PUK Karnaval

The PUK Karnaval ("The PUK Carnival") is one of the names by which the annual Rag at the Potchefstroom Universiteit vir CHO (PUK) was known over the years.

Originally known as Vreugdedag ("day of joy") it was begun in 1942 as a street parade to counteract political tensions in the town, and became an annual institution till it was stopped in 1964.

In 1967 it regained new life in the form of the Karnaval ("carnival"). The individual carnivals were usually named after the year of occurrence, i.e. "Karnaval '79", "Karnaval '81", etc.

In 1988 the Karnaval was once more renamed to now be known as the Jool, in line with national trends at other Afrikaans universities. Fundamentally the format and aims remained the same: a street parade for charitable causes combined with student entertainemnet. When the university became part of the larger North West University the name of the event became the NWU Pukke Jool.