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3. 1907 - 1958 EKH chronology 101220
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Etosha-Kunene Histories – A Timeline of Historical References: 3. 1907 – 1958 =
Game Reserve no. 2 / Etosha Game Reserve & ‘Kaokoveld’ Native Reserves
 
Building on literature review by Sian Sullivan and Ute Dieckmann for
Etosha-Kunene Histories

Last edited 21/02/2023 [SS]

© This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Etosha-Kunene Histories – A Timeline of Historical References

3. 1907 – 1958 = Game Reserve no. 2 / Etosha Game Reserve & ‘Kaokoveld’ Native Reserves


Sian Sullivan and Ute Dieckmann

Originalkarte des Herero & Kaoko-Landes, by A. Petermann, drawing journeys and observations by Rhenish missionaries,
especially J. Böhm and F. Bernsmann, published in Perthes 1878, p. Tafel 18.
Source:
https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/251774e0-e946-0133-1d3d-0050569601ca-4, 10 November 2020.

The shifting boundaries of Game Reserve No. 2 / Etosha National Park, 1907–1970.
Source: Dieckmann 2007, p. 76, reproduced with permission.

To improve the future we must first understand the present,

and to really understand the present we must know the past.

(Owen-Smith 2010, p. iv)

This is the third part of a timeline recording literature and other references relevant for understanding the evolution of conservation, land and environmental policies, its impact on indigenous communities in ‘Etosha-Kunene’, Namibia and ethnicity in the research area. It builds on literature review compiled by Sian Sullivan, initially for the Future Pasts research project that focused primarily on Kunene Region, and especially the histories of the area around Sesfontein / !Nani|aus, and by Ute Dieckmann, initially for the Collaborative Research Centre 389 (Arid Climate, Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa) at the University of Cologne and subsequently for the Xoms |Omis Project (Etosha Heritage Project) in Namibia.[1]

The timeline collates references to historical colonial interactions with the broader region, indigenous/local concerns and changing issues and policies regarding land allocation and biodiversity conservation. The Kunene Region of independent Namibia amalgamates a number of prior administrative areas and boundaries that reflected complex interactions between colonial powers and local peoples, often with devastating impacts on the latter
[2]. The current Etosha National Park belongs to three different regions, Omusati, Oshana and Oshikoto. Understanding contemporary conservation and cultural concerns can be aided by information regarding the pasts that underscore the present. It is with this consideration in mind that the timeline here is shared.

Timeline periodisation:

1. pre-colonial to 1884

2. 1884 – 1907 = colonial reorganisation prior to gazetting of ‘Game Reserve no. 2’

3. 1907 – 1958 = Game Reserve no. 2 / Etosha Game Reserve & ‘Kaokoveld’ Native Reserves, prior to move of western boundaries to Ugab and Hoanib Rivers

4. 1958 – 1970 = ENP to Atlantic Ocean in west, prior to ‘Damaraland’ & ‘Kaokoland’ homelands created; Etosha National Park (ENP) reduced in size

5. 1971 – 1997 = fenced and reduced size Etosha National Park; communal area residents alienated from wildlife

6. 1998 – present = CBNRM / communal area conservancies & ENP

Notes
1. Many of the places mentioned below are mapped with information from literature review here or here.


2. Follow these links for
 full bibliography and a list of abbreviations.

3. A double-asterix [**] is a marker that there is something to be checked or added at this point in the text.


4. We retain identifying terms used in historical texts that carry derogatory connotations
only when quoting directly from these texts, for three reasons:
i. these narratives and the ways they are worded can add understanding of the dynamic colonial zeitgeist infusing these texts on the part of their (predominantly white, male) authors;
ii. identifying terms can sometimes help clarify contemporary concerns about who was affected or were the protagonists of recorded historical events;
iii. these texts paradoxically remain some of the possibilities for making visible the past presence and experiences of a wider diversity of people affected by historical circumstances, but who were unable to leave their own written records.
It goes without saying that we do not endorse the prejudices often also found in the words of historical observers.
 

5. Sometimes, and especially going into the past, different authors attach the same events to different dates. We retain such discrepancies as we are interest here as much in how authors write about events in the past, as in what events are recorded to have happened in the past.

6. All included images are at reduced resolution.

7. Information, corrections and/or connections are welcome!

Please email etoshakunenehistories@gmail.com

Date

Recorded Event/s

1907

The settler population is 7,110, and cattle owned by European settlers is 52,531 and small stock is 208,480[3]. Police force numbers 84 Europeans at 32 stations with the largest number – 82 personnel ‘including one warrant officer and nine sergeants’ - in Grootfontein[4].

Native Ordinances issued by Governor Friedrich von Lindequist in August legally recognise distinctions between ‘whites’ and ‘indigenes’[5] so that ‘confiscations all over the German controlled territory had become effectual in legal terms’ and ‘[t]hereafter, African ownership of large stock required special permission, the size of settlements were limited and Africans were forced to carry passes [brass tokens worn around the neck[6]] and subjected to rigid legislation regulating dependent working conditions’[7], without which they could be punished by law as vagrants[8].

Thus,

[a] further Ordinance [following Ordinance 151 of 1905] of 1907 authorized the confiscation of property of the Witboois, Bethanie group, Fransman Hottentots, Stuurmanne, Velskoendraers, and also that of the Rooi Nasie of Hoachanas and the Bondels, excluding those of Swartmodder. In terms of the original treaties the rights of the Basters of Rehoboth and the Nama of Berseba were not affected, and furthermore the area of Okombahe was allocated to the Damara for their loyalty during the rebellion[9]. Certain residential and grazing rights were also granted to other Nama groups during 1907.[10]

After the war, white settlement in the area thus increased significantly with regulationslaying the basis for the establishment of white settler agriculture.[11] Schmokel comments that,

[t]he 1904-1907 wars … laid the basis for the establishment of white settler agriculture, and its peculiar development as a political command economy, in which the disposition of the factors of production, land, labor, and capital, was governed not by market factors but by political fiat.[12]

Simultaneously, shortages of labour meant that by this year police and military patrols ‘were rounding up Bushmen and allocating them to farmers as laborers’, as well as mines: ‘a military patrol from the Waterberg rounded up some fifty Bushmen in the vicinity of Tsumeb and transferred them to the mines as laborers’[13]. Thus,

[a]significant artefact of Germany’s colonial rule was the establishment of the so-called “Police Zone”; effectively separating southern from northern Namibia. Within the Police Zone, direct administrative control allowed for the settlement of Europeans and the confining of the indigenous non-labouring population to Reserves. To the north, ‘indirect rule relied on customary law through the ‘traditional’ authorities[14]. This division instituted the roots of the essentially dualistic economy which has been entrenched within Namibia ever since; the communal northern areas supplied labour to the southern commercial areas, whose economy was buffered by strict restrictions on the movement of livestock and other agricultural produce from the north into the Police Zone. The erecting of the Veterinary Cordon Fence, or ‘Red Line’ to prevent the spreading of foot and mouth disease and lung sickness into the commercial area, strengthens the geographical reality of this artificial division between the northern and southern areas.[15]

A central ‘register or natives’ was to be developed, work contracts regulated, settlers given ‘the right to engage in “fatherly chastisement” of their workers’ and ‘loiterers’ ‘punished as vagrants’[16]. As Gordon writes, these ‘sets of regulations locked together in a mutually supporting way to forcibly incorporate indigenous people into the settler-controlled economy’, and indeed the Windhuker Nachtrichten is quoted as saying ‘[t]he native must be made aware that he has a right to exist only in direct dependence on the territorial authorities; without this, he is in a certain sense an outlaw: a livelihood outside of working for whites is not available to him’[17]. As Jill Kinahan writes of the three Imperial directives ‘passed to exploit the survivors of then uprisings in forced labour’,

[t]he indigenous population was permanently barred from owning land and raising cattle; all Africans were required to wear numbered metal pass tags about their necks from the age of seven, and anyone unable to prove their source of livelihood could be prosecuted for vagrancy … The structures of indigenous social formations and hierarchies were thereby broken and their self-sufficiency almost destroyed … Monopolistic capitalism [e.g. through the German South West Africa Company / Kolonialgesellschaft] succeeded independent commercial exchange[18].

The settlement border between northern and central parts of Namibia ‘was established to serve as a Police Zone border that would aid in advancing European settlement efforts in the colonial heartland - the area known as the Police Zone’[19] - see map below. The district officer (Bezirksamtmann) expresses hope that there is a future for tobacco and cotton cultivation in Outjo district[20].

Wegener writes in this year that the Tsusamas Bergdamara in north-west Namibia,

remained distant to the uprising, but had to do without their faithful evangelist for a while, who was held in custody in Outjo to see if he might not have been an accessory to the rebellious plans of the chief of Franzfontein.

   After his complete innocence had been proven, he returned to Tsumamas; immediately his people, who had also dispersed from the place because of the drought, gathered around him again and planted new gardens.

   It is one of the most painful consequences of the German settlement of the country that this place is now lost as a site of blessed missionary work, since it has been sold by the government to a settler. As a result, the Bergdamra have no choice but to move to Okombahe or Gaub, except for a few who have retained their earnings at Tsumamas. Some of them have increased their numbers in Outjo, so that there are now about 400 Bergdamra there. The work in Outjo is still very much in its infancy.[21]

‘Map of the area to be placed under government police protection in Deutsch Sudwestafrika’. Source: Miescher 2009, p.84f.

Regarding the ‘enactments concerning Natives’ (Die Eingeborenenverordnungen) following the 1904-07 war, Dieckmann writes that:

[i]n August 1907 new enactments concerning Natives were issued as a direct consequence of the war. Their aim was to regulate and control the Natives’ lives in a totalistic manner. These included the pass – or registration – law (Verordnung betreffend die Paßpflicht von Eingeborenen), the regulations relating to the “control” of Natives (Verordnung betreffend Maßregeln zur Kontrolle der Eingeborenen) and the laws relating to labour contracts (Verordnung betreffend Dienst- und Arbeitsverträge mit Eingeborenen).

   [73] The pass law required that all Africans over the age of seven (with the exception of the Rehoboth Basters) had to register with the authorities. They were handed out a metal badge which served as a pass (and had to be displayed prominently on the person) and a service book (Dienstbuch). The law empowered every white person to arrest Africans without passes and to hand them over to the police. The order for the “control” of Natives stipulated that no African could obtain right or title to fixed property, or own cattle and horses without the consent of the Governor. Certain exceptions were made to the ban on the ownership of livestock after 1912. It was also forbidden for more than 10 native families to stay on any one farm or property. The law relating to labor contracts laid down that all Natives without visible means of support … should be employed. Flogging was used as the simplest and least expensive form of punishment during the German period. It was used so extensively that the Imperial Government in Berlin complained that the number of Africans being punished in Namibia was out of all proportion to the population, and commented on the frequent recourse of corporal punishment. This may have led to a further diffusion on the punishment system (as the Blue Book of 1918 suggests…) whereby the doctrine of Väterliches Züchtigungsrecht (fatherly right of correction) became a semi-legal category. This meant that the German employer had the “parental” right to administer punishment, including beatings[22].

   These enactments formed the legal framework of the German native policy for the remaining time of their occupation. The intention was the creation of a complete and perfect system of control. A main aim was to introduce a uniform economy to the colony, this required an even distribution of the African population as labour force for each farm and company[23]. Consequently, the enactments drawn up on the political level, combined with changed attitudes of both settlers and officers on the local level, transformed the living conditions of all Nambians fundamentally. For people living primarily from hunting and gathering, these enactments implied that every (unemployed) person could be charged for vagrancy.[24]

It is in this context that a series of three Game Reserves / Wildschutzgebiete[25] are proclaimed in the wake of the German colonial war, through Proclamation No. 88, issued on 22 March by Imperial Governor of Deutsch Südwestafrika, Dr Friedrich von Lindequist[26]. To protect wildlife considered over-exploited since the 1850s, especially in northern areas, hunting is prohibited from these areas ‘without written permission of the district office’ and vehicle traffic is also prohibited[27]:

1. Game Reserve No. 1 is north-east of Grootfontein ‘and protected game in the Omuramba Omutako’[28];

2. Game Reserve No. 2[5] – at the time, the largest conservation area in the world – is from Etosha Pan to the coast and includes Kaokoveld (today’s northern Kunene) (where poor field Hereros with little livestock – ovaTjimbas – were known to be living[29]), and removes the potential threat of settlement by white farmers[30];

3. Game Reserve No. 3 was south of the Swakop River and east of the British enclave of Walvis Bay[31]: Game Reserve No. 3, today’s Namib-Naukluft National Park, restricts the lifestyle and mobility of the !Khuiseb peoples / ǂAonin[32], which occurs without consultation with local people and rules hunting in the park illegal, although the ǂAonin already controlled hunting through an established traditional hunting season (!amis). Herding and all other activities were restricted to the river and official ownership of the land and resources was shifted to the state. Schutztruppen posts (i.e. ‘stations manned by colonial protection troops’) are positioned at Ururas and Haigamkap ‘in Topnaar territory’[33]. Repeated changes in park regulations have also brought ǂAonin lifestyles in conflict with Park management, resulting in incidences of direct confrontation between the two[34].]

Game Reserves / Wildschutzgebiet proclaimed through Proclamation No. 88, 1907. Source: scanned from Bridgeford 2018, p. 13.

According to this ordinance, hunting was prohibited except with the written permission from the Governor and vehicular traffic required written permission of the district office[35]. Lieutenant Adolff Fischer, commander of Fort Namutoni at the time, became the first warden of the Game Reserve No. 2.[36] 

The explicit reason for the establishment of Game Reserves was to protect animals in specific areas, since game had become increasingly scarce in the territory during the preceding century. Economic motivations are clearly articulated in the explanatory paper for establishing the Game Reserves:

[e]verybody knows how much economic value game has in the country. In some cuisines, only game is served as fresh meat. Also the utility value of the skins for blankets and for making straps and whips is known to everyone. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make statistics, but if one wanted to calculate the many hundredweights of game captured in the country every year on the basis of average slaughter prices, it would be estimated to be more than 200,000 m. If you take this sum as an annual pension, the capital involved would mean a fortune of many millions of dollars that we have in our game stock. We all receive this pension free of charge from the country, and so our wildlife provides a very significant part of our common wealth, which every inhabitant of the reserve should be scrupulous about protecting, as it is in the interest of every individual. ... The benefits that the game reserves would bring to the country would be as follows: centres would be created where game would have to be moved from the grazing areas there and would be brought to farms where it could be shot and exploited. African game is very variable and so the supply of game from the reserves could be extended to areas far from the reserves... The following comments should also be made on the various paragraphs of this Regulation: Concerning § 1: The reserves indicated as 1-3 include areas which, for the most part, are not, or temporarily not, suitable for farming. Farms which are located within the reserves or which would later be sold, for example, enjoy the exemptions of § 7.[37]

It is later observed that,

[i]nitially, the definition of Etosha’s boundaries made little impact on the movement of wild animals, except for the legal nicety that after crossing a mapped line they were not protected. Physically the boundaries consisted of surveyed points and, later, cleared fire-breaks along some of them. Migratory herds were therefore unrestrained in their movement along traditional routes.[38]

The proclamation of huge areas of land as ‘Game Reserves’ in this historical moment was connected the violent depopulation of areas of southern and central Namibia through the German colonial war of 1904-7 and the clearance of indigenous Africans and restrictions on owning livestock effect through various mechanisms.

Gordon (1992) noted that all three game reserves encompassed land inhabited by “Bushmen”.[39]He further comments,

All the proclaimed royal game, by coincidence, happened to be those that were relatively easily hunted by local indigenes without firearms. This act was part of a wider policy to create a rural proletariat.[40]

With regard to the control of mobily, Gordon further comments,

Moreover, two of the three game reserves, namely Game Reserve No. 1, which was centered on Karakuwisa, and Game reserve No. 2, centered on the Etosha Pan, straddled the main routes to the labor reservoirs of Ovamboland and the Kavango River, and their reputed population of ‘wild Bushmen’ was later to form a convenient deterrent to prevent desertion of migrant contract workers.[41]

Miescher points out that the establishment of Game Reserve No. 2 and No. 3 should be seen in the context of control of mobility on important trade routes to the northern areas and to Angola.[42] He further argues that game was not only to be protected as economic but also as a social resource.[43]

The boundaries of the game reserves consisted of surveyed points and later, along some of them, of cleared fire breaks. Berry comments,

[i]nitially, the definition of Etosha’s boundaries made little impact on the movement of wild animals, except for the legal nicety that after crossing a mapped line they were not protected. Physically the boundaries consisted of surveyed points and, later, cleared fire-breaks along some of them. Migratory herds were therefore unrestrained in their movement along traditional routes.[44] 

Lieutenant Adolff Fischer, commander of Fort Namutoni at the time, became the first warden of the Game Reserve No. 2.[45]

Fischer comments on the Hai||om,

With the advancement of settlement, the Heigum will soon face the choice of becoming farm labourers or moving to areas where they will eventually disappear under more unfavorable living conditions. The tribe of the Heigum is not essential for the development of the colony.[46]

The geographer-anthropologist Leonard Schultze publishes research coining the lumping term ‘Khoisan’, although based on a small sample size[47] and observations gained through acknowledged support by Naturforscher (natural scientist) General von Trotha and accompanying ‘the German troops in their last great flanking movement, which led to the death of Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi, and then … Hauptmann Ludwig von Estorff in his famous tracking expedition, which pursued fleeing Nama and their allies to Rietfontein in the southern Kalahari’[48].

The geographer Siegfried Passarge publishes research from ‘a few months in the Kalahari on an expedition led by Lord Lugard and accompanied by a Dutch-speaking Bushman’ with information based mostly on ‘white traders or Bechuanas, since he found it difficult to get information directly from Bushman’ and asserts that Bushmen are ‘incapable of adapting to agriculture or pastoralism’ and thus ‘that the only viable policy in a settlement situation, was extermination’:

What can the civilized human manage to do with people who stand at the level of that sheep stealer? Jail and the correctional house would be a reward, and besides do not even exist in that country. Does any possibility exist other than shooting them?[49]

In his book published this year - Die Buschmänner der Kalahari - Passarge distinguishes two major groups in the Kalahari - the Kaukau- and the Ngamibushmen - on the ground that they spoke different languages[50]. These groups were further sub-divided into various ‘tribes’. The Kaukaubushmen included the “²Aukwe“, “Ssu²gnassi“, “²Kung“ and “Hei4um“ (Hei4umga)., referring to Werner (1906) when pointing out to the close relation between “²Kung“ and “Hei4um”[51]. This was most probably the reason why he classified “Hei4um” as Kaukaubushmen. Without seriously theorising about their origin, Passarge describes differences in language and dialect and in cultural traits for the various ‘tribes’. Importantly, he doubted the general assumption that Bushmen had no social organisation other than family and band or any permanent settlements or property. He brought historical dimensions and outside influences into the discussion:

[w]hat has been overlooked, however, is that the presence of a European hunter and trader has temporarily shaken the existing social conditions and has had the effect of shooting birds at a small Thuringian town or carnival at the honourable citizens of the laudable city of Cologne[52].[53] 

The earlier edition of his book (including the above mentioned hypothesis) had already been criticised polemically by Fritsch in 1906, who apparently felt personally offended. Fritsch ridiculed the findings of Passarge and doubted the influence of the traders on the social organisation of the Bushmen. Nevertheless, Passarge’s book was of some importance and was often referred to: Seiner, a physical anthropologist, thus refers to Passarge when presenting his classification of Kaukau- and Ngami-Bushmen [54]

The German settler and head of the Outjo Farmer’s association (Boerevereniging) for some years[55] Carl Schlettwein, publishes a book Der Farmer in Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika (the farmer in Southwest-Africa)[56].

Paul Rohrbach’s book „Deutsche Kolonialwirtschaft - Südwest-Afrika [German colonial economy South Westafrica) is published in 1907 in Berlin.[57] Rohrbach was appointed by the Foreign Office as Settlement Commissioner for German South-West Africa in 1903. He retired from colonial service in 1906. In the first part of his book he describes in five chapters the “land” (divided in chapters about “The Namib”, “The Hereroland”, “The Etosha basin”, “Windhoek and Bastardland” and “The Namaland”.  These chapters are interesting in as far as he describes the landscape along the paths which were known up to then, providing insights in the way the Germans started to explore the land. He also assessed the landscape in terms of the value for agricultural activities. In the second part he assesses the “economy“, focussing on the economy (and economic potential) of the colony, dealing with the historical developments and the German efforts to colonize the territory leading to the 1904-1907 wars. In this part he also considers the value of Namibian communities in terms of their “economic value” as labour force. More details from his book can be found here**.

1907-1911

Expeditions by Kuntz to Kaokoveld inform the Sprigade map of 1913[58].

1908

German victory in the colonial war is prevented until this year, primarily through the guerilla tactics of Hendrik Witbooi[59]. In April, diamonds are found at Kolmanskuppe, in the concession held by the prospecting company Pomona Mining Company[60] established by the British firm of De Pass, Spence and Company (who have a fishing and seal industry on the Namibian coast that exports oil and dried fish to Cape Town[61]), acquiring from ‘a local Nama headman’ a concession to prospect for an area off the Angra Pequeña coast to longitude 15°50’[62]. In September the area south and east of Lüderitz is declared ‘restricted’[63] – ‘Sperrgebiet’ – with ‘the sole right to prospect and mine minerals … granted to the Detsche Kolonialgesellschaft für Südwestafika (DKG)[64].

On 13 March 1908, the 91 km long railway line Otavi-Grootfontein is completed, built by the South West Afrika Company was built to unlock the company’s land and mine holdings in the Grootfontein district and encouraging white settlers to the area[65]. It serves also public transport and ‘thus creates a comfortable connection for the seat of the district-management [Grootfontein]’.[66] Owambo contract labourers number around 4,000 and military personal 3,988[67]. Settler-owned cattle in Grootfontein district number 7,600[68].

In the Outjo District rains are bad and grazing is scarce, but surveyor Dr. Gulland was asked to continue with surveying farms with some farmers acquiring large farms whilst having only 5 oxen and 15 small stock. Import of Afrikaaner bulls from Capeland and 34 farms allotted in this district, but 5 not run.[69]

Proclamations prohibit hunting out of season and without a written license.[70]During the German period the presence of the Haiǁom in the game reserve No. 2 (Etosha) is tolerated and the prohibition of hunting in this area applied only to hunting with guns, but not to the use of bows and arrows. In 1908, it is suggested that more Bushmen from the area outside the reserve should be settled near Namutoni.[71] The enactments concerning ‘natives’ are not easy to realise with regard to ‘Bushmen’, as the report of the station commander of Namutoni to the district commander if Grootfontein testifies:

[a]ll [Bushmen] have been thoroughly briefed on the meaning of the tags issued to them and appear to have understood. This is evidenced by a few cases where individual Bushmen have disappeared again, previously having handed their passport tags to another Bushman for delivery to the district office.[72]

A colonial report written by a Major J.F. Herbst [secretary for South West Africa, see 1918] describes the Bushmen as “the keenest hunters and finest trackers in the world”[73].The Deutsche Kolonialzeitung picks up idea of creating a Bushman reserve in Namibia to correspond with the ones existing for ‘Herero and Hottentots’ ‘where they can maintain their lifestyle so important for scholarly research’[74]. The geographer Passarge, who in 1907 after a few months in the Kalahari proclaimed for Bushman populations ‘that the only viable policy in a settlement situation, was extermination’ (see above) is appointed ‘to the inaugural Chair of Geography at the Hamburger Kolonial-Institut, the only geography department devoted solely to colonial geography[75]. In his book Südafrika Passarge writes about the ‘Bushmen’ that:

[t]he Bushmen, who once inhabited all of South Africa, are driven back into the dry region of the Kalahari. In the Boer highlands[?] they might have disappeared completely or - at most only some old individuals have survived. The situation in the southwest African highlands is not quite clear. Although Bushman tribes are in the Namib and on the plateaus of the table mountains in Great -Namaland, but it is doubtful whether they are pure Bushmen or around hybrids of Hottentot and Bushmen or just only impoverished Hottentot.

   In the southern Kalahari live certainly a number of Bushman tribes, including the Nusan, Magwikwe Gainin, Kung and others. But they are mostly subordinated to the local Betschuanen in the southern Kalahari and maybe already strongly mixed. The comparatively purest and the most numerous have survived in the middle Kalahari. The northwest of this territory is occupied by the large group of the Kaukau, namely the sandfeld between the Okawango, Tauche, the Chansefeld and the South West African Highlands. It breaks down into several tribes, like the Aukwe, Kung, Heiümga, Ssugnassi and others.[76]

Passarge writes further that,

[p]robably the oldest Hottentot tribe in southwest Africa Highlands, the Topnaars are living in the Kaokofeld.[77]

He continues with a racial description of the various groups mentioning the ‘Bergdamara’, who according to him, have not yet been studied in detail ‘anthropologically’[78]:

Moreover, the mountain Damara already seem to be quite mixed, … As little as we know about them, I would like to state with all reserve the possibility that the Berg Damara are the remains of the " Urneger.[79]

He reports that the Bergdamara were mainly living in the western Damara highlands in the area of the mission station Okombahe[80]. He also mentions that while the Owaherero were living mainly in Damaraland and in the southern Kaokofeld, the impoverished and poor Owatyimba who were leading a ‘Bushman’ life were roaming around in the northern Kaokofeld[81].

With regard to “cultural conditions” and “settlements” Passarge mentions the following: Bushmen and some Hottentots, Bergdamara, Owatyimba and partly also Owambanderu lead a life as hunters and gatherers. The three latter tribes do so because they were forced to and, as soon as they are able, they breed and raise livestock and possibly also arable farming. For example, a large part of the Berg Damara were settled at the Okombahe mission station west of Omaruru and live there mainly from horticulture and livestock breeding.[82]


The “Deutsches Kolonial Handbuch” of Fitzner (see 1896, 1901)[83] appears again but the structure has changed: Population, commercial traffic, customs tariff, postal system, railways, shipping traffic, shipping connections, colonial societies, missionary societies, budget, personalia. Remarkably, under the section “personalia”[84] (100ff) the individual stations, shops, but also farms with owners are listed, in  alphabetical order (with districts in brackets), e.g.

Chutzaub [Bez . Outjo], Farmer: Flechsig & Woldert; Dornpütz [Bez . Outjo, Farmer: Artur Schilling; Franzfontein [Bez. Outjo ], police: Borchart , Feldwebel., shops and pubs: Hubert Janson ; Carl Schweickhardt; Goreis [Bez . Outjo]., Farmer: Paul Russmann; Kheinatzeb close to Franzfontein [Bez. Outjo], Farmer: Carl Schweikhardt ; G. Hofmeister; Okaukwejo [Bez . Outjo], Distriktschef: Leutnant Freiherr von Brand zu Neidstein, postal aid office: E . Lenßen, shops: Damara - und Namaqua – Trading Company (H . Stein , Vertreter ); H. E. Lenßen; Zessfontein [Bez. Outjo], Distriktschef: Oberleutnant Rosendahl, government doctor: Oberarzt Jungeis; shop: C . Schlettwein & Co. ( Kaunath , Vertreter ).[85] 

1908-1909

The Austrian Rudolf Poech travels ‘from Swakopmund through Windhoek and the Kalahari to the Victoria Falls’, returns to South Africa and then makes ‘a rapid foray up to the Southern Kalahari’, amassing ‘the world’s largest bushmen skull collection’[86].

1908-1910

João de Almeida is Governor of Mossamedes district ‘when part of the area was still beyond the control of Portuguese colonial forces’ and later [1935] publishes a book reporting on ‘Himba mercenaries, heavily armed young young men and a “corpo de irregulars” [‘irregular body’] along with their leader Vita Tom’[87].

Vita Tom and his unit of mercenaries in southern Angola raound 1908-1910. Source: Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 286 from Almeida 1935.

Apparently Himba/Herero mercenaries in southern Angola, around 1908-1910. Source: Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 286, from Almeida 1935.

1909

Overview map, Central and North Namibia, 1909. Source: Miescher 2009, p. 94f.

Under the Self-Government Ordinance the German Protectorate is divided into Districts / Bezirke, each administered by a District Administrator (Bezirksamtmann)[88]. The beginning of the diamond rush in southern Namibia[89]. A Landesrat, i.e. advisory body, of 15 elected and 15 appointed members is established in Windhoek, devolving power from Berlin to German settlers to approve regulations concerning ‘native affairs’[90]. A British Foreign Office report observes that General Trotha’s war against the Herero was one of extermination and that there is both high rates of forced labour and corporal punishment in the country[91].

Some amendments are made to the 1902 game / hunting ordinance, making:

provision for the Governor to give permission for any of the pro­tected game to be shot for"economic or scientific reasons". A general closed hunting season from "November to the end of February also came into force, although the District Chief still had the authority to shorten or lengthen the hunting season according to conditions in his district. One also had to obtain the permission of landowners to hunt on their land.[92]

The military station in Sesfontein is reportedly closed in this year and ‘handed over to the colonial police who stationed three policemen’ here[93]. The German Kaoko Land and Mining Company sponsors an expedition by the German Kuntz to Kaokoland and the Norwegian Toenissen[94]. 

Külz’s book Deutsch Südwestafrika is published in this year, describing Outjo district [Bezirk] as encompassing the whole north-west[95]:

[t]he district extends from the Ugab River to the north-west over the the vast area of the Kaokofeld and the area east of it up to Ambolande [Ovamboland] and the Etoschapfanne. Despite the large spatial extent, the district is economically not very well developed. A large part of the Kaokofield is not yet known at all. 137 whites live in the whole district. The indigenous population is also small. About 100 Ovambos, 200 Hereros, 1000 Bergdamaras, 200 Hottentot and 150 Bushmen are the known numbers of the natives there. In addition, 1000 Bushmen and 1000 Bergdamaras might roam the inaccessible areas and mountains. The economic development of the district is still in its infancy. Of the 36 existing farms, 30 are in operation with 3200 head of cattle, 5300 head of cattle, 5300 head meat sheep, 143 wool sheep and 4800 goats. The water conditions on the farms are not unfavourable; they are next to 35 natural water points, 30 wells were built…. Most of the district is of course privately owned by the Kaoko-Land- and Mining Company. From the Kunene to the Ugab it owns an area which, at 105 000 square kilometres, is about as large as Bavaria, Württemberg and Hessen [German federal states/regions] combined. The company has spent about 400 000 marks on its territory: for an expedition and salaries; any significant economic activity is, however, still outstanding and is of not relevant when considering the economic situation of the Outjo.[96]

For the Okaukwejo [Okaukeujo] area, Külz reports around 40 white settlers and states:

[t]he pasture between Outjo and Okaukwejo is of the best quality. The area is characterised by its particular richness of game, to which protection a game reserve stretching eastwards from here to Namutoni has been created.[97] 

Otjitambi, located north-west of Outjo, was according to Külz formerly the main settlement [“Hauptsitz”] of the Zwartboihottentotten, who were later resettled at Franzfontein and were then a well-managed farm.[98] For Franzfontein, he reports the former name “Ombombo”, which was a police station since 1900, and describes the people and history of conflicts.[99] In this year Outjo sees the foundation of a butchery cooperation in Outjo, from which cattle are driven to Karibib, transported from there by train to Swakopmund, slaughtered there by registered butcher and brought to the market, with income divided between shareholders[100].

For Grootfontein district, Külz reports:

[b]efore the railway was built, the main access road from Waterberg went to Otavi and Grootfontein, but there was also a road from Outjo up the Ugab valley to Otavi. On the way there, at the rich watering place of Naidaus, Bushmen hordes had settled under a chief Aribib. The area was considered to lie masterless between Herero and Amboland and as such was occupied by the Germans. In 1892 it was handed over to the South West Africa Company through the so-called Damaraland Concession; the area of society thus covers a large and valuable part of the district.[101]

Remarkably, although Külz described different treaties signed by indigenous chiefs and the Germans in detail, he does not mention the treaty between the Germans and Aribib.[102]

According to Külz, there are 85 farms in the Grootfontein district, of which 67 are managed by their owners, 4 of farm managers and 14 not at all, and there are 7600 cattle, 3400 meat sheep, 3400 goats and 300 wool sheep.[103] With regard to agriculture he reports for the district the following:

6000 hundredweights of corn have recently produced on the entire farms but no doubt that this production is very capable of expansion. The same applies to horticulture, practiced on 50 farms as a second economy. Potatoes, pumpkins, melons, tobacco and the local vegetables provide good yields.[104] 

The development of the district was less “disrupted” by the “Herero-uprising” than other areas of the country as “only a few Hereros” were in the area at that time, and “the white population was rarely in contact with them.”[105] 462 whites, among them 279 Germans and a considerable number of Boers, around 800 Ovambos, 3800 Hereros, 2500 Bergdamara, 300 Hottentotten and 4000 “roaming” Bushmen are living in the district.[106]

This description contradicts the diary entries of Rohrbach somehow (see below)

Paul Rohrbach publishes his book “Aus Südwest-Afrikas schweren Tagen” (From Southwest Africa's difficult days).[107] This book contains a selection of his diary entries between 1903 and 1906 while he was in Southwest-Africa, first as Settlement Commissioner for German South-West Africa and later as member of the compensation commission which undertook enquiries about the losses experienced by white farmers during and after the war. During his time in South West Africa, he undertook various travels, got stuck with many others in Grootfontein during the uprising of Herero and travelled to British South Africa to understand the situation there, Apparently, he could not continue his work in the Settlement Commission after the war due to a diverging view of the strategy to be taken. He returned to Germany in 1906 with some regret. This book provides a fascinating insight into this specific period of the German colonial endeavour, personal considerations about politics, settlement, the native question” and the German strategies regarding the uprising of the various peoples, as well as the life and travels within the colony (in particular the life of German men, male civil servants).

