A lifetime of preserving the treasures of Africa
A nation without a past has no future and a nation should preserve cultures that are under threat of disappearing.
TZANEEN – A nation without a past has no future and a nation should preserve cultures that are under threat of disappearing.
Artist, Jürgen Witt is doing just this by fighting for the preservation of the Tzaneen Museum. He says neither the present nor previous government are interested in respecting African culture.
Witt (83) still walks with purpose, albeit with a walking stick. He’s had a 60-year passion for old and current African culture in the form of art. The Greater Tzaneen Municipality established the Tzaneen Museum in 1995 and Witt was made the curator, and his life’s collection is housed in the museum.
Witt’s forefathers came from Danzig (now Gdansk) in the once Prussian heartland. The family estate was confiscated by the League of Nations after World War One and became the property of Poland. Witt was born in Charlottenburg near Berlin. Under East German rule, he was prohibited from tertiary education.
He went to Sweden in 1947, where he met his German wife, Hilda. He visited South Africa and Tzaneen for the first time in 1952. He wanted to see his uncle who had a tea plantation in Tanzania. The uncle lost the plantation and returned to Germany after trying in vain to recoup the farm from the British government. Hilda, who had been studying languages in Madrid, Spain joined him. They got married in the Swedish Lutheran Church in Johannesburg in 1957. The couple lived in Johannesburg and Witt worked for the German Research Council as a scientific assistant with Prof Otto Fränzle from Kiel University in the field of archaeology, ethnology and early history. He has also penned publications for a museum in Paris, France and the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.
The couple has three children: Harald is a lecturer at the University of Natal, Arne is an entomologist in Nairobi responsible for Asia, the West Indies and Africa and Renate is married and lives in Tzaneen.
The Witt family moved to Tzaneen in 1960 with the aim to establish a museum of rare bygone and current African treasures. The Greater Tzaneen Municipality bought Witt’s first collection, ethnological and archaeological treasures from the area for R7 000.
The Tzaneen Council sold his collection to the University of Potchefstroom. When a professor wished to sell the collection a few years later, he wanted R1,2 million. Witt could not afford to buy it back and continued sourcing other artefacts.
The Tzaneen Museum is an unobtrusive, small three-roomed musty house in front of the library and the Greater Tzaneen Municipality. It houses some 2 000 ethnological artefacts from South African tribes, as well other parts of Africa.
The late advocate Henri Francois Junot from Pretoria helped finance the construction of the museum veranda. Junot used to visit his God daughter Julie McMahon often.
McMahon lives on a farm on Cheerio Road outside the village of Haenertsburg. The veranda now houses the Tsonga fairy tale figures. Each group tells a story and this keeps the verbal literature alive.
Witt has spent years recording these tales on tape and in writing. His assistant, Florence Tshibeyahope helps him in the retelling of the stories.
He wants to make children aware of their heritage and hopes the treasures will remain in Tzaneen and in South Africa.
