Sarie Marais (also known as My Sarie Marais) is a traditional Afrikaans folk song, created during either the First Anglo-Boer War (ca. 1880) or the Second Anglo-Boer War (ca. 1900). The tune was taken from a song called Ellie Rhee dating from the American Civil War, (itself probably a version of the traditional folk song The Foggy Dew,) and the words translated into Afrikaans. The title is pronounced "May SAH-ree mah-REH".
In English, the song begins "My Sarie Marais is so far from my heart, but I hope to see her again. She lived near the Mooi River before this war began..." and the chorus goes "O take me back to the old Transvaal, where my Sarie lives, Down among the maize fields near the green thorn tree, there lives my Sarie Marais". It continues about the fear of being removed far, "over the sea" (as the Boer men were, by the ruling British.
The melody was adopted in 1953 as the official march of the United Kingdom's Royal Marines Commandos and is played after the Regimental March on ceremonial occasions. The French Foreign Legion also sings the song, in its French translation.
The song has also been sung by Jim Reeves and Kenneth McKellar in Afrikaans.
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The true origins of the song is unclear, one account of the story states that the American folk song Ellie Rhee was included in a book The Cavendish Song Album. When Ella de Wet, wife of General Louis Botha's military attaché Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet came to the battle front to see her husband she often played on the piano while the nearby burghers sang songs from the album.
Another account of the story is that the song dates from the First Anglo-Boer War (1880-1881).
Whatever its origins, the song changed and got more verses as time went on. This accounts for the reference to the Kakies (or khakis), as the Boers called the British soldiers during the Second Anglo-Boer War. They were known as Rooibaadjies ("red coats") during the First Anglo-Boer War.
Sweet Ellie Rhee lyrics: Sweet Ellie Rhee, so dear to me
Is lost forever more
Our home was down in Tennessee
Before this cruel war
Then carry me back to Tennessee
Back where I long to be
Amid the fields of yellow corn
To my darling Ellie Rhee
When the song was soon translated into Afrikaans Sarie Maré (which only recently became Marais) was substituted for Ellie Rhee. The burghers supposedly wanted to honour their field chaplain Dominee Paul Nel, who often told stories around the campfires about his childhood and his beautiful mother Sarie Maré, who died young:
My Sarie Marais is so ver van mij af
Ek hoop haar weer te sien
Sy het in die wijk van Mooirivier gewoon
Nog voor die oorlog het begin
O bring my terug na die ou Transvaal
Daar waar my Sarie woon
Daar onder in die mielies by die groen doring boom
Daar woon my Sarie Marais
The song Sarie Marais has been translated into many languages including French, Spanish (by the Afrikaners who emigrated to Patagonia in 1903), Italian and Russian.
My Sarie Marais is so ver van my hart,
Maar'k hoop om haar weer te sien.
Sy het in die wyk van die Mooirivier gewoon,
Nog voor die oorlog het begin.
Chorus:
Ek was so bang dat die Kakies my sou vang
En ver oor die see wegstuur;
Toe vlug ek na die kant van die Upington se sand
Daar onder langs die Grootrivier.
Chorus
Die Kakies is mos net soos 'n krokodillepes,
Hulle sleep jou altyd water toe;
Hul gooi jou op 'n skip vir 'n lange, lange trip,
Die josie weet waarnatoe.
Chorus
Verlossing het gekom en die huis toe gaan was daar,
Terug na die ou Transvaal;
My lieflingspersoon sal seker ook daar wees
Om my met 'n kus te beloon.
Chorus
English lyrics
My Sarie Marais is so far from my heart But I hope to see her again She lived in the area of Mooi-river Before the war began
Chorus Oh bring me back to the old Transvaal Where my Sarie lives There by the maize By the green thorn tree There my Sarie lives
English lyrics I was so scared that the Kakhis would catch me And send me far across the sea So I fled to Upington there next to the Grootriver
chorus
English lyrics
The khakis are just like crocodiles They always drag you to the water They throw you on a ship for a long long trip; Who knows where they're taking you
chorus
English lyrics
Relief came and it was possible that we could go home back to the old Transvaal My love will probably also be there to reward me with a kiss
Mijn lieve Sarah Marais is ver weg van mij, maar ik hoop om haar weer te zien. Ik ontmoette haar voor het uitbreken van de oorlog in de Mooi River County.
Chorus:
Oh, lang ik om terug te gaan naar de Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, waar mijn lieve Sarie woont. Daar, tussen het koren en het groene doorn boom, daar woont mijn lieve Sarie Marais.
I was quite afraid that the British troops would catch me and send me in exile abroad, so I fled along the Orange River into German South West Africa (now Namibia); the town of Upington is 121 km upstream from the point where the Orange River becomes part of the border.
The British government is just like a crocodile -- it keeps dragging one into the water. They put you onto a ship for a very long journey to God knows where.
The war has come to an end and I want to go back to my dear country, the South African Republic. I hope my dearly beloved will be there to greet me with a kiss.
It is not clear if Sarie Marais was a real person or fictitious. Two persons have been mentioned as being the real Sarie Marais: Sarie Maré (1840-1877) and Sarie Maré (1869-1939).[1]
Sara Johanna Adriana Maré was born in Uitenhage, Cape Province on 10 May 1840. She married Louis Jacobus Nel in 1857 in Pietermaritzburg. Maré died at the age of 37 after giving birth to her 11th child, and was buried near the old homestead on their farm Welgegund, near Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal.
Susara Margaretha Maré was born in Suikerbosrand, Transvaal on 15 April 1869. Suikerbosrand was at that time in the Ward Mooirivier. She married journalist (and later a well-known poet) J.P. Toerien. She died 22 December 1939 in Bloemfontein. Toerien may have been the author of the Afrikaans version of the song.
Another version on the National Anthems forum supports J.P. Toerien as author and his wife Sarie Maré as the subject of the song. It too suggests the song's origins go back to Sweet Ellie Rhee, written in 1865 by Septimus Winner (1827-1902). The claim is that this song was sung by Americans working in the Transvaal gold mines, and heard there by Afrikaans journalist and poet Jacobus Petrus Toerien, who re-wrote the song in Afrikaans, substituting the name of Ellie Rhee with that of his own beloved Sarie Maré (Susara Margaretha Maré).
Sarie Marais was also the title of the first South African talking picture, directed by Joseph Albrecht and made in 1931. Filmed in Johannesburg, Sarie Marais manages to pack a lot into its 10-minute running time. Set in a British POW camp, the film concentrates on a group of Boer prisoners as they pass the time under the watchful eye of their British captors. One of the internees, played by Billy Mathews, lifts his voice in song with the popular Afrikaans patriotic tune "My Sarie Marais". His enthusiasm catches on with the other prisoners, giving them hope for the future [1].
Afrikaner nationalism was emerging as a force in these years, and Sarie Marais portrayed the British cultural and economic imperialism negatively (the desire to spread the English language, culture and influence even where it was unwelcome).
Shortly after this film's release, a group of Afrikaner nationalists established a film production organisation called the Reddingsdaad-Bond-Amateur-Rolprent Organisasie (Rescue Action League Amateur Film Organisation), which rallied against British and American films pervading the country.
Francis Coley directed a remake of this film, again titled Sarie Marais in 1949.
The contemporary Afrikaans women's magazine Sarie takes its name from this song. Originally entitled Sarie Marais – a name which at the time (1949) of its first publication was synonymous with the idea of empowered Afrikaans womanhood – it was the first Afrikaans magazine to focus on the female market, with a content ranging from fashion, decor and beauty to relationship advice and family planning.