Andries Bezuidenhout. Die Wit Dood

Die Cowboy Junkies is ʼn Kanadese alternative country band. Ek hou baie van hul tweede album – The Trinity Session. Die band het in ʼn kerk opgestel en die lewendige opname is daar behartig. Die album begin met ʼn tradisionele lied, Margot Timmins se lieflike stem wat dit sonder begeleiding sing:

We are miners, hard rock miners
To the shaft house we must go
Oil bottles on our shoulders
We are marching to the slow

On the line boys, on the line boys
Drill your holes and stand in line
’til the shift boss comes to tell you
You must drill her out on time

Can’t you feel the rock dust in your lungs?
It’ll cut down a miner when he is still young
Two years and the silicosis takes hold
and I feel like I’m dying from mining for gold

Yes, I feel like I’m dying from mining for gold.

Ek haal nou die dag Elaine Katz se boek The White Death van die rak af. Dit gaan oor silikose (of myntering, soos dit in my familie bekendstaan) op die Witwatersrand se goudvelde, van die ontdekking van goud in 1886, tot in Uniewording in 1910.

Silikose is “white death” genoem oor die kleur van die stof. Katz haal ʼn skofbaas aan, rondom 1908: “So great is the dust in the mines, that, as regards the kaffirs, their upper lip and parts immediate adjacent to the nostrils often appear greyish-white, as if powdered. This rim-like appearance stands out in contrast with their dark skin.” (p. 144)

In 1913 het ʼn mynwerker geskryf: “The angel of death is present in every drive, stope, shaft, winze, raise and cross-cut of our mines. We ‘can almost hear the rustle of his wings’; he does not flap them; but quietly, persistently, hourly, daily, there he is, watching in silence his victims, who inch by inch are preparing themselves for his scythe.” (p. 123)

Alhoewel daar duidelike bewyse bestaan het vir die feit dat die fyn stof in die myne duisende myners se dood veroorsaak het, wou die mynbase bitter min daaraan doen. In ʼn stadium het hulle ʼn pronkerige hospitaal gebou, waar myners kon gaan doodgaan. Maar van die voorkoming van die dodelike sieke wou hulle niks weet nie.

In 1911 het ʼn dokter in ʼn brief aan die Lancet geskryf: “Such a death-rate from a single occupational disease must be unparalleled in the whole industrial world. It can only be compared with King Leopold’s Congo Free State.” (p. 213)

Die gemiddelde ouderdom van myners wat in hierdie tyd aan silikose dood is, is 35 jaar. My oupagrootjie was amper 31 jaar oud toe hy dood is, in 1912. Ek neem aan die foto hier onder is kort voor sy dood geneem. Deesdae dink ek aan hierdie oupagrootjie van my as ek Cowboy Junkies luister.

Bron:
Elaine Katz. The White Death: Silicosis on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines, 1886-1910 (Wits University Press, 1994).