Namibia under South African Rule: Mobility and Containment, 1915-46

• under South African Rule Mobility & Containment

1915-46

. EDITED PATRICIA ~,. MARION

BY HAYES• WALLACE•

JEREMY

SILVESTER

WOLFRAM

HARTMANN

Books on Namibia published by James Currey & Ohio University Press

Colin Leys & John S. Saul Namibia's Liberation Struggle The Two-Edged Sword Edited by Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Silvester Marion Wallace & Wolfram Hartmann Namibia under South African Rule Mobility & Containment 1915-46 Jan-Bart Gewald Herero Heroes A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia 1890-1923 Gretchen Bauer The Labor Movement & the Consolidation of Democracy in Namibia 1971-96

Namibia

under South African Rule Mobility & Containment

1915-46

An illustration of the proverb 'Trees Never Meet, but People Do' by Joe Madisia

To the memory of: Dan Haipinge Brigitte Lau Petrus Ndongo

Namibia

under South African Rule Mobility & Containment

1915-46 EDITED

BY

PATRICIA

HAYES

MARION WALLACE with BEN FULLER Jnr

•

JEREMY •

'The Trees Never Meet' project

JAMES

CURREY

OXFORD

OUT OF AFRICA WINDHOEK

OHIO ATHENS

UNIVERSITY

SILVESTER

WOLFRAM

PRESS

HARTMANN

James Currey Ltd 73 Botley Road Oxford ox2 Obs Out of Africa Publishers (Pty) Ltd P .O. Box 21841 Windhoek Ohio University Press Scott Quadrangle Athens, Ohio 45701 © James Currey Ltd 1998

First published 1998 1 2 3 4 5 02 01 00 99 98

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Namibia under South African rule: mobility & containment, 1915-46 1. Namibia - History- 1915-46 2. Namibia - History - 1946-1990 I. Hayes, Patricia 968 .8'1'03 ISBN 0-85255-748 - 5 Games Currey Cloth) ISBN 0-85255-747 - 7 Games Currey Paper) ISBN 99916-2 - 099-0 (Out of Africa Paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Namibia under South African rule : mobility & containment, 1915 -46 / edited by Patricia Hayes ... [et al.] (the "Trees Never Meet" project). p. cm. Papers based on a conference hosted in Aug . 1994 in Windhoek by the "Trees Never Meet" project together with the History Department of the University of Namibia Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8214-1244-2 (cloth: alk. paper)ISBN 0-8214-1245-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Namibia-History-1915-1946-Congresses. I. Hayes, Patricia . II. "Trees Never Meet" (Project) DT1625.N36 1998 968 .8 103- dc21 98-11463 CIP ISBN 0-8214-1244-2 ISBN 0-8214-1245-0

(Ohio University Press Cloth) (Ohio University Press Paper) Typeset in 10/11 ½pt Plan tin by Nicholas Hardyman, Oxford

Printed in Great Britain by Villiers Publications, London N3

V

Contents List of Maps, Photographs, Tables & Appendices Preface Acknowledgements Notes on contributors Abbreviations Glossary Maps

Vll

viii lX Xl

xm XlV

xv

Introduction 1 'Trees Never Meet' Mobility & Containment: 1915-1946 JEREMY

SILVESTER,

3

An Overview

MARION

WALLACE,

& PATRICIA

HAYES

Construction of People Construction of the State

2 Vagrancy, Law & 'Shadow Knowledge' Internal Pacification 1915-1939 ROBERT

J.

51

GORDON

3 'A Person is Never Angry for Nothing' Women, VD &Windhoek MARION

77

WALLACE

4 Beasts, Boundaries & Buildings The Survival & Creation of Pastoral Economies in Southern Namibia JEREMY

95 1915-1935

SILVESTER

5 The 'Famine of the Dams' Gender, Labour & Politics in Colonial Ovamboland 1929-1930 PATRICIA

HAYES

117

vi

Contents

The Reserves Contesting Containment 6 'We have been Captives Long Enough. We Want to be Free' Land, Uniforms & Politics in the History of Herero in the Interwar Period GESINE

KRUGER

149

& DAG HENRICHSEN

7 Power & Trade In Precolonial & Early Colonial Northern Kaokoland

175

l 860s- l 940s MICHAEL

BOLLIG

8 'We Live in a Manga' Constraint, Resistance & Transformation on a Native Reserve BEN FULLER J"r