In this year the farm Gaub is mainly inhabited by Bergdamara.[108] According to Kruger, in this year there are good rains but also malaria and an outbreak of Lungdisease, thought to come from the missionaries who had come from Ovamboland – the second half of the year is difficult, with hunger in Ovamboland from which thousands of Ovambo died.[109] 

Oberleutnant Fischer comments on the Haiǁom:

With the advancement of settlement, the Heigum will soon face the choice of becoming farm labourers or moving to areas where they will eventually disappear under more unfavorable living conditions. The tribe of the Heigum is not essential for the development of the colony.[110]

An article of Hauptmann Hutter published in this year entitled “Im Gebiet der Etoshapfanne” [ in the area of the Etosha pan] in Globus he writes:

[t]he only indigenous [emphasis in original] inhabitants of this Etosha area are Bushmen in the western part, in the eastern part and - in the Otavi mountains and north-eastern Outjo - Bergdamara (also known as Klipkaffern). The Bergdamara have kind of tribal affiliation under a partiarchal leader, the well-known Captain Kruger, who used to sit in Neidaus [not sure if he confused him with Aribib?], now he has settled in Ghaub, where I paid him a short visit. The tribe is scattered all over the area and is considerably underestimated in terms of the number of its members. ... The most interesting folk element is without doubt the Bushman on the ethnic [something with dying out state]... I have only come into fleeting contact with representatives of the Heigum tribe or the horde of the Heigum. Lieutenant Fischer has succeeded in settling quite a number of these shy, erratic people near Namutoni station. Their dockyard (see photo) with its beehive-like pontoks made of thin tree trunks and branches, covered with pieces of wood (also firewood) and old scraps of testimonials is already a great luxury and a great concession to civilisation for Bushman terms. Their actual huts, or rather, miserable shelters, built in the ‘field’ look quite different. … It is absolutely impossible to get to such a place, which is located in the densest thorn bush, without a guide. Zigzagging in loops, sometimes a little way back, a Bushman led me to the camp of his 15-member horde a few hours away from Goab [water hole in Etosha?]. On a slightly lighter part of the bush there were 10 irregular and pathetic wind screens made of twigs and grass, roughly the shape of the roof of a pram. The ‘furnishings’ of such a windscreen were dirty grass beds, most primitive bows and arrows with detachable poisoned wooden tips in fur quivers (hair inwards), a few kirri, a wooden tinder box, some dented empty tins, dirty animal intestines as water bags and - surprisingly - a musical instrument of denau of the same shape, even string count, as I met it in Cameroon at the Bali. …While I was examining the camp, some women came with calabashes carried on their heads with bushfood, small brown-red berries of not unpleasant taste; one of the women smoked a pipe consisting of half a chama shell and an empty cartridge case (bottom pierced) as pipe tube.... The Heigum live south and north (almost up to the Lion-Omuramba) of the eastern part of the Etosha Pan; Fischer estimates their total number to be no more than 1000 heads.[111]

‘Heigum-Buschmänner’ [Haiǁom Bushman] village at Namutoni. Source: Hutter 1910, p. 29.

Missionary Wandres notes that “there is hardly a noticeable difference between Nama and Bergdama law”: ‘the young Nama, as the Bergdama, had to stay and work for his parents-in-law for a year, women owned the houses in both communities, the custom of cutting the joint of the small fingers was the same, Nama and Bergdama men could not eat the hare, in both groups the daughter was named after her father, the son after his mother, etc.’[112].

 

Poech [see 1908-1909] makes ‘the first movie of bushmen’ and gives ‘a triumphal interview’ entitled ‘The Bushman Tribes’ in the Cape Town Weekly (3 November) emphasising the heroic labour of the modern anthropologist[113].

1909-1914

The so-called “Bushmen plague”, “Bushman Danger”, “Bushmen problem” at its highest, probably peak in 1911, apparently mostly in the Grootfontein and Outjo districts due to stock thefts, murders of white settlers in the Grootfontein area, and attacks on Ovambo migrant workers on their way back home. Various solutions were envisaged, among them “education to work” or forced labour, deportation, and the creation of a Bushman reserve. The “problem” was however aggravated by diverging interests, on the one hand an urgent need for labour, and, on the other, the need for control and peace.[114]

The white farmers needed farm workers, i.e. ‘Bushmen’, which implied the need to control the ‘Bushmen’. This becomes evident in the report of van Zastrow about Grootfontein district:

[a]ccording to a more accurate census that has just been carried out, 393 men are employed on the farms of Grootfontein, which have 470 wives. These are almost all Heikum... Taking into account what else the natives and whites have to say about random perceptions, I do not think I am mistaken in estimating the number of Bushmen in Grootfontein District alone to be at least 7-8000... Bushman value: This figure, combined with the fact that so many men are already working on farms, makes it clear that, given the small number of natives in the district and the whole reserve, these people cannot be ignored. Probably half of the farms would be unable to sustain their operations if the Bushmen's labour were lacking.[115]

Between 1910 and 1914 the number of yearly Ovambo migrant workers could amount to 10,000.[116] Schultze reports that in Okaukuejo - one of several stations where migrant labourers were registered - around 4,000 passes were issued to migrant workers from the north during the years 1908/09.[117] Most of the migrant workers passed Etosha on their way to the south and back home. Oral history gives evidence to the conflicts. From 1909 occasional attacks on workers were reported. Bushmen robbed the migrant workers, loaded with newly purchased goods when returning to Ovamboland. A lot of these clashes took place between Outjo and Okaukuejo.[118] The chamber of mines at Lüderitz complained with the governor, asking to “cleanse” the area (Outjo-Otjivasandu-Okaukuejo).[119]

Police with soldiers ‘undertook more than 400 Bushman patrols in the Grootfontein, Outjo, Rehoboth, and Maltahohe districts, covering some 60,000km2’, accompanied by the issuing of metal ‘dog tag’ passes as well as discussion by the Landesrat of ‘tattooing Bushman vagrants’, dropped due to technical difficulties and ‘the possibility of public outcry in Germany’[120]. The fact that these patrols take place in such distant areas indicates that ‘Bushman’ here is perhaps a catch-all term for anyone living relatively independently of the emerging colonial state and speaking a click language.

After the death of a German settler in 1911, Governor Seitz decided to combat the ‘danger’ with all means at his disposal. He announced the following: “In amending the National Police's rules on the use of weapons, I make the following statement to the Bushmen: The National Police officers patrolling the area to search the grounds, destroy the settlements [“Werften”] in the field or pursue cattle thieves and bandits must always keep their firearms ready for immediate use, exercising the utmost care and attention. The firearm is to be used: a) in the slightest case of insubordination to the officers, b) when criminals discovered in the act or pursued on the trail do not stand by on call, but want to evade their arrest by fleeing… The following principles govern the behaviour of all administrative authorities against the Bushmen. Efforts must be made to bring the Bushmen, however difficult it may be to get them to work, initially on an amicable basis. Violent dismantling of Bushman settlements will only take place where the Bushmen have committed cattle theft or other robberies, or even assaulted Europeans or their own workers...Only those members of such settlements who are subject to action on any of the above grounds will be arrested and brought in. If there are strong, able-bodied men among the Bushmen brought in, they must be transferred to the Lüderitzbucht District Office for use in the diamond fields...”[121]. Gordon calls this act a “warrant for genocide”.[122] 

For some officers, even these measures did not go far enough. The Schutztruppe commander as well as the district commandant of Outjo argue for more draconian measures including that ‘any Bushman who did not stop on command could be shot’ and that women should be included in the definition of Bushmen, ‘as they “were just as dangerous”’[123]. The governor rejected a further amendment of the proclamation.

At the height of the “Bushman plague” (1911 and 1912) the Germans launched more than 400 patrols to capture Bushmen.[124]

The proclamation did not lead to a quick and trouble-free solution of the “Bushmen plague”. Two years after its announcement the Outjo district officer reiterated objections against the proclamation. He did not consider it efficient enough, especially with regard to the ongoing attacks on migrant workers. He held of the opinion that ALL ‘Bushmen’ staying between Otjivasandu (a farm about 50 km north of Outjo) and Ovamboland, and between Mosamurib [?] and Namutoni were involved in the attacks, either as messengers or as porters of stolen goods. He proposed a complete removal of the Bushmen from the district, basically “ethnic cleansing”. He suggested that the “Bushmen” should be given to the district office at Lüderitz for the work in the diamond fields and stated: “Once the Bushmen realise that they are being taken seriously, they will soon retreat to areas where they are no longer a nuisance; there is plenty of room for this in Africa.”[125] He did not make any suggestions of how to solve the labour shortage on the farms in his district.

“Bushmen in chains”, German time, Photo: Namibian National Archives[126]

A group of San imprisoned at Swakopmund. Their deportation from the interior of the country to the coast with its rough climate came close to a death sentence, Photo: from a file of Seiner, Namibian National Archives.

Deportation to Lüderitz or Swakopmund came close to the death penalty. At least 61 ‘Bushmen’ from the Grootfontein district were deported from Grootfontein to Swakopmund between 1911-1914, among them women and children, some of them sentenced to years in chains.[127]

The physical anthropologist Seiner, who had travelled in the territory during the height of the “Bushmen plague” wrote a letter of complaint to the Governor (after visiting the prisons, probably for his anthropological measurements). He first remarked that in the prisons in Grootfontein a large number of Bushmen were already dying from debilitation after just six months in custody. He then compared the situation in Swakopmund and Lüderitz as being equivalent to a death sentence. Seiner, a supporter of Bastadisation for economic purposes, recommended that captured ‘Bushwomen’ should be relocated in other areas in order for a useful “bastard race” [between “Bushmen, Herero, Hottentotten and Klipkaffern”] to develop. [128] 

1910

The Union of South Africa is founded[129] and following the Act of Union Walvis Bay becomes part of South Africa[130].

Fischer, commander of Namutoni, is transferred in this year[131]. Kruger reports for this year in the Outjo districts (inter alia):

  • beginning of recruitment of Ovambo for work in mines, farms etc., three agents at Okaukuejo
  • Distriktraad started to work as administrational body (bestuursliggam): Introduction of land tax (grondbelasting)
  • Veldfires caused by ‘Bushmen’
  • Districtraad decides that all ‘Bushmen’ must register for work, police patrol brings more than 100 ‘Bushmen’ from the vicinity of Outjo, but all disappeared the same night again, several attempts to get them to work, but no real success
  • District commander writes a letter to the government to explain the need for permanent water, farmers could not farm properly because they are dependent on rainfall and have to move after the rains, also ask for the import of quality cattel from the Cape
  • 29 cattle died of lung disease, some died of the plant slangkop
  • Farmers started to build more and more permanent houses instead of sinkhouses
  • Surveyor Moldenhouer surveys eight new farms, sold to farmers
  • Otjikondo is established as an Ostrich farm, discontinued in 1913.[132]

The Districtraad imports 200 wool sheep and 6 ramme from Union as an experiment, vegetables are grown for private consumption, fruit trees are imported from the Cape, some Afrikaaner farmers decided to leave the district to move to Angola[133].

A bad drought year with only 42mm[?] of average annual rain[134].

This year sees ‘over 50 applications for land in the Kaokoveld, but the Company [see above] held out for higher prices and none were approved until 1912. … [but] After ten years no exploitable minerals had been found and no development had taken place, resulting in the company not even being able to pay land taxes due to the Colonial government’[135].

The geologist Kuntz reports to the Kaoko Land und Minengesellschaft, at ‘Kowares in Zesfontein’, that ‘[t]he cavalry sergeant there proposes to make shortly a tour to the Kunene and hopes for support, as he cannot obtain guides owing to the natives’ fear and hatred of the police’, adding that he ‘does not want the expedition to get involved into the affairs of the police’, and that ‘in any case travelling together with police or other officials must be avoided’[136]. He describes the Omuhonga Basin south of Epupa as the, “Tjimba paradise”, writing that,

[u]nder hugh acacias in thick green grass grazed [57] hundreds of cattle and thousands of sheep; evidently I had got to the hitherto legendary Ovatschimba paradise ... For several hours I rode up the river, finding village on village and water everywhere in the riverbed.[137] [**? Elsewhere northern Kaokoveld in this area is reportedly empty of people – cf. Hartmann describes ‘Kaokoland as almost uninhabited at the turn of the century’[138]] -until the southwards movement of Himba from 1920?]

Kuntz also notes (from Ombombo?) that ‘[t]he Bergdamaras living at Gamgamas [place along the Uniab River] had run away’, and were hiding in the mountains but courted by presents; and at Zwartmodder [on the !Uniab] he contacts Bergdamaras who say they do not know the country between Kaias and Hoanib, but promise to fetch ‘Bushmen’ living in the Hoanib Valley (but they never came back with the Bushmen). He meets Bergdamaras returning from Uniab-Mund. While Kuntz explores the coast for guano, Liesejang[?] proceeds to Ombombo, inspecting land for farming suitability and reports that Boer families are settled at Otjitundwa§ [near Kaoko Otavi].[139]

The Outjo District Council decides that all Bushmen in the district should report for work with police in rounding up more than 100[140].

After 1910 the Portuguese military government in Angola shifted to a civil administration leading to well-armed Africans becoming targets for police patrols, stimulating conflict and police cases with both Vita Tom and Muhona Katiti (see above)[141]:

[t]he hitherto military administration was turned into a civil administration which undertook to change the predatory military system, which had virtually subsisted upon raids on the indigenous population into an administration through which the state would benefit from taxes and labour export from the native population. However, the new mode of administration seems to have been even more authoritarian than the old one.[142] 

Thus, ‘[c]hanges in the Portuguese colonial system, around 1910, urged them [mostly Himba who had earlier fled north into Angola] to cross the Kunene once again back into Namibia[143]. Vita Tom was fluent in Portuguese and Afrikaans, and it is suggested that he learnt some German from Herero refugees in Angola[144].


The district commander Zawada requests police patrols to round up Haiǁom at the different waterholes and to bring them to Namutoni, where they should work, be fed with maize, in order to protect the game living in the reserve. Apparently, this had already happened, however, as soon as the maize was finished, the ‘Bushmen’ disappeared in order to look for veldkos. This time, the administration did not follow up on the plan and Namutoni was not supplied regularly with the necessary provisions of maize. Nevertheless, in the face of mounting settlement in the surrounding areas, the Game Reserve served for a while as the last refuge for the Haiǁom.[145]

Weule’s map of native occupation areas in 1904-05 is published in this year [see above].

He notes:

A great darkness still hovers over the racial position of the Hottentot…. The same darkness hovers also over the other two population elements of the Bushmen or San and the Bergdamara or Haukoin, both once populated larger areas than today; remains of old Bushman culture can be found in the form of masterly rock drawings and frescoes in the very east of South Africa, while the Haukoin, after Missionary Irle, roamed down to the Orange before they were pushed back from the Naman to Damaraland. It is difficult to relate the Bushmen to one of the larger racial groupings; one considers them the remainder of an old primeval race for the time being, to which one is inclined to assign the pygmies of equatorial Africa. In German Southwest Africa. They have not played a role in Southwest Africa; in larger swarms and under the most different Bandnames (Kaukan, Kung, Haiumga, Ssugnasi, Aukwe), they roam at the eastern border, in the west of the Kalahari; other, weaker hordes were driven to the western edge of the Hottentotten area, the inhospitable areas of the Homs- and Huib-plateau. These are the Obanen at the lower reaches of the Fishriver, the Huini on the Huib plateau, the Koma and Ganin north of it, and the already mentioned Gainin in the southern Namib. Widespread over the north of the colony are still the Bergdamara, nevertheless a strong fraction of them settled down near Okombahe under the influence of the missionaries and became cattle breeders and horticulturists. They are downright negroes, despite their ancestral idiom have long since given up in favor of the Hottentotten language and they share their way of life with the Bushman. Schinz, Hahn and Irle see them as the decimated remnants of the negroid original inhabitants of the western part of Southwest Africa before the Bantu immigration.[146]

Schultze, writing the chapter on South West Africa in “Das deutsche Kolonialreich” (the German Colonial Empire), disregards ‘Bushmen’ living among ‘Hottentott’ when describing the ‘Bushmen’ because they are often “basardised”, in “clothing, food and and employment dependent on the conditions of existence of their masters”, and therefore “the features of the original Bushman life have been heavily blurred.”[147] With regard to ‘Bergdamara’ he is of the opinion, that while the relationship of ‘Whites’ with ‘Hottentott’ and ‘Herero’ was from the beginning based on conflicts about land, the ‘Bergdamara’ were taken out of their servitude from Herero by the German protection: “[u]nder German protection, the Bergdamara are snatched from the bondage of their lords and brought to a dignified existence.”[148] He explains this statement with the history of their main place Okombahe and the help they received from missionaries and the colonial government. He states that the Bergdamara had therefore become allies of the Germans and “have served us well in the last war”.[149]

Oral history reports that ovaHerero Headman Kephas Muzuma is born in this year at ​​Okavao, now in the western part of Etosha national Park[150].

1910-1912

Expeditions by Kuntz to Kaokoveld reportedly inform the Sprigade map of 1913, and are carried out for the KLMG ‘to inventorize the resources of Kaokoland and to contact local communities’ [277], his published texts include two photographs of ‘Ovatjimba’ (see below) and ‘Kunene cataract’[151] (presumably Epupa).

“Paramount Chief Kasubi of the Owatschimba in Ombepera” (Kuntz 1912b). The man on the left carries a gun and is perhaps ‘Kasubi’ / Kakurukouye, who in 1900 was given a gun by German soldier Viktor Franke, who was based at the Sesfontein Fort and selected Kasupi as a headmen he could interact with. Source: Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 277.

‘Owatschimba’ photographed by Kuntz. Source: Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 277.

 

Bollig summarises the travels of Kuntz and Krause as follows:

[t]wo geographers, Kuntz and Krause, travelled in north-western Namibia while working for the same company between 1910 and 1912 (Abel 1954: 11f). In addition to leaving extensive documentation of their travels in diaries and letters, Kuntz published fairly extensively, and also produced maps and photographs (Kuntz 1912-c).[152]

1910s

Large-scale elephant hunting in Kaokoveld has come to an end due to suppression ‘of commercial hunting and trading in game products’, reportedly leaving a much diminished herd ‘constrained to specific areas (the eastern Sandveld, the basins of ephemeral rivers in the pro-Namib, the Omuhonga Basin)’, with hippo ‘more or less eliminated from the Kunene River’[153]. Nonetheless, a ‘German hunter, explorer, and lay scientist’ called Steinhart is active ‘in the Kaokoveld’ in this decade whose published account of his activities reportedly places ‘all the blame for the dwindling fauna on native hunting’ whilst failing ‘to describe to what commercial purposes he put his own hunting exploits’[154].

Ca. 1910-1950

These decades see ‘an enforced de-commoditisation of game’ as,

[t]he status of game animals was changed from res nullius – things without an owner that could be killed and used by anyone for commercial (and other) purposes – to public property. All use of game had to be endorsed by the state, through a long bureaucratic process of applications and formal responses. Generally, official permits to hunt were only given to scientists and administrative staff.[155]

1911

The Union of South reportedly promises Great Britain in secret ‘that in the event of a war with Germany the colony of German South West Africa would be occupied’[156].

 

End of the year indicates a small deficit in government revenue, according to British Consul’s report, a fall in the number of British subjects in the territory from 204 to 169[157], an expansion in the total settler population to 13,962[158], and 9,295 labour recruits arrive from Owambo[159]. Farmers and smallholders number 1,390 plus 22,572 artisans and miners, 1,035 merchants, shopkeepers and innkeepers and slightly fewer than 900 civil servants[160]. The RMS Augustineum at Otjimbingwe re-opens [see 1863, 1901**][161].

‘Berg-Damara’ numbers have fallen to 13,000, according to the official German census of this year[162] (from an estimated 30-40,000 before German occupation).

According to Kruger, 4,060 Ovambo come to look for work in the Outjo area, farmers complained that they did not work but district commander is of the opinion that the farmers would not treat them well.[163] Two Bushman armed with bows and arrows ‘put to flight a group of thirty Owambo contract workers’[164]. Governor Theodor Seitz, advised by Native Commissioner Kurt Streitwolf increases the number and power of police and military units in Grootfontein district with ordinances [Verordnungen] proclaiming:

1. When patrol officers of the police are searching Bushmen areas, breaking up their settlements or searching for cattle thieves and robber bands, they must have their weapons ready to fire at all times, using of course the utmost caution.  

2. Firearms are to be used in the slightest case of insubordination against officials. When a felon is either caught in the act, or when being hunted down, “does not stop on command” but tries to escape through flight.  

3. The native police servant who is accompanying or guiding a patrol may carry a firearm, model 71 (Mauser rifle) with full responsibility in all areas where the Bushmen live.

The way in which State officials are to act towards Bushmen is regulated by the following rules. Even though it may be difficult, one should strive to keep the Bushmen at work. Forced dislocation of a Bushman werft [encampment] may only take place if they have been stealing stock or robbing or have attacked Europeans or their native workers ... [165]

The Schutztruppe commander as well as the district commandant of Outjo argue for more draconian measures including that ‘any Bushman who did not stop on command could be shot’ and that women should be included in the definition of Bushmen, ‘as they “were just as dangerous”’[166].

Simultaneously, surveyed farms are expanding in Outjo District:

 

Expansion of surveyed farms in Outjo District. Source: scan from Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 13.

RMS Missionary Vedder comes to Gaub, and the training school for evangelists moves here (having closed in Okahandja in 1901)[167].

The government’s chief medical officer, Dr Siebert, recommends in a circulated memorandum the creation of ‘reserves’ for the preservation of Bushmen (with the northeast of Grootfontein – the Kaukauveld – seen by some as already constituting a de facto reserve):

[Bushmen) are unsuitable as settled employees, and the relinquishment of their nomadic lifestyle spells their doom. While they are of little economic value, they are of large scientific value. And even the Cameroons have a law, which protects gorillas by placing them in reserves.[168]

The district commanders, asked to comment on the memorandum, were averse to the idea, less interested in scientific ‘value’ of the ‘Bushmen’, more interested in their economic value as farm labourers, one argued, that they should be taught to work, otherwise they would not deserve “more protection than the gorillas of Cameroon”. Others expressed the opinion that ‘Bushmen’ reserves would serve only as gathering places for “stock thieves” and “muggers”. The physical anthropologist Seiner, referring to “Bastard-Bushmen” of the northern Kalahari (including Haiǁom and !Kung) did not regard the creation of a ‘Bushmen’ reserve as feasible option for them but suggested strong police patrols and the dissolution of family bands [“Horden”]. Single families should be handed over as labourers to farmers while orphans should be handed over to the mission stations.[169] 

The representation of the situation in South-Westafrica in the “Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas'' by Paul Sprigade paints a somewhat different picture. In the review of the developments in the protectorate in 1910, one can read:

After the heavy fighting of 1904/07, the protectorate enjoyed lasting peace, which could not be seriously threatened even by some necessary undertakings against coloured rebel gangs in the south. The Hereros behaved in a thoroughly peaceful manner. The actual Ambo country, however, still remained closed to traffic. However, the government's energetic help during the famine of 1908/09 instilled a certain confidence in the Owambos. In the Caprivi Strip, the resident concluded protection contracts with the chiefs. The resident's relationship with the neighbouring English authorities was always a good one. According to its budget, the Schutztruppe amounted to 2431 heads. [...] The white civilian population of the protectorate in 1910 on 1 January was 10644. The increase from the year before was 1234 and these were 531 men, 190 boys, 347 women and 166 girls under 15. Among the civilian population were 7930 Germans, the rest being nationals of many countries. Remarkable is the increase of the colonial English, of whom 1483 were counted in 1910 on 1 January. The total coloured population of the protectorate, excluding Amboland and the Caprivi Strip, is estimated at 68923. Due to the preference of the natives for the big cities, a shortage of labourers became noticeable on the farms, especially in the south. The Owambos are not very suitable as farm workers. They prefer to work in closed groups. Therefore, they are found on the diamond fields, where they are also better paid. 4422 Owambo were counted on the march through Ontjo. Most of the natives are reluctant to work in the mines. The indigenous ordinances for the protection of workers have worked well. The natives now know about their rights and duties. [...]
  The administrative business was greatly increased by the establishment of self-government, the increase in settlement and the diamond discoveries. The fight against diamond theft and smuggling alone requires numerous forces. [...] The police force had to be strengthened by 250 men in the last year. It is distributed among 105 stations, 4 depots, 2 officer posts and the inspection. [...]
  The property and sales tax was also introduced in the past year. Considerable progress has been made in the establishment of land registers. In 1910, on 1 January, 1246 land register sheets and 639 land register sheets had been created. [...] The economic situation of the protectorate has not improved particularly, but it shows an upward trend that gives rise to good hopes. The national exhibition held in Windhoek gave a pleasing picture of what farmers, industrialists and tradesmen have achieved during the short period of peace. The development of economic life as a result of the diamond discoveries must be seen as a special phenomenon in itself. Of lasting general importance is the emergence of a number of diamond mining companies, which offer permanent employment to more than 200 whites and 2,000 coloureds and have thus lifted the commercial enterprises in Lüderitzbucht.
[170] 

1911-1912

Police with soldiers ‘undertook more than 400 Bushman patrols in the Grootfontein, Outjo, Rehoboth, and Maltahohe districts, covering some 60,000km2’, accompanied by the issuing of metal ‘dog tag’ passes as well as discussion by the Landesrat of ‘tattooing Bushman vagrants’, dropped due to technical difficulties and ‘the possibility of public outcry in Germany’[171].

1912

Muhona Katiti (who had previously fled Nama raids and allied with Vita Tom in Angola, see 1879-1880s] withdraws from Angola across the Kunene into northern Kaokoland[172], fleeing to an island in the Kunene river from the Portuguese police after murdering a Portuguese trader named Inaso at Tshabikwa§ in Angola, and allegedly taking his property and burning his wagon[173]. Oorlog claims that ‘[h]earing that I was coming together with a party of Europeans ordered by Govt. to arrest him, he killed 26 Kaoko Hereros who had a vee-post [?**]near the Kunene’[174], cf.

There he murdered a Portuguese trader named INASO and took his property besides burning his wagon. He fled from Portuguese Police to an island in Kunene River. Hearing that I was coming together with a party of Europeans ordered by Govt. to arrest him, he killed 26 Kaoko Hereros who had a vee-post near the Kunene. The survivors fled to us without any property at all. Some are with me now (Statements will be taken. CNM.) It is now 5 years ago when this occurred. MUHONA KATITI then fled south to the Kaokoveld and settled at MUHONGO river (vide German map CNM). He then trekked to OMBUKU which is junction of Muhonga and Kunene Rivers. The Boers William Venter, Andries Alberts and several others came with Portuguese to arrest him but he got away to his former place on Muhonga River. Some of his cattle were however captured. The Portuguese still want MUHONA KATITI[175].

Lieutenant Fischer, first ‘warden’ at Namutoni, reports that lion are heard here again after decline due to hunting[176] [**??although see above, Fischer was apparently transferred from Namutoni in 1910]. Fort Namutoni is abandoned by the Germans[177].

Following a ‘tour of observation’ a Dr Solf declares of South West Africa that ‘the mineral resources … [are] capable of immense development, and that the prospects of its pastoral and agricultural industries … [are] of the brightest’[178]. Total trade value at year’s end, according to British Consul’s report, is £3,517,100, and exports exceed imports by £321,375, due to development of diamond fields which contributes the bulk of government revenue and pays for ‘civil administration costs’, such that the year finishes with a surplus of actual over estimated revenue[179]. A contemporary British commentator remarks that ‘[t]he bulk of the dividends paid by the diamond companies goes into the pocket of absentee shareholders, who are cautious about making new investments in German South-West African enterprises’[180]. 6,076 labour recruits arrive in the ‘police zone’ from Owambo[181]. Military personnel have been reduced to 1,970, and there are 9,046 adult male Europeans over 15 only 2,438 of which are married of which 1,970 are to European wives with 421 ‘claiming absentee wives’ and 47 ‘married to “coloureds”[182].

 

Of 2,829 Bushmen enumerated in the Grootfontein census, 997 are listed as working for settlers where settler-owned cattle have increased to 13,611[183]. Outjo, where European settler farms occupy 431,125 ha, now boasts the largest police station[184]. By the early part of this year ‘the area west of Etosha Pan had been “cleansed” of Bushmen and the police station at Okaukeujo reinforced with additional personnel’[185]. The scholar Franz Seiner writes to the colonial secretary concerning the treatment of Bushmen prisoners, with accompanying photographs showing two prisoners with amputated arms as was ‘as common way of dealing with Bushman “theft”’ (see response from Governer Seitz in 1913)[186]. A Reinhard Mumm, a leader of the Moral Purity Movement and elected member of the Reichstag, suggests a Bushmen reserve from northeast of Grootfontein to the Kavango River[187].

 

A Dr. Müller complais in the Reichstag that:  

[o]ur civil and military administration of justice is simply indefensible .... With regard to native justice and administration there exists an incredible uncertainty concerning the powers of the administrative authorities .... One judge uses the German penal code without further ado .... Another does not use the penal code at all. In short, our criminal proceedings leave the natives entirely without rights.[188]   

 

Dinter publishes Die Vegetabilische Veldkost Deutsch-Südwest-Afrikas, listing local names for around 85 species[189].

 

Outjo, where European settler farms occupy 431,125 ha, now boasts the largest police station[190]. By the early part of this year ‘the area west of Etosha Pan had been “cleansed” of Bushmen and the police station at Okaukeujo reinforced with additional personnel’[191]. 4,473 ‘Bushmen’ (including women and children) are reported for the Grootfontein district, 790 for the Outjo district[192].

1912-15

Famine reduces the Humbe populaton in southern Angola[193].

A legally supported ‘Bushman genocide’ or extermination – Ausrotting – is asserted to have occurred during these years, exhibiting ‘[a]ll the facilitative characteristics for genocide … deep structural divisions, identifiable victim groups, legitimating hate ideology and a breakdown of moral restraints, and what we might call “audience obliviousness” (toleration by local, national, and international communities’[194]. The Luderitzbucht Chamber of Mines requested the government to sanitize ‘Bushman hordes’ affecting migration of labourers from Owambo, the Outjo district head (Dr. Schultze-Jena) proposes that ‘all Bushmen in his district be forcibly removed to the coast’, a suggestion vetoed because the climate would certainly kill them’, and Otto Link, the acting head of Grootfontein District, ‘urgently requested that the governor deport all the collected Bushmen to the Luderitzbucht diamond fields’.[195]

1912-1913

Seiner, a German physical anthropologist (see above), also used the distinction of ‘Kaukau- and ‘Ngami-Bushmen’. However, unlike Passarge, who had referred to Werner with regard to ‘Haiǁom’, he consulted Pöch, and therefore included them in the group of Ngamibushmen, because the language of the later was closer to Nama than to a ‘Bushman language’ [maybe what was later classified by linguists as northern and central Khoisan?].[196]

He estimates about 8000 ‘Bushmen’ in the Grootfontein district, ‘Kalahari-Bushmen’ and ‘Hai³om’ [³ indicating a ‘cerebral??? click], the latter mainly to be found in the ‘Kartsfeld’ near Grootfontein, Tsumeb and Otavi, and:

according to official information, which however require a verification, also in the Kalahari between Ovamboland and the wayline Tsebeb-Tsintsabis-Kurinkuru at Okawango. The border between the two people would thus be mainly the line Kurinkuru-Tsintsabis-Omuramba and Owambo-Neitsas-Omuramba une Omatako from Otjituo to Osondema.[197]

Under the heading The Hai4om of the Karstfeld, he notes:

In the Karstfeld of Grootfontein, i.e. already outside the Kalahari (...) there is a small remnant of Berg-Damara, who can apparently be regarded as an isolated independent group of ‘Urneger’. Deep black, stocky people with ugly face type. The largest part of the Karstfeld, however, is interspersed with ‘Bastards’ of these ‘Urneger’ with Bushmen (referring to 'Hei4om'). According to my observations, a weaker hereditary power of the latter against the Damara cannot be proven in these crossings. .... That these hybrids are generally inferior to the two parent breeds in terms of mental disposition, as is often claimed among farmers, is, in my observation, incorrect. A weakening of the reproductive power of the bastard offspring does not seem to exist. Intensive mixing has taken place continuously, but no new breed has emerged, because the characteristics of both breeds coexist.[198] 

He mentions “assumptions” that the Haiǁom in the eastern part of their distribution area [”Verbreitungsgebiet”] were mixed with Damara while they were more mixed with ‘Hottentott’ in the western part around Outjo. Therefore, they were supposed to taller, stronger and darker than the ‘Kalahari-Bushmen’. He continues with a description of his physical measurements (skin color, height, weight and penis) among a small number of Haiǁom cattle thieves from the Grootfontein area, which would not prove these assumptions.[199] He further speculates that the offspring of female Haiǁom (their husbands being in prison) with Bergdamara would create suitable farm workers.[200]

1912-1916

Drought years[201]

1912-1917

For these years, Bollig and Heinemann write that,

[t]he groups entering Kaokoland … were rather different from the pastoral and foraging [Tjimba] communities which had been contacted by Hartmann and Kuntz [see above]. The immigrants were fairly rich pastoralists with herds numbering several hundred head of cattle. They were politically organized and focused upon specific leaders who had gained authority within the colonial setup of southern Angola.[202] 

1913

The National Party is established in South Africa[203] which passes the Land Act of 1913, permitting establishment of ‘native reserves’[204] in which 13.3% of South Africa's land area is allocated to its majority African population, provided the prototype for ‘separate development’ (i.e. ‘apartheid’) in Namibia during its post-First World War history of administration by South Africa under a League of Nations mandate.[205]

A British Consul’s Report to SWA indicates that ‘the colony is in a prosperous and progressive condition’ with total trade value for six months ending June 30th at £2,357,100, up from this point in 1912, government revenue for the year ending March 31st is £1,081,400 (up against an estimate revenue of £766,500), exports exceed imports by £517,127 in the first six months of 1913, again due to increased diamond exports, and the surplus for 1913 amounts to something like £800,000.[206] 

For the ‘police zone’, official returns to a census of the European population on 1st January indicate a figure of 14,830, including the military, with 69,003 Africans returned, and a total estimated population recorded as 78,810 (incl. 27,543 ‘adults of every race’ of which 5,557 were Owambo, and 24,645 of these adults were ‘in the employ of Europeans’) plus some 2,648 ‘foreign natives’, most of whom came from the Cape.[207] In the 1913 statistics, the total for ‘Bergdamara’ is reportedly 20,875[208].  

