South African heraldry
Encyclopedia
Dutch heraldry
The study of Dutch heraldry focuses on the use of coats of arms and other insignia in the country of the Netherlands.The Netherlands, and more generally the Low Countries, was an area significant heraldic development in medieval times. One of the famous armorials is the Gelre Armorial, written...
and British
English heraldry
English heraldry is the form of coats of arms and other heraldic bearings and insignia used in England. It lies within the Gallo-British tradition. Coats of arms in England are regulated and granted to individuals by the College of Arms. They are subject to a system of cadency to distinguish...
) heraldic
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
traditions. Arms are borne by individuals, official bodies, local authorities, military units, and by a wide variety of organisations. South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
has had its own heraldic authority since 1963, to provide armigers with legal protection, and to promote high standards of armorial practice.
Origins and history
The first known armorial display in South Africa took the form of stone beacons bearing the PortuguesePortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
royal arms, which were erected along the coast by navigators who explored the sea route in the 1480s.
Some of these beacons still survive.
17th-18th centuries
Heraldry was introduced into the region by the DutchNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, when they founded the first European colony, at the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
, in 1652. Under Dutch law, everyone has the right to assume and bear arms, and many settlers bore personal arms, some of which are still borne by their descendants today.
The official arms of the Netherlands, and those of the Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie, which ran the colony, were also used. There do not appear to have been any other corporate arms during the Dutch colonial period, but there is evidence of some use of military unit arms in the 1780s. Civic arms were introduced in 1804.
19th century
British military forces occupied the colony during the Napoleonic WarsNapoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, and the Netherlands handed it over permanently to Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
in 1814. This brought the colony within the jurisdiction of the English College of Arms
College of Arms
The College of Arms, or Heralds’ College, is an office regulating heraldry and granting new armorial bearings for England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
, the Scottish Lord Lyon and the Irish Ulster Office. British law regards arms as an honour which must be granted or recognised by one or other of these authorities, but as Roman-Dutch law was retained in the colony, it remained legal to simply assume arms at will. Those who wanted formal grants of arms could apply to one of the three British authorities.
As with language, music, and other cultural aspects, then, British and Cape Dutch (Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
) heraldry existed separately side by side. This is still the case, though there has been some cross-pollination during the past half-century.
European settlement spread to other parts of the region in the 1830s, as a result of Afrikaner dissatisfaction with British rule. Eventually, the region crystallised into four White-ruled territories: two British colonies and two Afrikaner republics. Their governments adopted official arms.
20th-21st centuries
Britain conquered the two Afrikaner republics in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), and the four territories united in 1910 to form the Union of South AfricaUnion of South Africa
The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State...
.
As self-government developed during the first half of the 20th century, some official attention began to be paid to heraldry.
In 1935, the Union government introduced a system of voluntary registration of "badges" by the Department of the Interior. It applied only to associations and institutions, such as schools and clubs, and several dozen of the more than 1300 items registered over the years were coats of arms. The Department of Education, Arts & Sciences took over as registrar in 1959.
The rise of Afrikaner nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism is a political ideology that was born in the late 19th century around the idea that Afrikaners in South Africa were a "chosen people"; it was also strongly influenced by anti-British sentiments that grew strong among the Afrikaners, especially because of the Boer Wars...
during the 1930s and 1940s drew heavily on culture and tradition, and several books and articles on Afrikaner family history and heraldry were published during that period. Unfortunately, as later research showed, the heraldic sources were generally not very reliable.
After an Afrikaner nationalist government took office in 1948, with a republic high on its agenda, steps were taken to bring order to the armorial chaos. Between 1949 and 1953, the four provincial administrations introduced systems of registering civic arms to protect them against usurpation. The defence force
South African Defence Force
The South African Defence Force was the South African armed forces from 1957 until 1994. The former Union Defence Force was renamed to the South African Defence Force in the Defence Act of 1957...
established its own heraldry office in 1954.
In 1955, an inter-departmental conference recommended the formation of an official heraldic authority, and a committee appointed in 1956 recommended adopting the Swedish model, of a nominated council and an executive bureau, under the auspices of the state archives service.
The 1950s also saw an unprecedented number of English and Scottish grants of arms, to municipalities, corporate bodies, the Anglican dioceses, and a few individuals. With a republic in the offing, there may have been a feeling that it was "now or never".