194

Beyond the Police Zone Ovamboland 9 Migration in Ovamboland The Oshigambo & Elim Parishes

219

1925-1935 HARRI

SIISKONEN

10 Generational Struggles & Social Mobility In Western Ovambo Communities

241

1915-1954 MEREDITH

McKITTRICK

11 'Ondillimani!' Iipumbu ya Tshilongo & the Ambiguities of Resistance in Ovambo WOLFRAM

263

HARTMANN

12 The Moveable Frontier The Namibia-Angola

289 Boundary Demarcation

1926-1928 RANDOLPH

VIGNE

with 'Onhaululi' by Bibliography Index

PETRUS

NDONGO

305 323

vii

Maps, Photographs, Tables & Appendices MAPS

xv Map 1 Namibia, 1939, showing the reserves Map 2 Keetmanshoop district: Distribution of black stock-owners with grazing xvi licences, 1918 xvii Map 3 Southern Namibia showing district and reserve boundaries, 1937 xviii Map 4 Ovamboland, 1915 xix Map 5 Lutheran parishes in northern Namibia xx Map 6 Otjimbingwe Reserve (Karibib District)

PHOTOGRAPHS 1.

2.

3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. lOa-c. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16 . 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Seven women in colonial high fashion South African forces in SW A in 1915 Reburial of South African soldiers killed in Ovamboland in 1917 Migrant workers tramping south South African police on patrol in the Kavango in the early 1920s Women with children in the Old Location Herero women and children with Sybil Bowker Farmhouse belonging to poor settler farmers Young girls on dam-diggings during the 'Famine of the Dams', 1929-30 Queues for maize meal during the 'Famine of the Dams' Officers in the otjiserandu The funeral of Samuel Maharero, Okahandja, 1923 Major Manning in Kaokoland, 1917 Muhona Katiti, first chief in Kaokoland's Himba reserve A manga used to hold cattle during branding Herero women making cream Relief distribution during the 'Famine of the Dams' Relief workers digging a dam in Olukonda Mission Station, 1929 The first tour by Major Manning to western Ovamboland, 191 7 Chief Iipumbu ya Tshilongo Petrus Ndongo, Odibo, September 1994 The body of Mandume ya Ndemufayo after his death in 1917 The disputed falls at Oruhakana (Ruacana)

7

8 9 35 62 84

88 106 117 133 150 157 177 181 194 209 231 232 242 267 289 290 298

TABLES 2.1

2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 9. 1

Police strength (selected years), 1920-39 Mortality rates of police animals, 1923-6 Crimes reported to police, 1926-38 Conviction rates (selected years), 1924-39 Convictions, Grootfontein, most common offences, 1916-51 Selected categories of criminal charges laid, 1932-9 Prison labour supplied, 1920-8 Lutheran parishes in the Ovambo region, 1900-50

61 63 64 65 65 66 67 222

APPENDICES 9.1 9.2

Out-migration from the Oshigambo and Elim parishes, 1925-35 In-migration to the Oshigambo and Elim parishes, 1925-35

237 239

viii

Preface 'The Trees Never Meet' project

The 'Trees Never Meet' project in Namibia, which is responsible for the present volume, has had an unusual history of collaboration. We therefore feel it important to say something about the project's process of production, about its roots and its development. Collaborative discussions began in late 1992, around the potential of connecting up the exciting, but often localised, studies which were beginning to emerge on the history of the newly independent nation. Such studies, while mostly not yet having found their way into print, were beginning to challenge older models and to develop new paradigms . Of special interest was the period of the first thirty years of South African rule, hitherto almost entirely neglected. The overarching concepts of mobility and containment seemed appropriate to a project which would engage with this emerging research, as did the proverb 'Trees Never Meet', with its message that only trees never meet, while people always have the hope of doing so . The proverb suggests not only mobility, but also human dynamism and connection . The question was initially one of space: how could a globally scattered band of researchers meet and exchange their knowledge and ideas? This tied into a second and deeper problem: that much Namibian research was being conducted by academics based at overseas institutions. Most existing Namibian scholars had been absorbed into governmental and other structures since independence; aspirant Namibian researchers faced a lack of funds and institutional support. Yet it was clear there were many Namibian historians operating beyond the university gates - both literally and figuratively. It became increasingly important to make a space where scattered researchers could engage with, and be challenged by, these historians outside the academy. By early 1994 all five editors were located in Namibia and funding had been secured. The project, together with the History Department of the University of Namibia, hosted a major conference in Windhoek in August 1994. This occasion was graced by a wide spectrum of people and brought together in one space those both inside and outside the academy . We were able to welcome not only most of the contributors to the book and project participants from Namibia and abroad, but also history teachers, students, 'oral historians' and, perhaps most importantly, a small but vocal group of those who were the agents of history between the world wars . Thus the 'Trees Never Meet' project, increasingly in the course of its work, and especially during the Windhoek conference, attempted to breach normal academic boundaries in a number of ways (although we do not claim to be the first to do so). Firstly, we have tried to straddle the gulf between the academic and the non -academic, and to explore the possibility of a participatory social