The German colonial government established a land bank, Botha wrote regarding the white settlement during the german period: “Prior to the Wars 400,000 Mark (about £ 20,000) had been granted in aid to prospective settlers. This amount had subsequently been increased, but the German administration began to stress the need for settlers to possess 10,000 (?) mark in starting capital, temporary housing and the required technical information. Loans totalling 6,000 Mark werer provided to such farmers, to be repaid after six years. Failures were apparently common. It was only in 1913 that the German Government established a Land Bank with operating capital of 2,000,000 Mark. This ceased the credit problem, enabled most farmers to withstand the drought of 1914 and to increase the size of their holdings. By 1913 farmers there were 1,331 white settler farms in Namibia, occupied by 1,587 farmers…It would seem that at least until the 1940s dual occupancy of farms were fairly widespread, even if it did not constitute the norm”… and “German farmers did receive financial assistance, but it was more limited that that supplied by the SA administration after 1920”.[209] Schmokel noted: ““What prosperity they [farmers] enjoyed was largely due to the heavy influx of German government funds, averaging some $ 70 million annually between 1904 and 1910, for military expenditures, railroad and port construction, and civil service salaries. Agriculture benefited from the market this created. Farmers had also received ca. 20 million Marks in cash as compensation for losses caused by Herero and Nama wars.[210]

It is estimated that Etosha’s plains host between 20 and 30 000 animals.[211]

A ‘Karte Deutsch-Portugiesischen Grenzgebiets’ (Paul Sprigade) is published based on Groll Map 1903 and travels of Kuntz 1907-1911, placing ‘Ovachimba’ / ‘Vahimba’(?) = north of Kunene opp. Baynes mtns:

Source: Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 276.

A German publication of this year ‘offers four more photographs’ of the northern Kaokoveld, including one of “An Owatschimba Chief with retinue” in which the men wear ‘Western, apparently military hats, some with the traditional head-cloth, none of them armed’, [279] which Bollig and Heinemann identify as an image of ‘Kakurukouye’s [Kasupi] group’[212]:

‘Kakurukouye’s [Kasupi] group‘. Source: Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 279 from Nitsche 1913.

In 1913, Grootfontein district settler farms now number 173, totaling 777,077 ha[213]. The Grootfontein District Farmers Union begs the Kaiser to ‘undertake the “most stringent possible measures to end the present situation” because life and possessions of farmers were in “high danger” from “every Bushman from the Otjijita§ Mountains to Nurugas [north-east of Grootfontein] who are nomadic”’, and ‘thirty additional troops were seconded to deal specifically with the “Bushman danger”, with Grootfontein district acting head (Otto Link) reporting ‘that the Army’s 4th Company had managed to kill ten Bushmen and capture thirty’[214]. Another patrol made by officers from the police station at Choantsas had caught four Bushmen.[215] Farmers took the law into their hand. Reports by Otto Link testify a considerable amount of vigilantism on the side of the farmers. At least six Bushmen were shot by farmers.[216] Even the district office at times complained about the behavior of farmers towards the ‘Bushmen’.[217]

The Swakopmund prison lists 32 Bushman prisoners, ‘of whom fifteen died within a year’.[218]

Governor Seitz comments that:

the Bushmen are by no means only harmless children of nature, but constitute a serious danger to more intensive settlement of the fertile northern districts. Weakness cannot therefore be justified by any means in the treatment of the Bushmen.[219]   

In 1913, a doctor from Grootfontein, Dr. Zachlehner, claimed that no ‘Bushmen’ were deported to Swakopmund anymore and that from 250 imprisoned ‘Bushmen’ in Grootfontein, ‘only’ 8 had died[220]. Taking the estaimated number of 4000 ‘Bushmen’ in the Grootfontein district, at least 6,25% of the ‘Bushmen’ population was interred.[221]

In the Outjo and Grootfontein districts, the white settlement had doubled during the past 4 years.[222]

White Inhabitants

Farms

Year

1909[223]

1913[224]

1909

1913

Grootfontein

462

988

85 (14 uninhabited)

173 (33 uninhabited)

Outjo

137

269

36 (6 uninhabited)

63 (10 uninhabited)

According to Kruger, the way to acquire a farm under the German colonial government was the following:

[f]armers selected a farm, negotiation with District commander about the conditions; biggest farms were around 5,000 hectares; the District commander wrote a bill of sale, sent for agreement to governor in Windhoek, stamped. Farmer owns his card and transportakte. Mostly, riviere, paths on the farm remained in the possession of government.[225]

Kruger provides quotation of one deed of sale, the agreement stated amongst other things:

[b]uyer has to take care for the grensbakens, has to build a house on the land within 5 months after the rainy season, a sixteenth of the total price paid immediately to the District (account), the rest in three annual payments (driejaarliege paaiemente), interest 4 %, (suspended if farmer a former soldier?), buyer has to pay for survey and bakens, after the whole payment (three years) the buyer may sell part of the whole farm with agreement of District commander.[226]

Heinrich Vedder presented the following account on settler-San relations at the beginning of the 20th century:

The path taken over the last 50 years is the following: A farmer settles where, since time immemorial, an extended family of Bushmen have found their water, have hunted their game and collected wild fruits. The farmer positions himself as friendly to these people and promises them neither to chase them away nor to take away their water, game and wild food. He can do that without any disadvantage because the farmer wants pasture for his livestock and a piece of land for vegetable and maize farming. The farmer cannot do much profitably with what the Bushman wants [from the land]. And the Bushman does not know what to do with what the white man needs, namely pasture and grass. Both interests, excluding the hunt, are not in conflict with one another.[227]

In spite of the difficulties the Germans experienced imposing colonial rule, they were, from the very beginning, importing the notion of private landownership and rigid boundaries to Namibia, a fatal issue for tens of thousands of people. A statement by Oelhafen von Schöllenbach, in his book on the settlement in German Southwest-Africa, is telling in this regard:

...However, since the indigenous tribes had always led a more or less nomadic life, there was no region which one or the other tribe had not temporarily possessed and to which they basically laid claim. The African indigenous people did not recognise the right of ownership of land by a single person. The land was tribal property and the individual was only entitled to the usufruct of the land he cultivated/used. This shows that the African native had no idea how to buy and sell the land. The right to participate in the usufruct of land could be acquired under certain circumstances, and the application for such acquisition was usually supported by gifts to the chiefs. Such gifts, however, had the character of tribute and were thus a recognition of the sovereignty exercised by a tribe or a chief over a certain area of land. Even if the European bought, the natives often felt that the purchase price paid was a kind of tribute or compensation for the usufruct of a piece of land and did not affect the original right of ownership, but on the contrary confirmed it.[228] 

There are inherent contradictions between pastoralism/hunting and gathering and settled farming, while the former two are based on “unrestricted physical mobility, settled farming and private property are premised on the demarcation of clearly defined boundaries, on fencing, and on strict control over the movement of stock”.[229]

Whilst the pastoralist systems were mainly destroyed in the course of the war (and did not recover for decades), the suppression of hunting and gathering systems took longer and happened more gradually.[230]

1913-1914

Map dating to these years shows the southern boundary of Wildschutzgebiet / Game Reserve no. 2 to stretch in a N-W diagonal line from Okaukeujo up to the Hoarusib River, Sesfontein and the Hoanib River, and the area stretching north from Hoanib to Hoarusib, is demarcated as ‘Gesellschaftsland’ [company land] and stretches southwards down to the Ugab River[231]. Very small pockets of farmland dating 1910-14 are found in the more favourable areas in this Gesellschaftsland, e.g. around Sesfontein/Warmquelle.[232]

1913-1962

Summarising patterns and effects of land appropriation ushered in in the wake of South Africa’s Land Act, Sullivan writes:

[t]he success of the ensuing national Land Settlement Program in terms of farms settled and increases in the white farming population is quite astonishing; between 1913 and 1962, the number of surveyed and settled farms increased from 1,138 to 5,500, the white population rose from 14,830 to 72,000, and the area thus settled as commercial farms grew from 11,490,000 to 39,812,000 hectares (First, 1963: 248).

   These figures are less surprising, however, when interpreted in the light of the lengths to which the Administration went to ensure settlement of the Police Zone by a white farming population, largely composed of landless Afrikaners forming a political threat within South Africa as an increasingly hostile white lobby (Moorsom, 1982: 30). These included, for example: extremely generous financial terms offered for the purchase of farms[233], livestock and the development of infrastructure; subsidies and drought assistance which enabled farmers to survive in the face of impending bankruptcy; the instituting of systems of taxation and labour laws which ensured a supply of cheap black labour; and deceptive advertising employed to entice settlers to marginal lands in the west of the country (Moorsom, 1982: 32; Fuller, 1993: 27-30). Despite these favourable terms, reports to the Administration in the 1920s and 1930s repeatedly express concern regarding the ability of settlers to repay their debts, and there is some speculation that many of the commercial farms were never actually

paid off (Fuller, 1993: 28-29).

   Apart from effectively subsidising a large white settler population while instituting the underdevelopment of indigenous population groups, the Settlement Program had a second important consequence; a boom in value of surveyed farm-land. This was a result of land speculation among settler farmers who, having been allocated land in areas of varying productivity, contrived to obtain better land elsewhere (Fuller, 1993: 30). One way in which they could do this was by offering land adjacent to Native Reserves at very high prices following proposals to expand these Reserves. A ‘knock-on’ effect of this was to make it prohibitively expensive for Africans to use money from their Trust Funds to purchase land for the expansion of the Reserves, as was the thwarted intention of the Otjimbingwe Reserve in the late 1920s (Fuller, 1993: 45, 47-48).[234]

 

1914

In mid-September, and amidst opposition by influential Afrikaners unsympathetic to Britain, the South African Parliament in Cape Town agrees to occupy German SWA, leading to a civil war costing more than 1,000 lives in which German SWA supports the Afrikaner rebels[235]. In December several German soldiers are murdered at Fort Naulila in southern Angola and a punitive Schutztruppe expedition is dispatched there[236].

Vedder visits Kaoko[237] and documents for the colonial government Ovaherero, Ovahimba and Ovatjimba peoples there as part of an over-arching Herero-speaking community, in context of perceiving work by the Rhenish mission as simply an extension of the Herero mission elsewhere in Namibia[238]. He ‘emphasizes the vision of an unshattered continuity of Herero culture in Namibia’s northwest’ using photographs from ‘Kaokoland’ ‘to illustrate traditional Herero life “which ended at about 1870” … thereby presenting the inhabitants of Kaokoland as relics of the precolonial Herero culture’[239]. But this description ‘as an OvaHerero area’ conflicted ‘with the realities on the ground’, given that ‘the main stronghold of missionary work in Kaoko in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was … Sesfontein and its Topnaar leadership’, drawn into the Rhenish Mission Society’s Nama mission field with strongholds in Outjo and Fransfontein[240]. Thus ‘Hudo’ [check], i.e. Nicodemus Hendriks (father of Pastor Hendriks in Sesfontein who died in early 2016), would travel to Sesfontein from the Rhenish Mission Station in Outjo to preach in Sesfontein[241].

Vedder observes several Tjimba communities using old-fashioned muzzle-loaders guns, ‘which they had received on a loan basis from their Ovambo overlords’ (the king of Uukwaludhi who asserted ‘royal monopoly on ivory trading’ in which ‘a great tusk was exchanged for two small sacks of seed-millet’, in contrast to the £30/tusk acquired by Boer hunters[242]. He reportedly estimates ‘Kaokoland’s’ population to be ‘somewhat less than 5,000 people’[243].

Van Warmelo reports that by 1914 there were only three [German] men left in the garrison/fort in Sesfontein, and when the first world war broke out the Germans arrested the kaptein of Sesfontein Jan |Uixamab, taking him to Outjo, and he died on the way from Outjo to an unknown destination being buried at Palmfontein**? 6 miles from Outjo[244][** this seems inaccurate, see 1906]. Jan |Uichamab’s son (by ǁGaubes) – Levi |Nabeb |Uichamab - becomes kaptein of Sesfontein[245]. When the German garrison in Sesfontein was abandoned in the early days of WW1 the garden plots ‘were “inherited” by those who had worked them’[246]. Elsewhere it is written that ‘Uixamab’s brother and successor Jan |Uixamab [grand-father of Husa], died in 1914 a prisoner of the Germans’[247].

 

Major Viktor Franke sends a company of sixty Schutztruppe (‘protection troops’ to Grootfontein district ‘to deal with troublesome Bushmen’ [‘Bushmen’ or ‘Dama’?] for which a Gunther Walbaum describes in vivid detail beatings and hangings of ‘Bushmen’ with firearms for killing a white settler farmer, and saying of a patrol that:

[a]fter three kilometers we reached an open field where Jan [the guide) showed us to go down. One kilometer in front of us some Bushmen were busy digging out uintjies [tubers). Now Jan did not want to walk in front anymore, because he did not want to have anything to do with the shooting. We discussed our next step for a moment so that we could encircle them. We had to sneak up to them like one does with game. On a sign, we all got up with our guns ready to shoot. We were about fifty to seventy meters away from them. The Bushmen stood in astonishment. When we approached them, ten or twelve men ran away. Falckenburg and one of our natives shot two. Unfortunately, I missed.[248]

Carl Hugo Linsengen ‘Cocky’ Hahn, grandson of Rhenish missionary Hugo Hahn, later Resident Commissioner for Owamboland and Kaokoland, is a member of the Imperial Light Horse[249].

In 1914, a drilling machine arrives in Outjo district.[250]

‘Heikum’ is recorded for ‘Bushmen’ in the vicinity of Etosha Pan.[251]

The district commander of Grootfontein, von Zastrow reports in the “Zeitschrift für Ethnologie”:

I [referring to the map below – **I can’t see where ‘I’ is on the map?!]]. The narrower district of Grootfontein with the Etosha Pan and the western land of the northern Sandfeld: The Nama-speaking Heikum live here. They are often interspersed with negro blood and are therefore generally stronger than the other Bushmen. They are divided into different tribes and speak different dialects. For example, the Bushmen at the Etosha Pan are particularly dark, and their dialect is hardly understandable to the Nama. Those to the east, on the other hand, north of the Omuramba and Ovambo, are much brighter, and the mixture with the Kung clearly stands out. On the other hand, the ones west of Otavi are much brighter, and the mixture with the Bergdamara is clearly visible. A further differentiation of these tribes is hardly possible. The influence of the whites, to which they are particularly subject, has produced a more or less great mixture of the individual tribes and has mixed the main differentiation possibility, the dialect.[252]

It is evident in this account that contact with other groups has a major impact on people (both linguistically as physically], Haiǁom are not Haiǁom per se but differ according to area. In many accounts by other scholars or officers, Haiǁom are generally only regarded as “mixture” or a group of ‘Bushmen’ with serious ‘deficiencies’ (either lacking a proper ‘Bushman’ language or ‘racial’ features of ‘Bushmen’, etc. With regard to ‘Bushmen’ farm labourers, most if not all Haiǁom according to von Zastrow, he provides the following numbers.

1910                        1159, among them 441 men

        1911                        1685, among them 540 men

        1912                        1694, among them 553 men

        1913                        1849, among them 567 men[253]

The geographer-anthropologist Leonard Schultze publishes comments on ‘Bushmen’ as follows:

The ethnologist may lament the fact that a portion of humanity with such strongly developed characteristics as displayed by the tribes of German South West Africa ... will one day become wholly melted down in order to be put into circulation again as common day labor coin, stamped with the imperial eagle and the Christian cross, with the inscription ‘colored laborer,’ to constitute an economic value. But the struggle for our own existence allows no other solution. At the same time, work is the only solution for them: he who doesn’t want to work perishes here with us as well; we have no reason to be more sentimental in Africa than in Europe. We who build our houses on the graves of those races must, however, take twice as seriously our obligation to avoid no sacrifices for the purposes of civilization, that is, for the greater development of all means of existence in this new land.  

… If we consider the natives according to their value as cultural factors in the protectorate, then one race is immediately eliminated: the Bushmen. The Bushman lacks entirely the precondition of any cultural development: the drive to create something beyond everyday needs, to secure or permanently to improve systematically the conditions of existence, even the most primitive ones like the procurement of food. In the course of centuries he has come into contact with cultures of all levels; in conflict with them he has often enough had the knife put to his throat; tireless missionaries have attempted to save him from such struggle, to protect and to join him as the modest member to a civilized community; but the Bushman has always run away. He feels better out in the Sandveld behind a windscreen of thin-leaf thorn bush than in a solidly built house with a full pot and regular work-as long as he is free. Colonists cannot count on such people; they let them live as long as at least they do no damage. But when they do not fulfill this requirement, they have been killed off like predatory game. The idea has been considered to preserve the Bushmen in reservations as the last remnants of the primordial past of the human race, just as elsewhere attempts are made to save endangered animal species. But we will not be able to afford the luxury of leaving fallow the required land areas and everything else which man requires for the maintenance of the species without inbreeding.[254] 

1914-21

Levi |Naneb |Uixomab takes over from his father as Headman of Sesfontein because his father fell sick[255].

Prior to 1915

Sometime prior to 1915 Colonel Pritchard makes an expedition from the south to southern Angola, while General Pereira de Eça leads a military campaign into southern Angola from the north[256]. Immigration from Angola into Kaoko ‘re-initiated raids and consequently led to the dislocation of many people’ and ‘socio-political distress in the region [Kaoko] by the late 1910s favoured the beginnings of administrative policy’ of indirect rule in Kaoko led by Major Charles N. Manning - ‘concerned with the demarcation of ethnic groups and the identification of political leaders associated with them’[257].  

In the early part of the decade the governor was being urged by settler farmers to kill off (abschiessen) Bushmen[258].

1915

On 31 January the Afrikaner rebellion supported by German SWA (see 1914) comes to an end with a capitulation signed in the vicinity of Upington[259]. In this month, four South African PoWs escape from a German camp at Franzfontein, surviving after finding water at Cape Cross, before making their way to Swakopmund[260].

Windhoek is taken by Union of South African troops on 12 May (following the blockading of Lüderitz, the landing of enemy forces in Walvis Bay and the taking of Swakopmund)[261]. Ending of German colonial rule follows the signing of a Surrender Treaty at Khorab near Otavi on 9th July[262] (signed by Governor Theodor Seitz and Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Franke on behalf of GSWA and General Louis Botha on behalf of the Union forces, with responsibility for execution by Brigadier H.T. Lukin[263]), and GSWA becomes British South West Africa following invasion led by the Boer generals Smuts and Louis Botha[264].  Three ‘home areas’ established under German rule are Okombahe (Damara), Rehoboth (Baster) and Berseba (Nama)[265].

This year marks the formal colonisation of land and peoples north of the Red Line[266] under ‘a military administration run [until 1920] by the Union of South Africa’[267]. The ‘natural boundaries of the Union of South Africa are to be expanded northwards from the Orange River to Portuguese Angola, and westward from Bechuanaland to the Atlantic Ocean’, providing ‘the Botha Government, in Namaqualand and Damaraland, with more land for the “bijwohners,’ or poor white class’[268]. General Louis Botha thus declares on 26 July that ‘“[i]n German South West Africa homesteads are waiting for many a South African son’[269].


The retreat and defeat of German forces opens the way for indigenous reconstruction and pastoral recovery (in terms of numbers of livestock rather than access to markets[270]), especially amongst Herero and Nama communities in southern and central Namibia[271]. Bushman hunting’ is banned by the incoming South African administration, and the first South African military magistrate in Grootfontein district writes of how ‘the Bushmen have all lost faith in the white man’s methods [of justice], more especially as their women were being constantly interfered with by both farmers and police’ [see also 1918][272].

The hunting / game ordinance of 1902 remains in force up to occupation of the territory by South African forces in 1915 in the context of World War 1, when EHL Gorges was appointed Governor of the Military Regime[273] (and was technically still in force until new Union of South Africa legislation of 1921.

Kwanyama king Mandume ya Ndemufayo moves his capital from Ondjiva in Angola to Oihole in Namibia, after failing to prevent Portuguese invasion of Kwanyama territory in Angola[274] under General Pereira de Eça, having received confirmation of protection by Major Pritchard on 2 September[275]. When colonial officials enter Owamboland they are offered hoarded ivory as tribute by King Martin ka Dikwa of Ondonga[276].

Vita Tom / Oorlog and commando take part in a battle of Mongwa against Mandume[277]; statement taken from Oorlog by Manning in Sesfontein in 1917 confirms that:

Before the big famine in Ovamboland (1915) Mandume had killed some Portuguese traders and later his headman KALOLA captured six cannons and five wagons from Portuguese escort going to KASIMA. An expedition got to MDNGWE where Mandume fell on the laager. For four days his army fired on the Portuguese troops and my people. I was hit through the side and show the wounds. (Through right side and through ribs. CNM.) I obtained permission to make a sortie with my men which I did and the Ovakuanyama fell back to ONDJIVA. We followed and found Mandume had burnt his great kraal at ONDJIVA and fled to Namakunde. Later I saw the English Officers who met the Portuguese at ONDJIVA.[278] 

After German surrender Vita Tom leads some Himba and Herero ‘back into sparsely populated Kaokoland’, having accumulated herds through cattle raids of Kuvare, Ngumbi and Kwanyama peoples of southern Angola[279]. He leaves Angola ‘with a mixed group of Bushmen, Nama, Himba and Herero’, referred to collectively in colonial records, e.g. by Manning, as ‘Oorlamse men’, intending to return to Omaruru ‘and take up residence there with his matrilineal relatives who were closely related to the noble line of the Zeraua family’[280], although this did not transpire. Vita Tom and Muhona Katiti are ‘well armed with modern guns’ whereas ‘people further to the south were armed with old fashioned muzzle loading guns which had probably changed hands three or four times already before ending up in Kaokoland’[281]. Famine in this year again reduces the Humbe population in southern Angola[282]. The territory of the Ombanja [see 1904-07] in southern Angola is ‘finally conquered … by the Portuguese, and their capital Ondjiva, now Vila Pereira d’Eça, was burnt down’[283].

The concession to the Kaokoland Land and Mining Company is nullified by the South African government (as martial law takes hold in the territory[284]) - ‘[o]nly four farms had been surveyed and sold and they were never occupied’[285]. Major Charles Manning is appointed Resident Commissioner of Ovamboland, from where he also treks to Kaoko[286].

According to Kruger, the following farms were allotted in the much smaller area of Outjo district [i.e. compared with that reported by Külz above] at the end of the German colonial period:[287]

**Caption Source: Bolten und Dieckmann 2010: 171.

However, this map might rather reflect a conceptual idea about the land and to a lesser degree the realities on the ground: farms were only marked with border beacons. Ownership was not engraved by fences in the physical landscape.

**Do we know the years of these amazing images? Perhaps we can move them to the years they were taken in the chronology? Not recorded

An improvised farm at Gamkarab, Otujo district, in the 1920s[288][**move down to 1920s?]

Start of farming with wagon[289]

First farm housings[290]

1915-1920

Martial law is established under Union of South Africa rule, characterised by both liberalism and paternalism[291].

No new farms are surveyed in Outjo district in these years[292].

1915-1921

Major Charles N. Manning is Resident Commissioner for Owamboland, under the Union Native Affairs Dept.[293]. Following German rule, some greater justice is provided for in legal system and labour market and reform is accompanied by incidents of defiance associated with expectations of land restitution and enabling some reconstruction of identities and livelihoods[294].

In the mid- and late 1910s, Immigration from Angola into Kaoko ‘re-initiated raids and consequently led to the dislocation of many people’ and ‘socio-political distress in the region [Kaoko] by the late 1910s favoured the beginnings of administrative policy’ of indirect rule in Kaoko led by Major Charles N. Manning - ‘concerned with the demarcation of ethnic groups and the identification of political leaders associated with them’[295].

ca. 1915-1947

In relation to ‘nature conservation’, these decades are characterised by Eugene Joubert as a period of ‘stagnation’,

during which time virtually no progress was made regarding conservation as a whole. Various Ordinances were proclaimed but enforcement in the vast area of SWA was virtually impossible, especially since no officials directly responsible for nature conservation existed.[296].

1916

New colonial authority is established and adopts the inner-Namibian border of the Red Line as the northern boundary of European settlement[297]. Under South African martial law, Proclamation 15 of 1916 decrees that no person can ‘cross the line marking the Police Zone without permission and this became known as the Red Line’[298]. Cases are on record of farmers who have killed Bushmen being charged with murder under the new SWA administration[299].

Hahn travels as Intelligence Officer to Kwanyama king Mandume’s residence in Oihole[300] from where the king increasingly defies the terms of South African ‘protection’[301]. Mandume is reported to have stated several times that he would rather commit suicide than be taken prisoner, leading to controversy regarding the cause of his death through a subsequent military expedition[302].

Early in the year, Vita Tom / Oorlog returns to Kaokoveld: 

After the war with Mandume the Portuguese thanked me for all my services including those at Naulila and as I wished to go back to [2] Kaokoveld under the new government, I trekked with about 200 people and stock South of the Kunene via Swartbooi’s Drift to OTJITAMBI alias OTJIJANJASEMO near MUHONGA river but we have a large spring at OTJITAMBI. There are two big palms there. We found a man named Hangerwa there and he welcomed us. We planted mealies and kaffir corn. This was early in 1916. Muhona Katiti had killed the son of Kasupi of Ombepera and he was also afraid that I was coming with Boer people across the Kunene and he trekked before I arrived at Otjitambi and went to Ongwati thence Ekoko§ (or Owaruthe§) where he now lives. This is 1½ days on foot South of me [where?] and 4 days on foot going North from Zesfontein. I sent three times to Muhona Katiti asking him in a friendly way why he had trekked. He replied he would come back but was grazing his cattle. I then heard that he had sent a messenger to his brother Karapupa (Karahoupa? CNM.) to Cauas Okawi to complain to the English that I had murdered his people. He said I had killed 26 men and 2 women whom I was alleged to have taken from him to wife. A man I sent to buy tobacco from the Zesfontein Hottentots told me about these lying reports and I with my sons and others left home to see the Government [where?] about the matter but at Warmbad we heard the Troops had gone to Ovamboland so we went home and I sent four men Adriaan, Lukas, Edward and Mbepera to Cauas Okawi Police Post. They returned with a letter or pass ordering me to come to Cauas Okawi with Muhona Katiti to have the matter discussed. I sent a messenger Kabiritu to Muhona Katiti saying we should go together to Government. Muhona Katiti would not listen but took away the man’s horse, gun, saddle and everything. He had the man beaten with kerries as one can see from wounds on the man’s chest now (Marks still visible CNM.). I wnet [sic] to Gauko Otwau and from there sent two Hereros to tell Muhona Katiti that the English police ordered us to come. He said he would have nothing to do with the Police and would not go. I went by myself to Windhuk and returned to Zesfontein after seeing Government. I have not gone further than here because I have heard from many people that Muhona Katiti is waiting for me on the different roads near Onganga. If I go we may fight and I am afraid of offending the Government and the Law. I only wish to have peace and have no wish to have war but I want to get home for food.

Sgd. VITA alias OOLOG. His X mark.

Statement to Manning, Sesfontein 9th August 1917.[303]

The German Proclamation of 1907 (regarding game reserves) is repealed by Ordinance No. 1 of 1916 and amended to suit the new situation and to reconfirm the borders of the Game Reserve No. 2.[304] Proclamation 10 of 1916 is the first law in the territory to protect a plant, and protects Welwitschia mirabilis, especially in Game Reserve No. 3[305].

After WWI, introduction of “game licences”, Germishuys and Staal write: “[f]or as little as £20 anybody could kill or capture ‘not more than 16 animals’. For 15/- per month one could shoot any number of springbok, smaller antelope and warthog”. But hunting season was reduced (now May to October instead of nine month beforehand). Various game and bird species declared as “royal game”, including “elephants, hippos, rhinos, ostriches, bustards, bultures, secretary birds, owls, flamingos and, ironically enough, some of the fame on which, for the sake of the troops, an open season had been declared, namely buffalos, giraffes, zebras and eland. The penalty for shooting any of these animals was a fine of £500, or two years imprisonment. It is an interesting fact that many of the species for which hunting licences were available, have never been known to occur in ‘South West Africa’, thus indicating that hunting laws applicable to the Union of South Africa had simply been enforced in the newly occupied Territory as well[306].

The RMS missionary Vedder is deported by the South African Military administration[307].

1916-1917

The military magistrate of Grootfontein, Frank Brownlee, gives instructions to the police in his district not to arrest Bushmen on grounds of vagrancy, as he had realised that proof of ‘no visible means of support’ or ‘passes’ was problematic. The secretary of the protectorate approved this policy and extended it to other parts of the territory. He gave notice to the military magistrate in Outjo that: “…there would appear no remedy for the depredations of the Bushmen, except peaceful persuasion to get them to move further afield. They should not be arrested for vagrancy nor for shooting game but be classed amongst the protected wild animals. Every endeavour should be made by the police to keep on friendly terms with them and acquire an influence over them exhorting them to keep away from the whites and their stock.”[308] However, police officers complain about ‘Bushmen’ for setting grass fires and “ruthlessly” slaughtering game and hostilities between farmers and ‘Bushmen’ continue.[309]

1917

By end of April ‘the Imperial War Cabinet, within which General Smuts [of the Union of SA] played a prominent role, had already determined that “[t]he restoration to Germany of South West Africa is incompatible with the security and peaceful development of the Union of South Africa, and should in no circumstances be contemplated”’[310]. In September the military magistrate Major T.L. O’Reilly based in Omaruru is authorised to begin work drafting the report that became the Blue Book[311], published a year later. In May, PoWs in Swakopmund are transferred to the former barracks of the 2nd Battery at Johann-Albrechtshöhe near Karibib[312].

Journey by Major Charles N. Manning, first Resident Commissioner of Ovamboland[313], who makes two significant treks into Kaoko in the north-west of the country in 1917 and 1919, ‘concerned with the demarcation of ethnic groups and the identification of political leaders associated with them’[314]. An outcome of Manning’s trips to ‘Kaoko’ in 1917 and 1919 was the production what has become known as ‘the Manning map’: a ‘remarkable’[315] map of north-west Namibia, a copy of which was deposited with the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London. In 1917, Manning tours the Kaokoveld from Owambo from 2 August to 1 November, a moment that immediately follows the so-called Mandume campaign to remove the recalcitrant Kwanyama king Mandume ya Ndemufayo[316], who is pictured dead after a skirmish at his homestead Oihole on 6 February[317]. ​​A postcard of his corpse surrounded by British soldiers was made available soon after this[318].

Manning’s full report and map, submitted from Ondonga on 15th November 2017 following submission of extracts and copies of his personal diary, is split into 4 sections plus additional ‘special subjects’[319] -‘mountains’, rivers’, ‘water supply’, ‘trees’, ‘roads’, ‘agriculture, farming etc.’, ‘land values’, ‘Zesfontein vs. Kaoko Otavi’, ‘native population’, ‘labour’, ‘firearms, political aspect, administration’, ‘veld fires’, ‘tsama melon’, ‘game’, ‘climate’ - and 12 photos of various places visited. His revised Kaokoland Map marks ‘ROUTES taken by me as also all places actually visited or verified recorded on map for first time are marked or written in red. This also applies to alterations and corrections. [added by hand –] Shaded patches indicate “natives”’[320]. He frequently notes his frustration with what he sees as the inaccuracy of previous maps, often using this as a justification for denigrating the cartographic work of German travellers to the area. He similarly expresses frustration with the complexity of local names[321]:

[c]onfusion in names of places thus arisen apart from several inaccuracies, misspellings and important omissions on existing maps. Some places obviously wrongly located have been crossed out and correctly shown.[322]

Manning is keen to institute a new system of government and control, based on a typical suite of statecraft technologies, including reducing the availability of firearms[323], controlling the hunting of ‘game’, establishing a hierarchy of headmen in specified areas, and controlling movement and trade[324]. Part of his mission is to disarm inhabitants of the area and to make ‘it clear that local hunting and trading in game products were to be unacceptable’[325]. This moment is described in the following terms:

[i]n 1917 Major Manning established South African rule in Kaokoland’, his expedition being a response to ‘disturbing news that major groups of well-armed Himba and Herero had crossed the Kunene into the territory[326].

Echoing Vedder in 1914, Manning reportedly estimates ‘Kaokoland’s’ population to be around 5,000[327].

He encounters people he frames as,

Kaoko Herero viz OVATSHIMBA of Bantu Class, largely outnumbered Nama speaking people such as Hottentots, Namibdaman alias Sandkaffirs, Ghodaman alias Klipkaffirs, and Bushmen who in small numbers near Sea Coast, at and South of Zesfontein only. Languages totally different. Latter have many clicks, Herero like Ovambo, have none.[328] 

Manning’s instructions in July 1917:

were to accompany the Officer’s patrol then on way to late German outpost, Zesfontein, to particularly co-operate in settlement of hostile dispute between two armed native sections in Northern Kaokoveld,- one under Kaoko-Herero or Ovatshimba headman MUHONA KATITI - represented as headman by his brother KARAHUPA (alias KARAVAPA) who had been to Cauas Okawa[329] (east of Kamanjab) Police Station and made serious allegations as to murders and robberies against the other [complaining ‘that Oorlog had killed some of his people’), ‘who had gone to Windhuk to personally repudiate charges [complaining ‘that Karahupa had been the aggressor should be called upon to produce the bones of people that Oorlog was said to have killed’[330]. I was also to see as much as possible of the Kaokoveld and inhabitants and to report generally on conditions for the Administrator’s information[331].

