touleier, noun

/ˈtəʊleɪə(r)/
Origin:
AfrikaansShow more Afrikaans, tou rope + leier leader.
voorloper sense 1. Also figurative.
1933 W. Macdonald Romance of Golden Rand 8Several of the natives deserted so that Fred Struben had to take the place of the touleier and lead a team of sixteen bullocks all the way to Pretoria for over four hundred miles.
1938 Star 1 Dec. 15Elderly women in voluminous skirts and poke bonnets eagerly seized the thongs to act as ‘touleiers’ suiting their steps to the pace of the ox.
1944 J. Mockford Here Are S. Africans 65A touleier, perhaps the driver’s son, perhaps a Hottentot or Kafir piccanin, sometimes led the team by a rawhide riempie whose ends were fastened round the horns of the two front oxen.
1955 L.G. Green Karoo 35By the time he was twenty-one he had a wife and three children, two coloured shepherds and a Bushman touleier to lead the oxen and find the way from one water-hole or vlei to the next.
1968 M. Doyle Impala 6The Shangaan had worked as a touleier, or leader of an ox-wagon team, at Pilgrim’s Rest when the diggings still flourished.
1971 H. Zeederberg Veld Express 173When they reached the Poort, Washington climbed down to act as a ‘touleier’ through the channel.
1977 L. Abrahams Celibacy of Felix Greenspan 18There was a ragged little black touleier, and a dusty looking white boy up front holding a whip.
1980 A.J. Blignaut Dead End Rd 75Nic Keet went to the nearest huts early the next morning and hired another touleier.
1990 Weekend Post 5 May 10Mr C— believed it was time the coloured people advanced beyond the touleier stage. A touleier mos just led the oxen with a rope in his hands. If the coloured people stuck with F W de Klerk and his power-sharing, they would remain touleiers.
voorloper sense 1. Also figurative.
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19331990

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figurative or allusive
tou, nounn.towenaar, nounn.
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