Preface & Acknowledgements

ix

history. Secondly, we have attempted to move beyond a history based purely on the printed word. The inclusion of theatre, art and photography at the conference, therefore, widened our methodological approach, and oral performances which blended personal experience with historical analysis had a resounding impact. Did we succeed? While we acknowledge that, being still in the process of production, we are hardly the best-placed to answer this question, it is without doubt that the project greatly stimulated and benefited from interaction between all those who engage with history in Namibia. Although this may seem to be very little, it cannot be stated strongly enough that the networks which the conference helped to form are the project's most important outcome. In this respect, the conference was most successful in providing a space where historical divisions could be dismantled - often by the academically dispossessed. Further offshoots of the project have been the development of the photographic exhibition 'The Colonising Camera', and the provision of small research grants to a number of Namibian historians . Finally, the project helped to provide impetus for the founding of the Namibian History Trust, which aims to stimulate and support ongoing historical study and writing in Namibia . As to this book, many gaps remain. No Kavango or Caprivi or Khoisan history is represented, for example, and many categories of persons still lie buried beneath these texts and their sources. But this is an initial exploration of the period and of South African colonisation: the beginning, we hope, of the end of a very big silence. As to our collaborative approach, whether the processes of production and its specific dialectics have influenced the outcome is for the reader to judge. An attempt to reflect on this has, however, been made in the introduction.

Acknowledgements The 'Trees Never Meet' project gratefully acknowledges the support of the many people who, on both formal and informal levels, have made its work possible and affected its outcome. Funding for the conference, this book and other activities came from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the USA, the Local Examinations Syndicate of the University of Cambridge in Britain, the Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB) in Switzerland, and the University of Namibia (UNAM) Research and Publications Fund. Special thanks go to Cathy Ruley and Professor Robert Gordon of the University of Vermont and to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, for the administration of the NEH funds; to Carl and Daniela Schlettwein of the BAB for their consistent support for the project; and to Dr Peter Katjavivi, Vice-Chancellor ofUNAM, for his enthusiastic backing. The organisational complexity of the Windhoek conference was successfully managed by the enormous behind-the-scenes work of the conference staff. This

X

Acknowledgements

comprised Jacqui Pickering, Prudence Egumbo, Lazzi Paulse and Goodman Gwasira, with additional help from Pierette Schlettwein and Giorgio Miescher. We also thank Joy Sasman for her initial organisational work, and Helgard Patemann for her advice. Conference participants are too many to name individually, but we wish particularly to mention contributions made by the late Petrus Ndongo (the 'Father of the Children'), Nahas Angula, David Haufiku, Peter Katangalo, Emmanuel Kreike, Allan Cooper, Christo Botha, Joe Madisia, Ciraj Rassool, Richard Moorsom, Werner Hillebrecht, Mukwaita Shanyengana, Tilman Dedering, Nama Goabab, Winnie Wanzala, Sacky Akweenda, John Kinahan, Andre Strauss, Natangwe Shapange, Jason Amakutuwa, Petrus Amutenya, Vilho Tshilongo, Ambrosius Amutenya, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann and Reg Green. 'We also express our great appreciation to the Bricks Community Theatre Group. We gratefully acknowledge the National Archives of Namibia, especially Everon Kloppers and the late Brigitte Lau, for encouraging and facilitating the development of'The Colonising Camera' exhibition of historical photography. We also thank Carl Schlettwein and Dag Henrichsen of the BAB for their generous contribution of photographs to this exhibition, and those museums and galleries which have displayed the exhibition to the public in both Namibia and South Africa since the conference. Thanks are also due to the Dawid Bezuidenhout School History Society and Renate Grossmann, respectively, for the models and publication display they provided for exhibition at the conference. Tom Spear, Ciraj Rassool, Gary Minkley, Leslie Witz, Christo Botha, Shula Marks and Gretchen Bauer have commented constructively on sections of the manuscript. The African Studies Centre of Cambridge Universityespecially Paula Munro - made our first workshop possible, and Jan-Bart Gewald, Allan Cooper, Jon Lunn, Kirsten Alnaes and Effa Okupa enlivened this occasion with their participation. In Cambridge we were also grateful for the advice of John Iliffe and Christopher Wrigley. The Sam Cohen Library of Swakopmund, and particularly Franz Irlich, kindly made available facilities for an editorial workshop at which we were joined by Meredith McKittrick who made important contributions to our editorial discussions. We thank Gretchen Bauer for organising two panels for the project at the African Studies Association of the USA Annual Meeting at Toronto in 1994. Final editorial work in Windhoek was facilitated by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of UNAM, which throughout this process, and together with the History Department, has constantly provided a home. Thanks are also due for the initial support of the History Department of Bucknell University, USA, especially from Sharon Gerarge and Carol Lee, as well as the practical advice on funding and editing from Richard Waller, Tom Spear, Chuck Ambler and Neil Sobania. Lastly, we thank David Anderson, who convened a Namibian panel at the African Studies Association (UK) Conference in Scotland in 1992. This ensured that the necessary conversation could take place which led to a collaborative project on Namibian history.