Manning writes in his diary notes extracts that he was to accompany:

as representative of the Protectorate Administration an officers patrol consisting of Lt. and Troops with wagons, to [‘the late German out-post’[332]of] Zesfontein where a Police Post was to be established and used inter alia as a base for intelligence relating to Kaokoveld[333].

Vita Tom (Oorlog) (born in Otjimbingwe[334]), the son of Tom Bechuana who worked for Francis Galton during his expedition northwards in the early 1850s) moves from Angola to Otjiyandjasemo (south of Omuhonga River) to become one of two significant Himba/Herero headmen (with Muhona Katiti) in northern Kunene under the South African administration[335]:

Major Manning found that a considerable influx of people from southern Angola had taken place. They were under the leadership of two renowned local warlords, Vita Tom (alias Oorlog) and Muhona Katiti. Both had led hundreds of locals, classified as Himba, Tjimba, San, and Herero in Portuguese accounts, into battles with neighboring groups on behalf of the Portuguese military, and both had profited massively from professional soldiering. The Portuguese had adopted the policy of leaving half of the booty from punitive expeditions to their mercenary troop.[336] 

Both these headmen encounter in Kaoko pastoro-foragers (‘Tjimba’) who remained in the mountainous areas, trading ivory and ostrich eggshells for iron implements and old-fashioned guns with the western Owambo kingdoms and those around Kaoko Otavi viewing themselves as subjects of the King of Uukwaluudhi[337].

‘Traveller’s Map of Kaokoveld’, compiled in ca. 1921 by Major C.N. Manning, Resident Commisioner of Owamboland,  from journeys in 1917 and 1919. National Archives of Namibia.

Manning’s journeys in 1917 (and 1919) are being reconstructed here and also mapped online, focusing on his experiences and his impressions of the territory and peoples of north-west Namibia in this important historical moment. Overall, this moment is described as when ‘the South African government took hold of the region [north-west Namibia], disarmed local people, and established three tribal reserves’[338].

1918

Amidst confidential communications in January by the British Government to the governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa on the need to gather evidence of German treatment of natives in their colonies so as to support the post-war retention of German Colonies[339], the ‘Blue Book’[340] or Report on the Natives of South West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany is published by the British South West Africa administration. The Blue Book draws on 47 African testimonials in documenting German colonial treatment of Africans in the territory and supporting the South African claim to the award of a League of Nations mandate[341]. Based on German archival material as well as oral testimonies of the German colonial period, it is used as part of a larger campaign for the transfer of the administration of the German colony to the Union of South Africa[342]. Its principal author, British military magistrate Thomas Leslie O’Reilly, resigns in November after no action is taken regarding his reports of ongoing corporal punishment of natives[343]. When read with caution, the Blue Book is an important historical source, but is also controversial. Kanzler claims that it is being drawn up whilst war is still raging as a strategy to support the ‘relieving’ of Imperial Germany of its colonies by Britain, thus:

[w]hile the war is still raging, Britain already draws up one of the so-called ‘Blue Books’, in which German offences are listed - as ammunition for the peace negotiations which are expected to follow. ‘Proof’ of the brutality and incompetence of German colonial administrations is collected in the German colonies to serve as legal and moral arguments for seizing them and deporting their German population. Already from 1917 onwards South African officials are putting together a ‘list of sins’ - a ‘Report on the Natives of South West Africa and their treatment by Germany’ - which is later integrated into the Blue Book.[344]

 

O’Reilly quotes Johannes Kruger, ‘an intelligent Cape Bastard, who in 1895 was appointed by Governor Leutwein as “Chief” of the natives of Grootfontein’ [see 1895]:

The first German I met was Von Francois, who passed through Grootfontein with troops towards N’gami. Some years later Major Leutwein came to Ghaub with Dr. Hartmann, the manager of the S.W.A. Company. He stayed there only a day and drew up an agreement for me to sign, wherein I was appointed Captain of the natives and had to recognize German sovereignty and control. Leutwein said I was Captain of the Bushmen and Damaras and of all people who lived at Ghaub. The agreement was signed on 31.8.1895. I identify the original agreement and my signature now shown to me. (Original agreement read over the deponent.) I signed the agreement unwillingly. I at first refused to sign it, but they (Leutwein and Hartmann) insisted, so I eventually agreed.

   I knew the Bushmen had no real Chiefs, and that every head of a family was practically his own Chief and master. I told Leutwein that Bushmen would not readily submit to a Chief, especially as I was not a Bushman. The reply was that as I know the language and the people I might have influence over them. The Berg-Damaras, I felt, I could control, and also the Hottentots, though the Hottentots in particular strongly objected to the agreement being made. They said they did not want to be German subjects and preferred the English. The Berg-Damaras said nothing, and the few Bushmen were also silent, as they understood nothing of the matter. After the agreement was signed, Harmann gave me 5l. a month. I had to provide labourers for the Company. I then tried to collect people to live in Ghaub which, under the agreement, was given to us. I collected in time 212 Heikom Bushmen (men, women, and children) also 110 Berg-Damaras, and these, with the 35 Hottentots all lived on my werft at Ghaub. They all agreed very well, but the Bushmen only remained a short time, as there was not enough “veld kost” (wild fruits, roots, herbs &c.) for them to live on. They had no stock. So they scattered and returned to the bush. Later on the Bushmen began to offer their services as labourers on the farms of the German settlers. The majority of the Heikom (several hundred families) left the bush and came in to the farms. Then the trouble started. The German farmers refused to pay them their wages, they said food and tobacco were enough for  them. They did not want money. The food was poor and the Bushmen complained to me. I spoke to Lieut. Volkmann, the German Magistrate, and said the Bushmen were a wild people, but if they were properly treated and fed and got a little money, just a little, they would get tame and become useful. He made promises, but nothing came of them. We got no redress. As a rule a Bushman only has one wife. If she is barren he may take another, but never has more than two. The majority of the Bushmen have only one wife. They are extremely fond of their women, whom they treat well. The Germans started to take their wives away from the Bushmen and made concubines of them. The whole district is full of these German-Bushwomen cross-breeds. This conduct of the Germans annoyed and irritated the Bushmen more than anything else. They deeply resented it; I received numerous complaints from them. I made representations to the German Magistrate, Volkmann, but the trouble continued. This resulted in the Bushmen refusing to work on the farms unless compelled by hunger to do so. Then they began, for the first time, to steal cattle of the Germans and rush them away to the bush. One Bushman whose wife had been taken in this way, murdered the German farmer who had despoiled him. Bushmen were shot on sight by the police and German farmers, and no mercy was shown to them. Those who were shot were men who, too afraid to stand, ran away on being seen by a German patrol or a farmer. They were in state of terror. Often the Germans surprised and captured families of Bushmen in the veld. These people were then transported, with women and children, to Swakopmund or Luderitzbucht to work. Many died down there [see e.g. 1911-1914]. I only say two who had escaped and returned to the bush there. They said all their people perished there of cold and exposure. The Bushmen are human beings after all, and resent their wives being taken away, and object to ill-treatment. They are too terrified now and don’t trust the white men; but in time I think the Heikom will settle down and become useful labourers if well treated. The Kung or Kalihari [sic] Bushmen are more fierce than the Heikom, and will not readily settle down. I have always got on well with them though, and never was molested by any of them. The white men, especially the Germans, treated them as if they were wild animals, and therefore they retaliated and are naturally wild and timid. The Germans treated all natives with harsh brutality and gave them no justice. They all hate the Germans. The majority of natives here have from time to time been badly flogged and thrashed for all sorts of small offences, such as petty thefts or vagrancy or laziness or impertinence. They were spoiled and driven to desperation by suppression, any many offences they committed and impertinence and lack of respect arouse out of the Germans’ intimate and immoral relations with their wives and daughters. If a native objected and was cheeky he got flogged for insubordination and impertinence. This was in peace time. In war time a German showed no mercy to man, woman, or child.

   We are very unhappy under German rule and I often deeply regretted their having come here. But what could we do – we were too weak.

   I know the natives of Grootfontein. They are all much happier now than they were under German rule. They talk all day long about the new Government, and say they hope and pray that England will keep this country and govern us. They are in terror at the very idea of a German Government coming back. They say they will all be killed, and will flee away to another country rather than stay. I say the same. The Germans hate me because I tried to protect my Bushmen and Damaras. I reported their cruelty, and they blamed me when the natives deserted their service. I won’t stay here if the land is given back to Germany. I don’t believe any of us will remain.[345]

Under the heading “The Berg-Damaras of South-West Africa” the “Blue Book” reports:

In addition to the Hottentots and the Hereros, there live in scattered bands or groups throughout the countries known as Damaraland and Great Namaqualand survivors of the once numerous race of Berg-Damaras (called by the Hottentots “Klip-Kaffirs” and “Dirty Damaras”).

   According to various estimates the population of this tribe at the time of the German annexation in 1890 was probably not less than 30,000 to 40,000, and it may have been much higher. Estimates were based on the numbers in a state of slavery under the Hottentos or in a state of semi-independence under the, at times, rather doubtful “protection” of the Hereros.

   No estimate could possibly be formed of the considerable number who, under force of circumstances and to avoid slavery and worse, had adopted the habits of the wild Bushmen and, under petty patriarchal chiefs, shared with them the shelter of the remote mountain caves and the most impenetrable bush.

[…]

   The origin of this ebony-skinned race, which now speaks pure Nama (Hottentot) still remains, like their now dead language of which no trace is retained, a fascinating puzzle for the ethnologist. The report mentions theories of origin and migration, e.g. to Hugo Hahn [see 1876] and other writers and continues to refer to Schinz.

   Dr. Hans Schinz, following the views of the great majority of missionary students, holds that while the Bushman was the aborigine of South Africa and South-East Africa, the Berg-Damara was the South-West African aborigine, and that the great Bantu influx which drove them a wedge across Central Africa right to the western coast line had the effect of isolating the Berg-Damaras in the south.

   This view is probably the correct one. They are not Bantu people. Circumcision and other characteristic Bantu customs are not known to them. The writer has had long discussions with the present hereditary Chief and his older councilors, but beyond the fact that they are able to give the names of no less than fifteen Chiefs who at various times ruled over the, and unhesitatingly assert that they were the first people in this land, one can glean very little of their mysterious past.

   In reply to questions, the Chief Judas Goresib [see 1894] of Okambahe (the head village), in the Omaruru district, who is a fine dignified specimen of black humanity, said:

   “We are the original inhabitants of the country now known as Hereroland. My people were here long before the Hereros and Hottentots came. Our Chief’s village used, many years ago, to be at the place now known as Okanjande near the Waterberg. It was known to us by the name of Kanubis. Later on the Ovambos (the Chief is certain these were Ovambos. He says that the Herero were in the Kaokoveld at that time) drove our people away and they trekked south, and had their chief town where Windhuk now stands, we called it Kaisabis (= the big place) One of my ancestors, Nawabib, was Chief then. It was only later, by agreement with the Herero Chiefs (Willem Zerua and Kamaherero) that we shifted our chief town to Okambahe during the Chieftainship of my great uncle Abraham.[346]

 

O’Reilly describes Berg-Damara under Herero rule and under German rule [see also references 1895 republic South Africa, 1918] to finish his section on “Berg-Damaras” with the”Chau-Damara”:

The wild Chau-Damaras’ views are also of interest. The writer succeeded in finding a comparatively tame and intelligent member of this class, Jacob Dikasip, living at Ghaub, between Grootfontein and Tsumeb [see 1895 & above] under the so-called Bushman Chief, Johannes Kruger. Johannes is a Bastard who in the early days had hunted with Erickson, Green and others. Eventually he settled down near Grootfontein, and in 1896 was formally appointed by Governor Leutwein as Chief of the Bushmen, Berg-Damaras, and other natives in the Grootfontein areas [1895 0r 1896?, different dates in same source, see above]. Jacob Dikasib said:

   “I have been under German masters and have been brutally treated. I show you the scars on my back from the floggings I have received… (he was marked like a zebra)… I look old and worn, but it is from the bad treatment…. See! All my teeth in front are knocked out.  A German policeman Grossman did that. I had been pulled down for a flogging, and it hurt so much that I tried to get away, whereupon I was hit on the mouth and lost my teeth. I don’t wish to see Germans ruling this land again, they have been too unjust. They came into the country, and ever since they came natives have been killed and flogged and beaten nearly to death. We never got justice or fair treatment… We cannot agree with the Germans, we hate them. A German has no respect for our women. They have been known to come into the pontoks and chase married men out of their beds in order that they might sleep there. We protested, but what could we do?… I have seen this sort of thing with my own eyes.

   Innumerable statements of this nature can be produced, but once again the details are too indecent and revolting for publication. The Berg-Damaras never at any time rebelled or gave any trouble to their German masters, yet it availed them nothing. The treatment meted out to them seems to have been exactly the same as that received by the other tribes.[347]

O’Reilly observes in the Blue Book” that ‘[t]he chief cause of all the trouble between Germans and Bushmen was that the Germans would persist in taking the Bushwomen from their husbands and using them as concubines’[348].

Major J. Herbst, secretary for South West Africa at the time, states of Bushmen and game laws that:

the strict enforcement of the game laws has made the country unsafe for them. They profess to be unable to understand by what right Government protects the game and invariably ask to be shown the government brand on the animals.[349] 

 
Levi |Nabeb |Uixamab, kaptein of Sesfontein, dies succeeded by son – Nathanael Husa |Uixamab (by Levi’s wife Katrina Maria ǁÂwes)[350].

Namibia is affected by the influenza epidemic[351], which sweeps through the PoW camp at Aus in October and November, where 59 PoWs and 50 members of the garrison and assistance units die[352].

At the end of 1918,

the government of South Africa orders the expulsion of Germans living in South West Africa. They are classified into five groups: (A) active members of the colonial forces, (B) public servants, (C) policemen, (D) persons willing to leave and (E) undesired subjects. While the first four groups are clearly defined, the fifth one leaves room for interpretation. In a letter, dated 1 April 1919, the Administrator in Windhoek instructs the military magistrates countrywide to “without delay, ( ... ) compile a list of persons ( ... ) who, in your opinion, it would be desirable to remove from South-West Africa”. As examples he includes people who mistreated natives in their employ or who violated the licensing act, people of dubious reputation and people who have expressed hostile feelings towards Britain. The magistrates are also asked to add whether the persons in question are making a valuable contribution to the country.[353]

Popular writer Lawrence Green writes that when he landed at Walvis Bay ‘shortly after World War 1’ water distilled using a condenser was sold a five guineas a thousand gallons, falling only after a pipeline was laid to Rooibank on the Kuiseb River[354].

 

Reinhardt Maack, who is preparing a map of the Brandberg, ‘discovers’ the ‘white lady’ painting in the Tsiseb ravine on the east side of the Brandberg, and immediately attributes ‘a Mediterranean origin for the paintings as they reminded him strongly of Egyptian frescoes’[355].

 

Anthropologist Winifred Hoernlé publishes her first article from her Nama research[356], in which she applies the theoretical model regarding ritual of Swiss sociologist Arnold van Gennep to,

Four surviving rituals of transition among the Nama … those relating to puberty, marriage, illness and death. In each case, she traced the ritual process by which the individual-in-transition, or ‘crisis’ in Van Gennep's terms, was isolated from society, then treated and tutored by elders to protect them from the dangerous potency associated with their liminal status, before being ritually prepared for their reintegration into society with a new social status. Her application of Van Gennep's model to southern African ethnographic data was pioneering, even if her data was less complete than she would have liked. Her applied sociological analysis of African rituals as involving the resolution of life crises and liminal identity through stages of ordered and protective social management remained the dominant approach towards the analysis of ritual in the southern African ethnographic literature of the interwar years. This was because the most significant studies of ritual would be penned by her Wits students, for whom her 1918 essay and a further trilogy on African ritual published in 1923 and 1925 would be core undergraduate texts.[357]  

1919

The Treaty of Versailles is signed on 28 June[358] following agreement of terms in April[359] assigns German SWA to be administered by South Africa as the Mandate of South-West Africa[360]. A retaliatory ‘White Book’ [see 1918] on The Treatment of Native and Other Populations in the Colonial Possessions of German and England is published by the German Colonial Office in Berlin[361]. PoWs leave Aus[362] and thousands of German settlers in South West Africa are expelled (as are Germans from German East Africa, the Cameroon and Togo), amidst claims of unscrupulous speculation on ‘their’ properties[363]. From April 1919 to February 1920 nearly 6,000 German men, women and children are deported using 11 steamers sailing under the British flag of which three are captured German Woerman line ships[364]. On 19 September the South African settlement law, ‘under which government loans are granted to landless sons of farmers for establishing their own farm’, is amended to include GSWA[365].

The Prohibited Areas Proclamation (Proc. 15 of 22 March 1919) by the ‘South African military administration’ confirms the existence of the three Game Reserves proclaimed in 1907 with permanently manned police posts established at Namutoni and Okaukuejo, and also controls entry into Owamboland and Rehoboth[366].

The existence of the ‘red line’ is crucial for further developments and the future of inhabitants of the region. Those people living on the southern side of the border are affected more directly by the colonial system than those staying on the northern side among Ovambo groups. The border also influenced the Administration’s policy regarding ‘Bushmen’ and the struggle for control over them. Some of the officials regarded the area outside the Police Zone as de facto ‘Bushman’ reserve, Additionally, the two discrete administered spatial entities widened the options of the Haiǁom and other inhabitants. Since police control was restricted to the Police Zone, the northern area served as a temporary or permanent refuge.[367]

A second trek and associated reporting is made to the Kaokoveld by the Resident Commissioner of Ovamboland, Major Manning [see 1917]. In his report ‘Kaokoveld’, he iterates prejudicial perceptions of these two leaders, characterising Vita Tom as ‘lawabiding’, ‘highly intelligent’, having ‘good presence and personality’, and being ‘a well-known and conspicuous figure … far more accessible than the wandering savages’, whilst Muhona Katiti is described as ‘a savage of the Ovatschimba class’ and the leader of ‘wild nomadic people who [are known to be well armed’[368].

South African historian George McCall Theal observes of ‘Bushmen’ that:

[i]t can now be asserted in positive language that the Bushmen were incapable of adopting European civilization .... To this day there has not been a single instance of a Bushman of pure blood having permanently adopted the habits of the white man.[369]

Post-WW1

Boreholes are provided by the South African administration ‘as part of a policy to discourage nomadism’, including at the entrance to the Hungorob ravine, south side of the Brandberg, and ‘[l]ocal men were … issued with rifles to protect their herds from the packs of Cape Hunting Dogs Lycaon pictus’, both innovations perhaps associated at the Hungorob with ‘an increase in the size of the herds and a need for the construction of large enclosures’, as evidenced by ‘several brushwood stock enclosures’ at the Hungorob[370].


Following WW1 and as the territory came under Union of South Africa ‘protection’, the area stretching from the Kunene to the
Hoanib River in the south became increasingly known as the ‘Kaokogebiet’ (i.e. ‘Kaoko area’) and ‘Kaokoveld’[371].

1920

Following diplomatic pressure from US President Woodrow Wilson and following the deportation of Germans from German East Africa, Cameroon and Togo[372], the last ship with German deportees from SWA leaves in February[373]. Consolidated Diamond Mines (CDM) takes over German diamond companies[374] and the new SA government requires the RMS ‘to pay off its debts’ [see 1924][375]: i.e. The KLMG is disowned by the new South African government of SWA[376].

 

Land settlement laws in force in South Africa are applied to the territory, and a land board is established to facilitate settlement, with the territory becoming ‘the object of an ambitious Land Settlement Programme for poor white (although not destitute) Afrikaners from the rural north-western Cape’[377]. Schmokel comments:

[u]nder the Land Settlement Proclamation of 1920, land was made available on extraordinarily favourable terms: no down payment, no interest during the first year of occupation, rising to 3.5 % during the third. Thereafter the purchase price was to be paid in 40 semi-annual installments, at 4 % interest. Average purchase prices ranged from 18 to 20 d per ha. In the early 1920s, during the first major stage of land allocation, Settlers were granted advances of up to  750 for buildings, equipment, and purchase of stock. In addition, the Crown Land Proclamation of 1920 provided the opportunity to purchase additional land, at similar prices, to consolidate or round out existing farms. Water resources were developed at government expense before farms were allocated, and the administration paid for a share of fencing costs, while providing advances for the rest.[378]

Botha explains that the Land Settlement Proclamation provided for the advertisement of farms in the official gazette; applications were invited and scrutinized by the Land Board, which submitted its recommendations to the administrator for final approval. Essentially, acquisition of a farm in Namibia could be secured in 3 ways: 1) through the land settlement programme of the Administration, an option open to poor people only 2) through the land bank, open to better-off settlers (Land Bank interest rates were slightly higher – 6 % vs 4 % of the land settlement programme, but still significantly lower than the 11-12 % interest rates of private banks), and finally 3) private purchase.[379] The Masters and Servants Proclamation and the Vagrancy Proclamation are also enacted making ‘it a criminal offence for native workers to leave their employment without their bosses’ explicit consent’[380]. The Vagrancy Proclamation makes it an offence for black people to move around in the Police Zone, unless they could show ‘visible lawful means of support’; ‘means of support’ were set at either ten cattle or fifty small stock.[381]

The Masters and Servants Proclamation and the Vagrancy Proclamation are enacted making ‘it a criminal offence for native workers to leave their employment without their bosses’ explicit consent’[382].

White South Africans including the de Vries / Levin family [who later acquire ‘Twyfelfontein’, see 1947] encouraged by the Union of South Africa begin moving into the southern areas of SWA in the wake of post-WW1 dispossession of German settlers, followed in some cases by movements back and forth across the Orange River as necessitated by economic circumstances and opportunities[383]. 

By this year CBPP is mostly contained in commercial farming areas[384].

Part of the Himba group that had moved north over the Kunene in response to raiding in late 1800s by Nama settled in Sesfontein ‘again moved southwards into central and southern Kaokoland, although others remained in southern Angola’[385]. Here, being in an impoverished state relying on gathering and hunting, they were known as those who beg or request (ovaHimba / sing. omuHimba), although the lost herds were soon regained by raiding and and successful alliances[386]. Owen-Smith writes that ‘[a]fter the turn of the century, these Himba [who in the late 1800s had fled across the Kunene River from Nama raiding in the Kaokoveld], under Oorlog Tom, accumulated large herds of cattle by subduing the neighbouring tribes. Many returned to the Kaokoveld with Oorlog in 1920, where they settled in the northern highlands and absorbed the local OvaTjimba’ – retaining a ‘mode of dress and nomadic way of life … governed by ancient traditions’[387]. Vita Tom / Oorlog presents Lieutenant Olivier seven head of cattle during the Lieutenant’s first visit to Kaokoland, an act interpreted as his seeking of support from the white authorities[388]. Major Manning as Resident Commissioner for Owamboland goes on tour to the Kunene river for the Boundary Commission, accompanied by C.H.L. Hahn and René Dickman[389].

Vita Tom (Oorlog) carrying pith helmet and wearing South African army uniform. Source: Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 282, photograph taken by ‘Cocky’ Hahn, (n.d.) NAN.

Lebzelter estimates around 1500 Haiǁom around the Etosha pan in 1920.[390]

Moritz writes,

[i]n 1920 Gaub had a size of 9173 ha. This meant pasture for 1000 head of cattle. … Also fruit trees and wine were grown. In 1920 three German families lived on Gaub. As natives there were only Bergdamara. Twelve able-bodied men were employed as farm workers. Nine older men who used to work here 21 women and 45 children lived here. In the places belonging to it lived 9 Damara men and nine women, 19 children, and three children, as well as three Bushmen with one wife and five children and one Ovambo as a shepherd[391].

The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) is founded[392] by Marcus Garvey with ‘its own ranks, uniform and titles’ becoming an inspiration for Namibian Herero Truppenspieler (soldier players) known amongst Herero as Otruppe[393].

Early 1920s

A League of Nations ‘C’ Class Mandate is awarded to South Africa[394] in which the Union of South Africa is to hold South West Africa in trust with no changes in citizenship and rights conferred to the local population that they can ‘lodge complaints with international control bodies’[395]. Day-to-day administration was ‘under white South Africans, working within the framework of South African law, including the extending network of laws to entrench racial segregation’[396]. Central government attempts at containment and rationalisation are continually subverted by local realities and agendas[397]. A political agenda of building ‘a unified white settler community’ becomes important[398]. International borders are instituted and trade across them is suppressed leading to local herders in the north-west to be ‘forced back into subsistence pastoralism’[399]. The Land Settlement Programme settles large numbers of white farmers from SA in SWA, around 10 per cent of whom are ‘fairly well financed’, providing grants of 400 pounds for the building of a permanent dwelling (cf. remaining farmhouses on now communal land)[400].

 

The official Police Zone border is ‘drawn onto Namibian maps with a clearly marked red line’[401], and ‘reinforced by a chain of police outposts placed at intervals along its length’[402]. It ‘physically mark[ed] the transition between “white” European southern Africa and the “black” interior, between that which was “healthy” and that deemed “diseased” … the line drawn between what the colonial power defined as “civilization” and what it considered “the wilderness”’[403]; or the line between ‘tribalised’ and ‘detribalised’ Namibians[404]. People are ‘expelled from their lands between Outjo and Kamanjab by the colonial government … [so as] to make way for white settlement’, [25] with most farms ‘undercapitalized and highly government-subsidized’[405]:

[f]rom the beginning of South African Rule, Ovambo and other migrant workers had strongly resisted farm labour…. Farm labour was rejected not only because of the poor wages, rations and treatment of labourers, but also because Ovambo labourers preferred to work in large groups ‘due to the erratic and often poor treatment accorder parties [of migrant labourers] after being split up and distributed to farmers in the past’[406] … Officials in the Native Affairs Department had frequently advised the administration against forcing migrant labourers to accept farm labour. In those cases where migrants had accepted farm labour out of ignorance of the conditions on the farms, this had frequently led to discontent and desertions. It was felt that any large-scale channelling of migrants to the farms would have a negative effect on further recruitment.[407]

The Land Settlement Programme settles large numbers of white farmers from SA in SWA, around 10 per cent of whom are ‘fairly well financed’, providing grants of 400 pounds for the building of a permanent dwelling (cf. remaining farmhouses on now communal land)[408].

A new body of legislation from SA thus comes in to regulate labour flows and control indigenous populations[409]. Occupants of crown land (who often had relocated to land dispossessed during German rule) were forcibly removed to newly established Native Reserves in Police Zone where livestock possession and identity reconstruction could take place, albeit under conditions of inadequate resources[410]. For ‘Kaokoveld’ in the north-west, regulations are administered from Ondangwa and ‘enforced by numerous police patrols into the area’[411].

Despite centuries long influence by the Portuguese in Angola, the territory is only formally colonized in the early 1920s[412].

1921

SWA is mandated by the League of Nations to be administered by South Africa in its own right, after administering the country in the name of Great Britain[413]. The Mandate speaks of the indigenous population being placed in the “tutelage” of an “advanced nation”, as “a sacred trust of civilization”[414]. The territory becomes ‘the object of an ambitious Land Settlement Programme for poor white (although not destitute) Afrikaners from the rural north-western Cape’[415]. The Native Reserves Commission generates legislation to set up demarcated Native Reserves in each of the principal farming districts of the Police Zone and establishes conditions for native settlement and movement[416]. The ‘Zessfontein Reserve in the Kaokoveld is to remain undisturbed’[417]: 31,416 ha reserved for ‘Topnaar and Swartbooi Hottentotten’[418].

The Native Reserves Commission (the body responsible for the development of segregation as policy) develops the major recommendations that:

(i) the country should be more clearly segregated into black and white settlement areas; (ii) squatting on white farms should be prevented; (iii) there should be more efficient control of the reserves; (iv) reserves which were recognized by German treaties should be maintained but the temporary reserves established during the military period should be closed; (v) new reserves (which did not disturb ‘vested’ rights’) should be established; and (vi) further land should be earmarked for further extension of these reserves.[419] 

The Native Reserves Commission recommends a minimum wage of 15/- a month with food for black men, and 10/- a month for black women.[420] The commission defines the conditions for movement between reserves, farms and urban areas, the settlement programme and the reserve policy go hand in hand. The reserves are set up in every principal farming district and are too small for the subsistence of the entire population. Thus, in combination with laws and regulations, such as grazing fees, dog tax or large stock tax, the reserves provide the necessary source of labour for the settlers. Bushmen are not assigned any land, because the Native Reserves Commission was of the opinion “that ‘the Bushmen problem ... must be left to solve itself’ (supposedly with the extinction of the group), and that ‘any Bushmen found within the area occupied by Europeans should be amenable to all the laws’”.[421] 

New and escalating location regulations in Windhoek attempt to impose hut taxes and passes for most adults (excluding married women) and are resisted[422]. The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) is established[423].

The Union’s first Game Preservation Proclamation for South West Africa is issued in this year, and is based on the legislation of the original German administration of 1902, which technically is still in force until this year[424]. This Game Preservation Proclamation (13 of 1921), based on German laws, makes the South African police responsible for regulating hunting and game protection[425].

Major C.H.L. ‘Cocky’ Hahn becomes Native Commissioner for Owamboland and Kaokoland[426] . [according to archival sources in 1928[427]].Manning writes a letter to the Royal Geographical Society in 1921 describing his travels and affirming in particular the assistance of local people. He writes that he was:

particularly assisted by the comparatively few wild native inhabitants (viz Herero Bantu type and Hottentot-Bushman Nama type) of the remoter parts who not only guided me and explained matters along many hitherto unknown mountain routes, - frequently without even footpaths or the often useful elephant and other smooth game tracks through stones and bush, - but pointed out water in secluded kloofs and in beds of rivers which once flowed; abandoned settlements of previous generations, sacred piles of stones called OMBINDI to which travellers added something conveniently picked up muttering a few words to propitiate the spirits; method of making fire with sticks and perpetuation of family fires wich [sic] were also regarded with reverence and as altars in case of sickness etc; they also pointed out occasional rhinoceroses, elephants, giraffes and so forth which were very abundant before that greatest of all exterminators of the finest varieties of game viz the European’s firearm.[428]

Manning is transferred to Windhoek[429] (and contracts debilitating malaria), and René Dickman is also transferred from Owamboland to represent colonial authority in Kuring Kuru in Okavango[430].

 

1921-1923

The Annual Reports Land Settlement comment on these years:

the first real setback that beset the settlers’ community was the post-war financial depression which occurred in 1921, which lasted until 1923. The market for stock, if available at all, went down to zero and the settlers’ position became indeed precarious. In order to assist them the Administration introduced a scheme whereby a settler could obtain a remission of rent for the first period of his lease and in addition reduced the prairie value of all settlers’ farms by 25 %. There is no doubt that this step was of very great assistance and enabled many a settler to retain his holding. In addition to the financial depression, a drought had set in which lasted from 1921 to 1923. Many settlers were compelled to trek to other pastures, while others who did not do so, lost hundreds of stock and were totally ruined. … A good number went down with the first setbacks, but that was in most cases due to a lack of reserve capital…. [431]

The post-war depression was thus aggravated by drought and cattle disease, drought was followed by floods and an infestation of locusts in 1923[432].

1921-1930

1,519 SA white families are granted land holdings in SWA, especially from north-west Cape[433].

1921-1935

Between 1921 and 1935 unusually generous conditions (e.g. munificent provisions for loans, low minimal capital requirements and help with transportation into the area) were provided for new settlers.[434] 

1921-1941

Nathanael Husa |Uixomab takes over as Headman of Sesfontein from his father Levi |Uixomab.[435]

1921-1947

Following the 1921 mandate, SA uses the space of the mandated territory for the immigration and settlement of poorer whites in SA.[436] The territory is constructed, visually and otherwise, as uninhabited terrain, supported by a discourse of ‘vacant land’ legitimately available for appropriation by the new administration.[437] 

SA administration in Kaokoland, especially under Major C.H.L. ‘Cocky’ Hahn (also known to the Ovambo as Shongola, i.e. ‘whip’[438], and grandson of founding Rhenish missionary Carl Hugo Hahn[439]) as Native Commissioner for Owamboland and Kaokoland[440], which included wardenship of the then Namutoni Reserve which later became Etosha Game Reserve[441], embark on three interrelated processes:

- establishing boundaries that divided Kaokoland from surrounding areas;

- creating chiefs as intermediaries through whom the area and peoples could be confined and controlled – including the replacement of the Kwanyama kingship with a Council of Headmen in Oukwanyama, including prior enemies of king Mandume[442];

- promoting specific ideas regarding livestock and resource management, involving vaccination campaigns and the criminalisation of hunting.[443]

Regarding ‘conservation’, in an undated archived document called ‘Big Game in Ovamboland’[444], Hahn makes some important comments and observations including the following:

Detached portions of the scattered herds that survive in the Kaokoveld visit Western Ovamboland at intervals during the wet months, where, owing to the easier hunting conditions and the fact that they approach closer to - and even occasionally enter - tribal areas, they are more liable to persecution, as even amongst the Ovambo ivory is in great demand.

He observes that ‘game’ including elephants move seasonally into western Ovambo from Kaokoland, and mobilises Owambo headmen to control local hunting, thus:

I am glad to place on record the assistance and co-operation tendered me by Chief Martin [ka Dikwa of Ondonga], the ruling chief of the largest tribe in Ovamboland. It has been through his help that the bulk of areas I visited are closed to the depredations of his subjects, where in former years they slaughtered and hunted at will.  

He notes that ‘the Kwanyama “readily fell in line”, and that Chief Muala (of Uukwaluudhi) also helped prevent the “indiscriminate butchering of game”.[445]

In an undated letter to L. Fourie, Hahn speaks very critically of government officials turning up at Etosha Game Reserve on excessive shooting trips[446]. Nonetheless, he also reportedly ‘cherished the idea of making the northernmost parts of the Kaokoveld a game reserve which would offer “fine opportunities for tourists and sportsmen to shoot trophies under special licences and instructions”[447].

Hahn also represents the Union of SA at the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations[448].

