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Magdalena

Properties3
descriptionVehettge Tikkuie (about 1700 to 1800), baptised Magdalena in 1742. For 48 years after Georg Schmidt left, she kept the small congregation of Baviaanskloof together under the pear tree. The mission that became Genadendal survived because of her.
tagstheme/heritage, theme/women, theme/2038, lang/en
aliasesVehettge Tikkuie, Vehettge Magdalena Tikhuie, Moeder Lena, Lena, Ou Lena

7 min read

Vehettge Tikkuie was a Khoekhoe woman from the Sonderend River valley [MS]. In 1742 Georg Schmidt baptised her with the name Magdalena [IC]. When Schmidt was forced to leave the Cape in 1744, she kept his small congregation together for 48 years, with no missionary, no church building, and no pay [IC]. When new missionaries arrived in 1792, she was still teaching [MS]. Without her, the story of Genadendal might have ended in 1744. She is also remembered as Moeder Lena [IC].

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, mainly Georg Schmidt’s diary and the diaries of the missionaries who came in 1792, and the histories written from them. Almost everything known about Magdalena was written down by missionaries. Her own words reach us only through them.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

At a glance

BornEarly 1700s, in the Sonderend River and Sergeants River area. The exact year is not known [MS].
Died3 January 1800, at Genadendal [IC]
Known forKeeping the congregation of Baviaanskloof alive from 1744 to 1792 [IC]
Link to the valleyOne of Georg Schmidt’s first students, and the bridge between his mission and the one reopened by the missionaries of 1792

Her life

Vehettge was born in the early 1700s to Khoekhoe parents who herded livestock and moved with the seasons, in the area of the Sonderend River and Sergeants River [MS]. She married Janneke (also called Jantjie) Tikkuie according to Khoekhoe custom [MS]. The Moravian Church in South Africa says she was Hessequa and her husband Chainoqua [MS]. Janneke helped Schmidt by fetching supplies and hunting to feed the community [MS].

She met Schmidt in 1737, and when he moved to Baviaanskloof in April 1738, she and her husband went with him [MS]. Schmidt taught in Dutch, and she became one of his four best students, with Africo, Kupido, and Willem [MS]. Schmidt’s diary also shows that she was her own person. In February 1739, angry at quarrels in the community, she told him she would not stay any longer, and left for five days before coming back [MS].

In 1742 Schmidt received the authority to baptise, and he baptised her with the name Magdalena [IC]. The Moravian Church in South Africa gives the date as 4 April 1742, after he had baptised three men [MS]. She was the first woman he baptised [MS]. Christina was baptised the same year. Her husband was not baptised with her [MS].

The 48 years (1744 to 1792)

Schmidt left the Cape in 1744 [IC]. The mission broke up, and Magdalena went back to Sergeants River [MS]. She kept the Dutch New Testament Schmidt had given her, wrapped in a sheepskin [MS]. Balie’s history says it was printed in Amsterdam in 1694, and that Schmidt asked her to keep his 28 converts together by praying and reading with them [MS]. The book is now in the Genadendal Mission Museum, in a case made from the wood of Schmidt’s pear tree [MS].

She gathered the people who remained under the pear tree in Schmidt’s garden, prayed with them, and read to them from the New Testament [IC]. A resident later told the missionaries: “Every evening we all, men, women and children would go to old Lena. Then she would fall on her knees and pray” [MS]. By 1775 and 1776, European travellers at the Cape had heard of the Khoekhoe woman who prayed and read the Bible [MS].

She did this for 48 years, without a church, a salary, or any support from outside [IC]. Balie’s history says the first pear tree died in 1838, that a second grew from the same roots and stood for about 120 years, and that a third grows in the parsonage garden today [MS].

The return of the missionaries

Three Moravian missionaries arrived at Baviaanskloof on 24 December 1792 [IC]. They found Magdalena, by then about 80 and nearly blind, still keeping Schmidt’s New Testament [MS]. Balie’s history says she asked a girl she had taught to read to them from it [MS]. The missionary Hendrik Marsveld recorded that she came to support them, attended the school lessons, and helped students who were struggling [MS]. In 1794 she fell seriously ill during an outbreak of sickness, and recovered [MS]. Visitors to the Cape, among them Lady Anne Barnard, came to meet her [MS].

She died on 3 January 1800 [IC], five days before the first service in the mission’s new church [MS]. Balie’s history says she was buried in the new cemetery, the seventeenth person to be buried at Baviaanskloof [MS].

How she is remembered

  • Historians have written her story, including Henry Bredekamp (1987), Christina Landman (1996 and 1998), and J.A. Millard (1999) [IC].
  • She is honoured by the Moravian Church in South Africa, including during Women’s Month [MS].
  • Schmidt’s first mission is often told as his story. Her 48 years show that the Khoekhoe side of the meeting of 1738 carried it through its hardest time. See Future of the Valley.

What is still open

  • The year of her birth, and her age when she died.
  • The year of her baptism. Most sources give 1742. Balie’s history gives 1739 on one page [MS].
  • Whether she was Hessequa, as the Moravian Church in South Africa says.
  • Whether she had children, and whether any families in the valley descend from her.
  • Where exactly she lived at Sergeants River between 1744 and 1792.
  • What she herself thought and said, in her own words. Everything recorded about her was written by missionaries.

References

  • Millard, J.A. (1999). Tikhuie, Vehettge Magdalena. Dictionary of African Christian Biography, reproduced from Malihambe: Let the Word Spread (Unisa Press). Her origins, husband, schooling, the quarrel of 1739, her baptism, the 48 years, the missionaries’ account, and her death.
  • Moravian Church in South Africa. Women’s Month and Pilgrimage of Grace. How the church remembers her.
  • Moravian Church in America. Coffee with Moravian Ancestors: Georg Schmidt (2021). The New Testament kept under the pear tree.
  • Bredekamp, H.C. (1987). “Vehettge Tikkuie, alias Moeder Lena van Genadendal (1737 to 1800).” Quarterly Bulletin of the South African Library 41(4).
  • Landman, C. (1996). “The Story of Vehettge Tikkuie.” In Digging Up Our Foremothers. Unisa Press. Also Missionalia 26(3), 1998.
  • Marsveld, H., Schwinn, D. and Kühnel, J.C. (1992). The Genadendal Diaries, Volume I (1792 to 1794). University of the Western Cape Institute for Historical Research. The missionaries’ own record of meeting her.
  • Balie, I. (2023). Genadendal, The Valley of Grace: A Long Walk Through the History of the First Mission Station in South Africa. AuthorHouse. First published 2020. The New Testament of 1694 and its case, the 28 converts, the three pear trees, her burial, and the baptism year 1739. Page numbers are on Genadendal: A Long Walk.

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