xi

Notes on Contributors

Michael Bollig is a Researcher in the Institut for Volkerkunde (Institute for Ethnology) at the University of Cologne . He has published most recently on 'Pokot Social Organisation: Structures, Networks and Ideologies' and on 'Himba Oral Traditions'. Ben Fuller, Jnr. is Deputy Director of the Social Sciences Division of the Multidisciplinary Research Centre, University of Namibia . In 1993 he com pleted his doctoral dissertation at Boston University on institutional change among central Namibian agropastoralists in the South African colonial period. Robert J. Gordon is Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Vermont. His most recent book is Picturing Bushmen: the Denver African Expedition 1926. Patricia Hayes completed her PhD thesis on the history of Ovamboland between 1880 and 1935 at Cambridge University in 1992. She was Visiting Assistant Professor in African History at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania during 1990 and later a Research Fellow at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge . She now lectures in the History Department of the University of the Western Cape . Wolfram Hartmann has received masters degrees from the University of Hamburg and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He has been a lecturer in the History Department of the University of Namibia for several years, and is now pursuing PhD research at Columbia University. Dag Henrichsen is a historian and archivist at the Namibia Resource Centre and Southern Africa Library at the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Switzerland. He has studied history, social anthropology and literature in Freiburg i.B., Leiden, London and Hamburg. He has recently completed a PhD thesis on the pre-colonial history of central Namibia and has co-authored with Andreas Selmeci Das Schwarzkommando . Thomas Pychon und die Geschichte der Herera. Gesine Kriiger studied history at the Universities of Hannover and Cape Town. Her masters thesis was published as Zwischen Gott und Staat in 1989, and she completed her PhD on the German colonial war of 1904-7 in 1995. She is currently working on a research project on historical patterns of literacy in South Africa between 1890 and 1930 . She is an editor of the journal WerkstattGeschichte.

xii

Notes on Contributors

Meredith McKittrick is Assistant Professor of African History at Georgetown University in Washington DC. She is currently working on a book on Christianity, gender and generational relationships in Ovamboland, 1880-1950, based on her recent PhD thesis. Petrus Shatjohamba Ndongo was born in 1919. He attended school at St. Mary's Mission, Odibo. After a short period of farm and mine contract labour, marriage, and service in World War II, he qualified as a teacher and taught for many years in both Owambo and Katutura . Known simply as 'the father of the children', he kept meticulous diaries chronicling mission life at Odibo and wrote historical articles. He passed away in December 1994. Harri Siiskonen published his doctoral dissertation on northern Namibia under the title Trade and Socioeconomic Change in Ovamboland, 1850-1906 and has published widely with researchers from different disciplines on the Namibian environment. He lectures in History at the University ofJoensuu, Finland. Jeremy Silvester is currently Lecturer in Namibian History at the University of Namibia, and has previously taught at the University of Keele, the University of the West of England and Bristol University. He completed a PhD thesis on the history of land dispossession and labour recruitment in southern Namibia under South African colonialism in 1994 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Randolph Vigne has, since the 1960s, written and politics . His A Dwelling Place of Our Own. was first published in 1973, a short history published in 1998 and he is currently working the latter's memoirs.

