A learned and pious man makes it his life’s work to translate the bible into his native tongue. The place he is from honors him with a statue sculpted by a local. Now that statue is vandalized and taken down, more than once. Why, because of the color of his skin, in the name of “justice”. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The stamp today is an issue of the apartheid regime of South Africa. As such, it is understandable to dig deeper at what the South African regime was honoring. A man who translated the bible, wrote poetry, and was the chancellor of a religious university. Sounds like uncontroversial good work. Well not in todays world.
The stamp today is issue A189, a four cent stamp issued by the Republic of South Africa on February 21, 1977. It was a single stamp issue that honored the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacob de Toit, who wrote under the pen name Totius. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Totius was born in South Africa of Afrikaner decent. He was trained at home and in Holland and earned a Doctor of Theology in the Dutch Reform church. He was a army chaplain for the Boers in the second Boer War. He continued his fathers work in translating the Bible into Afrikaner. He also wrote poetry including lyrics based on the Psalms in Afrikaner. He was a conservative man who lost his young son to an infection and his daughter to a lightning strike, she fell dead into his arms as she ran to him. His poem on this, “Oh the pain thoughts” is one of his most famous works. He finished his translation of the Bible in 1932 and died in 1954.
South Africa did a lot to remember Totius in 1977 upon the 100th anniversary of his birth. In addition to the postage stamp, there was a bronze statue by Jo Roos to him commissioned. The statue as not faired well since the change in government. After being repeatedly vandalized it was removed from the park in his home town. The University where he was Chancellor then took it in 2010 and had it restored by Jo Roos and his sons. It lasted just 5 years at the university until it was removed again in a vandalized state in 2015. The church may still have it, hopefully they keep it hidden perhaps for some future time when all people’s history is respected in South Africa.
Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to toast Totius. South Africa was a rough place in the 19th century and apparently still is. Work to bring the Word of God and a little culture should be respected and one day it might be, not just forgotten. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.