1920s-1930s

In these decades,

[t]he status of the southern parts of Kaokoland remained vague … as to whether new farms for white settlement would be declared there or more Herero from the police zone would be settled there, [but] it was clear that major parts of Kaokoland would serve as a tribal reserve and a buffer zone to the little administered southernmost parts of Portuguese Angola.[449] 

District Commissioner Hahn makes many photographs of hunts, for example in Kaokoveld, depicting ‘the sportsman’s ideal of trophy-hunting’ and making visible ‘the comprehensive dispossession of Africans with regard to their hunting rights’[450]. Kaokoveld is the focus of scientific curiosity and attention regarding ‘the quest for the quagga, a specific subspecies of zebra’, thought to perhaps remain in this ‘frontier’ area[451].

1922

Proclamation (no. 11) by the Native Administration allows ‘the reservation of what amounted to less than 5% of land in southern and central Namibia as Reserves for Africans who comprised over 90% of the region’s population’[452]. In north-west Namibia these first Reserves were Fransfontein, Okombahe, and Sesfontein inhabited by primarily Khoekhoegowab-speaking Damara-Nama[453]. These first schedule ‘native reserves’ include, eight for Herero: Aminuis, Epukiro, Waterberg East, Otjituuo, Otjihorongo, Ovitoto, Otjimbingwe (together with Damara), Tses (together with Damara and Nama). Germans had only allowed the Berseba Orlam and Bondelswarts to live in reserves under their respective chiefs, subsequently, the rights of Nama in Soromas, Franzfontein and Zesfontein are recognized while other Nama reserves are created at Neuhof, Tses, Gibeon and Warmbad. Damara retain the reserve at Okombahe, further reserves are established at Neuhof, Tses, Franzfontein, Gibeon, in a portion of Otjimbingwe and at Augeias west of Windhoek[454]: 

these [and other] Reserves were periodically expanded through

the purchase by government, and incorporation, of a neighbouring farm. Such expansion occurred either in response to requests generated by the inhabitants of the Reserves themselves and mediated by the Reserve Boards in charge of their day-to-day administration, or due to an agenda set by the Administration. [14][t]he establishment and maintenance of these [and later] Reserves alongside the growing area of titled commercial farms heralded the beginning of the current dichotomy between communal and commercial land in southern Namibia and their associated production systems[455].

Kaokoveld is proclaimed as a reserve for primarily Otjiherero-speakers[456] under Outjo District for Chiefs Oorlog Thom, Muhona Katiti and Kasupi, the three Herero leaders inhabiting the region at the time[457]. Oorlog Thom, with well-armed Herero and Himba followers, is entrenched as most powerful ruler north of Sesfontein[458].

The South West African National Congress (SWANC) is established[459].

 

Administration of Walvis Bay is handed to the mandated territory of South West Africa (not to South Africa)[460].

 

The South African Drought Commission influences policy towards environmental protection[461].

 

Legislation is introduced to control the utilisation of seals, following the eradication of colonies from 23 islands along the South African and Namibian coast[462].

Bondelswartz Uprising #2

The Bondelswarts Rebellion starts on 29 May[463] with Abraham Morris as a leader who is killed in this campaign[464], responding to increases in taxation[465] (e.g. on dogs[466], i.e. which restricts hunting practices’[467]), and is bombed by Union Defence Force aircraft with oral testimony asserting that the Bondelswartz shot down one plane[468]. Jacobus Christian, son of the Bondelswartz leader Willem Christian, is convicted as one of the leaders[469].

1922-1923

Captain G.C. Shortridge reportedly estimates 150 rhinos from Ugab to Kunene rivers, in ‘what is now western Kunene Region’[470].

1923

The South West African Native Reserves Commission policy of ‘native reserves’, aka South Africa’s Land Act of 1913, is passed.[471] Government Notice No. 122 confirms grant of the farm Zesfontein made by the German Government for the use of ‘Topnaar Swartbooi Hottentots’ in 1906.[472] 

In Lebzelter’s work the Bergdama of Hereroland divided into the various residential areas according to the 1923 census in which A total of 23,622[? Total of figures below is 23,365] Bergdama were counted: Gibeon 809, Gobabis 800, Grootfontein 2199, Karibib 4081, Keetmanshoop 580, Lüderitzbucht 205, Maltahöhe 245, Okahandja 1200, Omaruru 2068, Otjiwarongo 1568, Outjo 1351, Rehoboth 1927, Swakopmund 457, Windhoek 5875[473]. ‘Only 2016 ?[2026] inhabitants of this ethnic group lived in the reserves, which is about one tenth. In Otjimbingwe there were 740, in Okombahe 1094, in Tses 110, on the Waterberg 43, in Franzfontein only 39. In addition there are about 1000 Dama living in the Kaoko field and in the Namib and Kalahari, who were not recorded in the census (Lebzelter [1934] p. 106).’[474]

Three Native Reserves south of the Kunene River are established under Outjo with different ‘chiefs of Kaokoland’s pastoral population’[475] (from west to east):

  • Kakurukouye / Kasupi (to whom Viktor Franke had given a gun and established as agent of the German colonial regime in 1900), incorporating the Baynes Mountains and stretching west to Otjinungua on Kunene River;
  • Vita Tom, stretching from the Kunene at Epupa (Otjipupa) to Kaoko Otavi and Opuwo, and incorporating the Omuhona River and Otjiyandjasemo (where he had settled in 1917);
  • Muhona Katiti, incorporating Swartbooisdrift / Tjimuhaka on the Kunene River, the settlements of Ehomba and Epembe, and stretching eastwards to Ruacana.

Vita Tom was ‘the most westernized and probably the most powerful of the three’ and was ‘deemed to be the leading figure; all three competed ‘intensively with each other for power’; and Vita Tom and Muhona Katiti ‘especially were on bad terms and both aspired for control of the same land – the Omuhonga Basin’ with Kakurukouye reportedly bringing ‘the two together to agree upon a solution whereby Muhonakatiti would settle at Ehomba and Vita Tom at Otjiyandjasemo’[476].

‘Chieftancies of Northern Kaokoland in the 1930s’. Source: scan from Bollig 1997, p. 24.
**what is the ‘neutral zone’, as marked on the map?

Manning makes his last tour of Kaokoland, accompanied by ‘Cocky’ Hahn in March and in April-May, reportedly estimating 50 rhinos in this area[477]; and Georg Hartmann makes an extensive patrol of Namibia’s northern coast and Kaokoveld, recording ‘several hitherto unknown deposits of guano’ [?check date][478].

South African military officer Shortridge organises the The Third Percy Sladen and Kaffrarian Museum Expedition ‘Ovamboland’ to ‘the eastern margins of the Kaokoveld in the Ruacana region’ with the aim of producing ‘a complete inventory of the fauna of northwestern Namibia’[479]. Despite ‘the general prohibition on shooting game, the expedition was given rather high quotas to hunt for food and to provide specimens for museum exhibitions’ and ‘[f]or the first time animals were photographed from a plane’, including a tantalising photograph of ‘quagga Kaokoensis’[480].

Vedder’s Die Bergdama is published in German. It includes, for example, descriptions of Dama clay vessel manufacture, stating that it is men who make pots, a reddish coloured clay is preferred, vessels ‘were made by building up the shape with small pieces of clay at a time and smoothing them down, and that the source of clay is kept secret’[481]. 

SA government officials calculate that only 184,446 of 602,877 small stock and 30,659 of 84,385 large stock owned by black farmers were located in the Native Reserves, due to ability of black stock-owners to gain grazing rights on white-owned farms in exchange for their labour[482].

 

De-bureaucratisation after German rule means that the administration consists of only 311 officials of whom 212 were temporary employees, with 284 European and 239 native police and 39 police stations[483].

1923-1925

After years of ‘fairly dry seasons’, good rains come also bringing locusts that denude the land over the next three years[484].

1920s

For Game Reserve No. 2 in the 1920s, the game rangers receive instructions with respect to various subjects, one of which fell under the heading “Bushmen”:

[t]he Ranger should take every opportunity on his patrols, of getting in touch with Bushmen and of endeavouring to persuade them either to hire themselves out to employment with farmers or others to take up their residence away from the vicinity of occupied farms, in the [Game] Reserve. It should be noted that wild Bushmen should not be prosecuted for offences committed beyond the Police Zone, except if of a most serious nature. Breaches of the Game Law, for example, should pass unnoticed unless firearms are used.[485]

1923-1949

‘Cocky’ Hahn replaces Manning as ‘Native Commissioner of Ovamboland and the Kaokoland’[486].

1924

In the interest of building a unified white settler community assurances are given to Germany by the South African Prime Minister General Smuts that no further reference to the Blue Book of 1918 will be made[487]. Smuts, hoping to annexe SWA with SA, ‘signs an agreement with the government of the Weimar Republic … giving Germans in the mandated territory dual citizenship: South African in addition to German’[488]. General Hertzog, National Party leader, becomes Prime Minister of South African government and refers to the Blue Book [see 1918] as a ‘war pamphlet’[489]. The Blue Book is symbolically destroyed as a form of appeasement between German-speaking and South African residents in the colony.[490] 

Natives (Urban Areas) Proclamation attempts to enforce and regularise movement of Africans in urban areas[491]. The ‘Report of the Drought Investigation Commission’ advocates ‘exclusive focus on cattle ranching’ (instead of mixed farming of German colonial period), and is concerned with ‘how to extract maximum value from the farming sector without destroying the resource base’ through fenced camps, distribution of water points, rotational grazing and improved market conditions for cattle[492]. Unable to pay its debts, the RMS hands over land linked with the Omaruru mission to the SA government [see 1920][493].

A request is made to the SWAA for an annual commemorative celebration to be held at the graves of the Mahereros (Samuel, his father Maherero, and grandfather Tjimuaha) in Okahandja, plus in October for Wilhelm Zeraua in Omaruru[494]. The commemorations become connected with the Truppenspieler / Otjiserandu movement. The Location Superintendent (Bowker) in Windhoek admits that municipality control over mobility is failing with resistance (led by Hosea Kutako) linked to the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)[495].

Vita Tom / Oorlog is the only person in Kaokoland to own a horse[496]. An eye-witness account of the drill practice carried out by his men indicated that Vita conducted his drills in German and his troops rode donkeys[497].

From 1924 farming conditions ‘improved and most of the settlers, taking advantage of the improved position established themselves firmly on their holdings. A good number went down with the first setbacks, but that was in most cases due to a lack of reserve capital….’[498] Farming in Namibia recovers temporarily, drought in SA created good market for fat stock, large numbers of cattle were exported:

[h]owever, many farmers, anxious to take advantage of the improvement of the market, disposed of their best breeding stock until the administration introduced legislation to prevent further reduction of breeding stock. However another drought in 1924, locusts attacked crops and grazing again… severe stock losses which in some districts amounted to 30 % of total holdings.[499]

The game warden of Namutoni remarks in 1924:

[s]tock thefts on the border of the Reserve and Outjo district have been going on for some years. Bushmen residing for a certain period of the year in the district of Outjo cross over to the Reserve for a time, they are all over the country, even entering the Kaokoveld.[500] 

At this time the boundary was not marked well, let alone with fences.

Eberhard Rosenblad’s narrative is first published in Swedish by a relative (Evert Sylvander)[501].

1924-25

‘During the leadership of Levi |Uixamab the Himba people now resettled at ǂGuwitas (Otjindakui), Ganamub and Puros arrived and approached the leadership of Sesfontein for resettlement in the area, pleading that they have run away from the war of Chief Vita Thom (Oorlog), from the Angolan border side of the Hoarusib River: the families were Kasaona, Karutjaiva, Uararavi, Kasupi and Uatokuya, and this is how Himba people were resettled in ‘Damaraland’.’[502]

1925

The Portuguese authorities in Angola declare that ‘all teaching should be in Portuguese’, precipitating movement of remaining Trekboers from the country[503].

The civilian South West African Administration (SWAA) is established and EHL Gorges [see 1921] becomes the first Administrator,[504] with laws relating to the establishment of Game Reserves 1, 2 and 3 repealed[505].

An Annual Traditional Festival of the ǂNūkhoen (Gaob Fees) is encouraged in Okombahe by Gaob Hosea Goreseb from this year, and revived by Gaob Justus ǁGaroeb in 1976[506].

A smaller group of Herero (i.e. fewer than 2,000, see 1917) move into Kaokoveld ‘and now reside in the south eastern region with their headquarters at Otsondeka§ and Ombombo’ who, having ‘adopted many features of European culture, including the contemporary dress’ and being ‘relatively sophisticated’ ‘have considerable political influence in the Territory’[507]. First known incidence of lung sickness in Kaokoveld, possibly caused by ‘cattle imported from Owamboland as well as cattle brought across the Angola border by two “European trekkers named van Zyl and Ysel”’, causing a buffer zone of 100 miles long and 20 miles wide to be established between Kaokoveld and Ovamboland[508].

The Herero ‘Native Reserve’ of Otjohorongo is created (later incorporated within ‘Damaraland’).

A photographically illustrated pamphlet entitled South West Africa: Land for Settlers is published and distributed at the Wembley Exhibition in London[509].

1925-1926

From September 1925 until January 1926 the ‘trendsetting’ Denver African Expedition, organised by ‘self-styled anthropologist and scientist ‘Dr’ C. Ernest Cadle’ visits Namibia (Etosha, Haiǁom) to uncover the putative ‘missing link’ between stone age and modern man, i.e. the Bushmen, precipitating ‘the first large-scale commercial commodification of Bushmen as romantic representatives of humanity’s Stone Age past’[510]. The the South West Africa Administration, with an eye to publicity, promises the expedition ‘its wholehearted support’, although the Territorial Medical Officer Dr Fourie and ‘foremost authority on Bushmen’ is [217] ‘instrumental in guiding the Denver expedition away from what he considered the “purest” bushmen’, explaining in a letter to Donald Bain, the South African guide for the expedition, that he fears that the film will cause ridicule:

[218] instead of bringing applause … (the) only way to get good Bushman records is to let them go there and not to attempt to stage-manage them. Hahn has told me of the scene he witnessed. Where on earth have you ever heard of six Bushmen stalking the same animal in Indian file etc. etc. The whole affair is ridiculous. The boy I gave you as guide knows ... PS Be guided with regard to the Bushmen by August (the guide) who knows what stuff you require and drop the film.[511]

The expedition travels to Etosha National Park where they claim to have discovered “the missing link” in the Haiǁom ‘Bushmen’ residing there, making a film called ‘The Bushman’ and taking around 500 still photos[512]:

[t]hrough the successful commercial marketing of both movie and stills, their impact on creating and sustaining the 'pristine' imagery and iconery[?check] of bushmen has been of major import. Starting with the Denver African Expedition practically every American, British, Italian or French ‘expedition’ to Namibia and the Kalahari organized by outsiders contained a cinematographer, or at least a still photographer – the lineage is long and distinguished going from Denver to DeShauensee, Vernay Laing, Ciprioti, Loeb, Morden, Panhard, Bjerre and, of course, most importantly, the Marshall and van der Post multiple Expeditions.[513]

After filming in Etosha the expedition travels through ‘Ovamboland’ before returning to Windhoek and Cape Town, encountering in Ovamboland Hartmann [**Dr Georg Hartmann who surveyed Kaokoveld?], ‘an old German transport-rider who later writes about the Denver Expedition in an essay called ‘Of wild and tame Bushmen’ in ‘one of the Territory’s little magazines’, in which he complains that,

[t]he Munchausenesque bragging which the “Yankees” was so bad it could have come from a Karl May [popular German writer] Western: they claimed to have discovered an unknown tribe of Bushmen who had never seen a European; to have narrowly escaped from a Bushman attack when their car was mistaken for a wild animal; to have been given a never-before seen Bushman religious relic. They were extremely proud of their footage of wild war dances and secret religious rituals. Hartmann, for his part, with the attitude of an experienced “colonial hand”, viewed such claims as naive. The sacred bushman religious relic turned out to be a common Ovambo doll.

   On one of his trips through the Etosha Game Park, Hartmann hooked up with the Denver Expedition’s interpreter, the “Bastard Jeremias” [presumably the ‘boy August’, i.e. the guide given by Fourie, see above]. When Hartmann asked to see “wild Bushmen” encountered by the expedition, Jeremias gathered some Bushmen and staged a mock attack. After begging for cigarettes from Hartmann, the Bushmen performed their war dance. Suddenly, Hartmann realized he knew its melody: it was “Matiche,” a Mexican song that had been popular with German troops during the Herero war of 1904-7. Hartmann also recognized one of the dancers [as “Jephter”, the chief who had served as general factotum/interpreter for the military company Outis(?) had served in during the German era[514]]. On insisting on seeing their living quarters, Hartmann was first taken to a “primitive encampment,” clearly for tourist consumption, and then to their real abode, which consisted of tin shacks (pondoks) and an old German military bed. Best of all, they owned an old phonograph, on which they played their only record – “Matiche”![515]

Haiǁom who were generally not regarded as ‘proper Bushmen’ were portrayed as “the African Bushmen” and “the most primitive race on earth” by the Denver African Expedition.[516]

Mid-1920s

It is becoming increasingly ‘felt necessary to control the boundary between the commercial farming zone and the tribal reserves’[517].

1925-1945

Settling on the Kunene River is prohibited which is claimed to ‘severely upset transhumant cycles’ here, and ‘[m]igrations across chiefdom boundaries’ [the Reserves of Kakurukouye / Kasupi, Vita Tom and Muhona Katuti, see 1923] are similarly ‘prohibited and controlled’[518].

1926

First election in Namibia under a franchise limited to white males, and one of the first motions tabled (by Mr August Stauch) at the first all-white legislative assembly regards the destruction of the Blue Book (see 1918 above), following which the report is ‘withdrawn from the public domain and orders given for its destruction’[519]. A.J. Werth succeeds Hofmeyer as Administrator for South West Africa[520].

From this year South Africa formalises a contract labour system, establishing recruiting organisations in northern Namibia[521].

A police office is established at Tshimhaka / Swartbooisdrift on the Kunene River (administered from Ondangwa) and the ‘last professional hunter’ is imprisoned near Ehomba, just south of Swartbooi’s Drift, following a police patrol in Kaokoveld[522]. Trade restrictions with traders in Angola come into effect[523].

Native “squatters” begin to be removed from Outjo District, progressively forced from Khorixas, Cauas Okawa, Aimab[?] and possibly elsewhere[524], amidst expansion of surveyed/commercial farming area:

‘Overview map of the northern farming area, building on the map “South West Africa - Suidwes Afrika 1926”’. Miescher 2009, Map 4 p. 182f.

Expansion of surveyed farms in Outjo District. Source: scan from Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 13.

Better-off settlers begin to enter Namibia and the Advisory Council in this year decides ‘to prohibit the entrance of poor whites, as these people were considered a drain on resources and tended to be constantly on the move, without ever settling down’[525].

In the first meeting of the Legislative Assembly, Game Preservation Ordinance No. 5 of 1926 extends the list of protected game species: hunting licences had to be obtained from the Secretary for SWA:[526] 

[t]his extended the list of protected game species considerablySection 8 of this ordinance made provision for some form of management in that every person who has taken out a big game licence … shall within one month ... furnish a return in writing showing the number, sex and variation of big game killed by him. At this stage licence fees were 20 [36] pounds “for the killing or capture of not more than 16 animals”. The trade in ivory and rhino horns also now became illegal.[527]

According to Germishuis and Staal, the application of game laws is left to contract officers who were stationed in Otjiwarongo (nb. not sure about this, as the station commanders had to provide monthly reports from the “game reserve” but maybe without effect?)[528].

The native commissioner advises the game warden in Namutoni to provide information on the Game Reserve, including information on the Bushmen staying there:

(1) Approximate number of “A” wild Bushmen, “B” those which have had some contact to Europeans, and “C” those who have a mixture of other native blood in them.

The game warden of Etosha replies:

[a]pproximate number of families of ‘A’ wild Bushmen = 280 [families], embracing about 820 men, women and children. Approximate number of families of ‘B’ those who are in contact with Europeans = 60. Approximate number of ‘C’ those who have a mixture of other native blood in them = It is a difficult matter to state what Bushmen have an admixture of other native blood in them, it is however commonly recognized that the Hykom Bushmen appear to have Bantu blood.[529] 

This distinction of “wild”, “semiwild” and “tame” has been used in different ways by different officials. Gordon considers the distinction rather as a geographical one (beyond the police zone, sometimes entering the police zone for temporal work, and permanently living in the police zone).[530]

Hunting by Haiǁom within Game Reserve No. 2 is generally not regarded as a problem, e.g. the game warden reports in 1926: [t]he amount of game shot by Bushmen is by no means decreasing the game’[531]. Certain limitations were officially in place (no firearms, no dogs, no shooting of giraffe, eland, impala and loeffelhund [bat-eared fox])[532], although hunting with rifles occasionally took place.[533] Haiǁom in the reserve were also in possession of livestock (see e.g. 1929).

In the 1920s, a number of Haiǁom from the Game Reserve No. 2 were employed in the Bobas mine near Tsumeb, e.g. in 1926, the game warden reported:

... I have the honour to reply to your queries as follows: ...3) Bushmen move freely about the Reserve and the immediate vicinity, a number of families are employed by farmers, they make good farm servants and are most reliable herds. A number of men are employed by the Bobas mine near Tsumeb where special locations are arranged for, in order that in some cases Bushmen may take their families with them.[534] 

Haiǁom could also seek work on farms in the vicinity, a possibility that several men chose temporarily and seasonally throughout the first half of the 20th century. Some were also employed at the police stations and maintaining the infrastructure and the waterholes.[535]

Beech (?Douglas Beach?) makes phonographic recordings of ‘some Khoekhoe’[536].

1926-1928

The boundary with Angola is shifted seven miles southwards leaving the former ‘Neutral Zone’ in Angola[537].

1926-1936

Establishment and building of a volkekunde department at Stellenbosch Univ. under leadership of Willi Werner Eiselen: the ‘architect of apartheid’ whose ‘German linguistic training under the racist cultural nationalist Carl Meinhof, and already strident Afrikaner nationalist politics produced a detached for of ‘tribal ethnography’ driven by a quest to classify which was emphatically in the service of segregation from the outset, and influenced ‘ethnology’/’ethnography’ in SWA in the following decades.[538]

1926-1940s

Only official presence in the Kaokoveld was at Tshimakara / Swartboois Drift where ‘a lone white police officer cum native affairs officer concerned himself primarily with patrolling the Angola Border’[539], the primary concerns being ‘people trespassing over boundaries, sick livestock, poachers, smugglers’ and contraventions eliciting fines such as ‘one or two cows for … failing to report sick animals or migrating without obtaining permission’[540].

1927

A Game Preservation Ordinance (Ord. 5 of 1927) repeals and replaces Proc. 13, 1921[541]. Game Preservation Ordinance No. 5 articles 10, 11 and 25 prohibit hunting on crown land ‘with exception of dignitaries and officials on duty in rural areas’ and applies hunting restrictions on settler farms[542]. Farm Industry Commission and Land Settlement Commission reports are again concerned with maintaining agricultural productivity[543].

Major Manning, former Native Commissioner of Owambo, after having been transferred to Rehoboth reminds his successor Native Commissioner ‘Cocky’ Hahn, ‘of the urgent need to produce a game reserve report for Kaoko’[544]. In an update correspondence from Hahn to the Administrator of SWA, and predating by some five decades later proposals for local people and ex-‘poachers’ to become ‘Community Game Guards’ (see below), Hahn details ‘a plan in which the headman Ikandwa, an “old and experienced ovaHimba hunter”, should act as warden of a game sanctuary on the Kunene where “a good class of tourists and sportsmen” could observe, photograph and hunt game within the reserve.[545]

A census is made of the population of the three Native Reserves in northern Kaokoveld plus ‘Southern Kaokoland’[**?unclear where this is exactly] where ‘[t]he Herero’ settled there had ‘actively rebutted the administration’s plan to put them under the control of Vita Tom’, [27] and ‘Tjimba’ appear increasingly to identify themselves as ‘Himba’[546].

Male

Female

Total

Kahewa-Nawa’s Reserve = Kakurukouje / Kasupi’s successor)

Himba

188

200

388

Tjimba

20

18

38

Total

208

218

426

Oorlog / Vita Tom’s Reserve

Herero

54

62

116

Oorlams

31

29

60

Himba

234

363

597

Tjimba

28

28

56

Total

347

482

829

Muhona Katiti’s Reserve

Himba

158

155

313

Tjimba

48

17

65

Total

206

172

378

Southern Kaokoland

Herero

203

202

405

Oorlams

17

3

20

Himba

328

372

700

Tjimba

196

228

424

Total

744

805

1549

1927 census figures for the population of the three northern Kaokoveld ‘native reserves’ and ‘southern Kaokoland’. Source: Bollig 1997, p. 27 after Stals and Otto-Reiner 1990, p. 70.

“Bushman depredations” reported in the Nurugas area north-east of Grootfontein, in this context, “Namutoni Bushmen” are perceived as “tame”.[547] The “Bushmen problem” continues and the Vagrancy Proclamation (N° 32 1927) is amended further[548], and prison terms for vagrancy were inter alia increased from three to twelve months. Proclamation 11/1927 seeks to prevent squatting by limiting the number of people allowed to reside on a farm to five “native families”. [549]

The Administrator for South West Africa, A.J. Werth [see 1926][550] realises that in order to prevent attacks, thefts and other offences, the ‘Bushmen’ had to know about the laws. Therefore, he sends a circular to all magistrates, officers in charge of native affairs, and superintendents of native reserves within the Police Zone:

…District Officers are therefore requested to get into touch with as many Bushmen as possible, and to make known to them that when they are inside the Police Zone, they will be subject to all the laws in force in this Territory. They should especially be informed of the provisions of the laws relating to vagrancy, destruction of game, arms and ammunition and of the laws affecting natives generally....[551].

Bleek distinguishes three groups of ‘Bushman’ languages:

[t]he Northern Group includes at least three large tribes, probably several smaller ones.

1. The ǁkau-ǁe:n or au-ǁe:n, called #au-kwe by their neighbors and either ‘Auen’ or ‘Aukwe’ by Europeans...

2. The !kuŋ...

3. The Hei-ǁkum, populary called ‘Heikum’, may be regarded as another branch of this group. They are scatterd over a large extent of the South West Protecturate, from North of the Etosha pan to near Rehoboth. Their country lies to the west of that occupied by the other Bushman tribes. This part of the Protecturate being pretty fully inhabited, it is only possible for a few of these Bushmen to live their natural life, most of them are now working on farms. Whether free or in service, the majority speak a Nama dialect similar to that of the Bergdamara, but Werner found a few villages speaking a language of their own, of which he gives some examples, showing it to be closely related to !kuŋ speech...[552] 

In another document Bleek describes the Haiǁom as “half-breed”, and:

… ethnographically only valuable as a mixture. Their language is Nama, their features at least half Klippkaffir (Damara), their habits, as far as I found out, half Bushman, half Klippkaffir or Namaqua. They evidently don’t know their own boundaries.[553]

During these times, the various scholars still did not agree on the subdivision and labelling of the various ‘Bushmen’ groups, while the subdivisions became even more diversified. Most scholars acknowledged the fact that ‘Bushmen’ could not be regarded as a single group. Over the years, the ethnographic knowledge of the different groups increased. Instead of simply referring to “Bushmen”, academics undertook research on different groups, and presented each of these with names (however erratically).[554]

Austrian anthropologist Viktor Lebzelter visits Etosha Pan ’in search of Bushmen’, but is dismissive of what he finds there as they wore European rags and, while not ‘missionized’, had adopted European names’, although also writing that,

[t]hey are always prepared to put on old (traditional) clothes and to dance for distinguished guests and allow themselves to be photographed. They are in the best sense Salonbushmen who are dependent upon foreign traffic. … [228] So for example one tried to sell me his “gun” (that is for practical purposes a worthless bushman bow) which he had bartered in the wilderness for a cup of sugar for one pound sterling. These Bushmen are really protection officials who watch over the game, but they are also volunteer police who catch all Ovambo who try to avoid the Pass controls at Namutoni. Generally they are still the most well-armed Bushmen…[555]

In February the Administrator A.J. Werth states in Chilvers’ The Seven Wonders of Southern Africa in which ‘the Bushmen are listed as one of the physical Wonders’,

that[w]e make no attempt to civilize the Bushmen. They are untameable ... The territory is so large and the Bushmen so cunning that an army might seek them in vain. But it is all fine country, splendid for sheep and cattle farming ...[556]

Amateur ethnographer Jan Gaerdes[557] ‘probably filmed some 800 meters … en route to the Kunene River’[558] where he treks to Epupa Falls and the Baynes Mountains[559].

Late 1920s

There is concern in these years regarding Truppenspieler (‘soldier playing’) / Otjiserandu (‘Red Flag’) activities in Kaokoland, through close contact with Herero factions in Omaruru and Okahandja[560], fed by Herero dreaming of ejuru – ‘that sky or heaven in which they envisaged a “historical landscape” ideal for grazing and settlement’[561].

1928

The ‘Prohibited Areas Proclamation’ (no. 26) of 1928 (section 3(2)) declares the Kaokoveld a game reserve - known, with the contiguous Etosha Game Park, as Game Reserve No 2, and covering a total area of 37 000 square miles [33] ‘although the native inhabitants do possess firearms and are not prohibited from shooting any species’[562], Hahn idealises ‘the whole “uninhabited” north-western area as “naturally wild and full of romance”’[563]. Game Preservation Ordinance Amendment Ordinance / Proclamation 26 of 1928 re-proclaims Game Reserves 1, 2 and 3 and for the first time accurately defines their borders[564].

The post of Game Ranger of Game Reserve no 2, up to that date assumed by Captain Nelson, was abolished and the Native Commissioner of Ovamboland, Hahn, takes over and acted as part-time game warden.[565] Through border changes of Game Reserve No2. (see map 1937), 47 new farms are created south-east of Etosha.[566]

The area below the 19th parallel is ‘designated for whites’[567].

Through his work for the Boundary Commission, Hahn travels to the Kunene River between Ruacana Falls and Okuvare§ rapids, designating ‘“the old and experienced Ovahimba hunter headman” Ikandwa as informal warden’ resulting in ‘the replenishment of game’[568]. Hayes writes that:

[h]e wanted to transform the area into a sanctuary, which would offer “fine opportunities for tourists and sportsmen to shoot trophies under special licences and instructions”. This tied in with wider objectives of policing cattle movements in the area and an attempt to stabilise groups in reserves in northern Kaokoland to act as a buffer with Angola. Hahn argued that the administration should proclaim it a reserve and protected area, and run it on similar lines to the Kruger National Park. It was capable of surpassing the best game reserve in South Africa and creating “a real tourists' paradise in SW”. Game was disappearing elsewhere except in the Namutoni Reserve (Etosha), but “the flat and almost colourless country is not in any way to be compared with the wonderful variety and grandeur all along the Kunene.[569]   

Hahn affirms that the reserve would bring:  

a good class of tourists and sportsmen who would have the opportunity of travelling through the whole of South West seeing and photographing game and its wildest and most natural beauty and procuring trophies under certain restrictions ... Sportsmen could indulge in the rather unique sport of crocodile shooting. The river teems with the brutes ... Tourists would bring revenue to the country as well as drawing attention to its possibilities[570].  

In addition, ‘tourists paying for their supplies in SWA would help trade more broadly, thus:

I think experience has shown that sportsmen of a good class actually assist in the preservation of game and such natural assets of a country[571].

Hahn even traces a rough itinerary for his imaginary tourists, starting in Tsumeb and proceeding to Namutoni. Here they would view and photograph game. Then, on their way to Ruacana, they would move from nature to natives, with a tour of the “tribal areas in O/land where wild natural life could be seen, studied and photograph (under special supervision)”[572].  

Bollig and Olwage write that in this year ‘the last white commercial hunter was forcefully removed from the Kaokoveld’[573]. Most of the remaining ‘Anglo-Boers’ ‘were moved to South West Africa by the South African government at their own request[574].

C.H.L. Hahn, Vedder and Fourie publish The Native Tribes of South West Africa, including information and photographs from Louis Fourie, then the Medical Officer for SWA[575], as well as a foreword by Secretary for SWA, H.P. Smit[576]. Bollig and Heinemann describe it as ‘a publication meant to satisfy the needs of the League of Nations for a credible report on the development of the native population in the mandated territory’, containing ‘18 pictures out of which some 10 are taken from Kaokoland’[577]. Groups seen as being most assimilated by European culture and costume, namely ‘Nama’ and ‘Damara’ receive little space and their diversity is smoothed through creating composite tribal identities[578]. The text becomes required reading for officials working in the SWAA Dept. for Native Affairs[579].

The struggle for control of ‘Bushmen’ becomes obvious in the almost absurd discussions in the context of the Amendment of the Arms and Ammunition Proclamation (by the Government Notice II, January 12, 1928), set up following a suggestion by the magistrate of Grootfontein, Mr. Scott that Bushman bows and arrows should be included under the definition of firearms. Their possession is henceforward illegal without a license issued by the local magistrate. The proclamation evokes a legal discussion. Magistrates are uncertain of how to define a “Bushman Bow”. The Attorney General doubts the existence of a “Bushman Bow” and suggested the withdrawal of the Government Notice. The discussion goes on until the 1930s. Whites in possession of “Bushman Bows” are not to be prosecuted, as the bows are then regarded as “curios”. All in all, it seems that this proclamation lacked the necessary precision for extensive implementation. No fees for licenses were ever fixed nor did Bushmen ever bother to apply for licences.[580]

The term ‘Khoisan’ is coined by Léonard Schultze in this year, bringing together ‘two radicals’, ‘Khoi’, i.e. ‘person’ in Khoe, and ‘San’, i.e. ‘predator’, also in Khoe[581].

