Heraldry – ancient and brand new
by Mike Oettle
“EVERY Afrikaner family has a family coat of arms. . .”
Not true. Many families don’t have a heraldic device, and among the families that do bear arms, many of them do so irregularly.
And in any case there is no such thing as a “family crest” or coat of arms that may be borne identically by every member of that family.
“Then I suppose I can forget about a coat of arms?”
Not at all. Anyone in South Africa may draw up a coat of arms and register it.
And even if it’s not registered, it is permissible provided it doesn’t duplicate an existing coat of arms.
That’s the problem, of course. If you don’t register your arms, it’s always possible that there will be duplication or a problematic similarity.
In South Africa ignorance rules, when it comes to heraldry.
Years ago, when I was working in the civil service, a letter arrived from a firm in the real estate business. On the letterhead appeared the arms of a professional associaton to which members of the firm belonged.
My boss looked at the letterhead and said: “It’s one of those old Johannesburg families. Look, they’ve even got a family crest!”
If he’d taken the trouble to read the letterhead, and to compare it with the letterheads of other similar firms, he would have known what the symbol stood for.
As far as heraldry is concerned, Johannesburg isn’t old – even Cape Town isn’t very old.
It’s a science that dates back at least to the time of the Crusades.
But that’s not to say a coat of arms can’t be modern.
There are devices that include symbols representing atomic reactors, or the ellipses that describe the paths of electrons in recently discovered atomic elements.
At right you can see the arms of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, which uses a pile (the long, pointed symbol in red and gold) to symbolise an atomic reactor – an example of “canting” or punning arms, since the word pile applies to both.
The arms of the Dutch provinces reflect the heraldry of the mediæval rulers of the Low Countries – but there is also a coat of arms for the Netherlands’ newest province, Flevoland: this province was created in January 1986, and in July that year the province was granted arms with a heraldic sea lion (a lion’s forequarters joined to a fish’s tail).
Heraldry is very old – but also brand new.
Comments, queries: Mike Oettle