The institute that was …… or wasn’t? - Fellows' seminar by Rebekka Sandmeier

An imagined institute and the (very real) construction of Afrikaner identity

Did the Institute for Folk Music at Stellenbosch University exist? And, if it did, what did it study and produce? Or was it ‘constructed’ to further political ideologies? These are some of the issues that Rebekka Sandmeier of the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town hopes to unpack and understand further in her STIAS project. “I’m looking at an institute that existed in the intersubjective reality of various people in Stellenbosch (South Africa) and beyond during the 1960s and 70s,” she explained. “Jan Bouws, the sole staff member of the institute, was employed by Stellenbosch University as a Lecturer in Folk Music, with the brief to set up an Institute for Folk Music at the university. Officially, according to the senate minutes, the institute never materialised. And yet it is present in newspaper and journal articles, university papers, and many other publications. It boasts an official Stellenbosch University letterhead, and Bouws was appointed as its honorary director after he retired.” Sandmeier described the project as work in progress in which she has already made some interpretations and conclusions. In her seminar, she explored the motivation behind the institute, by Bouws and those who refer to it throughout the 1960s and 70s, showing how its existence, though imagined, contributed to the search for an Afrikaner identity. She also presented her work in investigating the output emanating from the institute, specifically exploring Bouws’ understanding of folk music, which, she believes, bridges the fields of historical musicology and ethnomusicology and the divide between scholarship and popular science. She also discussed the institute’s standing within the university, especially with the conservatory of music, which at the time focused exclusively on European art music. “I hope to assist in clearing up some of the misconceptions in the literature,” she added. She also acknowledged the work of Iso Lomso fellow Carina Venter on Jan Bouws’ publications on art music. Focusing on the details she has already amassed from detailed archival work, she explained that before the institute was formed Bouws had published on South African music in Dutch and South African periodicals and that some of his compositions were in the 1937 edition of the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (F.A.K) songbook − a collection of Afrikaans folk songs . “But,” explained Sandmeier, “the FAK was also the cultural wing of the Broederbond. And HB Thom, who was rector of Stellenbosch University at the time, was chair of the FAK and of the Broederbond.” It was Thom who motivated for the inclusion of Afrikaans folk music in the curricula of tertiary institutes, who established a lecturer post at the university and proposed the idea of an institute. The post was approved and Bouws was offered the job in 1959 but no funding was made available for the institute. Sandmeier explained that Bouw also never actually lectured on traditional music as it was never in the curricula and only taught in public lectures.  He retired from the university in 1972. “Only he and the rector ever officially mention the institute. Was it imagined? It was never formally established but very present for some people. Was it in the music department or in another part of the university?” These are some of the questions Sandmeier is hoping to answer. “I believe it was not a random construct. The idea came from the 1957 FAK conference and the Volkssangbundel. Bouws had already published on Afrikaner traditional music and had networks from studying in The Netherlands. I think both the institute and his position were engineered.” “It was real in the University Council minutes, in Matieland, it had a letterhead, and an entry in the SA Music Encyclopaedia. It was also present in the public perception via Bouws’ public lectures, newspaper articles, radio broadcasts and extensive publications including books. But it was not present in the music department, never mentioned by the Head of Department, and not in the university handbooks or the departmental prospectus.” “It also had links to the who’s who of Afrikaner networks at the time – the FAK, the Broederbond, the Music Chair of the SABC, the Chair of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, the Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuur Vereeninging and the cultural editor  from Die Burger. Bouws had links into literature, language and religion, and to people who could pull strings at the right time. But not those in the music department – the two heads of department in this period were not in the Broederbond,” she continued.

Art, folk and die volk

Sandmeier explained that music pedagogy in South Africa in the 1960s was divided into folk and art music. “Folk music is orally transmitted and therefore it varies while art music is written down and definitive. Folk music was also often associated with lower classes while art music was the music of the elite. Within ethnomusicology there was also division into Volkskunde – music of the Afrikaner and Volkekunde – music of the other.” “The music department was heavily invested in European Art Music and saw folk music as below them.” “The institute was clearly about Afrikaner volksmusiek. It was not about the music of the Afrikaans-speaking Coloured population which was rejected as less worthy of research, but it was also very clearly not about art music,” she continued. “In this there are similarities with Nazi cultural ideologies of the 1930s – with art music depicted as too elitist.” “Also, of course, the idea of composing folksongs is an oxymoron but the songs included in the F.A.K. songbook  included many German, French and Dutch melodies and new settings of Afrikaans poetry to music,” said Sandmeier. “There was active construction of a folksong repertoire.” To illustrate this, Sandmeier played Bouw’s song – Op my ou ramkietjie – a CL Leipoldt poem set to music. “Bouws acted across three areas – European art music, South African art music and traditional music of the Afrikaner people,” she said. “He sits between the descriptive divide of the 1960s and 70s – between folk and art music, ethno- and historical musicology.” “His lecturing in the department was not on folk music because it wasn’t in the curriculum. He also supervised MMus and PhD students but mostly in art music. I did find that other BA subjects at the time included lectures on folksongs – did he maybe teach there?” Interestingly, Bouws was never promoted in the department despite his extensive publications record. “He wrote a lot but the work is often not very deep,” said Sandmeier. “But even if the work was not that good it served a broader purpose linked to the agenda of Afrikanerdom.” Sandmeier hopes that her ongoing research, in which she will try to track down post-graduate students from the period as well as access the FAK archives, will give more insight into his standing in the department, his collaborations with broader Afrikaner cultural groups, his research methodology, and how his work sat between the divides of newly composed Afrikaans folk music and orally transmitted folk music. “And, I want to understand more how all of this was used to create an Afrikaner cultural identity. I aim to show some of the mechanisms for that construction, and how in music these span the disciplinary divides, such as art music vs. traditional music or historical musicology vs. ethnomusicology. I’m offering a detailed view of one instance, seeking to catch these subtleties of the mechanisms for the construction of an identity.” Michelle Galloway: Part-time media officer at STIAS Photograph: SCPS Photography