South Africa became a republic and left the Commonwealth
Commonwealth
Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with "republic."More recently it has been used for fraternal associations of some sovereign nations...
in 1961. A Heraldry Act was passed in 1962, and the Bureau of Heraldry
Bureau of Heraldry (South Africa)
The Bureau of Heraldry is the South African heraldic authority, established in Pretoria on 1 June 1963. It is headed by a National Herald and its functions are to register arms, badges, flags and seals , to keep a public register, to issue registration certificates and, since 1980, to advise the...
and Heraldry Council
Heraldry Council (South Africa)
The Heraldry Council is part of the South African heraldic authority. It was established in Pretoria in June 1963, in terms of the Heraldry Act. It is the governing and policy-making body for the Bureau of Heraldry and consists of the National Herald ex officio as deputy chairman, and other...
were established in 1963. The Bureau took over from the Department of Education, Arts & Sciences and the provincial administrations as registering authority, and in addition to registering corporate and civic arms, it registers official and personal arms too. Arms have to be heraldically correct to qualify for registration, which remains voluntary.
Matriculation, i.e. re-registration of personal arms for armigers' descendants, was authorised in 1969. Thousands of arms have been registered and matriculated over the years.
From 1963 to 1969, the Heraldry Act also provided for arms to be granted by the state president to official bodies and by the provincial administrators to local authorities. Grants were subject to Heraldry Council approval and were registered by the Bureau. (The Act has never authorised the Bureau to grant arms, only to register them.)
Since 1963, the Bureau has introduced many innovations, including lines of partition
Line (heraldry)
The lines of partition used to divide and vary fields and charges in heraldry are by default straight, but may have many different shapes. Care must sometimes be taken to distinguish these types of lines from the extremely unusual and non-traditional use of lines as charges, and to distinguish...
, charges drawn from South African fauna and flora and the African heritage and, in the early 1970s, a highly stylised, Finnish-influenced
Finnish heraldry
Finnish heraldry has common past with Swedish heraldry until 1809 and it belongs to German heraldic tradition.- Official Heraldry :Arms of the historical provinces of Finland originated in the early Vasa era. Arms of the Grand Duchy of Finland were created in 1581.Between 1950 and 1970, heraldry in...
, artistic style.
Usage of arms
Roman-Dutch law allows everyone to assume and bear arms, as long as no one else's rights are infringed in the process. Social status, or service to the country, are not requirements as they are in some other countries. There is therefore a wide range of armigers, including:- individual persons
- national and provincial governments
- local authorities, e.g. municipalities, city councils, divisional councils, district councils
- government departments and agencies (though current government "branding" policy requires them to use the national arms instead)
- defence force units (army, air force, navy, military health service)
- corporations
- hospitals
- churches (especially Anglican and Roman Catholic)
- professional institutes and associations
- schools, colleges, technikons, and universities
- social and sports clubs.
Regulation
There is little regulation of heraldry in South Africa. Arms which have been registered at the Bureau are protected to the extent that a registered owner can take legal action against anyone who usurps or misuses his arms. In the case of the arms of the national and provincial governments, defence force units, and municipalities, offenders can also be prosecuted and fined, and ridiculing or showing contempt for the national arms is punishable by imprisonment.Registration of arms is entirely voluntary.
Distinctive features
South African heraldry has a number of distinctive features:- the use of indigenous animals, birds, fish, trees, and flowers as charges
- the use of African traditional weapons, huts, and headdress as charges
- the increasing use of African shields, especially in civic arms
- the occasional use of tinctures such as brunatre (brown), ochre, and tenné (orange), which are uncommon in European heraldry
- the occasional use of an oxhide pattern for the field of a shield
- a uniform pattern for the arms of family associations
- uniform patterns for the arms of various types of military units
- the use of trefoils and trefly lines in the arms of educational institutions to represent the three participants in the education process, i.e. students, parents, and teachers
- the Bureau of Heraldry's distinctive style of artwork, introduced in the early 1970s and modified in the 1990s
- the adaptation of traditional lines of partitionLine (heraldry)The lines of partition used to divide and vary fields and charges in heraldry are by default straight, but may have many different shapes. Care must sometimes be taken to distinguish these types of lines from the extremely unusual and non-traditional use of lines as charges, and to distinguish...
to create special effects - the development of new lines of partitionLine (heraldry)The lines of partition used to divide and vary fields and charges in heraldry are by default straight, but may have many different shapes. Care must sometimes be taken to distinguish these types of lines from the extremely unusual and non-traditional use of lines as charges, and to distinguish...
, e.g. the "gably" line based on Cape Dutch farmhouse gables, and a line suggesting an outline of Table MountainTable MountainTable Mountain is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa, and is featured in the flag of Cape Town and other local government insignia. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top... - the development of an Afrikaans heraldic vocabulary.