The Hulpboek vir boere in Suid-Afrika (1929) is one of the most important archival sources in Agaat. This manual, which may be classified as an agricultural or farming archive, as it preserves information relating to this field of expertise, is inherited by Milla, and diligently studied by Agaat. Compiled, printed and distributed by government, the manual was intended as a definitive reference work for farmers that would guarantee the success of their ventures.
All commercial farmers were encouraged to obtain a copy. The very possession of a farmer’s guide therefore suggests ownership of land, with the social and political influence that accompanies wealth. As a result, the reference work conveys a whole discourse on land, which Ampie Coetzee defines as including expressions of land ownership, land allocation, the splendour of nature, the farm, rights of inheritance and descendents (2000: xiv). As Milla inherits the guide from her father, while Agaat in turn inherits it from her, the guide is a powerful symbol for the preservation and transferral of agricultural knowledge and skills. It guides Milla and Agaat on their veld walks and enables them to learn the names of “[i]nsects, birds, reptiles, small mammals, grass varieties, wild flowers [and] stones” (2006: 624).
The manual contains invaluable information on the most unlikely of subjects and forms part of Milla’s “farming equipment” (2006: 46). It preserves “the importance of (…) old knowledge” (2006: 75) and information that “few people know about nowadays” (2006: 74), which is seemingly obsolete in modern farming practice. Its contents serve as an established knowledge base, ranging from the particulars of animal diseases like chicken roup, to cattle ailments and household advice. Its importance is revealed when Milla’s father informs her that its information is bound to be valuable when there is “a time again of poverty & need”
(2006: 75) as “the farmer who doesn’t know about the old ways then will be gone to glory”
(2006: 75). This is indeed the case when the environmentally friendly farming methods contained in the book, the data of “the old ways & the care of the defenceless earth” (2006:
75) practiced by Milla and Agaat, enable them to counteract the harmful effects of Jak’s large-scale, mechanised approach to farming. Milla’s belief in the merit of old farming
practices ultimately reveal her nostalgia for the past, through which she is misled into idealising the farming lifestyle as utopian and idyllic. This also explains why she opts to keep her father’s old farm novels (2006: 46) with their celebration of a nostalgic pastoral tradition and their conservation of old rural values.
In contrast to the conventional patriarchal discourse of the farm, the guide (as used in the novel by Van Niekerk) facilitates the empowerment of women, since Milla schools Agaat in traditional, eco-friendly farming techniques in the belief that it will make her a successful farmer. When Agaat succeeds in treating a dangerous outbreak of tulip poisoning among Jak’s imported Simmental herd, her acquired knowledge earns her the reluctant respect and admiration of those around her. Her skills elevate her beyond the ranks of a meagre farm worker and depict her as Milla’s equal, and even her superior, where farming matters are concerned. The text is thus an inverted farm novel that places farming skills in the hands of women. Kannemeyer indicates that the traditional male authority figure, Jak de Wet, is a
“verwonde patriarg” (Kannemeyer 2005: 635), an emasculated and feeble individual.
Conventional patriarchal power in Agaat is replaced by a “verwikkelde matriargie” (2005:
635) in which first Milla, and then Agaat becomes the main figure of authority. The centrality of women is further indicated in that Grootmoedersdrift is a parody on the well-known Swellendam farm, Grootvadersbosch. What is more, in the text Grootmoedersdrift is inherited along a matrilineal lineage, and the farm is reached by crossing the Tradouw pass, meaning “the way of the women (2006: 33) in Khoi, so that the land is symbolically inscribed with the power of women.
The farmer’s guide also refers to a number of discourses conflated with ownership of the land and the identity formation of Afrikaners. As relates to the politics of nationalism, the manual advocates the Afrikaner’s entitlement to land by positing what Johann Rossouw sees as a
“klassieke nasionalistiese tema (…), die skakeling van die religie en die grond” (2006: 4).
Afrikaners’ belief in their God-given entitlement to the land was largely fuelled by religious instruction. The guide reveals the important role of religion by claiming that “Just as the Bible points the way to spiritual perfection so will this Handbook also point to ways and means to more profitable farming and to greater prosperity for every farmer in every part of the country” (2006: epigraph). As a method of instruction, the book’s similarity to a form of religious instruction is evident in that Milla underlines this passage (2006: 75) before giving the book to Agaat, as well as in the fervour with which the two pursue its teachings.
Following the outbreak of botulism, Agaat studies the farmer’s guide until she is confident that she is “fully learned (…) about anything that can possibly happen to a cow” (2006: 234).
Her determination to learn the contents of the book by rote, and to retain its information in her memory, is reminiscent of the catechism process and suggests that she pursues her study of agricultural information with the fervour of studies in religious instruction. As the catechism is intended as the final preparations for confirmation in the church, so Agaat’s mastering of the handbook’s contents facilitates her affirmation as a legitimate farmer and a rightful heir to the land.