extensively on Namibian history The Story of the Namibian Nation of northern Namibia is to be with President Sam Nujoma on

Marion Wallace recently completed her doctoral thesis on health and society in Windhoek between 1915 and 1945 at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. She has taught history at the University of Namibia and the University of Greenwich, London, and is currently working at the Public Record Office in London.

xiii

Abbreviations Add. NC Admin. AEL AGCSE AGM AME APO App. AR ASA Ass. NC BRMG CADP CBPP CDM Ch. CNC

co

DKG ECA ET FELM FMS FO GDP govt. GSWA ha. ICU JP KLMG LoN Lt. Mag. Mil.Mag. MMC

MNAD MO MOH MPSM

Additional Native Commissioner Administrator Auala Ekin Library, Oniipa Archives Generales de la Congregation du Saint Esprit Annual General Meeting African Methodist Episcopal Church African People's Organisation Appendix Annual Report African Studies Association Assistant Native Commissioner Berichte der Rheinischen Missionsgesellschaft Central Archives Depot, Pretoria (South African State Archives) Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia Consolidated Diamond Mines of South Africa Chapter Chief Native Commissioner Colonial Office Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft fiir Siidwestafrika Elim Church Archive Extra-territorial Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Archives Finnish Mission Society Foreign Office Gross Domestic Product government German South West Africa hectares Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of South Africa Justice of the Peace Kaoko Land- und Minengesellschaft League of Nations Lieutenant Magistrate Military Magistrate Minutes of Missionary Conferences Municipal Native Affairs Dept Medical Officer Medical Offic ·er of Health Mukuru pu na Samuel Maharero (God with Samuel Maharero)

Native Affairs Native Affairs Department National Archives of Namibia Native Affairs Ovamboland Native Commissioner Native Commissioner Ovamboland n .d. no date Nederduitse Gereformeerde NGK Kerk/Dutch Reformed Church Officer in Charge oc Oshigambo Church Archive OCA Ovamboland Expeditionary OEF Force Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahn OMEG Gesellschaft para. paragraph People's Liberation Army of PLAN Namibia Permanent Mandates PMC Commission of the League of Nations Public Record Office, London PRO Resident Commissioner RCO Ovamboland RM Reich Marks RMG/RMS Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft/Rhenish Missionary Society SA South Africa SANAC South African Native Affairs Commission, 1903-1905 South African Police SAP South African Railways and SAR&H Harbours South African Women's SAWAS Auxiliary Service Secretary for the Protectorate Sec . Prot. Sec . SWA Secretary for South West Africa Senior Officer so Superintendent Sup. South West Africa SWA SWANLA South West Africa Native Labour Association South West Africa Police SWAP Union Government UG Universal Negro Improvement UNIA Association VD Venereal Disease VEM-RMG Vereinte Evangelische Mission - Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft Windhoek Advertiser WA WO Welfare Officer Zentrales Staatsarchiv ZSP Potsdam. (These archives are now called Bundesarchiv Berlin)

NA NAD NAN NAO NC NCO

xiv

Glossary A number of names of places and people appear in the text in Nama/Damara. This language features four distinct clicks which are represented typographically by the symbols I, !, // and "#. !khadi/khan· Aakn·sce Aapagani Andjala yavombandja Acsas Bezirksamcmann bywoner corvee droic de seigneur efundula ehi rOvaherero ejuru elenga (omalenga, pl) Epapudhuko eshengi Farmer- Verein ius primae noccis kacurambanda kraal mondjila Mwadhina okuruuo (omakuruuo, pl) olufuko olyomakaya omucenge omuchigululwakalo ondja/a yomacale onhaululi oshana ocjiserandu ocruppa ovanganga ovararanganda ovicunja oyonda ozonganda pondok rebelde Schuczcruppe crekboer csongolalshongo/a Truppenspieler vo/kekunde