Fourie usea Passarge’s terminology [see 1907] which distinguished between Kaukau- and Ngami Bushmen, but like Seiner (and different to Passarge and Bleek) he assigns the Haiǁom to the Ngami Bushmen, and estimates a population of 1,000-1,500 individuals:

“Kaukau Bushmen -

                        !Kung                500-800

                        Ssu‡gnassi                200-300

                        ‡Ao-ǁein                500-600

Ngami Bushmen -

                        ǁAikwe                50-75

                        |Nuǁein                200-300

Hei-ǁom                 1,000-1,500

|Huinin & |Geinin        75-100“[582] 

1928-1929

In 1928 about 1,900 Afrikaners, who had earlier trekked from South Africa to Angola are offered the possibility to return to Namibia. The majority of them were first resettled in the so-called Osire Block, east of Otjiwarongo, but farming conditions are far from what was required to build up successful farms, and the effects of drought and recession in the early 1930s put additional stress on the immigrants. Although supported with extra expenditure by the government, their situation did not improve considerably and it was later decided to resesettle them.[583] Botha remarks that:

scepticism was compounded by the fact that the Inspector of Lands estimated only about 64% of the Angola settlers were considered likely to make a success of farming. To make matters worse, the farmers had to cope with the effects of recession and drought, and additional expenditure had to be incurred to save many farmers from utter ruin.[584]

1928-1933

Drought years[585]

1929

Severe drought in north-west Namibia.[586] Outjo District (‘southern Kaokoland’[587]) except for Franzfontein Reserve is cleared of people for the Land Resettlement Program through the forcible relocation of people northwards, so as to make the Police Zone border impenetrable for people and livestock[588]. A major portion of southern ‘Kaokoland’ Herero are forcibly removed northwards to central parts of ‘Kaokoland’, so as to make the Police Zone border impenetrable for people and livestock[589]. 1,201 people were removed in total (‘393 men, 448 women, 360 children’) plus 7,289 cattle and 22,176 sheep and goats[590], taking the population of ‘Kaokoland’ to 4,309 people[591]. 1,201 people are removed to more marginal areas in the Kaokoveld in total (‘393 men, 448 women, 360 children’) plus 7,289 cattle and 22,176 sheep and goats[592], at the height of the lambing season which meant that many animals perished[593]. Thus, for example, ovaHerero Headman Kephas Muzuma (born in 1910 at ​​Okavao, now in the western part of Etosha national Park[594]) is moved with his followers

from the Etosha-Kaokoveld boundary area … northwards to Ombombo … when the colonial government created a stock-free corridor between ‘diseased’ African livestock and settler farms. This earlier forced relocation is still remembered as a terrifying event, one that exacerbated a lasting feud among different kin networks of Herero and Himba within Kaokoveld.[595]

Conducive conditions and state-sponsored immigration in SWA, combined with problems attaining land title in Angola, encourage Angola Boers (‘trekboers’/voortrekkers arriving from South Africa in 19th century who had farmed, hunted and traded in Angola) to trek through southern Angola into Namibia. Their return is negotiated by Prime Minister Herzog through church mediators and they were welcomed by ‘the Administration with an enormous fleet of modern transport lorries on the south bank of the Kunene river at Swaartbooisdrift’ and taken to districts with ‘empty land’ such as Outjo, Gobabis and Grootfontein[596].

Station commanded of Namutoni reports that four Haiǁom owned 53 cattle, 237 goats, 27 sheep and 15 donkeys in the vicinity of Namutoni: there is uncertainty among the officers about how much livestock is allowed and it is decided that ‘Bushmen’ should not keep more than ten head of large and fifty head of small stock per person within the reserve.[597]

Young (white) Gobabis farmers capture ‘fifty or so Bushmen’, burning down their huts and driving them westwards over night leaving them at various white farms in return for a small commission[598].

Caprivi strip is added to the district of Grootfontein (Procl. 26/1929) [599].

1929-1930

The ‘famine of the dams’ in Owamboland[600] in which the colonial state responded by initiating a programme of dam digging for food relief[601]. Hahn abandons attempts to control African hunting[602], and severe drought elsewhere reverses processes of African livestock recovery that occurs following German rule and permits consolidation of the SA state[603]. Black workers and livestock frequently expelled from white farms[604].

1929-48

Political structure in Sesfontein consists of a chief and four councillors, all Nama, who hold authority over Damara, Nama and Ovahimba residents[605].

1930

The government reportedly decrees that all farms should be fenced in[606], and the surveyed/commercial farming area in Outjo continues to expand:

Expansion of surveyed farms in Outjo District. Source: scan from Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 13. 

The first inoculation program undertaken by State Veterinary Office destroys approx. 18 animals, vaccinates 6,514 cattle, and recommends that cattle from Kaokoveld ‘be prevented from moving into the white farming area’, with ‘regular monitoring of waterholes along the 19th parallel by the police … [considered] sufficient to prevent the spread of the disease southward’[607]. Thus, in the SWA Annual Report of this year it is reported that,

[c]hanges in regard to the settlements of natives have recently been carried out in the Southern Kaokoveld. Scattered and isolated native families, particularly Hereros, have been moved to places where it is possible to keep them under observation and control. With few exceptions, these natives are well satisfied with the new localities. They also realize the advantage of being controlled by one chief. … All stock has been moved north over a considerable area in order to establish a buffer zone between the natives in the Kaokoveld and the occupied parts of the Territory which remain free of the disease [lungsickness].[608] 

Additionally:

[t]he general health of the natives in the Kaokoveld remains satisfactory, although the shortage of food has been felt. The staple diet of the Herero is milk supplemented with meat when he can get it. Owing to the drought, milk has been very scarce and the natives have suffered in consequence. In the Kaokoveld, the natives in many localities grow pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, mealies, and a little wheat, but the quantities last year on account of the drought were less than usual.[609]

Regarding the policing of boundaries established by ‘Cocky’ Hahn in north-west Namibia, he writes in his report to the administration that the administration constable (Cogill) should be instructed to shoot Herero and Owambo cattle found transgressing these boundaries[610]. Unusually, a female German photographer accompanies a Herrensafari [see below] to the Kaokoveld, and photographs wildlife and people, especially women, in what is perceived as an ‘untouched native world’[611].

Donald Bain [see 1925-26 and 1936] guides the De Schauensee Expedition to Etosha where they film ‘Heikum’. This was a bird collecting expedition, ‘in the interests of the [Philadelphia] Academy of Natural Sciences’, that travelled from Cape Town via Windhoek to a number of places in west and north Namibia, including Etosha[612]:  

Windhoek was a very pretty little town surrounded by high rocky hills, which are sparsely covered with small gnarled trees, but are quite bare of any sort of undergrowth. We were most kindly treated there by Mr. Smit, the Secretary for South West Africa. Through his interest we obtained permission to collect birds on the Etosha Pan Game Reserve and also to secure a limited number of the protected species. This enabled us to collect many interesting specimens, the majority of which were not in the Academy's collection ...[613]

 

 

Route of the de Schauensee bird collecting expedition. Source: de Schauensee 1932: 146.

 

**to be contd.

Isaac Schapera consolidates use of the term ‘Khoisan’ (see 1928)[614]. With regard to the Haiǁom, Schapera mainly consults the publications of Bleek, Werner (1906) and Fourie and promotes an essentialist idea of ethnicity as well as the threat of ‘assimilation’:

[m]ost of them now work on farms, and except among the bands in the vicinity of the Etosha Pan every trace of their original organization is said to have disappeared completely. Whether free or in service, the majority now speak a Nama dialect, and in culture and physical characters also they have been influenced to a very great extent by the Nama and Bergdama. The bands living along the borders of Ovamboland have been largely influenced by Ovambo culture, and are rapidly being absorbed into the Ovambo by racial intermixture.[615]

A ban of dogs is introduced in Game Reserve No. 2,[616] but according to oral history was not implemented.

1930-1932

The Solar Development Company prospects for minerals (specifically gold) at Zerrissene Mountain, west of the Brandberg and south of the Ugab[617].

1930-1934

Prolonged drought and loss of livestock[618].

1930-1960 approx.

For the very northern Kaokoveld area of Epupa / Ombuku / Omuhonga, after the southwards movement of Himba into this area after 1920, it is documented that grazing rotation and land tenure involved livestock camps moving ‘out to graze distant pastures during the rainy season when pans and other seasonal water sources offered enough water’, grazing ‘in orbits around these seasonal pools and once these rain-dependent water-resources fell dry, they had to retreat to settlements near permanent water reservoirs along rivers and permanent wells’[619]. Pastures further west were used only when exceptional rains filled ‘natural wells’ in the area[620].

‘Pastoral tenure and mobility before 1960’ in Epupa / Ombuku / Omuhonga area of north Kaokoveld. Source: scanned from Bollig 2006, p. 42.

Early 1930s

By the beginning of the 1930s it became official policy to give preference to local applicants when farms were allocated[621].

1931

Constable F.G. Cogill [who had previously accompanied Manning in 1917?**] is instructed to travel on a special patrol to mouth of Owaruthe / Hoarusib River, leaving Ondangua on 19 November[622]. He touches on Sarusas and Omburo (Purros) amongst a long list of other places[??], arriving on the coast on 14 December, where south of the Hoarusib month he finds car tracks attributed, after being ‘told by Natives’ to a police officer who came from Kamanjab via ‘Zessfontein’ but had to return due to heavy sand[623]. Around 10 miles north of the Hoarusib he finds a vacated mining camp which the natives accompanying, from Omburo, state was ‘visited by the Kamanjab Police, 3 European and 1 Native, and the Headman of Zessfontein’ around 20 days previously, finding 4 white people here ‘with a small Boat… two Rifles, two spades, two picks and a Board on which was a name, also a sample Dish’[624]. Also found nearby is a further ‘Camping Ground, vacated about 2 years ago and Claim Pegs, with name Boards’ reading ‘Mr. Mc Mann, Precious Stones, Telegr. No. 20, dated 24/5/29’[625]. Cogill returns via Sarusas[626]. He reports that he sees little game in Kaokoveld after Epako[627]. At this time, ‘the Natives [‘very willing to assist me in any way’] who reside at Epako and Omburo state that they are subjects of the Zessfontein Headman and those at Otjinjande[?] … fall under Oorlog’[628].

‘Hei-2om’[?] is recorded for ‘Bushmen’ in the vicinity of Etosha Pan[629]. Fourie writes:

[t]he Hei-²om ... are generally believed to have resulted from the intermixture of Hottentots with a now extinct Bushmen tribe which originally inhabited the greater portion of the territory now known as Damaraland and Ovamboland.... A greater degree of racial intermixture is met with among the Hei-²om than among any of the other existing tribes of Bushmen. Their manner of life is still that of Bushmen but, unlike their neighbours of the Kalahari, they have no language of their own and speak a Nama [Hottentot] dialect.[630]

His description reveals a number of contradictions, e.g. that:

a) Haiǁom were an intermixture of Bushmen and Hottentots;

b) they had possessed an “original” organisation which was now extinct;

c) they had lost their original language (which was supposedly a Bushmen language);

d) their manner of life was still that of Bushmen.

If as Haiǁom, they had, originally been an intermixture, why then was their lifestyle still that of ‘Bushmen’, and how should their “original organisation” be reconstructed, should it correspond to that of the ‘Bushmen’ or of the ‘Hottentot’?[631] Several subdivisions of Haiǁom are detected by different scholars during these years but neither number nor names were consistent.[632]

Vedder in this year publishes a text on ǁGaub, as quoted by Moritz:

“The Gaub farm is a very special piece of ground. On vegetation maps the farm is described as a tropical island. Huge fig trees, some of which grow on ancient omumborombonga [Combretum imberbe] trees, give a special character to the lovely terrain on which the farmhouse is built. Gaub is rich in water. In more than a dozen places, round knolls can be seen protruding from the terrain. They are old springs where the water flowed out, which seeped into the ground in the Otavi highlands.... Thus it came about that in Gaub in ancient times there was a large swamp in which the elephants cavorted, and in which the mosquitoes had a breeding ground such as there was hardly a better one in the whole country.”

         Even today, old elephant traps can be found in the area. These are deep holes in the limestone, into which a pointed stake was driven. The hole covered with bushes, was a pitfall. Many an elephant had to lose its life on the way to the water. Vedder continues: "...at that time the Bushmen lived in Gaub, and they were served by the Bergdama."[??] A Bergdama led Vedder to an elephant pit and said, "Here in this hole I once stabbed an elephant with these two hands of mine." Vedder asked him, "And then you ate your fill of meat?" But he replied with a sad face: "I didn't eat any of it. I was in the service of my Baas, a Bushman [Kruger??], and he ate all the meat with his people and gave me nothing." Vedder continues: "But wasn't Gaub an old place of the mountain Dama of the Otavi highlands? No, it only became that later, when the missionaries of the Rhenish Mission sought reservations for the persecuted and afflicted Bergdama, who were enslaved by the Nama and Bushmen, beaten by the Herero, and who were outlawed from the Orange River to the Kunene River. At that time, the mission bought the farm Gaub. There they wanted to settle Bergdama and guide them to work and give them a secure life. Then, under the leadership of Missionary Kremer from Tsumamas, west of Outjo, they came to Gaub, and the others emerged from their hiding places in the mountain ranges of Otavi.... It was soon realized that it was too unhealthy to live near a swamp. Therefore, the Rhenish Mission sent a cultural engineer to Gaub, Herm Borchardt, who, at the turn of the century, drew up a plan for the drainage of Gaub. And because the learned Herm could say what had to be done, but could not do it himself, the same society sent the farmer Detering to Gaub, who built a house there and then proceeded to drain the swamp, but collected the water in a deep ditch and from there directed it to long drainage fields. When the German regiment in the southwest became stronger and the Bergdama also received the rights of a free man, it was no longer necessary to regard the farm as a reservation. Gaub became a heritage farm. A second farm was established at Gana-chaams and a third at the magnificent spring at Uris."[633]

     Already under the guidance of missionary Kremer the Damara should be enabled to cultivate. Corn, pumpkins, wheat and tobacco were cultivated. Johannes Krüger, who married a Nama, spoke several languages and was considered a middleman among the various tribes. The Hei//om also finally recognized him as the supreme ruler of their territory. Krüger’s wife had grown up in the house of the Hälbich family in Otjimbingwe and had been brought up as a Christian. She spoke [18] good German and could also write.[634]

1932

Natives (Urban Areas) Amendment Proclamation, builds on South African amendment of 1930[635]. Black entry into Windhoek is banned[636] and main location starts to be reorganised[637].

Otavi mine closes down.[638]

The Uukwambi kingdom is bombarded by Union Defence Force aircraft in response to the Garvey-inspired anti-colonial activities of the king[639], and the headmen replacing the Uukwambi king Lipumbu ya Tshilongo display to van Ryneveld some of the deposed king’s store of ivory[640].

1933

The International Convention for the preservation of African fauna and flora takes place in London, which Joubert argues resulted in Ordinance 19 of 1937 - see below.[641] 

In Kaokoveld it is observed that:

[t]he wheat fields round the open water stood out in striking contrast to the surrounding country, and the natives were hard put to it to protect these against the elephants and other wild animals. Every night fires were built round the fields and the natives beat tins and shouted to keep the game off.[642]

The Truppenspieler movement is reported to be active in Kaokoland, structuring Herero contacts into ‘a system of fictive companies, flags and military titles’ that mimic those of the German Schutztruppe[643]. German colonists reportedly take down the South African flag in Windhoek[644].

The activities of the Bushmen, including mobility, seeking employment on farms, as well as stock thefts and attacks, are clearly dependent on a number of factors, e.g. the abundance or lack of rainfall, or rations provided by farmers, factors recognised by the Grootfontein’s magistrate in his annual reports, e.g. in this year he writes:

(a) Preservation of law and order: ... This has unfortunately been more than balanced by an increase in serious crime, more especially stock thefts. It is considered that this increase has been due to the absence of veldkos brought about by the drought. The majority of culprits were bushmen.[645] 

1930s

The SA administration contemplates settling white farmers in the ‘neutral zone’ north of the Police Zone border[646]. Strict boundary controls protect the commercial farming areas, such that any move into Kaokoland requires ‘a pass from the local administration’ and ’Kaokolanders’ have to apply for passes to the police post at Swartbooisdrift / Tjimuhaka on the Kunene River, these applications then being sent on for approval ‘to the office of the Native Commissioner at Ondangwa’, and movement of livestock across international and internal boundaries is prohibited[647]. From around this time ‘a small elite of the settler community took delight in arduous safaris to Kaokoland’[648].

In the 1930s a Captain Nelson was appointed game warden at Namutoni “as an experiment” but was “dismissed after a few months”[649].

Ca. 1933-1941

Discussion on Bushmen ‘squatting’ on Dinaib farm and paltry[?] other ‘vagrant Bushmen’ in the Outjo and Grootfontein districts and the question where to resettle them, one envisaged solution to resettlem them at the Okavango, or to get them in employment in mines.[650] Native Commissioner Hahn took part in the discussion:

[i]f it is essential that the Heikum at Dinaib to be moved, then I would suggest that they be settled in the Game Reserve. They know the whole of the Etosha Pan area well and are related to many of the Bushmen at present residing there. I discussed this matter with Mr. Courtney Clarke (then Secretary for S.W.A.) after I had submitted my evenly-numbered report of the 23rd August 1938. I informed him that I do not consider the Bushmen population of the Game Reserve excessive; in fact I thought that room could be found for more wild families and that these could be settled at places other than the main springs and game watering places, where big concentrations of various species of game have proved so attractive to visitors. I pointed out too that the Bushmen in the Reserve form part and parcel of it and that they have always been a great attraction to tourists. No definite conclusion, however, was arrived at and the matter was left to abeyance.[651] 

Alternatively, he proposed to resettle them at the outskirts of the Ondangwa area and suggested to involve both Haiǁom and Ovambo in the discussions. He also tried to raise understanding for the situation of the Haiǁom:

[b]ecause of the establishment of farms, Reserves, etc., and the general advance of civilisation into their ancestral territory the Heikum have perhaps suffered more than any other Bushman tribe in South West Africa. Their various family clans or groups have become disintegrated and have been pushed further and further North, first by the Hereros and then by the Germans and latterly by our own land settlement schemes. Their hunting grounds and veld kos areas have either been completely taken from them or have shrunk to such an extent that in very many cases the wild or semi-wild Heikum, today finds it almost impossible to eke out an existence. I can only say therefore that it is surprising that these people do not indulge in more cattle and stock-thieving [emphasis added]. …

The tame Bushmen who have given up their nomadic life or those who are settled in the transitionary stage and who have ‘settled’ on farms, are often exploited by certain types of farmers. ...Their wages, if they receive any at all, are always less than those paid to Hereros or Ovambos and ... their rations too are less and of inferior quality....

I mention the foregoing because I consider the food and economic position of the Bushmen farm labourers should be thoroughly investigated with a view to improving their lot. If improvements can be brought about, particularly among the ‘tame’ and semi ‘tame’ elements, I feel sure that the Bushmen problem generally will be very much alleviated. …

When raw or wild Bushmen engage themselves for employment they are certainly stupid at first, but that is no reason why they should be branded for life as ‘good for nothing’. My experience shows that they soon learn if properly treated and trained. At Namutoni, for instance, as well as in Ovamboland, there are several Bushmen in Government employ whilst others, though not actually in Government service, are frequently used in official work; they are all of the ‘tame’ type and their work and reliability compares very favourably with that performed by Hereros and Ovambos.[652]

A slightly different idea was the creation of a Bushman reserve overlapping the Game Reserve (a suggestion which was reconsidered ten years later). The assistant secretary of the Administration suggested that the establishment of a reserve for Bushmen should go hand in hand with the maintenance of the Game Reserve, and that the Bushmen should have access to the game. It was thought that if Bushmen were allowed to roam and hunt over portions of the Game Reserve, it might provide a solution to the “problem” of the Bushmens’ nomadic lifestyle. In 1941, the initiative was dropped for the time being.[653]

1934

Heavy rainfalls lead to floods all over the country[654]. In Sesfontein this year is known as ‘Gâseb’ after the pastor Nicodemus Gâseb who died in this year when the rain was falling strongly, a year that also brought locusts (ǂhoms)[655].​​​​  

An Immorality Act is introduced in SWA, controlling intimate relationships along racial lines[656], a SWA Magistrate writing that,

[t]he personality of the person authorized to run the Bioscope is a very important one. The natives have impressionable minds and are in many respects like big uneducated children[657].

 

Subsidised by the SWAA, Rhenish missionary H. Vedder publishes South West Africa in Early Times in German, consolidating ‘Bantu’ and especially the ‘unspoilt’ ‘Bushmen’, rather than ‘coloureds’ or ‘whites’, as the appropriate focus for ‘ethnography’ and ethnographic photography[658].

 

Lebzelter publishes ‘a diagram of a Dama hut from the Erongo on which he depicts clay vessels used for storing water’ and ‘refers to these as ǁgamxawan (water vessel)’[659]. Lebzelter publishes ‘a diagram of a Dama hut from the Erongo on which he depicts clay vessels used for storing water’ and ‘refers to these as ǁgamxawan (water vessel)’[660]. He also publishes a much reproduced list of !Geio / |Geio Damara leaders[661], as reproduced in Moritz[662], in which,

Lebzelter attempts to draw up a list of the chiefs (hoofmanne) [of !Geio / |Geio], calculating 25 years for one generation. Marriage took place relatively early. The eldest son was then considered the successor of the chief. The dates are the respective dates of birth, which then allow us to go back in history to 1390 (correction by the author).

 [Cornelius Goreseb, Okjombahe - his successor was appointed in 1915[663]]

1. 1890 Hosea Goreseb
2. 1865 Judas Goreseb [died on 26.4.1923
[664]]

3. 1840 Komelius Goreseb

4. 1815 Abraham Seibeb

5. 1790 ǁHoeseb (son of !Nawaseb)

6. 1765 !Gaoseb (uncle)

7. 1740 Tsauseb (the calf)

8. 1715 /Nawaseb (father)

9. 1690 Tsowaseb

10. 1665 Gariseb

11. 1640 Narirab (spear)

12. 1615 //Aruseb (monkey)

13. 1590 !Kudeb

14. 1565 ǂGoseb

1540 Uru-ge-//heib

16. 1515 !Owo-saub

17. 1490 !Hau- ǂkarib

18. 1465 ǂKari- /garub (young leopard)

19. 1440 Gei/garub (leopard)

20. 1415 Saub (grass seed)

21. 1390 !Ā-la-nanub

The missionary Vedder distinguishes between two groups of Bushmen, the “Saan” and the Kalaharibushmen. Haiǁom were considered by him as belonging to the “Saan”, the gatherers:

[t]he first group includes the Saan, i.e. the collectors. The name already indicates that the wild growing field food is their main food. They can be found in the Namib, stay in very small groups in the mountains of Namaland and are more numerous in the districts of Outjo and Grootfontein. There they are also called Hei=ǁom.[665]

Austrian anthropologist Lebzelter writes about “The Heiǁom of the Etosha Pan”:

The Bushmen of the Etosha Pan would indeed have all the prerequisites for a new flowering. They have, or at least at the time of my presence, had an understanding superior in Captain Nelson, the director of the large game reserve. Although they are forbidden to carry or use firearms, they are allowed to shoot as much game as they need to make a living with bow and arrow. Since they have been given this permission, they have not been involved in cattle theft. Their leader and the better company, if one may say so, lives in Herero style beehive huts in the immediate vicinity of the station. These people usually dress in European rags, use Christian names without actually being proselytised, but are always ready to dance for distinguished guests in their traditional clothes and have their picture taken. They are well on the way to becoming saloon bushmen and are gradually getting into the tourist business .... So for example one tried to sell me his ‘gun’ (that is for practical purposes a worthless bushman bow) which he had bartered in the wilderness for a cup of sugar for one pound sterling. Bushmen are actually forest rangers who monitor wildlife very closely, and are also volunteer policemen who intercept all Owambo who try to bypass Namutoni police station, where passports are checked. .. Generally they are still the most well-armed Bushmen.[666]

The Grootfontein magistrate’s annual report observes,

[t]here has been a slight fall in the number of stock theft cases during the year – 98 cases having been reported to the Police in 1934 as compared with 111 during 1933... Some factors responsible for this improvement are: - 1) Abundant rain fell as from December, 1933. As a result the bushmen had a plentiful supply of veldkos and water and a [???] number trekked away from the inhabited area to live far beyond the Police Zone. 2) … 3) The farmers were able, as a result of the good mealie harvest, to provide their native servants with better rations. In many instances cases of Stock Theft and Theft were undoubtedly caused through farmers giving their natives an insufficient supply of rations.[667]

1935

The Kaoko is represented by ‘Cocky’ Hahn to the Secretary of the National Parks Board as ‘the wildest and most inaccessible region of the country’.[668]

Private farm ownership allowed within the boundaries of Game Reserve No.2 ends in this year.[669] 

The SWA Commission expresses caution regarding further European settlement of land due to insecurity of farming.[670]

At the hearings of the South West Constitutional Commission, Vedder, the head of the Rhenish Missionary Society, argues for the creation of two Bushman reserves, one for the Haiǁom and one for the !Kung:

…You have reserves for game, you have reserves … for Hereros, the Ovambos, and the Okavangos, but you have no reserve for Bushmen, yet historically and scientifically Bushmen are entitled to far greater consideration than any other of our native tribes… The difficulty today is, however, that his lands are gradually being taken from him… he has been prohibited from trapping or shooting in parts which he regarded as his own for generations.[671] 

The Administration reacts with resistance to Vedder’s suggestion. In his answer to the question from the Permanent Mandates Commission in Geneva whether Bushman reserves were going to be created, the statements of F.P. Courtney-Clarke, the secretary for South West Africa asserts that the creation of reserves for Bushmen for the benefit of ethnologists is not a practicable solution and that the best solution is their gradual absorption into the other ‘tribes’. Major Hahn points out that any scheme to be provided by the Government would have to be very expensive in order to meet the Bushmen’s habits and manner of living[672].

1935 onwards

The Land Settlement Commission had to admit in 1935 that the generous settlement policy, initiated 1920, offering extensive aid to the farmers, was largely responsible for the unsound position in which the farmers often found themselves. Advances for dwelling homesteads, camps, kraals, reservoirs and dipping tanks were granted without proper supervision or control. From 1935 farms were allocated for a period of one year without financial support. The capability of the farmer to manage the land during the first year was decisive for his prospective tenure[673].

Mid-1930s

Vita Tom of northern ‘Kaokoveld’ is ‘heavily fined for poaching’[674]. A bag-shaped, pointed base clay-vessel with unpierced lugs of similar style to that found at Gomatsarab is found in the Hungorob Valley and dated [in the 1970s or 1980s?] to 50±45 BP[675]. It is part of a cache 'consisting of metal tins (possibly old food tins), a tinder box and a possible cloth bag; a small crack on the lower half of the vessel had been repaired with a length of thick iron wire’[676].

1936

In the Report of the SWA Commission of this year, including a comprehensive review of the settlement programme, Botha writes:

[t]he Commission found that the great majority of settlers were in precarious financial circumstances which were ascribed to the the following causes:

1) Settlement in less suitable regions and lack of knowledge on both sides with regard to the quality of such regions

2) over evaluation of unknown and untried prairie land

3) A far too far too expensive water supply

4) The too liberal policy of the administration regarding advances and the consequent reckless and careless taking up of loans on the part of the settlers

5) the rapid decline in the prices of farm products since the boom in 1920 and the world-wide depression:

6) a shortage of markets and prohibitive transport costs

7) encouragement of Merino breeding on the part of Government for which Namibia was almost entirely unsuited

8) Stock diseases

9) game, beasts of prey and Bushmen

10) the floods of the previous year which impeded the export of products for months

11) Outbreak of food-and-mouth disease in Bechuanaland and subsequently in Namibia.[677] 

The South West Africa Government Commission on ‘the future of the territory’ notes that the Damara population of 30,000 ‘have lived mainly by serving others’.[678]

‘Cocky’ Hahn, Native Commissioner of Ovamboland, seeks to establish a Native Commissioner in Kaokoveld but is resisted by Oorlog Thom and subsequent Herero leadership.[679]

The magistrate of Grootfontein orders his station commanders to provide general information as to the present activities of Bushmen in their area for his annual report. The station commander of Otavifontein reports that the Bushmen are “not as troublesome as in previous years”. The officer in Tsumeb noted that the Bushmen in his area were all working for farmers, while the Dinaib Bushmen were working as road builders on the road to Namutoni. The station commander of Grootfontein mentions that the decrease in stock thefts in his area was probably due to improved rations (“including meat”) given to Bushmen farm workers. The numbers of reported stock thefts in the Grootfontein district was around thirty.[680]

For the Haiǁom in the Game Reserve, hunting was not regarded as a problem:

[t]he game of the pan was on the increase, even after making liberal allowance to the Bushmen there.[681]

Sey and Sam Davies (one of them representative of the Cape times, S.A.?) first visited Etosha, which stood out as “the most adventurous and vivid” of their “dozen or more visits To Etosha National Park”.[682]

Problems with ‘Bushmen’ are reported for Outjo district and the border of the settlement area, i.e. game reserve was a critical issue. A police officer from Outjo, Sergeant Krogh, reports:

... the wild Bushmen are again giving trouble on the farms adjoining Game Reserve N° 2. The Bushmen reside in the Game Reserve and the only charges that are likely to be proved against them are vagrancy etc. but I understand from the Station Commander, Okaukueyo, that the Bushmen have been given the right to live in Game Reserve N° 2.[683] 

He further points out that the game reserve acts as a neutral zone for ‘Bushmen’.

Native Commissioner Hahn, also responsible for the game reserve takes part in the discussion:

...I beg to remark that wild bushmen have always been allowed to reside in the Game Reserve. They are considered as part and parcel of it. They are allowed to shoot certain species of game only and these may not be shot or trapped near watering places... Farmers are to apt to blame Bushmen for stock losses. More often than not it is just a wild guess on their part that Bushmen are the culprits. To my mind a police patrol would not warrant the expense. If the position really demands investigation I would suggest that only one or two reliable Bushmen such as can be found at Namutoni be employed to first scout out the position and than report to the Police who could thereafter decide what to do on the reports received. There is an ex-native‘ Constable, Fritz, at Namutoni. He is a full-blooded bushmen and a respectable and reliable native who I think would be a useful man to employ for this work. He was discharged from the Force some years ago owing to his age.[684]

Two years later, the district commander from Omaruru suggests a ‘Bushman reserve’ north of Naidaus.[685]

The Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg includes a much publicized exhibit of Bushmen brought by Donald Bain’s (“Bain’s Bushmen”), who are frequently depicted as encountering for the first time “the wonders of the white man’s civilization”[686].

1936-1938

Discussion on ‘Bushman reserve’ in Southwest Africa is triggered by the ‘Bushmen display’ at the Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg 1936 and Donald Bain’s initiative to create a ‘Bushman reserve’.  Isaac schapera compiles a memorandum, in which he points out some general fundamental problems, with regard to classification:

…The ‘typical’ Bushmen, on this classification [of native people in Southern Africa], are characterised: a) physically, by diminutive proportions, slight habit, light yellowish skin, steatopygia, and hair in sparse peppercorn thufts; b) linguistically, by speaking languages of an isolating, non-inflectional type; phonetically remarkable for the great prevalence of 'click' consonants; and c) culturally, by living in small nomadic bands which lead a purely hunting and collecting existence, practising neither agriculture nor pastoralism. But the ‘typical’ Bushman combining all these characteristics is virtually extinct; the vast majority of the people to whom the term ‘Bushman’ is nowadays locally applied in different parts of Southern Africa vary from the basic type, sometimes only in physical characters, sometimes only in language, sometimes only in the mode of life, and often enough in two or even all three of these criteria.... Cultural Characteristics: In regard to culture also the ‘Bushmen’ are by no means homogenous...the Heikum, in particular, showing many unmistakable signs of Hottentot and Ambo influence... It may be added that a pure hunting and collecting way of life is not characteristic of the Bushmen alone. Many of the Bergdama and Tjimba Herero in South West Africa, ... have been forced through loss of their livestock to adopt a similar means of obtaining their subsistence…. It is obvious from this brief review that there is no single criterion by which we can nowadays characterise all the people commonly called ‘Bushmen’. If we adopt racial characteristics, we shall probably have to exclude the vast majority, if not all, of these people; if we adopt mode of life, we must exclude all the cattle-herding MaSarwa and all the servants on European Farms (including many of the least hybridised ‘Bushmen’ of the south); and if we adopt language we must exclude the Heikum and possibly the Naron. If we adopt the standard definition of a ‘typical Bushman’, given at the beginning of this section, we shall left only a mere handful of people, if any.“[687]

1937

Inspired by the 1933 International Convention for the preservation of African fauna and flora takes place in London, the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance (Ord. 19, 1937) is gazetted, reading:

[t]o provide for the preservation of the fauna and flora of the Territory in their natural state … and to amend in other aspects the law relating to the pre­servation of game.[688]

Apart from protections of Welwitschia mirabilis, protected from 1916,

this ordinance now for the first time included the protection of plants. Enforcement of the game laws until then had been the sole responsibility of the SWA Police. This ordinance also permitted interested people to help with the applicable law enforcement in the capacity of honorary game wardens.[689]

The veterinary / ‘Police Zone’ boundary is positioned in the north-west as per map below:

Surveyed/commercial farms in Outjo District expand again, in an area south of Etosha Pan:

Expansion of surveyed farms in Outjo District. Source: scan from Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 13.

Native Affairs officers station in Etosha report that the San / Haiǁom hardly ever hunt more than what’s needed for subsistence[690]. Existence and boundaries of the game reserve, as the border of the police zone, were highly relevant for the situation of Haiǁom. Laws concerning vagrancy and ‘Bushman’ bows did not apply within.

Vita Tom (Oorlog) dies, afterwards a tribal council is created in the Kaokofeld, before this, the Kaokofeld resorted under the Native Commissioner of Ovamboland.[691]

 

The apparently sole entry regarding women in Kaokoland in the archival notes is reported in this year, stating that ‘women should be prohibited from moving into the Police Zone and should not be given passes’[692].