In similar vein to the German Blut und Boden philosophy, the Afrikaner’s attachment to the farm is based in the view that ownership and inheritance of the land is sanctified by genealogy, or blood. Land acquired by the family patriarch is inherited along bloodlines so that a sense of entitlement through blood later came to characterise land ownership. This philosophy later became a cornerstone of Afrikaner nationalism and the apartheid system.
By revealing the powerful association between Afrikaner identity and the land, the guidebook serves as a symbol for the frenetic search for, and definition of, identity. Resulting from a dire world economy culminating in the Great Depression, the urbanisation of the 1930s saw many Afrikaners losing their farms, and therefore a pivotal part of their identities. In Milla’s case however, her inheritance is secured by the family farms. She is raised with the firm knowledge that she will inherit Grootmoedersdrift from her mother. As a result, her identity as a land-owning individual remains largely unchallenged, making her attachment to the land a cornerstone of her identity. The importance of land as the foundation of Milla’s identity is evident from the author’s explicit comparison of her body to the land (2006: 115), particularly where her physical decline finds its expression in the natural landscape. Her illness is likened to botulism, a disease affecting cattle and resulting from nutrient-depleted soil, which causes an unnatural appetite and causes herbivores to consume animal protein. The various stages of the illness are characterised by different incubation periods in which the cattle ingest toxins but symptoms have not yet appeared. This makes the disease difficult to prevent, as animals only begin to show symptoms once it is too late to administer treatment. For this reason, Milla’s illness is likened to botulism, which lays dormant in her genes, and she cannot help but wonder, “[h]ow long in my symphyses did the midges multiply? (…) how many years the incubation of terror?” (2006: 50).
The botulism outbreak is also a powerful metaphor to illustrate the termination of Milla’s bloodline on Grootmoedersdrift following her death and Jakkie’s departure. The infection eradicates a large segment of the strongest cattle bloodstock. Milla is particularly distressed by this, as the best of dead cattle are “descendants of the animals [she] had known as a child.
Aandster’s great-great-grandchild, Pieternella’s distant cousins, all the meek caramel-coloured mothers” (2006: 234). The lost cattle are the prized product of years of careful breeding. Symbolically, the herd represents the accomplishments of previous farming generations on Grootmoedersdrift, their successful care and management of the land, and the progression of history and ancestry when Milla comes to inherit the established bloodstock.
Her anguish is the result of her feeling unworthy of the land, and the responsibility bequeathed to her, as she feels that she has dishonoured the diligent generations before her.
The weakening of the herd’s bloodstock foreshadows the break in Milla’s own bloodline, which occurs upon her death. Though Milla inherits Grootmoedersdrift from her mother, in line with an established matriarchal inheritance system, her bloodline ends when the farm becomes the property of Agaat, who is not of her blood, although she is Milla’s only female
‘child’. Consequently, the novel challenges the Afrikaner’s claim to the right to land as a birthright.
While the farmer’s guide is a source of trusted and respected knowledge, it is vital to note that its inclusion in the novel serves not only as a record of valued farming practices, but also actively engages with, and challenges, the implications of its more controversial content. The use of these remedies in the novel ironises what passed for accepted knowledge in the farming communities of the early twentieth century. However, it also contests the ways in which people passively assimilate the knowledge of the day as the incontrovertible truth. Agaat’s recitation of various cuts of beef and the dishes suited to them (2006:444) is one such example. Her speech is taken almost verbatim from the farmer’s guide (complete with concise, listed points) and she deliberately acts as little more than an automaton, reciting knowledge without engaging with it.
Another example is the book’s assertion that tapeworm outbreaks occur mainly under
“naturelle in Suid-Afrika” (1929: 268). The epidemic of pork measles and the ensuing tapeworm contagion under the labourers’ families on Grootmoedersdrift, as well Milla and Agaat’s actions to remedy the situation, are taken directly from the farmer’s manual. Here, the farmer is advised to “[m]aak kleinhuisies vir kaffers en sorg dat hulle dit gebruik en nie in die
veld broek-losmaak nie” (1929: 269). It recommends that farmers try to “[v]erhoed dat diere, veral varke, orals los rondloop” (1929: 269) and ensure that these animals are kept away from
“kafferstrooihuise of ander plekke waar hulle menslike ontlasting te ete kan kry” (1929: 269).
Just as on Grootmoedersdrift, the manual implies that epidemics like this one are the result of worker’s lack of hygiene. Informed by what she learns from the book, Agaat perpetuates the belief in the apparently innate degeneracy of the workers by accusing them of being “worse than [the] pigs” (2006: 287) who “can’t help it that they didn’t get any brains (…) [and] eat your runny shit that lies around here stinking in the sun” (2006: 287).