beer (Nama/Damara) Christian s (Oshiwambo) non-Christians (Oshiwambo) famine of the Mbandja, I 929-1930 (Oshiwambo) Otjimbingwe (Nama/Damara) District Magistrate (German) peasant tenant farmer (Afrikaans) unpaid Jabour, often used in feudal sense of vassal's labour (French) right of lord to deflower a virgin (French) female initiation (Oshiwambo) land of the Ovaherero (Otjiherero) sky, heaven (Otjiherero) headman, counsellor (Oshiwambo) religious revival, 1952 (Oshiwambo) homosexual/effeminate man (Oshiwambo) Farmers' Association (German) right of lord to deflower a virgin (Latin) (drought ot) pounding (eating) of leather clothes, 1928 (Otjiherero) animal pen (modern usage), homestead (older usage, now considered pejorative ) (Afrikaans/German) the right way of doing things, lit . 'being on the right track' (Oshiwambo) head wife (Oshiwambo) holy fire, sacred hearth (Otjiherero) female initiation, western Ovamboland (Oshiwambo) Saturday (Oshiwambo) work performed in return for stock, lit. burden, gift (Oshiwambo, western Ovamboland) traditional goods (Oshiwambo) famine of the dams, 1929-1930 (Oshiwambo) border, separation (Oshiwambo) floodwater channel (Oshiwambo) red flag, Herera troop organisation (Otjiherero) Herera troop organisation (Otjiherero) traditional/indigenous doctors (Oshiwambo) neighbourhoods (Otjiherero) marriage payment, bridewealth (Otjiherero) bridewealth (Oshiwambo) homesteads (Otjiherero) hut (Afrikaans) rebellious (P ortuguese) German colonial troops (lit. protection troops) (German) trek farmer (Afrikaans) whip (Oshiwambo) Herera tro op organisation (German) ethnography (Afrikaans)

xv

..___..r··-··---..."' El

ANGOLA

•,

[tJ

OVAMl3OLAND

·-- .. ..J

[2]

Reserves

1.

Kasupi

2.

Oorloc

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Katiti Scssfon lcin Franzfontcin Otjohoronco Okombahc Otjituo Watcrberc Epukiro Otjimbincwe Aukeicas Rehoboth Gcbict Hoachanas Aminuis Ncuhof Gibcon Berseba Tses Soromas Bondcls

10. 11. 12.

13. 1'1. 15. 16. 17. 18 . 19. 20. 21.

--Railways - ..- .. International

Gobabis

•

16

0

•

17

Maltahohe

z< < 3:

Mariental

/ Gibcon

CJ')

f-

0

c::l

/'1~, .,r'

boundaries 0

..-·

'··- .., ..- -•- .._f "' 100

'------J'-------'

Map I. Namibia ( 1939 ) showing the reserves

·•

200 km

SOUTH AFRICA

xvi

A

A - Section of Berseba Territory procl aim ed as a re serve (I 923) B - Sec tion ofBerse ba Territory purcha sed to form Tses Reserve (I 923) C - W itbo oisen de: farm added to the Tses Reserve (I 923) D - Keetmanshoop Tow nland s E - Ga rinai s Far m

al - Number of black grazing licence holder s

Are a covered by farms owned or leased by white settle rs

0

20

40

60

80

100

km

on each farm

Map 2. Keetman sho op District: Di stribution of black stock-owne rs with grazing licences ( 1918) Source: Based on NAN LKE 7/7/1 Grazing licen ses, monthly retu rn s, district ofKeetmanshoop, March 1918

xvii

Gibeon

Luderitz

Aroab

Warmbad

Reserves I. Rehoboth 2. Aminuis 3. Hoachanas 4. Neuhof 5. Gibeon

6 . Berseba 7 . Tses 8. Soromas 9. Bondelzwarts

I 00 Kilometres

Map 3. Southern Namibia, showing District and Reserve bound aries Source: Adapted from Surv eyo r General's Map of Namibia, 1937 (No 18)

~.... .... South West Uukwaluudhi·\,

Map 4. Ovamboland 1915: Section fallin g within South West Africa showing Neutra l Zone Source : Patricia Haye s, 'A History of the Ovambo of Namibia ca. 1880-1930' (PhD Thes is, University of Cambridge, v. I, p. 352), adapted from NAN Map H3841

Africa

gi

C:., ~

n

:s: 'O

~ ~

:s:;r 0 Q.

=i G

"., Q.

ANGOLA

i::;

::,-

;:,

;:;, '"O

0.,

-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-·-· Ongengae

3 ~-

---

•Edundja

Engela•

Eenhana

Q[

":,- -· ::, ;:,

~

Endolae Ohalusht

C, 0

"'

~

s~ ;:, ~ ,.-z ~., ~s o o' "' ".,-· ;! ~

:!