Some Angola Boers from the Osire Block in Otjiwarongo District are relocated in the Gurugas Block in the north-west of Outjo District.[693] From this year the Administration prohibits the immigration of Germans to South West Africa[694].

The monthly return of Namutoni reports 84 cattle, 8 donkeys (excluding 40 donkeys of an Ovambo man at Osohama) and 92 goats in the vicinity of Namutoni, two men are reported to have 20 and 23 head of cattle, exceeding the allowed number of 10 head of large stock per person [see 1929][695].

1937-38

Inoculation campaigns against lung sickness in Kaoko institutes a period of successful establishment of SA administration in the region through these campaigns as an instrument of rule in conjunction with a headman council system[696].

1938

An official census for Haiǁom in the Namutoni area within the Game Reserve No. 2 provides the following data which should be treated with caution, because, for example, no indication is given of the time of the year of the census or of how the data were obtained:

Detailed List of Bushmen Residing in the Namutoni Area Forming Part of the Game Reserve N° 2, 1938[697]:

Adults

Children

Total

Name of Place where residing

Males

Females

Males

Females

Okevi

8

10

5

5

28

Thiob

18

19

11

7

55

Nobib

4

4

1

7

16

Kwanas

4

8

3

4

19

Koiseb

5

7

3

1

16

Uniams

6

8

4

8

26

Kamasib

4

4

3

3

14

Tunaris

5

6

3

5

19

Koisib

3

4

3

1

11

Agannis

2

2

4

Osohamo

10

16

18

12

56

Rietfontein

3

4

3

5

15

Thobobus

5

7

4

5

21

Zarieb

1

3

2

2

8

Narieb

11

11

5

4

31

Nuganies

1

2

1

4

Total

90

115

68

70

343

Source: NAO 33/1, 3.3.1938, Dieckmann 2007a, p. 147.

The fact, that more women than men were recorded here, can perhaps be understood in the context of seasonal employment outside the reserve. Haiǁom in the Game Reserve was also temporarily employed in road construction, e.g. in 1938, the station commander Namutoni reported:

From 10 to 15 [Bushmen] are daily employed on road construction and general improvements at Namutoni. They each get 3 lbs of Mahangu or Mealie Meal and a small quantity of tobacco as a ration daily. Application are being made to provide them with meat occasionally, their only complaint is for the want of meat, while at work they cannot do their usual hunting...[698] 

He got permission to shoot one old zebra or wildebeest per week.

The Kruger National Park is increasingly taken as reference when reporting about the game reserve:  In July 1938 Sergeant Kleinhans (most probable the station commander cited above) at Namutoni has fitted out a camping ground under the trees and he is also busy renovating the old fort, in order to accommodate visitors, he intends to improve the roads with the help of ‘bushman labour’. Reportedly (according to Sergeant Nel at Okaukuejo), there is no accommodation or shelter for visitors at Okaukuejo:

Until recently visitors have camped in the open, but this practice is becoming very dangerous as lions are numerous. Only a week ago Sgt. Nel, with the approval of Mr. Hahn, had to shoot a lioness which caused quite a lot of trouble, killing nearly all his slaughter stock in the kraal quite close to the Station, and generally becoming a danger to his family and the native…. Last season Nel estimates he had 500 visitors, and up to now, which is only the beginning of the season, he has had 130 and has permits in hand for a further 180; at this rate he anticipates approximately 800 visitors this season. These people arrive there dusty and thirsty and there being no facilities for them to camp, they simply squat on his doorstep, with the result that out of sheer humanity he had to offer them a cup of coffee or tea, and some even ask for it…. As there is such a tremendous increase of visitors annually, I consider the time has come for the Administration to consider suitable camping provisions at this place….[Nel accompanies visitors to see game at the pan in order to avoid them scaring the game off] He has even managed to ge[sic] the lion when available to pose for the camera, as it were. [watering arrangement at pan problematic, water needs to opened and storage dame to be build, otherwise game stuck in mud] It is by no means practicable to allow people to go to the pan alone as they are always inclined to disturb the fame unnecessarily, with the result that before (l)ong they will be so wild that there will be no pleasure in going there. Consequently Nel has to go every time visitors come along. As a matter of fact I do not think the Station should at any time be left without a European on the premises. It is evident from the number of Union and foreing visitors visiting the pan, that its existence is becoming more and more known, and people who have visited the Kruger Park expect to find the same facilities here as exist there, consequently there is great disappointment when they come here.[699]

A large group of ‘Damara-speakers’ are removed from Windhoek to farms and reserves[700]. A group of people ‘described as Ovambo and accompanied by Ovaherero and others’ are required to leave Otjeru, ‘a settlement between Outjo and Omaruru granted to them under German colonial rule’, oral traditions relating that ‘their captain, Lazarus Amporo, sent a message to Petrus Swartboois, the head of the Fransfontein Reserve Board and leader of the Swartboois, asking to grant his people refuge in Fransfontein’, Swartboois also petitioning ‘the colonial administration to significantly extend the boundaries of the Reserve’[701]. The ‘colonial archives’ instead relate that ‘the extension of the Fransfontein Reserve that was granted at about the same time but not to accommodate the "Ovambo' settlers but to make space for Nama from Grootfontein and Walvis Bay’, the ‘friendly welcoming of Amporo … reflected by his appointment as a member of the Reserve Board in which he represented the newcomers’, the Bantu speaking arrivals mostly settling on posts south of Fransfontein[702].

Vedder’s South West Africa in Early Times is published in English in a slightly condensed version.

1939

The SWA Administration passes the Natives Trust Fund Proclamation No 39 of 1939, establishing the Herero Tribal Trust Fund, the Nama and Dama Native Trust Funds - so far, 17 ‘native reserves’ (23000 square miles) had been created[703]. Kaokoveld becomes a separate magisterial district with a Native Commissioner stationed at Opuwo[704]. Under the supervision of ‘Cocky’ Hahn in Owambo, who with his family by this time ‘had their own reed thatched camp at Ohopoho near the airfield’, this Officer was particularly involved with veterinary inspections related to lungsickness[705]. Hahn was increasingly involved with taking aerial photographs of the region[706] and the first aircraft landed in Opuwo in this year[707].

 

It is observed that ‘[t]he Zesfontein residents take great interest in their gardens and barter their surplus wheat and tobacco for other necessities’[708]. Elsewhere in Kaokoveld, pressure on gardens by elephants is noted:

[w]ith a few exceptions, the Hereros have lost interest in agriculture as the elephants have repeatedly destroyed their crops. The problem of how best to prevent this in future is no engaging attention. It is rendered complicated by the fact that the northern and central portions of the Kaokoveld fall within a Game Reserve; that elephant there are estimated to number anything from 1,000 to 1,500 and that it is the administration’s policy to protect these animals.[709]

By this year, pastoralists in Kaokoland had been subject to such severe punishments for mobility that they regard it as obligatory to obtain a permit in order to move their cattle, and around this time and into the 1940s it was customary to ‘liquidate’ herds found crossing into or from Angola[710].

 

Hahn writes in monthly reports to the SWAA that native administration in Kaokoland should follow that established in Owamboland, namely ‘indirect rule’ through which ‘rank and file are controlled through their traditional leaders’ whose status and influence must thereby be upheld.[711]

After the start of WW II, many Germans (including farmers around Outjo) end up in internal camps or placed under house arrest.[712] 

From 1939 onwards the Land Bank did not allocate farms to non-union and non-British subjects any more. Few (‘white’) people settled throughout the 1930s and early 1940s due to drought, depression and war.[713] 

The number of livestock of Haiǁom at only three waterholes in the vicinity of Namutoni within the game reserve reported to be 98 cattle, 4 donkeys, 204 goats. Station commander asked the men to reduce their stock, which took place afterwards.[714] 

The Cape times decides to publish a supplement on South West Africa, by a group that also visits Etosha (among them Sey or Sam Davies), stating:

[a]nother exciting experience on the same trip was a hunt and a ‘kill’ by a party of bushmen who then had their werft at Rietfontein.[715]

Union Proclamation No 147 repeals the provisions of 1929 that make Caprivi part of the district of Grootfontein[716].

1939-40s

Africans including ‘BergDama’ are repeatedly and forcibly moved out of the western areas between Hoanib and Ugab Rivers, although inability to police this remote area means that people move back as soon as police presence has left[717].

1939-1945

In WW2 Hahn is in service in SWA for the British[718]. Namibians are recruited into Native Military Corps[719].

1940

Union of South Africa settlers in SWA receive ‘call-up instructions for military duty on the African Front’, and service later enables veterans to purchase available land in SWA at a reduced rate of 3d / hectare[720].

The native commissioner of ‘Ovamboland’ and acting game warden of Etosha Game Reserve writes of the Haiǁom in Etosha to the secretary of SWA that,

I do not consider the Bushmen population of the Game Reserve excessive; in fact I thought that room could be found for more wild families and that these could be settled at places other than the main springs and game watering places, where big concentrations of various species of game even proved so attractive to visitors. I pointed out too that the Bushmen in the Reserve form part and parcel of it and that they have always been a great attraction to tourists.[721]

In southern Angola many Kuvale are ‘shot by the Portuguese army because they allegedly rebelled against the colonial order’[722].

Early 1940s

A Council of Headmen as a ‘joint tribal authority’ is established by Native Commissioner Hahn ‘to adjudicate cases and to make contact with the colonial authorities in monthly meetings’, and ‘to balance the different power groups of Kaokoland’[723]. Large herds of livestock crossing the Kunene ‘illegally’ are culled several times by the authorities[724]. Around this time a Damara family led by Petrus !Ganeb moves to north of Fransfontein settling at !Ganeb Pos / Tsaurob (meaning ‘the small water hole’[725].

1940s

The SA administration contemplates ‘resettling all Herero from the Police Zone’ to the ‘neutral zone’ of southern Kaokoland, north of the Police Zone boundary[726]. Native Commissioner Hahn forbids Himba from settling within 10 miles of the Kunene[727].

Herds in African Reserves are restricted to 100 large stock and 300 small stock (per family?)[728]. A welfare officer for the Okombahe Reserve requests to be able ‘to shoot ostriches, zebra and springbok throughout the year, and to distribute the meat to schoolchildren and indigent people’[729].

Schlettwein owns Warmquelle until the 1940s, when the Administration exchanges Warmquelle for Kaross, since Warmquelle was outside the Police Zone.[730]

The League of Nations collapses during WW2[731].

1940s-Odendaal

From From the 1940s until Odendaal,

Muzuma’s group [i.e. ovaHerero Headman Kephas Muzuma, see 1910, 1929] negotiated with Headman Joel Tjijahura for grazing and waterhole access from Ombombo to Oniaso [sic - Onaiso], also making use of remote grazing in the mountainous area above the Khowarib Schlucht. Throughout this period people and stock crossed into unfenced Etosha for a variety of reasons:

“There were traditional uses in the park - [the people] lived there, grazed their cattle and they hunted and traded with other indigenous peoples occupying parts of the park - they hunted oryx and giraffe and traded with the Ovambo to the North who had gardens - e.g. giraffe rumens were traded to the Ovambo who used these for cloth­ing items and water gourds.”[732]

1941

Government Notice No. 42 adds 200 qm [??sqm] to Zesfontein[733]. Nathanael Husa |Uixamab, chief of Sesfontein, dies after being mauled by a lion, leaving no issue. The Sesfontein Nama leadership goes outside of the hereditary line to Benjamin Mîn-ǂhab Kido, son of the RMS evangelist Nicodemus |Naistab Kido and his wife Kristina, who had come to Sesfontein from Franzfontein [see 1898].[734] He is appointed in an acting capacity [until 1942] because of his ability to read and write, even though he was a spiritual leader from the Swartboois clan[735]. A herd of around 500 cattle is ‘shot near Otjinungua’ and border posts are established ‘at the main fords across the Kunene river’[736].

Using derogatory language South Africa’s minister for native affairs, Colonel Denys Reitz, comments that ‘it would be a biological crime if we allowed such a peculiar race [the Bushmen] to die out, because it is a race which looks more like a baboon than a baboon itself does ... We look upon them as part of the fauna of the country’[737].

1942

The SWA Administration starts awarding grazing licenses and [14] rumours are ‘rampant’ that the SWA Administration has ‘proclaimed land in the Kaokoveld (Damaraland) for farming under the grass licence scheme’ allowing farmers ‘to settle not less than five miles (8 kilometres) from one another’ for an annual licence fee, and that following survey of the land they would be ‘entitled to purchase it at a price that would be determined’[738]. Landless farmers could apply, precipitating a trek northwards of those with the means of moving[739].

In ‘Kaokoland’ a ‘comprehensive enumeration‘ registers 5,173 people[740].

​​A Captain Smith leads ‘the expedition which rescued the castaways of the Dunedin Star’, driving his convoy ‘along the Hoanib River course in the process of which every single vehicle became bogged down in the thick sand’[741].

The number of Haiǁom living in Game Reserve No. 2 is not clear. The monthly and annual reports are written by people responsible for different areas (e.g., Namutoni or Okaukuejo), which also included land outside the Game Reserve. Additionally, the accounts given are based entirely on estimates, since the officers were lacking detailed knowledge on the Haiǁom living in their areas. The only “complete” accounts for the Game Reserve were given in Hahn’s annual reports[742]:

Bushmen: Game Reserve

Men

Women

Children

Total

Heikum-wild

100-150

150-200

300-350

550-700

Heikum-tame

15-20

20-25

20-25

55-70

Estimated Totals

115-170

170-225

320-375

605-770


Source: NAO 11/1, Annual Report of the Native Commissioner Ovamboland 1942. Presumably those Haiǁom in employment are regarded as “tame” while those at other waterholes are “wild”.

Numbers might have varied according to rain fall, employment opportunities, police patrols outside the game reserve, etc.[743]

1942-1978

Simon Petrus Kaira ǁHawaxab takes over the Sesfontein leadership succeeding Nathanael Husa |Uixomab, because Husab did not have a son who could fill the position, and Simon Petrus ǁHawaxab was brother-in-law of Husab[744]. Upon assuming his duties as Traditional Leader, Simon appointed other traditional councilors to assist him: Urimunka Kasaona, Hivetira Karutjaiva and Mitjiranga Uararavi representing Himba people, and Levi ǁHoeb and Elia Amxab representing the Damara people[745].

1943

‘Cocky’ Hahn is sent by South African authorities in Windhoek on an expedition to the mouth of the Kunene River ‘to investigate a number of illegal diamond prospectors operating without government permits’[746].

An Afrikaans text Jagkonings by Von Moltke is published conveying Boer hunters in Namibia, Botswana and Angola[747].

SWANLA (South West Africa Native Labour Organisation) is founded.[748]

1944

African reserve dwellers in Otjohorongo Reserve complain bitterly that ‘thousands of springbok’ are destroying the grazing and request the welfare officer to drive these animals away[749].

Outjo becomes a municipality[750].

1944-1948

Drought years[751] cause farmers to trek for grazing with their livestock, for example, ‘north to Soris’, ‘a farm in the north-west’ from near Omaruru, on a farm purchased by German settler farmers[752].

After WW II, extensive support was made available for War veterens, also in terms of settlement support. A large amount of land in the western part of the Outjo district – formerly one enormous farm called Aruchab (247,346 ha), is surveyed, divided into around forty farms, most of which are allotted after Second World War. Apart from the ex-soldiers, settlers from the southern regions of Namibia moved temporarily or permanently to the district since the southern region had suffered from enduring drought. [753] 

1945

The Damara Reserve of !AoǁAexas (Aukeigas) is deproclaimed ‘to rid Windhoek and |Khomas Hochland from Damara influence’[754].

1946

Endorsed by the white Legislative Assembly (in SWA), Smuts seeks to incorporate Namibia into South Africa as a fifth province, a move defended to the League of Nations as in the name, and on the behalf, of the people of SWA, and, once rejected, initiating a process of withdrawal from international supervision[755]. ‘Cocky’ Hahn ceases to be Native Commissioner of Owambo.[756]

Tourism in Etosha begins to be promoted:

From Otjiwarongo the next stop is at Outjo. Here the traveller will obtain a permit to enter the Game Reserve. En route to Okaukuejo the traveller may encounter elephants at Ombika, a water hole. No visit to the Pan is complete without a journey to Namutoni. It lies 80 miles to the east and the road, though little more than a track provides fair going. Shades of 'Beau Geste' will be conjured up by the first sight of Namutoni. An old white-washed building in French Foreign Legion style, complete with tower and embattlements.[757]

The first organized “Coach” tour to Etosha takes place for the Easter weekend by Boet Jooste of the S.A. Railways, with 137 visitors in open ten tonne trucks, followed by two five tonners with camping equipment and food travelled to Etosha.[758]

For the post-WW2 period Rizzo describes ‘the genesis of Kaoko and its tribalized [‘untamed’] population as a consumption asset for the southern African settler societies’ - modern, white, industrialised .. incl Namibian settler societies[759].

Regarding the potential export of wheat, mealies and tobacco from Sesfontein (‘Zessfontein’) to markets in the Police Zone, this will not be approved by the official concerned, ‘unless he could be given the assurance that the natives of Zessfontein are completely isolated from the rest of Kaokoveld’, otherwise there would be the danger of spreading foot and mouth disease from Sesfontein to the Police Zone:

[c]onsiderable hardships have been imposed on the Zessfontein residents by prohibiting export of their cereals, as they are now unable to purchase their supplies and needs such as coffee, tea, sugar and clothes etc. to which they have become accustomed.[760]

The Census indicates that only 8% of (settler) farmers have an annual income higher than £1,000 and only 12% higher than £500 and wildlife appears to be an important source of food[761].

David Levin, the settler farmer who acquires Twyfelfontein, applies to the Land Board in Windhoek ‘for grass-license land in the Kaokoveld’, having been a bywoner at Nuichas in southern SWA, [16] travelling with his animals in trucks[762]. He requests “the piece of land with the spring south of the Aba-Huab River … before it intersects the Huab River”, the Damara name for which was |Ui-ǁaes (as apparently ‘marked on the map’), claiming that ‘though the piece around the spring was small, the entire Namib around it was uninhabited’[763]. Initially refused on grounds that the administration could not support people settling at places they could not survive in, but permission received to visit the area[764]. With Dirk de Beer who settles at Dobbelsberg/Gamble near Wilhelmstahl they go looking for |Ui-ǁaes spring, speaking with Andries Blaauw, of the neighbouring farm that becomes known as Blaauport, who relates that he himself ‘was considering moving his sheep there during the winter’ although he ‘doubted if there was sufficient water for 200 animals’, and mentioning ‘that a Damara family lived there with some of their animals’[765].

When Levin and de Beer visited the spring they found it ‘dotted with goat spoor’ and ‘observed the Damara family’s hut and kraal across the dry riverbed that passed through the valley, about half a kilometre west of the spring’[766]. The Damara family was headed by a man called Elifas and although they had difficulties communicating they understood that he ‘did not live there permanently, but moved there when grazing at Grootberg (Big Mountain) was depleted’, and who ‘also spoke of Gwarab, most likely the Khowarib River near Warmquelle[767]. When Levin and de Beer camp near that night they heard hyena and jackal, and travelling west they observe ‘plenty of grass covering the plains’, noting that ‘[t]he people [i.e. settlers] on the farms [nearby] welcomed their visitors and the prospect of David [Levin] and his family settling in this remote part of the Kaokoveld’[768]. Further south, driving from Sorris Sorris to Okombahe they observe that this is ‘a reserve for Damara people’ where ‘there was almost no grazing’[769].

Levin announces to the Land Board that he is moving to |Ui-ǁaes (although trouble could be expected when ‘settling on undeclared land’) and requests ‘a herder at the representative for South West Africa Native Labour Association (SWANLA), which was responsible for recruiting farm-workers from the Owambo and Kavango regions for 12 to 18 month contracts’[770]. In November he leaves Dobbelsberg / Wilhelmstal ‘with his sheep and four donkeys, named Vaaltyn, Bloudon, Ligman and Witbooi, heading for Spesbona§ [at eastern foot of Erongo Mountain, where Kerneels van Niekerk lived, p. 18]’ his six-year old son Michiel and herder ‘Jeremia, a Damara man from Karibib’ (who left soon in 1947), Bernhard, a Damara worker at Spesbona becoming his ‘right-hand man’ pumping water, looking after kraals, and skinning and preparing karakul pelts[771] [contd. 1947 below].

Around 4,600 “tame” ‘Bushmen’ are living in the Grootfontein district inside the Police Zone (less then 5% of them in urban locations), the majority were Haiǁom farm labourers. No detailed figures available for the Outjo district, the figures presented in the ethnic survey of SWA for Outjo contained no category ‘Bushmen’ (but Hottentots, Bastards, Coloureds, Ovambo/Okavango, Bergdamara, Herero and Others).[772] Another 4,100 “wild” Bushmen were reported to reside beyond the Police Zone, this number included predominantly “Kalahari” (3,850) and a comparatively small number of Haiǁom (called Heikum or Heigum: 250).[773]

1947

Kaokoveld is proclaimed as a native reserve (the Kaokoland Reserve) with Opuwo as the administrative centre, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, the Kunene River in the north, the Ovamboland Native Reserve in the east[774], and appears to be part of the western extension of the Etosha Game Park[??inaccurate - not proclaimed until 1958] in the south, which at this time follows the 1907 boundary of Game Reserve no. 2[775], i.e. along the Hoarusib. Although perceived to mean that the former Game Reserve status of his area has been degazetted[776], it is not clear that this is formally the case[777]

Border alteration of Game Reserve No. 2 in this year allowed for the creation of 52 new farms south of Etosha[778]: “The Kaokoland portion of Game Reserve No. 2 was set aside ‘for the sole use and occupation of natives’[see below]. 3406 sq km were cut off and sectioned into farms”, in a portion known as Garagus block, to which there was some public protest but without success.[779] 

Map: Harald Sterly

In July 1947, the foot-and-mouth disease barrier is removed from Osohama [north of Namutoni] to Namutoni and all the stock owners within the reserve are instructed to graze their animals south of the Omuramba Ovambo.[780]

Andries A. Pienaar,[781] an author ‘who wrote adventure stories set in the wild’ (known as Sangiro), is appointed as the first full-time additional game warden (to the Secretary of State as the Game Warden for the territory), stationed in Otjiwarongo and in charge of Game Reserve No. 2 which had previously been managed by the Native Commissioner stationed at Ondangwa[782]. In connection with this, instructions were also issued that ‘Bushmen’ stockowners were no longer allowed to possess more than five head of large stock and ten head of small stock each, and that any surplus stock should be removed. This posed once again a further restriction, in former times ten head of large and fifty head of small stock were allowed per person.[783]

While the allotment or purchase of farms in the whole territory was put on hold during the Second World War, extensive provision was made after the war for the support of war veterans. Ex-soldiers were given land and could qualify – on recommendation of the Discharged Soldiers’ Assistance Board – for additional loans for such things as building houses and to purchase breeding stock. A large amount of land in the western part of the Outjo district – formerly one huge farm of 247,346 hectares – was made accessible to settlers. Aruchab, as the farm was called, had been allotted to the Imperial Cold Storage and Supply Company in 1924 which used it for cattle. In the second half of the 1940s, the land of the farm was surveyed and divided into about forty farms, most of them allotted immediately afterwards. Additionally, part of the Etosha game reserve was cut off the game reserve and made available for settlement; boreholes were drilled and grazing licences could be obtained by interested settlers. Apart from the ex-soldiers, settlers from the southern regions of Namibia moved to the district since the south had suffered from enduring drought.[784]

In February the Levin family treks north (from Spesbona, Erongo) to claim the farming area at |Ui-ǁaes, [9] renaming this as Twyfelfontein by David Levin (son of a retailer of Jewish descent a who had emigrated from Lithuania via England in 1899, who previously had ‘made a living mainly as a hawker in the rural areas of Springbok’)[785]. When they arrive at |Ui-ǁaes – their track becoming the road to Twfelfontein - the Damara family of Elifas was ‘still west of the spring’ and a bell-tent was erected ‘next to a mopane tree, about 100 metres from the spring’ for the Levin family[786]. With his Damara worker Bernhard translating, David learned that,

Elifas did not in fact live at the spring. There were apparently other springs in the vicinity, one being at the great mountain (Grootberg) where he was told palm trees even grew, and a second one in the Huab River. Elephants and lions visited the reed-lined Huab spring. The lions, in particular, posed a problem for them. Elifas was interested in David’s Mauser. “Could you shoot them?” he enquired.[787] 

‘With Bernhard interpreting, David was able to enquire when Elifas intended to leave the area and discovered that he was planning to depart soon’[788]. Elifas assists Levin as he sets himself up with his [24] ‘230 sheep and goats, six chickens, two horses, four donkeys, a horse cart, a donkey wagon, a square tent and some basic household items’[789]. He also shows David Levin ‘how to dig up ants nests and harvest their grass seed stocks, which the ants accumulated as winter food, and how to cook the seeds into porridge’ but ‘[b]ecause this porridge tasted of soil … Ella [David’s wife] seldom prepared it’[790]. The high cost of ammunition and lack of fridge meant that the Levins rarely killed ‘game’ animals and it is reportedly only later ‘that farmers in the area … killed large game’[791].

In May Levin is visited by a police officer informing him ‘that as he had no license, he was illegally at the spring’ and given an ultimatum, ‘obtain a license at the Land Board office in Windhoek or leave’[792]. At this point, ‘[t]he Land Board was encouraging farmers … by granting them loans to drill for water and construct reservoirs’, and following meetings with a neighbouring farmer (Willie Esterhuizen from north-east of Twyfelfontein, on a farm that became part of Blaauwport in 1952) [27] is eventually granted a grass licence for which Levin ‘would have to pay the license fee at the magistrate’s office in Outjo within six months’[793]. The name 'Twyfelfontein' – ‘doubtful spring’ arises from Levin's neighbour, Andries Blaauwpoort, frequently seeing Levin at the spring saying he doubts it will make the next rains[794]. Levin has to move with his sheep and goats for both grazing and water, going to a ‘post’ at Swartpoortjie just north of |Ui-ǁAes and camping just north of the reed-lined water (De Riet) on the ǁHuab, uninhabited at that time, which was used by Levin, Andries Blaauw and Willie Esterhuizen, as well as by elephant[795]. Levin brings reeds from here to help with building a hut at |Ui-ǁaes[796]. The stone reservoir built by Levin below |Ui-ǁaes is still there. Farmers’ co-operatives collect karakul pelts from farmers such as Levin to sell in auctions worldwide, [40] assisted in Levin’s case by Damara labour[797]. At this time banks offer farmers little credit but retailers would usually sell household essentials ‘on the book’ so that they could bridge ‘cash flow shortages between lamb harvesting seasons’[798]. Goats occasionally were bought by speculators to be sold for meat following slaughter in abattoirs in Windhoek or Swakopmund and animal products were sometimes exchanged for household items[799].

Twyfelfontein Levin and Goldbeck 2013_1

Twyfelfontein farm as acquired in the late 1940s and 1950s by settler David Levin and family. Source: scanned from Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 28.

Twyfelfontein Levin and Goldbeck 2013_2

Farms surrounding Twyfelfontein (no. 534) in the late 1940s-1950s. Source: scanned from Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 30.

 

1947-1948

Van Warmelo conducts ethnographic research in Sesfontein and Kaokoveld at which time ‘Sesfontein itself is only occupied by the settled community living there[800]. ‘Schlettwein’s farm ‘Warmbad’ is occupied by one of the Sesfontein Nama ‘voormanne’ - Jafta Hendrik - ‘with a small number of people’[801]. Grazing posts are used in the area around Sesfontein itself ‘for many miles around’ and:

Sesfontein itself is only occupied by the people living there .... The Sesfontein people make use of the grazing for many miles around and have a few posts for their cattle. A number of Herero, Himba, and Tjimba live a semi-nomadic life in the country north-east and north-west of Sesfontein and these also form part, in a loose sense, of the Sesfontein social and economic unit. There is a sort of no-man's land zone around the Sesfontein sphere of influence which integrates these cattle nomads with the oasis dwellers. The unit is thus much larger than the reserve.[802] … [extending] as far north as Purros and as far south as the mouth of the !Uniab River, and included most of the territory in between[803].

Van Warmelo notes that ‘[a]dministratively the Sesfontein community forms a self-contained entity apart from the rest of the Kaokoveld’ describing the ‘traditional leadership of the old Hottentot “kapteins”, a hereditary position’ as ‘weakened’ to the extent that a non-family member was appointed as leader / senior Headman [see above], with a small number of ‘Sub-headmen’ recognised by the government as assisting him[804]. Although having the right to participate in the Council of Headmen of the Kaokoveld, van Warmelo states that ‘they would probably never dream of doing so’ since they would not ‘concede the right to decide about Sesfontein matters to any but the government’[805].

Regarding Sesfontein’s history, Van Warmelo asserts that:

‘[t]he earliest occupation of Sesfontein was probably by the ubiquitous Bushman, of whom, however, little trace or record remains. He was ousted long ago by the Bergdama, and these were in turn subjected by Herero cattle nomads from the north. These two lived together in a symbiosis already familiar from elsewhere in South West Africa, the Herero being the acknowledged masters and living on their herds, the Bergdama hunting, collecting and working for them. Some Himba relate that the last Omuhimba to lord it over Sesfontein was a man named Omusema.
  This state of affairs ended with the arrival of the Hottentots who are now the dominant element at Sesfontein. Two groups of them arrived, at different times. The first or largest were !omen or Topnaars, the later arrivals were a small group of
ǁkou-|gõan or Swartboois.’[806]   

In addition to the Nama, mostly !Gomen / Topnaar leadership, whose history of arrival Van Warmelo describes as well as including a geneaology of the Nama leadership at the time of his field research and a photograph of a reed mat ‘Topnaar hut’ in Sesfontein (Plate 12), Van Warmelo thus briefly describes other ‘groups’ in Sesfontein as follows:

- ǁKou-|gôan or Swartboois present in Sesfontein had come from Franzfontein where they were a part of the group living under the leadership there of Cornelius |Hoân-|arab Swartbooi[807].

- ‘Bergdama’, in spite of being the most numerous people in the settlement at the time of Van Warmelo’s visit, are described in the following brief sentence as:
‘[i]n the course of time the Bergdama who had been driven out of Sesfontein slowly came back and were allowed to make a living there under sufferance’
[808].

- Herero he describes as being very few in Sesfontein at the times of his visits saying that:

‘[t]hose few resident in the vicinity live, like the Himba, a pastoral life and take little or no part on the life of the Sesfontein oasis itself’[809].

- of Bushmen he has rather more to say, despite there being ‘only a few Bush people left’, as he puts it[810]. He says that he could only interview ‘one old man named !hu-!gaob who had come in to Sesfontein for the reaping of the wheat in the hope of getting something, for the Sesfontein people appear to be kindly towards the Bushmen’ (possessing no bows and arrows, having last used them as a boy[811]), accompanied by ‘a young man called |nanimab, son of informant’s brother and a Bergdama mother’[812]. Van Warmelo notes that this man did not pronounce any clicks at all in his ‘own Bush language’ although he spoke Nama with clicks[813], a situation that has led to subsequent authors remarking on this oddity of Bushmen in Sesfontein who speak a click language without clicks[814]. Van Warmelo states that ‘[t]his group of Bushmen calls itself Kubun (with click ǁUbun)’ and that ‘the informant said they originally came from a place called !kuiseb [i.e. the !Kuiseb River] which is south of Walvis Bay, near the sea’, with he himself and his nephew |Nanimab ‘born where the !uniab flows into the sea, about seven days walk from Sesfontein’. His informant had ‘never had a Bush wife’, but instead also ‘had a Bergdama wife with whom he had several children, amongst them three daughters all living in Sesfontein’, one of whom ‘was married to a Hottentot, another to a Bergdama, now dead, the third though old enough to be married had not yet found a husband and was living with her brothers’[815]. Van Warmelo states that ‘[i]t seems as though there is only one pure Bush woman of this group still surviving’, who ‘also lives in Sesfontein and is married to a Bergdama’, and that only ‘[t]wo other pure Bushmen of this group survive’[816], who also normally ‘live out in the Namib and along the coast, eating what veldkos they can get and especially fish found along the shore’[817].

At the time of van Warmelo’s visits there was only one road winding through the mountains connecting Sesfontein with Kamanjab [via the Khowarib Schlucht?] and Ohopoho, although people could take shorter routes with pack animals[818]. He also notes that:

there is no travel at all between Sesfontein and the country south and south-west of it in the police zone owing to the arid wastes to be traversed. There is no road leading from it further west and in fact nowhere to go in that direction.[819] [but nb. ethnographic and oral history indicates that people did frequently go into this territory and knew it very well]

Van Warmelo estimates population numbers by ‘group’ in Sesfontein to be as follows:

‘group’

men

women

children

total

Hottentots

33

41

50

124

Bastards and Coloureds

6

6

Herero

27

28

32

87

Himba

26

39

87

152 [‘usually to be found in the veld outside Sesfontein’]

Tjimba

8

6

9

23

Bergdama

91

111

172

374

Ovambo

1

1

Bushmen (incl. hybrids)

4

9

5

18

totals

196

234

355

785


Source: van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 40. Note the certainty by which ethnic identities are asserted, and the fact that ‘Bergdama’ appear to be the largest group, even though they are little mentioned in his text.

As well as the Herero who are noted to mostly be outside Sesfontein, around one fifth (100 people) are at Warmbad, Puros and in between these two places[820].

**include notes from his report for the rest of Kaokoveld

‘Headman’ of Sesfontein the evangelist Benjamin Kido dies on 16th December, after which the hereditary |Uixamab line is reinstated via the headmanship of Simon ǁHawaxab, eldest son of Levi |Uixamab’s sister[821].

Late 1940s

The Native Commissioner reports resentment felt by people unable to transport cattle and trade across the Kunene[822].

