ABSTRACT
During 2023, South Africa marked 120 years of organised tennis on a national basis. Over this period, a number of players of both sexes achieved international fame on a number of iconic courts in a range of competitions. In the recent past, the national honours list which for more than a century only reflected the achievements of people of white and European descent, witnessed the addition of the names of a number of black achievers. This notwithstanding, the real origins of the South African lawn tennis tradition remain largely unknown and the cause of speculation. This article, using a range of contemporary historical newspaper archives, provides a new reconstruction of the origins and development of tennis within both the white and black communities in the period before the Second Anglo-Boer War (South African War).
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ABSTRACT This paper reviews the Kenyan species of Euplectromorpha Girault and Euplectrus Westwood. Euplectromorpha emeljanovi Yefremova was collected from the Kenyan Highlands (Nairobi) and from an isolated patch of indigenous forest next to Lake Victoria in western Kenya. Formerly known only from Ethiopia these two collections represent the southern, most records of the species. Its collection is also the southernmost of the genus from continental Africa. Fourteen species of Euplectrus are recorded from Kenya: 11 species described by Ferrière (E. aburiensis, E. cinctiventris, E. epiplemae, E. fuscipes, E. laphygmae, E. liparidis E. nigrescens, E. nigroclypeatus, E. rufiventris, E. singularis, E turneri), E. scapus Yefremova, and two described herein as new Euplectrus icipeensis sp. n. and E. subsphaericus sp. n.). We also redescribe the females of E. nigroclypeatus and E. turneri, and the males of E. aburiensis and E. singularis. An identification key is provided for the 14 species of the genus Euplectrus found in Kenya.

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ABSTRACT 

We report on the sympatric occurrence of three colour pattern morphs of the Common Egg-eater Dasypeltis scabra at a single locality in the northern Free State Province, central South Africa: typically patterned morph (grey-brown with dark brown vertebral saddles and lateral bars), ‘plain’ morph (brown with a dark vertebral stripe) and intermediate morph (brown, weakly and partially patterned with darker markings). In South Africa, patterned and ‘plain’ morphs are known to occur sympatrically in Highveld grassland areas in the central and northern Free State, as well as southern Gauteng Province. The intermediate morph reported on here has not been recorded previously.

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ABSTRACT

Scholarly attention to South African studio pottery of the later twentieth century has been negligible, succeeding at best to provide an overview of its rise in the 1960s, the emergence of a fraternity of studio pottery practitioners, and the development of individual expressions. There is a lack of in-depth scholarly accounts of the lives and oeuvres of the more eminent studio pottery figures of that era. The posthumous disclosure of his own works in the personal collection of the studio potter Ian Glenny (1952–2023) presents not only the opportunity to illustrate the development over the span of five decades of his oeuvre but also to reflect on the cultural pottery traditions that the studio potters referenced in the later twentieth century. In the case of Glenny, his preference to borrow from the cultural pottery traditions of Japan, China and Korea and the manner in which he adapted those influences as distinctively personal expressions, can now be detailed and illustrated with reference to works in his collection. The essay provides further substance to the dismissal of the randomly used discriminatory label of the twentieth-century South African studio pottery for its assumed adherence to the Anglo-Oriental tradition of studio pottery. This discourse on Glenny’s oeuvre shows that influences were not summarily copied but that their essences of form and intent were attentively studied to enable the re-representation of that in forms that would appeal to a consumer and collector base.

KEYWORDS: Ian Glenny, cultural pottery traditions, reduction firing, studio pottery, studio pottery aesthetics, South Africa

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ABSTRACT

Despite being an integral part of the country’s sporting identity, the history of competitive archery remains a neglected area of South Africa’s sports history. Following its establishment in the 1860s as an elitist recreational activity characterised by social gatherings and merrymaking, it gradually developed into a well-organised and nationally coordinated sport during the 20th century. En route, it intersected with issues such as race, gender, professionalism, and politics, all of which collectively shaped its South African character. Due to a lack of original archives, none of the affiliated members of Archery South Africa have thus far documented their own illustrious past. This article, using the literature on artefact biographies, reconstructs the history of both South African and Free State archery with the aid of a small number of artefacts in the collection of the National Museum, Bloemfontein.