Die Antwoord and South African Carnivals

One of the problems I've been having with Die Antwoord being a group that uses the Wildman mythos is that, how would a bunch of Boers know any of the myth? I mean, yes, in Europe there are carnivals, and yes in the US, there were a lot of Dutch settlers and the 'story' is that we got Santa Claus and the like through them, but had the dutch-derived Boers done the same?

Well, turns out that there are Carnivals in the old style in South Africa. Here's the "Kaapse klopse":

http://www.sa-venues.com/events/western-cape-event-description.php?id=414

Which sounds a little to me like "Cape Claus", but I'm probably completely off-base there and the Clas/Claus/Klaus words may have nothing to do with a 'klopse'.

One interesting thing about the Kaapse klopse is that its described, at least on that page, as having to do with south african slavery, that January 1st is when the slave drivers gave the slaves off for a day. Which is how Carnival is apparently often explained. I asked someone from trinidad about their carnival, and they described it the same way, 'its when the slaves were allowed to have a holliday, and since they were so oppressed throughout the year, the carnival gets pretty wild.'.

But of course that's not the origins of the carnival, the carnival is pre-slavery. Its also interesting that the Kaapse klopse is called a Minstrel carnival, probably because, and I am guessing here, the south african whites smeared their faces black for carnival. This, in other carnival/wildman situations, is usually taken as 'oh its a black face, it must be meant to be a black person', but, just like the 'slave holliday' story, that's probably not the case either. So it looks like South Africa, and in particular the Cape, where Die Antwoord (and also Jack Parow) supposedly come from, has a regular old Carnival that goes on there.

more on Die Antwoord

Now in the video 'straight from the horse's piel' (which apparently is afrikaans or somesuch for penis), the lead from Die Antwoord, called Ninja, is wearing a 'Greenman' t-shirt. The Greenman being another symbol for the old Wildman, another indication that they are at least aware of the Wildman stories that are out there and are incorporating them. Also, in that video, you have a couple of new 'associates', a couple of guys wearing knit caps, but they're wearing them like little elf/gnome hats, and gnomes/elves are part of this 'Wildman' story.

Even in some of their lyrics you have some of these Wildman references.In "Wat Pomp' you have the female lead, called Yo-Landi Visser, saying 'you can hear me coming from a distance', which is certainly in keeping with the 'merrymaking' hooting and hollering NightBand running through the streets on halloween/christmas.

As far as what it all 'means', or at least from what I can tell, the group is a 'joke', in the sense that they seem to be pointing out some of the worst parts of their country in parody, but at the same time the music's great, so really, its just all good, its funny AND the music is good. As far as the wildman stuff, one of the roles that the wildman supposedly assumes as his ancient ritual parade becomes a crazy Carnival, is that of the Harlequin and clown. And the Harlequin/Clown's special domain is that he's allowed to point out the faults of society. It seems like Die Antwoord is filling that role, but the clown/Harlequin, he doesn't point out faults by simply stating them, he criticizes without openly stating the criticism.

Die Antwoord & 'Wildman of the woods'

The South African music group, Die Antwoord, seems to me likes its hitting all the notes, with repsect to the traditional presentations of the 'wildman' from european carnival culture.

It must be that I've just finished Siefker's "Santa Claus, last of the wild men; the origins and evolution of Saint Nicholas, spanning 50,000 years", and am now seeing wildman everywhere.

But if you look at Wat Pomp, you have people in raggy clothes, wearing masks and hood, dancing by leaping, and even having 'ash' smeared on their faces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rit8dqh745A

And the lyrics are dirty enough to qualify as lecherous. I don't know how well established 'zef' culture is, but it certainly fits in with the Wildman-of-the-Woods being a favourite of the pleblians. I mean, it just can't be that these guys are purposely emulating this stuff, because that would be fantastic. You have to wonder what this really means for the success and survivability of 'memes', because there's a 50,000 year old meme, popping up on youtube, and people are loving it (and thus perpetuating it).

And now with the 'evil boy' video released:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRzt6QngMzg

You have added to the crazy parade the 'beastman' dressed in fur, and the seducing 'wildwoman' who's stealing from you, and of course the crazy long phallus, all, again, decorations of the wildman.

Santa Claus, Last of the Wildmen

Siefker, Phyllis Santa Claus, last of the wild men; the origins and evolution of Saint Nicholas, spanning 50,000 years. 1997 McFarland & Co, Jefferson, Northo Carolina.

Just finished reading this fascinating book, which examines the realationship between customs assocated with the American Santa Claus, and old world Carnivals, elves, pre-celtic gods & goddesses, and even Neanderthals. I had heard of this book for a long while, but finally got my hands on a copy. Lots of things jump out to me, but in particular, one thing was rather surprising.

On page 177 of the hardcover, there's an image of a 'Bohemian Setek' , a creature called the Skrat by the Slovenians (per Seifker). The image jumped out at me because I had seen it before in a National Geographic Channel show on 'The Devil's Bible'. That show looked at a tremendously oversized collection of the bible and some other books called the Codex Gigas, which had a huge illustration of a horned, fanged, clawed devil on one of its page. The thing is, its almost exactly the same as Seifker's Setek image, its even standing between two pillars, just like in the Codex Gigas. I thought that the picture in Siefker was the same image, but its not, there are some slight differences in the face (less wild grin, fewer teeth that aren't as sharp, and the face doesn't appear to be a dark green).

So what gives?

On the one hand, this all fits well with Siefker's synthesis; an ancient god/ritual gets split and transformed over the course of history into its goodly aspects like Santa Claus and Caroling and terrigying aspects like The Devil and Halloween mayhem. But still, The creature in the National Geographic Channel special is specifically said to be the Devil, hence the name of the show as 'the devil's bible'. But the images are, if nothing else, copies of one another, and Seifker isn't calling it 'the devil', but the bohemian Setek, and the Codex Gigas was created in Bohemia.

Maybe the National Geographic Channel, in an effort to drum up rattings, decided to ignore all this and just pretend it was the devil.

This reminds me of the History Channel's production 'Apocalypse Island', which was supposed to be about a secret island that Mayan preist-kings had built a momunment on and to which they expected to return and watch the end of the world occur. Of course, it was bunkum, the island's actually inhabited, has an airport, is no where near the Mayans, and there's no monument there. But you'd never get that from this, you know, educational show.

Don't know what that all means, other than yet another reminder to not beleive everything you see on TV, even 'historical documentaries'.

But still, what about Siefker's Setek image? Unfortunately she doesn't give a citation for it (at least in my hard-cover edition, maybe its in the softcover ). Its really strange because its such a near perfect copy of the Codex Gigas image, excpect for minor details of the mouth, and color of the face.

In trying to get the reference, I found out the Mrs. Seifker died in 2002, which is sad to hear:

http://www.oread.ku.edu/Oread02/Aug23/inmemory.html

This is definitely the author, the surviving family members are the same people she dedicated the above book (which looks to be the only book she published, that I can find anyway).