corrupted name 'Draghoender' seems a fine subversive fit.)
In the absence of a Post Office at 'Stoff Kraal' the sender used a PB (Afr. Posbus - Post Box) in Marydale to gather his mail. His use of a PB preceded the arrival of the STOFKRAAL PO in 1925. This practice was widespread among rural communities.
1]. Wagon Drift (ford) on the Orange River, looking east, Upington on the northern bank.
2]. Reverse of postcard. 1910. MARYDALE ‘JAN 13 10’ to BELGIUM ‘FEVR 6-7 10’.
Sent by a philatelist from ‘Rooi Sand, PB Stoff Kraal’ hoping to exchange Belgian stamps for Cape / Union PCs.
3]. Putzel shows no postmark for STOFKRAAL. However, Alex Visser's Addendum shows the only known example of a Stofkraal postmark. Anyone with a postmark NOT in Putzel's reference books should check Alex's Addendum before getting too excited about a new unidentified find. See: http://linus.up.ac.za/academic/civil/books/
4]. Draghoender Single Circle postmark, Cape 1897.
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Thanks Steve for your fascinating WW1 material in the Red Sand area. New to me.
Thoughts drift to the Natural World, alerted by the Red Sand. In the extremely local area of Red Sand which you mention, exists the only place in the world to find the Red Lark. The lark family is immense, 29 species in Southern Africa, and 75 in sub-saharan Africa. The years have caused there to be differing appearances, song, and DNA, dependant on the area.
Your report also highlights that this area of South Africa has local location names like Red Sand. For example when I was birding in that area, and saw Red Larks, we stayed in a little dorp named Poffadder. There is an old story in a local dorp of a prospector who dragged his withered body into the local bar, was asked where he had been all those weeks to be in such a bad sun-burned way. All he could say was "I don't know, but it was as hot as hell"
Look on a good map, you will see there a small dorp has developed, to this day named Hotazel.
Mike Berry.
Here are two SA larks that I have on postcard but sadly not the Red Lark from Rooi Sand.
I am desperately looking for my Draghoender and Hotazel postcards which I have misplaced. Yesterday I came across an OFS postmark from Stoneybroke. Reminds me of a colleague who played in a biker band called Piston Broke!
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A bit more about 'Draghoenders' (Dragoons). I recall Spike Milligan's 'Goon Show' on the radio in SA. Does 'goon' derive from 'dragoon'? There are many and various explanations for the origin of 'goon', one of which is dated as early as 1580, a time when heavy cavalry, dragoons, existed as the tank force of the day. Anyway, I digress. Here are two more pieces of South African 'dragoonology'. The postal stationery is a proving piece. Its postmark is No. 2 as shown in Putzel's 'The Postmarks of SA' (Vol. 2 C-D, page 325). There are datestamps for both Draghoender and Draghoender Rail which are in the same area, near Marydale, and share Prieska as their head office.
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