Hendrik Spoorbek

Heinrich Schörbeck (alias Hendrik Spoorbek / Skoorbek) (born Dortmund, Germany, unknown date – death 13 June 1845, Tsitsikamma, South Africa) was a renowned seer, healer and magician who settled in South Africa around 1811. In Afrikaner legends he is commonly known as Hendrik Spoorbek / Skoorbek the “Towenaar” (Magician / Wizard).

Heinrich Schörbeck was born in Dortmund, Germany. He arrived at the Cape Colony (South Africa) around 1811 as a sailor and deserted. The Dutch, Flemish, Frisian, French and Norwegian settlers called him Hendrik Spoorbek. He became so tolerant of the local pronunciation of his name that he signed his will as Hendrik Spoorbek. On April 14, 1815, the farm “Spoorbek se Erf” (Spoorbek’s Lot) was surveyed and registered in his name in the Humansdorp district along the Krom River (15 km from Kareedouw). The size of the farm was 58 morgen and Spoorbek agreed to pay 5 rixdollars a year in quit-rent. Spoorbek lived in a small thatched cottage with only two rooms. He built a watermill along the Krom River and ground wheat for the whole neighborhood. According to his death register entry he was a stonecutter of occupation, was unmarried and had no children. In 1901, Mr. J. R. van der Merwe, a school teacher who moved to Humansdorp, recorded tales of Spoorbek from elderly people who still had personal memories of the wizard who died 56 years earlier in 1845. Also, in 1917 Mrs. L. Rompel-Koopman interviewed the 86-year-old Mrs. Fick-Landman near Alexandria (born 1831) who told her about Spoorbek's life and referred to him as the “Witte Krag” (White Might). Mrs. Fick-Landman recalled: "Al was ik maar klein gewees toe hij leefde, ik het tog goed vir hom geken. Ons kinders was almal `n beetje bang vir hom" (Although I was small when he lived, I knew him very well. We children were all a little afraid of him). According to these recollections, Spoorbek was an untidy, kindhearted, eccentric hermit with wild curly hair, a long beard, dressed in black clothes in rags, had a verminous appearance, and rode a white horse. Besides being a stonecutter and miller, Spoorbek was a great traveller who did various jobs for the settlers, including healing the sick and protecting people and their property with his magical powers.

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