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Legends, myths and memories of the most precious resource in South Africa’s dry heartland

Legends, myths and memories of the most precious resource in South Africa’s dry heartland
Logo of the mysterious Dam Duik Mafia, who love random swimming in isolated farm dams. (Image: Chris Marais)
Julienne Du Toit
By Julienne Du Toit
5 Mar 2025
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Water—or the absence of it—has shaped life, culture, and survival in the Karoo and Kalahari for centuries. From ancient myths to modern struggles, the search for this precious resource weaves through the region’s history, defining its people and landscapes.

At the bottom of the roaring Augrabies Falls lives a giant snake – but it is no ordinary serpent. This is a powerful mythic creature with mesmeric eyes, shimmering scales and a huge flawless diamond on its head for a crown. 

Khoi and San belief has it that this enormous jewel can bring you great happiness – if you could only outwit the snake. But if you fall under its spell, you’ll be captured in its shimmering scales and pulled underwater into the churning froth, gone forever. No one has ever outwitted the snake.

It might sound like a quaint little fairy tale, but to this day the Watersnake (Waterslang) commands fear. Its influence stretches over the whole of the Karoo and Kalahari, especially where the Orange and Sak rivers flow.

The mighty Orange River is the source of many an ancient water legend. (Image: Chris Marais)



There are many people who say they have seen it. Many years ago, Chris Marais and I met Oom Sakkie Cloete of Eksteenfontein in the Richtersveld, and he had encountered one. 

A serpent sighting


“It was up at Vioolsdrif, on the Orange River, in October 1974. It was a hot day, and I went to wash in the river.

“That’s when I saw it. It was just a black thing in the river at first. I thought it was a tree, but then I saw it was coming against the current. Was it a goose or some kind of bird then? No, it was too big. I saw its head, as big as a horse’s head or maybe bigger, and then behind it, three huge black bows of its body coming out of the water. Then I don’t remember anything more. I think I ran.

“They say Heitsi-Eibib appears in many different forms. But I saw him as a snake. They say he’s often at the Wondergat near Cornell’s Kop. I’ve heard of people that saw him and went completely grey, or could no longer speak.

“We all know about Heitsi-Eibib, but we very seldom talk about him. Before I saw him, I thought talk of him was nonsense. Now I know he’s there. And I don’t want to see him again.”

Jeanette Abrahams of Williston also saw the Watersnake along the Sak River, when she was a child on the farm Skuinskloof. 

“It was seeking a mate and had taken the shape of a watermeid (mermaid), a beautiful woman with pitch-black hair, beautiful lips, perfect little breasts. I knew that if he pulled me in, I would never escape. The only way to avoid this is to pay homage with a flower or an egg, or some bread, or to throw your own sweat on the water if you feel in danger.”

She explained that the Watersnake travelled from place to place as a warrelwind (dust devil). It took any form, and at night it walked with light. Sometimes it sat close to humans, and was harmless unless anyone tried to hurt it.

The Water Maiden has also been encountered along the Sak River in the Northern Cape. (Image: Chris Marais)



The late Oom Johannes Willemse, a Griqua shaman from the farm Theefontein within sight of the Nuweveld mountains near Beaufort West, also saw the Watersnake in his day. 

When he was a youngster, he washed himself in the river without asking for its permission. He recognised the Watersnake as a long silver line in the water. 

“Oor ‘n week lyk ek soos a padda. Die water loop uit my uit. (After a week I looked like a frog. I oozed water).”

His grandfather, a healer, told him he could break free of this affliction by sacrificing a chicken and rubbing himself with a certain kind of mud, and by expressing remorse to the Watersnake.

“I went to apologise. It was a clear day and there was not a cloud in the sky. But as soon as I walked away, a little mist cloud formed above me and rain washed away the mud. I was cleansed.” 

water Karoo The riverside settlements along the Orange River. (Image: Chris Marais)



There is a firm belief that if the Watersnake is threatened, hurt or disrespected, destructive floods follow.

Oom Johannes said it was no coincidence that there were flash floods across the Karoo in February 2011. The announcement that Shell wanted to frack for shale gas had just been made, he pointed out. 

“The Watersnake will not allow it,” he said.

All in the name


Every little Karoo and Kalahari spring that bubbled to the surface was named by Europeans and migrant farmers, and often the farms were named for them too. Drive across the Karoo and most of the signs will point to something mentioning water and its defining qualities or surroundings: Soetfontein, Koffiefontein, Brakfontein, Quaggasfontein, Saaifontein, Brandvlei and hundreds of others. 

Sometimes the lack of water was noted, as in Verneuk Pan (Deception Pan) or Putsonderwater (well without water). 

