Eugène Marais: a life of tragedy and triumph

A pioneering naturalist, a remarkable poet and author, and a torchbearer of Afrikaans, Eugène Marais nonetheless lived a life wreathed in sadness.

-  Eugène Marais

Marais was a pioneer in ethology (the study of animal behaviour), but did not follow up his original studies with more disciplined, scientific work to flesh out his findings. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Eugène Marais was born in Pretoria on 9 January 1871, the 13th and last child of Jan and Catharina Marais. Although his education was in English, his home language was Dutch, and he loved the ‘new’ Afrikaans language, the development of which was to fascinate him for the rest of his life.

Afrikaans had evolved from Dutch, as well as a dialect spoken by the Dutch settlers in South Africa. The youngest of the Germanic languages, it began to develop its distinguishing characteristics during the 18th century.

With the expansion into the interior by the Trek Boers, traders and hunters, the new language adopted words from Khoisan, Cape Malay, Griqua, German, French and, later, English.

Marais and many fellow Afrikaners were committed to perfecting Afrikaans. At the same time, he was enthralled by the verse of William Shakespeare, John Milton and Robert Burns and inspired by the freethinking poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor and Robert Southey.

After leaving school, Marais joined a legal firm in Pretoria as a clerk, and at the age of just 20 became the owner and editor of the newspaper Land en Volk. He was an outspoken critic of President Paul Kruger, which made him (Marais) extremely unpopular in the Transvaal.

THE MADNESS OF MORPHINE