Q

to' Kavango

Elim

Rehoboth

;,"-

";_,

NAMIBIA

~

:s

.:'

•trl r

-Main roads • Luth eran parish -•-International border

loTsumeb 0

10

20

30

40

50 km

~~

xx

~~

•

• Karibib

Usakos

Aukeigas Roeserve

Khomas Hochland

Farms 1. Gamikaub 2. Ukuib 3. Tsaobismund 4. Palmental

5. Tsaobis 6. Kaltenhausen 7. Davetsaub 8. Erora West

9 . Erora East 10. Neubrunn 11. Okawayo

Map 6. Otjimbingwe Reserve (Karibib District) and farms referred to in chapter 8 Source: Adapted from Union of South Africa, South West Africa, 1937 NAN Map 17

~

Windhoek

Introduction

1

'Trees Never Meet' Mobility & Containment: An Overview 1915-1946 JEREMY

SILVESTER,

& PATRICIA

MARION

WALLACE

HAYES

'Trees Never Meet' - But People Do 'Trees never meet' is a proverb used widely in Namibia. 1 It implies that trees rooted in the ground cannot move, but that people by contrast move constantly and inevitably. It would be impossible to trace or date the origin of this proverb, but it is an appropriate motif for the years of heightened mobility in Namibia between 1915 and 1946. It takes on a fresh power and poignancy in relation to South Africa's determined attempts to fix people in a new colonial landscape. The proverb is a metaphor for the myriad ways in which Namibians undermined the colonial constraints that impinged on them, and the ways in which they took advantage of the new forms of movement that accompanied colonialism. Embedded in it is the perception that stasis only applies to 'nature', not humans - that the latter will inevitably move and connect with one another. This suggestion is profoundly humanising in a colonial world under South African rule which many Namibians were in danger of experiencing as more and more immobilising and alienating. It encapsulates the movements and meetings of humans, as well as ideas. This book is about the mobility of indigenous polities and communities in Namibia, and colonial efforts at containment, during the first three decades of South African colonisation. This followed the transition from German colonial rule in 1915 . Numerous peoples in central and southern Namibia had already undergone processes of fragmentation and regrouping under German rule. 2 Others, mainly beyond the Police Zone,3 were not formally colonised until 1915, but prior to this had undergone various levels of social and economic ' Omiti kavi hakaene, omundu na mundu vehakaena (Otjiherero), !Homkha /guikha ge /hao tama In southern Namibia, Nama-speakers talk of mountains never meeting. 2 German colonial rule of Namibia, begun in 1884, was only consolidated after an intense and prolonged military struggle ( 1904-7), directed particularly against the indigenous communities of southern and central Namibia. 'The 'Police Zone' came into existence from 1906 under German rule. It comprised the central and southern area of Namibia and it was prohibited to trade in guns, horses and alcohol beyond its northern border. The Police Zone was under direct colonial control and whites were permitted to settle there (theoretically under police protection) . Under South African martial law, Proclamation 15 of 1919 decreed that no person could cross the line marking the Police Zone without official permission and this became known as the Red Line. This boundary shifted numerous times during the period of South African rule as white land holdings in the north-central areas expanded. ha (Nama/Damara).

3

4

Jeremy Silvester, Marion Wallace, Patricia Hayes

reorientation through their incorporation of the commodities of merchant capitalism and their adoption and reworking of its symbols and relations. 4 Namibia is striking for the unevenness in the timing and spread of new capitalist and colonial relations. At the beginning of the period covered by this book (1915-1946) the colonial state in Namibia was ill-formed and weak; by the end of it, the state had consolidated itself to a considerable degree. The papers published here suggest that, in this transition from colonial weakness to consolidation, the geographic space of the country was demarcated, dominated and defined, and the contract labour system which linked north and south had begun to entrench itself. This process was paralleled, particularly from the midl 930s, by an increasing tendency on the part of the state to intervene in social and cultural matters. This increased colonial control over indigenous mobility also meant that social and cultural spaces became the site of intensifying struggles (which continued in the period after 1946). In this introduction, we shall both explore and contextualise this largely interwar period in Namibia and attempt to outline some of the shifts mentioned above. We do not follow the convention in edited collections of summarising each chapter in the book at this stage. Instead, we rely on a system of crossreferencing as we raise the main themes and conclusions arising from this collaborative research on mobility and control. We begin by looking at a sample of 'movements of the imagination' in a variety of changing Namibian landscapes, provoked by encounters with the new colonialism following South African occupation. We then discuss historiography and method, trace the main patterns of movement and their increasing control under colonialism, and follow this with a careful periodisation of such processes. The second half of this introduction then sketches out the economic paradigms of the inter-war period, the machinery of state and divisions among white settlers, and the course and political effects of Christianisation. We conclude with an overview of the ethnographies that were produced in this period and their purposes. Interwoven throughout this text, of course, are the implicit and explicit questions of resistance that inevitably arise when dealing with colonialism.

