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Kupido and Willem

Properties3
descriptionTwo of Georg Schmidt's four best students at Baviaanskloof. Both were baptised in 1742, Willem as Josua and Kupido as Jonas, and were among the first Christians in the valley. Almost nothing else about them was written down.
tagstheme/heritage, lang/en
aliasesKupido, Willem, Wilhelm, Josua, Jonas, Kybbodo, Kibido, Kubido

5 min read

Kupido and Willem were two Khoekhoe men who studied with Georg Schmidt at Baviaanskloof from 1738 [MS]. With Africo and Vehettge (Magdalena), they were Schmidt’s four best students [MS]. In 1742 both were baptised: Willem with the name Josua, and Kupido with the name Jonas [MS]. They were among the first five Christians in the valley [MS]. This page covers the two together, because the records say so little about each.

What the letters in square brackets mean

Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.

  • [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record.
  • [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from Moravian records, above all Georg Schmidt’s diary, and the histories written from it. Nothing about Kupido or Willem survives from their own side.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

At a glance

BornNot known
DiedNot known. Both had died before the missionaries returned in 1792 [MS].
Known forBeing among Schmidt’s best students and the first people baptised in the valley [MS]
Link to the valleyTwo of the five people whose baptism in 1742 began the Christian community of Genadendal

What is known

Both men were among the Khoekhoe who came to Schmidt’s school, first near the Sonderend River in 1737 and then at Baviaanskloof from 1738 [MS]. Schmidt taught in Dutch, because he could not master the clicks of the Khoekhoe language [MS]. Kupido and Willem learned to read and helped in the life of the station [MS].

When Schmidt’s authority to baptise arrived in 1742, Willem was the first he baptised, on 2 April 1742 [MS]. The historian Mansell Upham, working from Schmidt’s records, describes Africo as Willem’s brother-in-law [MS]. The sources give the baptismal names of the first five as Josua (Willem), Christian (Africo), Jonas (Kupido), Christina, and Magdalena (Vehettge) [MS]. On 4 September 1742 the VOC’s Council of Policy banned Schmidt from baptising any more Khoekhoe [TBV]. Some sources give Kupido’s name as Kybbodo. It is likely, but not certain, that these are the same man [TBV].

Balie’s history, which spells the name Kibido or Kubido, gives the date of Kupido’s baptism as Jonas as 12 April 1742 [MS]. In 1747 the Moravian painter Johann Valentin Haidt included him, in his leather cloak, among the 21 first converts of the Moravian missions in a painting called The First Fruits, now at Zeist in the Netherlands [MS].

Two years after the baptisms, Schmidt was forced to leave the Cape [IC]. What happened to Kupido and Willem after that is not recorded. By 1792 both had died [MS].

Kupido’s descendants

Balie’s history says Kupido’s daughter Hanna stayed at Baviaanskloof after 1744, believing that if everyone left, no new teachers would be sent [MS]. When the mission reopened she cooked for the three missionaries, and she was the first person they baptised, with the name Anna Maria [MS]. The missionaries’ diaries record the baptism of Anna Maria, a daughter of Kupido, on 19 July 1793 [MS]. She later married a man named Mauritz [MS].

Using the mission’s baptism, marriage, school, and death registers, the Mission Museum traced the old Genadendal families from 1744 to 1844 [MS]. Balie’s history says every early Genadendal family can trace its roots to Anna Maria Mauritz, and so to Kupido [MS]. In 2005 the museum began a genealogy project on this, called “The Children of Jonas” [MS].

Why they matter

The Dutch Reformed ministers at the Cape objected to Schmidt’s baptisms, and this was one reason he had to leave [IC]. Kupido and Willem were among the people at the centre of that dispute. Their baptism, and the dispute that followed, marked the start of the Christian community that became Genadendal. Their names show how little of the Khoekhoe side of the story was recorded.

What is still open

  • Their Khoekhoe names. “Kupido” and “Willem” are Dutch names, probably given by colonists [TBV].
  • Whether Kupido and Kybbodo are the same person.
  • What became of them after 1744.
  • How the families who trace their line to Kupido tell that story themselves. The account above comes from the mission’s registers and the museum’s research.

References

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