Some Karoo shanty dwellers travel long distances on donkey carts for their water supplies. (Image: Chris Marais)



Water, or the lack of it, has always been the defining issue in the Karoo and the Kalahari. Things changed dramatically after windpumps arrived in South Africa, able to pump up groundwater. A wooden Halladay Standard was the very first, imported by PJ du Toit of Hopetown in 1874, according to James Walton in his book Windpumps in South Africa.

Before then, water was usually raised from depth by manpower or donkey-power. In Upington, you can see a statue of a blindfolded donkey turning a “bakkiespump” to commemorate those days.

The windpumps opened up the drylands of South Africa for farming, in the same way they did the prairies of the US.

But windpumps can only supply so much. Rain is crucial. Ask any farmer to tell you his never-fail signs that forecast rain when the veld is dry, often trusted more than the barometers on their stoeps. 

water Karoo The windpump and the Karoo farmer have come a long way together. (Photo: Chris Marais)



In the Karoo, farmers listen for the sound of the nocturnal rain grasshopper, also called the gysie or langasem for the strange sound it makes, like a small generator starting up. Once it calls, it will rain within three days.

They’ll watch out for swallows and swifts flying low, for tortoises heading for higher ground, and for ants and harvester termites that are busier than normal. But when the koggelmander stands on a rock facing north, they say, expect flash flooding.

During the prolonged rains of 1894, a man called Gordon Rautenbach built himself a raft, called the boat the Molopo Majestic and sailed across the Kalahari desert from Inkbos Pan beyond Noeniput to Noordoewer.

In times of drought, even the windpumps run empty. (Image: Chris Marais)


Floods and forecasts


Droughts and occasionally floods are a constant feature of desert life. When Victoria West flooded in February 1871, a bride drowned while trying on her wedding dress, whole families at dinner were swept away, and a roomful of revellers at Quirk’s Hotel died while a certain Mrs Jacobsohn and her children floated off to safety on a featherbed.

Read more: Flood season on the Orange, water gawkers and the Kalahari guy who saves them from drowning

The most notorious flood in the Karoo took place in 1981, in Laingsburg, when the normally dry Buffalo River turned into a raging torrent within hours. At least 100 people lost their lives and houses vanished far under the floodwaters. 

There was one farmer who decided to bypass the agonising waits between droughts and floods, and make his own rain. Charlie Hall lived at The Willows between Middelburg and Cradock from 1910 to 1976. If you know where to look as you drive along the N10, you can still glimpse the chimneys of the rain-making boilers where he’d burn strange substances he was convinced seeded the clouds with rain.

In fact, said Elana Kitching, curator of Grootfontein Agricultural College’s museum, Hall would be quite upset if a neighbouring farmer mentioned he’d had rain and failed to thank him for it.

But very few Karoo towns are lucky enough to have a constant flow of water. In fact more than 80% depend on groundwater. And sometimes things go wrong.

Beaufort West suffered one of the worst droughts in living history when the dam dried and motorists were urged to drop off bottled water. By the end of 2010 more than a million litres had been dropped off in the parched town. 

Herbalist Antoinette Pienaar, who learnt about healing Karoo plants from Oom Johannes Willemse, said half the townspeople were visiting the churches to pray for rain and the other half were “in the klowe, pleading with the Watersnake”. 

One of them worked because in February 2011 the flash floods filled up the dam.

The Meiringspoort Mermaid


Meiringspoort in the Western Cape Karoo is a place of magical waterfalls where mermaids are thought to be found. You walk up and up, but not far, then all of a sudden you see a series of waterfalls.

It truly is rather astounding. You share the experience with everyone present, and an air of surprised joy prevails. 

Meiringspoort, where another Water Maiden is said to live. (Image: Chris Marais)



Logo of the mysterious Dam Duik Mafia, who love random swimming in isolated farm dams. (Image: Chris Marais)



You can actually dip your naked feet in the chilly clear pool midway along the route. It is a vivid experience, to step astride a clear natural stream, to see with your own eyes how much life it brings with it. And to peer into a seemingly bottomless pool where a mountain mermaid apparently lives, at a depth of nine metres. 

In a Northern Cape village, we tracked down a collective of Karoo youngsters who invade local farmers’ dams in midsummer, shuck their clobber and chill for hours at a stretch. They call themselves the Dam Duik Mafia – The Dam-Diving Mafia.

“Don’t take our photo!” the little gang yelled at us, defending their incognito status. “We’ll send you our logo!” Sigh. Kids these days. Life is a brand. DM



For an insider’s view on life in the South African Heartland, get the Karoo Quartet set of books (Karoo Roads I-IV) for only R960, including taxes and courier costs in South Africa. For more details, contact Julie at [email protected]

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