Histories, Symbols & 'Nations' The movement of people in an intense period of change became historically charged and invested with symbolism, closely connected to the formation or re-formation of group identities. Thus the retreat and defeat of German forces in 1915 opened the way for different Herero- and Nama-speaking communities in central and southern Namibia to accelerate the processes of cultural and symbolic reconstruction. The removal of German colonial power, which had repressed specific symbols and caused particular leaders to be imprisoned or go into exile, meant that space now opened up for their return. Edward Fredericks, for example, returned to Bethanie from his confinement in Damaraland. 5 Isaac Witbooi, son of the famous Hendrik Witbooi, was one of the few • The Caprivi was an exception. From 1914 until 1931 it was administered by British Bechuanaland, at which date it was passed over to South African administration. 'Edward was the second son of Joseph Fredericks. Joseph had been the accepted leader of the people living in the Bethanie region from I 868 to 1893. Joseph's eldest son, Paul, had succeeded him, but perished in the notorious prison camp on Shark Island at Luderitz during the I 904-7 war. NAN ADM Assist. Mil. Mag. Bethany to Sec. Prot., 19 Feb. 1916.

'Trees Never Meet'

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survivors of a group deported by the Germans to the Cameroons, and returned to Gibeon in 1915 .6 Neither carried the same potency or threat for South Africa at the dawn of its colonial adventure as they had for Germany. Other leaders, such as Samuel Maharero 7 of the Herero and Jacobus Christian of the Bondelzwarts, 8 had made their own way into exile with a nucleus of supporters. They had struggled to construct an alternative economic base in their new locations and were more cautious about returning, initially remaining in exile in Botswana and South Africa respectively. Isaac Witbooi's honeymoon with the new colonial administration, however, was soon ended. In some ways his drive to re-establish authority resembled the efforts of leaders further north in Ovamboland, such as Mandume ya Ndemufayo in 1915-17 and Martin ka Dikwa in the early 1940s, to recentralise judicial power in their own hands. In Witbooi's case there was a most interesting intrusion of black authority into settled white space, because he appointed lieutenants on white farms to send cases of offenders (mainly adulterers) to his court in Gibeon. 9 As in the case oflipumbu ya Tshilongo discussed here in Wolfram Hartmann's chapter, indigenous authority was reasserted in a highly gendered way through claims of control over women's sexuality. 10 The local Military Magistrate refused to countenance this reclamation of authority and Witbooi and some of his leading councillors were arrested in 1918. Men in the Gibeon community expressed their support for their imprisoned leader by reviving the headgear oflsaac's father Hendrik, who had effectively fought the Germans for many years prior to his death in 1905 . 11 A local white farmer named Lohr viewed the wearing of white cloths on hats as both an 'impudent ovation for Witbooi' and an act of 'defiant insubordination' . 12 This incident, however, as well as the wearing of top hats by church-going groups (discussed 6 Hendrik Witbooi (!Nanseb /Giibemab) had been born in South Africa around 1830, but travelled to Namibia with his community, which established itself at Gibeon in 1863. During the 1880s Witbooi became the dominant leader in southern Namibia before eventually dying of wounds received whilst fighting German troops in 1905 . Isaac served as the leader at Gibeon until 1928 . Annemarie Heywood and Eben Maasdorp (trans.), The Hendrik Witbooi Papers (Windhoek, 1989); NAN SWAA 1851 A396 / 8, Lohr to Col. de Jager, Windhoek, 28 July 1918; NAN ' Programme . Heroes Day. 1990 . 2- 4 November 1990 ' . 7 Samuel Maharero, son of the nineteenth -century Herem leader, Maharero, succeeded his father in 1890 . He signed a treaty with the Germans in 1894, but in 1904 Jed the anti-colonial rebellion. After the Herem defeat he went into exile in Botswana . • The Bondelzwarts or !Kami ;