Something borrowed, something new
by Mike Oettle
registered Snyman arms
“EVERY Afrikaner family has a family coat of arms. . .”
Well, N H Theunissen tried hard to make this true.
Between 1944 and ’47 he wrote a monthly series of articles (titled “Afrikaner, ken uself” [“Afrikaner, know yourself”]) in the magazine Die Brandwag (the name means The Sentry) which presented the heraldry of Afrikaner families.
Or rather, it was a series of coats of arms, some of which had been borne in the past, but which included others of his own invention.
Readers of Die Brandwag accepted them as authoritative and from the Cape to the Limpopo – and even further north – Afrikaners put his designs on their sittingroom walls and declared proudly: “That’s our family coat of arms!”
A striking example is found in the arms of the Snyman or Snijman family.
It is a family that originates in South Africa. There is no family in Europe with a similar name whose arms could be “borrowed”.
That sort of thing has also happened – during the South African War General Piet Joubert travelled to Europe to raise support for the Boer republics and returned with a drawing of a blue shield charged with three chevrons couped, in argent (silver or white).
This, he said, was the Joubert arms.
He was clearly unaware that his family had originally not been named Joubert: the surname of the founding ancestor of the South African family, Pierre Jaubert, was changed at the Cape to being spelt with an O.
The home region of the Jauberts was the mouths of the River Rhône, in the south of Provence. The family whose arms were seized upon by General Piet as belonging to his family comes from Dauphiné, in the north of Provence, and although it is remotely possible that there is a connection between the two, this has not at the present time been proved.
In other words, the Jouberts of South Africa bear the arms of strangers, without their leave.
To get back to the Snyman arms: fortunately for them, Theunissen’s design appears to be unique. No other family in Western Europe, it seems, bears arms like it.
This is why the State Herald was happy to incorporate the Snyman arms as an inescutcheon (a small shield in the middle) in the arms registered to the Rev Roy Snyman in 1979.
Any other Snyman can now register the arms, too.
For the Snymans[1] this story has a happy ending.
But for the Jouberts of South Africa, the shield with its three chevrons is something they are not entitled to, and which the State Herald will not register in their name.
And in other instances Theunissen invented arms that imitate the existing arms of families in Europe.
These stand no chance of being registered in Pretoria.
And perhaps in your house there hangs a drawing or a painted shield that some dealer found in a book. “It’s your surname,” he might have said, “the arms are yours.”
But if he’s failed to prove a connection between the family listed and your own, he’s robbed you of your hard-earned cash.
