Siener van Rensburg

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Nicolaas Pieter Johannes "Siener" van Rensburg (1860 - 1927) was a Boer from the South African Republic -also known as the Transvaal Republic- and later a citizen of South Africa who is seen by few as a prophet. Siener was a nickname and means "seer" or "soothsayer" in Afrikaans. He made several predictions, including the death of Koos de la Rey, a general in the Second Boer War, and the start of World War III. Van Rensburg was known to have fought in the second Anglo-Boer War without the use of a gun.

On 15 September 1914, just before the start of the Maritz Rebellion, generals Koos de la Rey and Christiaan Beyers set off together to visit major J.C.G. Kemp in Potchefstroom, who had a large armoury and a force of 2000 men who had just finished training, many of whom were thought to be sympathetic to the rebels' ideas. On the way to the meeting De la Rey was accidentally shot by a policeman at a road block set up to look for the Foster gang.

At his funeral, however, many Nationalist Afrikaners believed and perpetuated the rumour that it was a government assassination, which added fuel to the fire; this was further inflamed by Siener van Rensburg and his controversial prophecies.