1948

The Long Term Agricultural Policy Commission report expresses concern about soil degradation and ‘veld collapse’ and recommends that land settlement programme be terminated[823]. The Report of the Game Preservation Commission gives farmers permission to eliminate game species considered a danger to the farming community and recommends that ‘farmers should “decide whether to preserve or shoot (in whole or in part) zebra, wildebeest, ostriches and warthogs’[824].

Before the 1950s, most white farmers were considered poor, the “Long-term Agricultural Commission (1948)” states, that according to a census of 1946, only 8% of white farmers had an annual income higher than £1000 and only 12 % higher than £500, with £1000 being the minimum to meet obligations.[825] It is against this background that the Game Preservation Commission rejects the idea of conferring the ownership of game to the white farmers (game meat an important source of protein and white farmers, specially Afrikaners keen to hunt it) [826].

A survey of African people in the police zone, carried out in 1947 and 1948, by the station commanders from the stations Namutoni, Grootfontein and Tsumeb, reports the following numbers:[827]

Station Namutoni[828]

Station Grootfontein[829]

Station Tsumeb[830]

Hottentots

Not stated

52

42

Bastards

2

46

60

Coloureds

Not stated

4

-

Ovambos & Okavangos

122

1763

4093

Klipp Kaffir/Berg Damara

15

597

676

Herero

1

194

337

Others

Not stated

93

Not stated

Bushmen

548

1477

632


Source: SWAA A50/241/1; 4.1.1949 Namutoni; 1.2.1949 Grootfontein, 21.1.1949 Tsumeb; in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 165.

For division into ethnic categories, officers used their own idiosyncratic divisions, e.g. the officer from Omaruru (the Police station of Outjo belonged to his area during that time) did not include ‘Bushmen’ in his list, but high numbers of ‘Bastards’, ‘Coloureds’ and ‘Others’.[831]

The National Publicity Conference adopted a resolution  for the ‘developments of smaller National Parks’ in which the conference urges the National Parks Boards, the S.W.A. Administration, the Natal Provincial Administration, The Union Government Forest Department and the Orange Free State Provincial Administration ‘to develop national parks (other than the Kruger National Park and the Hluhluwe Game Reserve, which are reasonably developed) so that they may be made accessible to tourists and thereby increase their knowledge and love of wild life’, as the Kruger National Park had reached saturation point during peak periods.[832]

The first full-time game warden of Etosha Game Reserve is appointed ushering new controls over Haiǁom activity in the Reserve: a strict limitation is imposed on the species that can be hunted by Haiǁom after being ‘allowed to hunt with bow and arrow for their own consumption’ (‘protected game’ excepted), and stockowners are told they are ‘no longer allowed to possess more than five head of large stock and ten head of small stock each’[833]. The station commander of Namutoni reports that:

[t]here are about 548 bushmen, all ages and sexes, in this area: Of these bushmen 279 are residing on farms and 109 in Game Reserve N° 2 at Namutoni and vicinity, within the Police Zone: The remainder approximately 160 are classed as Wild Bushmen and are residing in the Game Reserve outside the Police Zone...[834] 

Accordingly, around 270 Haiǁom were living in the eastern area of the Game Reserve , the majority not fully controlled by the Administration (no numbers available for the Okaukuejo area). The Haiǁom in the Game Reserve were still permitted to possess bows and arrows for hunting purposes . In the case of seasonal food shortages, the men went looking for work on farms in the vicinity, contracted as cheap labourers.[835]

Suzman reports for this year that the presence of Haiǁom in Etosha National Park is ‘declared incompatible with nature conservation’ and they are ‘loaded onto trucks and then dumped on neighbouring white farms to serve as laborers’[836], but these movements in fact took place in 1954.

Simon ǁHawaxab becomes the headman in Sesfontein with all-Nama council adding two Damara and two Ovahimba members[837]. Van Warmelo again conducts ethnographic research in Sesfontein and Kaoko[838].

Damara are uprooted from the former Aukeigas (!AoǁAexas) Reserve and displaced to Okakarara in the east[839].

The rights and obligations of a Commission for the Preservation of Natural and Historical Monuments, or, briefly, the Monuments Commission are established in this year[840].

1949

‘The residents of the Kaokoveld requested the Officer-in-Charge to inquire whether the Administration will permit them to export tobacco, cereals and livestock for sale in the Police Zone. They say that on account of the restrictions their cash sales have dropped to practically nothing, and they are unable to clothe their womenfolk’[841]. Local resentment to the controls placed on the Kaokoveld Native Reserve economy are expressed in the following statement:

We have difficulty. We cry. We are imprisoned. We do not know why we are Locked up. We are in gaol. We have no place to live .... Here our living is our cattle, sheep, goats, tobacco, buchu. Our donkey waggons do not fetch anything from Kamanjab. We cannot get meat from the south or even mealiemeal. Our sleeping skins cannot be sent out. We have to throw them away on the border. We enter the Police Zone with hunger. We have no money ... Ovamboland is closed for us. We lived on (in) Ovamboland for a long time. We want to take our cattle there, also our sheep and goats. Here in the Kaokoveld we live only on our livestock. The borders are closed. The borders press us heavily. We cannot live. We are in a kraal.[842] 

An article on the Etosha Pan Game Reserve, prepared by an officer of the South West African Administration for a publisher in Johannesburg in 1949, states: “Perhaps one should also mention the Bushmen, although nowadays they are no longer classed as ‘game’! They certainly fit into the picture and help to give to the Etosha Pan something of the atmosphere of the old wild Africa that is fast disappearing everywhere...”[843] However, this idea to promote the Bushmen in Etosha as the “old wild Africa” was not pursued.[844]

In an ‘Agricultural Survey’ of ‘Owamboland’ that includes Sesfontein, it is reported that:

[t]he wheat crop at Zessfontein can be described as excellent except for a small percentage of the plots where, due to insufficient manure, the growth is poorer. It was noticed that some of the land was lying idle and overgrown with weeds (stickblaar [Datura]) due to the absence of the owners. Owing to the need for increased food production this is undesirable and such land should be allocated at least temporarily to some person willing to make use of the land. The type of wheat grown seems eminently suited to the area and there seems no need to import fresh seed.

     A fair acreage has been planted to Tobacco but due to degeneration of the seed through non-selection the production will be far below a normal yield. The residents have been issue with fresh supplies of seed (Var. Long leafed Swazi[?]) but as the seed had only been issued 14 days previously no plantings had as yet been effected. The same reason was advanced with regard to the planting of vegetable and potato seed supplied. It thus remains to be seen if the residents will avail themselves of the supply of the seed … [illegible] [2] appreciated if the Officer in Charge, Ohopoho would keep an eye on the use made of this seed supplied on his periodic visits to the area.

     Messrs Eedes and Van Zyl joined up with me at Zessfontein and conducted a meeting at which the Headman and people were present. The main complaint of these people are [sic] that they have no access to the outside world and have no outlet for their surplus stock and agricultural products. As usual they could only be advised that SWANLA had promised to purchase their Tobacco for sale in Ovamboland as regards stock, the only wayout was barter and sale to their neighbours in the North. With the restrictions on the export of stock and Agricultural products it seems futile to encourage increased production in this area as the people are fully aware of the futility of production beyond their needs. The importation of a small number of light … [illegible] ploughs (8 inch) wuld help towards a quicker and better preparation of the soil.

     Stock generally are still in excellent condition. Although the environments of the settlement are completely bare, grazing on the outer fringe is still plentiful and should see the stock through well into the next year.

     The farm Warmquelle which was traversed has grassed over well, but as can be expected with Suurgras … and Eragrostis … However, there are still areas where Blinkaar and Langbeen Boesman grass survive. These areas have seeded heavily and if another good season is experienced a certain amount of rehabilitation of the grazing will take place. However, it can be safely assumed that the area probably acts as reserve grazing for Zessfontein stock.

     [Travelling north-east from Zessfontein towards Ombombo…] The party left Zessfontein on Monday 3/10/49 for Ohopoho via the Apies River, Okowerango, Uruwanje and Ombombo. The settlements of Hereros along this route have many stock and consequently areas contiguous to the water have been badly tramped out, but the general condition of the stock indicate that grazing is still plentiful within reach of the water. Most of the waters are strong enough to enable gardening to be carried out on a small scale. I have no doubt that these waters, if developed, could be considerable strengthened. At Ombombo the supply is strong probably in excess of 25,000 glns per day but due to fouling of the water by hundreds of stock, game and elephants that drink there regularly … [missing] [3] the filling in of the pool and the building of a large trough to water the stock would effect a great improvement in the purity of the supply. A trough 3 feet by 1½ feet by 120 feet should be sufficiently large to supply the need of stock and game with a continuous inflow into the trough from the spring.

     North of Ombombo to Gauko Otavi no large settlements were encountered although evidence of isolated cattle outposts, now deserted, was noticed. This area is of exceptional grazing potential and due to lack of open water is only lightly grazed a [sic] certain times of the year when open water is available. Considering the abundant supplies of underground water in the area as a whole, I have little doubt that water can be found to enable this area to be opened up. The carrying capacity of this area can be classed as high compared with the average S.W.S. conditions.

     At Gauko Otavi the spring with with subsidiary springs to the North East, was inspected. The combined output of these springs at present strength would be sufficient to irrigate 35-40 morgen of land. It is also possible that cleaning our of these springs may result in a substantially increased flow. There is plenty of alluvial soil available of which the Hereros are cultivating a small area, probably just sufficient for their needs. Wheat is grown during the winter and Maize during the summer. The wheat crop appeared healthy and promised good yields.

     Grazing in this area is very tramped out. As usual, the stronger the water, the greater the concentration of stock.

     From Gauko Otavi to Ohopoho the road runs through fertile valley land with alluvial deposits of good depth, sometimes up to 25 feet deep. These deposits are rapidly being scoured as a result of increased run-off from the surrounding watershed due to denudation of the vegetal cover. This must have originally consisted of heavy stands of Cynopogon and allied species. These have largely disappeared except for the remnants in the more inaccessible areas. It would appear that inspite of the vast areas of grazing available in the Kaokoveld that the few strong waters are carrying the whole stock and human population. Here as elsewhere, the problem of distribution must be tackled … [missing] … the [4] country can virtually be said to be empty. Especially from Ombombo Ovambo to the cattle outposts of the Ukuluthi area. In this area the grazing is good and of good carrying capacity … The possibility of settling in this area is entirely dependent on the provision of water. Old wells scattered about the area indicate that there is water especially to the South East and South. This water is comparatively shallow and of undetermined strength. Geological survey of the area concerned indicates that water is fairly general and can be opened up where required.

     A cut through the unoccupied South Western portion of Ovamboland was made from Akaukeujo [Okaukeujo] via Okahakana and Osema pan which lies approximately on the Southern border of Ovamboland. The general type of veld is Sandveld and vegetal cover mainly comprises A. Uniplumis with Eragrostis types between Mopani schrub. The area as a whole can be described as well grassed and can be opened up for settlement with advantage. It is not anticipated that water will be difficult to obtain in this area. ...[845]

In response to ‘a request that game on white farms be declared the owner’s property’ the Chairperson of the Game Preservation Commission reportedly states that this is ‘preposterous’ and that the mostly Afrikaner farmers ‘would simply destroy game’[846].

Heinrich Vedder is ‘nominated to the South African Senate to represent the Africans of the territory’[847].

‘Peter’ Alderson becomes Bishop of Damaraland, ‘the diocese covering the whole of South West Africa’[848].

The Swakop River comes down[849].

A Willie de Wit is granted permission by the Land Board to settle west of ‘Horseshoe valley’ at ‘Twyfelfontein’, compromising the grazing area of the Levin family at Twfelfontein [see 1946-47]. Miemie Blaauw at Blaauwpoort receives permission from the SWA Administration to start a farm school there and the Excelsior School officially opens at the beginning of the year with pupils including the Levin children from Twyfelfontein[850].

A Government Commission for the Preservation of the Bushmen is established, chaired by University of Stellenbosch ‘apartheid architect’ Professor P.J. Schoeman (who had received his PhD in volkekunde from Stellenbosch[851]), with ‘far-reaching effects for all Namibian San groups in terms of both identity politics and land appropriation’[852]. The Commission is asked to make recommendations regarding the advisability of ‘Bushmen Reserves’, their final report [published in which year?**] asserting that the Haiǁom are not ‘”Bushmen-like” enough to be preserved’:

[n]owhere did your [the Administrator’s] commissioners receive the impression that it would be worthwhile to preserve either the Heikum or the Barrakwengwe [Khwe, another group labelled ‘Bushmen’] as Bushmen. In both cases the process of assimilation has proceeded too far and these Bushmen are already abandoning their nomadic habits and are settling down amongst the neighbouring tribes to agriculture and stock breeding…[853]  

1950

The National Party (NP) takes control of the Legislative Assembly[854].

The Commission for the Preservation of Bushmen (Bushman Commission[855]) [see 1949] releases a preliminary report stating that:

“[l]ys van Anbevelings [list of recommendations]: “...Aanbevelings in Sake die Heikum-Boesmanstam: 13. Dat die gebied ten noorde van die Etoshapan ...voorbehou word van die nedersetting van die Heikum-Boesmans. 14. Dat die Etoshapangebied.... vorbehou word as wildreserwe en dat daar geen setlaars of vee in toegelaat word nie. 15. Dat daar ‘n opname gedoen word van die voorgestelde Heikumreserwe om geskikte plekke vir nedersetting te vind. 16. Dat die huidige stelsel van beheer oor die Heikum in die Wildreserye afgeskaaf moet word, en dat elke reserwe vir administrasie-doeleindes as afsonderlike eenheid beskou word. 17. Dat die voorgestelde Heikumreserwe in die magistraatsdistrik Ovamboland ingesluit word. 8. Dat die personeel van die Naturellekommissaris by Ondangua versterk word met een bykomende klerk om die heikumreserwe te administreer, en dat sy standplaas of Namutoni of Oshihama moet woes....” (SWAA 434 A 50/67)

In English more or less: “Recommendations in Matters of the Heikum Bushmen: 13. That the area north of the Etoshapan ... be reserved for the settlement of the Heikum Bushmen. 14. That the Etoshapan area .... be reserved as a game reserve and that no settlers or livestock be allowed in. 15. That a survey be made of the proposed Heikum Reserve to find suitable places for settlement. 16. That the present system of control over the Heikum in the Game Reserves should be abolished, and that each reserve should be regarded as a separate unit for administrative purposes. 17. That the proposed Heikum Reserve be included in the magisterial district of Ovamboland. 8. That the staff of the Native Commissioner at Ondangua be strengthened with one additional clerk to administer the heikum reserve, and that his site should be either Namutoni or Oshihama.”

The suggestions were dropped in the final report [see 1953 below]. The only explanation given for this cause of action was that “developments have taken place in the Etosha Pan Game Reserve which make its previous recommendation …impracticable”.[856]

Frank Haythornthwaite becomes Rector of ‘the parish of Walvis Bay and Northern Area’ in the Anglican diocese of ‘Peter’ Alderson, being instituted in Windhoek Cathedral (‘second smallest cathedral in the Anglican Church’) on 2nd July, without having seen his parish, and later writing a memoir of his experiences (see 1956)[857]. His parish ‘consists of the magisterial districts of Swakopmund with Walvis Bay; Karibib, which includes Usakos; Omaruru; Outjo; Otjiwarongo; and Grootfontein with Tsumeb’[858]. Based at Walvis Bay, he observes that in this year ‘there was only one [fish] canning factory, and two others extracting fish oil and making fish meal’[859].

The parish of Anglican Rector Frank Haythornthwaite in 1950. Source: scan from Haythornthwaite 1956, p. 88.

A year of heavy rains but no flooding of the Kuiseb at Walvis Bay[860].

Owen-Smith notes that ‘[u]ntil 1950 the way of life in the Kaokoveld was primitive and little affected by the twentieth century – less than a generation ago white civilization was represented by a single European official stationed at Ohopoho’[861].

Early 1950s

Köhler reports the regular migration of livestock to the Namib when surface water is available following good rain seasons, and the movement of whole communities to the forage resources of the Omaruru River following drought in the early 1950s[862].

1950-1970

Game reserve no. 3, later enlarged as the Namib Naukluft park, is used as emergency grazing for white farmers[863].

1950s

Rejecting scientific concern regarding land degradation, the National Party continues to provide farms along the western escarpment and into the Namib desert[864]. ‘Pressure from white farmers’ causes the southern part of Etosha to be set aside for farmland[865], and ‘low-quality fencing’ starts to be erected ‘by white farmers along Etosha’s southern boundary’[866]. The west of the country is beset with widespread droughts and farmers often had to trek for grazing[867]. Wildlife are increasingly considered an important part of Namibia’s tourism industry’[868]. 

Fuller writes for Sesfontein that ‘[a] second influx of outlying residents, again mostly Namidaman, occurred in the 1950s under the leadership of chief Simon IIHawaxab [son of a daughter of Jan |Uixamab], [and that] [t]hese immigrations dramatically changed the ethnic and economic make-up of the community’[869]. [nb. perhaps linked with westwards extension of ENP?]

Diamond mines established along coast = restrictions etc.**

A German Geographer H. Abel travels through Kaokoveld (1952, 1957) offering ‘a collection of about 40 photographs on different aspects of Kaokoland’s topography’, highlighting ‘tradition and social change in Namibia and southern Angola’[870]. He is pleasantly consoled by encountering ‘the self confident and proud but yet well behaved Ovahimba’ as an ‘ancient part of the Herero people [who should] be secured from contact with the white man’, in contrast to ‘the spoilt Herero of the farm zone’[871]. Bollig writes for the northern Kaokoveld ‘native reserves’/’chieftaincies that,

[s]ince the 1950s colonial officers openly acknowledged what they perceived as the local system of resource protection and sustained the power of the chiefs who had been nominated by their administration in all matters pertaining to land tenure.[872]

The last funerals take place at ǂArexas church and cemetery at !Aoǁaexas, prior to its proclamation as Daan Viljoen Game Reserve[873].

1951

Publication of ‘Notes on the Kaokoveld (South West Africa and its People)’ by N.J. van Warmelo, Government Ethnologist for the Dept. of Bantu Administration, Pretoria [see 1941].

An expedition to Kaokoveld is financed by businessman Bernhard Carp who had ‘excellent relations with the South African and Southern Rhodesian academic establishments’, collecting thousands of different insects ‘including “over 100 new forms” and underlining ‘the exceptional status of the Kaokoveld as a repository of biodiversity’ as well as ‘the ‘otherness’ of the Kaokoveld’s fauna and people’[874]. ​​Carp’s report mentions

a forager population at the mouth of the Hoanib River. He records them as comprising “3 bushmen, 2 bushwomen, 3 Damas and 3 Dama-women”, and continues: “They were called Sandloopers as they lived in the sand and also part of the year on the beaches of the coast, where they ate dead fish etc. Inland their diet consisted of grass veldkos and anything they could catch. They lived in scherms, no proper huts and had a very primitive life.[875]

This description thus clearly connects the people encountered on the coast with inland food resources.

Game Preservation Ordinance, no 11 is intended to improve Ordinance 19 of 1937 through providing,

more details about honorary game wardens and ma[king] provision for the appointment of game wardens in game reserves. Also of great practical­ effect was the authority given in this Ordinance to the Administrator to establish a Board to be known as the Game Preservation and Hunting Board, to consist of not less than five members. Their duty was to oversee the preservation of game and to make any necessary recommendations to the Administrator.[876]

The Ordinance also guides regulation of hunting on white farms, including restrictions on the amount of game that could be taken, the length of the hunting season, and penalties for infractions; although article 27 allows the administrator ‘to permit visiting dignitaries “to hunt any game in open season”[877]. It appears that Africans were generally allowed to utilise wildlife resources in their communal areas until restrictions were imposed by this Ordinance[878].

 

Section 6(1) of ordinance 11 of 1951 provides that no other person than the lawful holder of a permit issued under the authority of the administrator shall at any time hunt protected game, while section 6(2) stipulates that any person who contravenes any of the provisions of that section of the Ordinance or any of the conditions of a permit issued thereunder shall be guilty of an offence and shall, upon conviction, be liable to a fine of not less than twenty-five pounds and not exceeding five hundred pounds or, in default of payment, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years.[879]

Hunter and anthropologist PJ Schoeman succeeds Pienaar as game warden, and is ‘responsible for the controversial culling of large numbers of Burchell’s zebra and wildebeest in the Etosha area’ on the grounds that they are destroying vegetation[880].

1952

A SWAA colonial officer complains that Ovahimba Headman are unable to control their ‘subjects’, stating that:

[t]he Ovahimba Headmen serve no purpose whatsoever. They have no control over their subjects and in some instances appear to be afraid of them. Whenever a complaint is brought to them they seem unable to settle such but come to the officer for assistance.[881] 

Vita Tom is considered more capable and ‘Europeanised’ in this aspect[882].  

An Inspection report for ‘the Kaokoveld’ by an Agricultural Officer recommends that the derelict gardens at Warmquelle, currently under small-scale agriculture by several families, be used,

to provide grazing and gardening ground for the Damaras who moved to Sesfontein from the Southern Kaokoveld. These Damaras, comprising 9 men, 12 women, and 22 children with 3 families still to come, are at present at Sessfontein and would seem to be virtually destitute. No huts had been built by them and their sole possessions are approximately 50 goats. It would seem imperative that some form of rationing be adopted until these people are Rehabilitated. At present they are living on “veldkos”.[883]

In his memoir Lords of the Last Frontier by popular author Lawrence Green, north-west Namibia and the Namib are portrayed as a frontier of civilisation and a ‘last frontier’, inhabited by ‘dying races’, for example:

of all the deserts I have seen it is the Namib that draws me again and again. This is a silent world, where men may well talk in whispers; and only in a few places will you discover human footprints on the sand.[884]

Such is Zessfontein, with its memories of old tragedies and its dying race. Sometimes in the moonlight the Hottentots bring out their reed flutes and play the age-old music that Vasco da Gama and Simon van der Stel heard. Africa has nothing older in music than the reed flute. Each player blows upon a flute which gives one sound only; yet the flute orchestra produces a weird harmony as the musicians shuffle round in the sand. Only the old Hottentots possess this art, and only a handful of them survive. It cannot be long before they play their own requiem. Then the reed flutes will lie silent and forgotten in the sand as the full moon rises over the palms of Zessfontein oasis.[885]

Farms in the Kaokoveld up to the Huab River are surveyed by a Mr Mendez, including at ‘Twyfelfontein’ (no. 534) surveyed at 12,223 has, [45] double what Levin had previously farmed[886]. The paintings and engravings at Twyfelfontein are proclaimed a Nasionale Besienswaardigheid (a National Heritage site) under Ordinance 13 of 1948 (but not a maintained as a tourist attraction), following surveys in the area by especially Dr Ernst Rudolf Schertz, and [57] Levin starts keeping a visitors’ book from this year[887]. Ostrich eggshell beads assumed to be ‘evidence of the San who used to live there’ are collected by the Levin children and ‘strung and sometimes sold to tourists’[888]. Over new year in this and the next year the Levins spend around a week in Swakopmund in tents rented from the municipality[889].

Dieter Aschenborn, an artist, is appointed assistant game warden, stationed at Okaukeujo[890] (the first ranger is appointed in Etosha[891]). A bone-meal plant is built at Rietfontein, ‘the artisian spring between Okaukeujo and Halali’ to process zebra and wildebeest culled through the programme introduced by game warden Schoeman in 1951, before public outcry causes the culling to be stopped by the SWAA Executive Committee in the absence of records of numbers of animals killed[892]. Schoeman also starts to develop Etosha for tourism[893].


The Van Riebeeck Festival in Cape Town includes a prominent display of ‘live Bushmen’, while members of the Kwanyama Council of Headmen were brought to Cape Town to be present(ed) at the SWA pavilion
[894].

1953

The ‘need for wildlife management practices to be based on scientific principles’ is recognised[895] and the first biologist, Bernabé JG de la Bat from the Cape, is appointed by Schoeman and stationed at Okaukeujo.[896] At this time,

the three existing Game Reserves, and legislation regarding game laws, were the responsi­bility of the General Branch of the Administration. This branch also handled many aspects which could not be attached to any other branch of the Administration.[897]

 

Schoeman estimated around 42 elephants in the vicinity of the Etosha pan.[898] Schoeman reports that tourists express more and more concern that the game in Etosha decreases and becomes wilder.

According to him, the main reasons are the following: Farms are getting closer and closer to the central part of the Etosha pan, while there was enough game in the beginning on the farms to feed farmers and workers, farmers get deeper and deeper in the game reserve to hunt game, because the game got scarce on the farms and there is no clear borderline between the reserve and the farms. Farmers reportedly believe that they have the right to hunt 10 miles in the Game Reserve and even ‘well-meaning’ farmers enter the Game Reserve in order to hunt. Farmers enter with horses, weapons and dogs. Furthermore the increase of tourists and therefore traffic results in an increase of dust along the main roads and game does not want to graze and browse there. Still, too many tourists leave the main road to follow the game, or to hunt it. Additionally the ‘Bushmen’ still own dogs which frighten the game. Open water points are too few in the central part, which could lure the game away from the borders to Etosha. The penalties are not high enough to prevent a breaking of the rules and there is too little personnel employed for game preservation.[899]

Decision is taken to extend and develop the game reserve as a sanctuary of the game and for tourists.[900]

From a trip in 1953 Sesfontein is described as ‘approximately in the middle of the Kaokoveld’ and as ‘occupied by about 200 Topnaar Hottentots, who have continued growing the tobacco, mealies and other crops for their own comfort and sustenance’[901]. ‘Klipkaffirs’ from ‘across the Kunene … are reported to have mingled with the coastal sand-dwellers or Strandlopers’[902]. In May a Mr Louis Knobel from Pretoria in the company of Dr PJ Schoeman ‘the Game Warden of South West Africa’ encounter in the:

small Sesfontein community a small group of coastal Bush-Hottentot folk consisting of three males and an ancient doddering female, said to be their mother, who were reported by the Topnaar Hottentot elders, their overlords, to be the last remnants of what was once a large body of Strandlopers. It was the custom of the Hottentots to allow these Strandloper retainers to go down to the coast each year when the narra fruit was ripe. … On the coast this Strandloper group still subsists for several months on these fruit and the sea food found along the coast …, especially on the rocks about the mouth of such rivers as the Kumib and Hoarusib. This group, however, were not being allowed by the Hottentots to go to the coast for the past three or four years because of the bad seasons[903].

Knobel’s photos form the basis of Dart’s 1955 paper. He tells Dart that ‘the boy who took them to the isolated huts where the Strandlopers were living informed them that his own father had been a Strandloper, but that his mother was a Topnaar Hottentot’; Schoeman on the other hand notes that ‘according to these Strandlopers’ own story, their stock had branched off from a Name [sic] Hottentot tribe, somewhere near the Brandberg … in the Kaokoveld, but their predecessors had lived along the Skeleton Coast and up towards Rocky Point for hundreds of years’[904]. In this year Knobel and Schoeman met no living person along the coast between the Rocky Point and the mouth of the Kumib[905]. The three men photographed stand before a circular hut made of ‘pieces of wood, branches and palm fronds’ and are ‘clad in front and back aprons of buck-skin suspended from a girdle string’ ear-rings [176] and in one case a necklet of the type usually encountered amongst Bush peoples as well as rude sandals tied about their ankles with leather thongs’[906]. The paper proceeds with an objectifying account of the physical characteristics of the three men photographed. See summary and analysis in Sullivan 2021 and Sullivan and Ganuses in press.

Lutz Heck (see 1956) visits Etosha the first time.[907]

The final report of the Commission for the Preservation of the Bushmen is handed in, asserting that the Haiǁom are not ‘”Bushmen-like” enough to be preserved:

[n]owhere did your [the Administrator’s] commissioners receive the impression that it would be worthwhile to preserve either the Heikum or the Barrakwengwe [Khwe, another group labelled ‘Bushmen’] as Bushmen. In both cases the process of assimilation has proceeded too far and these Bushmen are already abandoning their nomadic habits and are settling down amongst the neighbouring tribes to agriculture and stock breeding…[908]

The following copy of a report ... from the Commission for the Preservation of the Bushmen is submitted for the information and consideration of the Executive Committee: 

That the approximately 500 Heikum Boesmans reside in Game Reserve no. 2 - with the exception of a dozen or so families employed by Game Conservation - be removed from the Reserve; II. That they are faced with the following choice: (1) to be removed to the western part of the Ongandjera tribal area in Ovamboland (where there is already Heikum Bushmen) on condition that the captain concerned will receive them and the Administration will handle the necessary arrangements for water supply etc,  or (2) to be employed by selected farmers on condition that the Administration will make the necessary arrangements regarding suitable contracts, that whole families go to the farms, that conditions regarding wages, housing and rations be laid down specifically and that the Bushmen will not be allowed on farms north of Windhoek because they will drown and return to where they came from. ' ... I suggest that the proposal be approved on the understanding that the Native Commissioner's suggestion first to address and explain matters to the Bushmen be carried into effect …[909]

Loans are available to settler farmers for purchasing breeding stock – for example, David Levin at Twyfelfontein borrows £500 from the Land Board which he had to pay off in 10 years[910]. David Levin treks with his family and livestock to Goedgevind near Sorris Sorris, belonging at the time to Gert Visser[911].

Trek destinations by the Levin family from Twyfelfontein. Source: scanned from Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 59.

Beinart writes in the Southern African context:

[i]nitially, the settler concept of a national park could allow for continued occupation by picturesque 'native' people. But particularly after the Second World War, when technical ideas and technocrats became more dominant in the bureaucracy, a national park came to mean a preserve for plants and animals free of human habitation. This implied reconstruction of a supposedly 'natural' state which had not existed for hundreds if not thousands of years; indeed 'nature' as settlers experienced it in the hills had been deeply shaped by African settlement. But most of the people were removed and the park became a preserve for rangers, scientists and mostly white visitors.[912]

1954

SWA Parks Board is appointed [see also 1956].[913]

The Parks Board starts functioning without any proper legal status (formalised and merged with the Game Preservation and Hunting Board with Ordinance 18/1958?). Its aims and functions are

a)      To advise the Administrator on the control, management and maintenance of game parks and private game reserves in South West Africa

b)      To investigate and report on all such matters concerning the preservation of fame as the Administrator may refer to it;

c)      To make such recommendations to the Administrator as it may deem fit regarding the preservation of game and any amendment to the game preservation laws of the Territory;

d)      To meed in Windhoek at least once every year

e)      To perform and exercise such further functions, powers and duties as the Administrator may by regulation prescribe to the Board.[914]

Reportedly, Parks Board confines itself mainly to the recommendation on the game reserves while the Game Preservation and Hunting Board attends to matters concerning game outside the reserve.[915] (according to de la Bat, the SWA Parks Board was appointed in 1956[916]).

In a report prepared to assist with information for the fifth international congress on African Touring, it is stated that there are three game reserves, (No. 1: 2333 square miles [6,042.km²], No. 2 (Etosha Pan) 26754 Square miles [69,293 km]²; No 3: 3719 Square miles [9,632 km²] for the “protection of fauna and flora”: ’The Administration is concentrating on the development of the Etosha Pan for tourists, and rest camps have been established at Okaukuejo and Namutoni’.[917]

Schoeman provides an annual report of the division game preservation of S.W.A. (April 1953-March 1954).[918]

In the brief historical overview, he mentions that the Game Reserve No 3. east of Grootfontein is an area without permanent water and the hunting area of the nomadic Kung-Bushmen of the Okavango area under the supervision of the Native Commissioner of Okavango in Rundu. There is no significant game in the game reserve. Game reserve no. 2 is significantly larger than the Kruger National Park (8000 square miles or 20,720 km²), between Okaukuejo and Namutoni are around 20 permanent water points. It is under the supervision of the Native Commissioner of OVamboland with head office in Ondangua. In Game Reserve No. 3 in the Namib are mostly springbok and gemsbok. The Secretary of S.W.A. is ex-officio, chief game warden.

1947 was a turning point for the game preservation in S.W.A. with the employment of the full-time game warden A.A. Pienaar (Sangiro), the position was taken over by Scheoman in 1951. One of the first challenges he had to address was the intended shift from the Red Line to deep in the Etoshapan.  

He found that if the Rooilyn was moved as was the plan, the breeding ground of the game park would be for good. This would have meant that the actual bush area, which the game needs for sheltered breeding time, would be cut out. This part - between Okaukuejo and Namutoni, also contained the best permanent waters. According to Schoeman, the Administration decided in the favour of the game’s future. After this decision Schoeman reportedly started with the development of the game reserve, a rest camp at Okaukuejo (decision in 1952), fire breaks, more boreholes, etc. Aschenborn, without any ‘knowledge of game preservation’, was employed as assistant game warden in August 1952. On January 1, 1954, de la Bat got employed as second full-time game warden [apparently de la Bat was first appointed as biologist, then as second full-time warden and later as  only full-time game warden].

In his report, Schoeman estimated around 100 lions permanently living in the Etoshapan-game reserve and mentions that lions get poisoned on farms around Etosha (farmers put poison in zebras or cattle, killing 9 and 17 lions). He hopes that, also due to research and management, the number or lions in Etosha might increase up to 1000 in the following 5 years. He estimated that there is space for at least 3000 lions in Etosha, they are necessary to control the numbers of zebra and wildebeest.

He reckons that there were around 500 Hai||om in the game reserve in 1953. He further reports that ‘they all have dogs, and continue hunting with poisoned arrows. Their favorite settlements are in the bush areas between O. and N., around the game's drinking places.

At one time or another in the past they were granted permission to hunt zebras and blue wildebeest, but after investigation by the Police and Game Conservation it was found that their favourite game were eland, hartebeest and gemsbok. And these species are far too rare in the game reserve to be exterminated by Bushmen.

[LIONS WELCOME WHILE Hai||om DESTROYING THE GAME; WHAT AN IRONY]

In his words:

During 1953, Sergeant le Roux of Namutoni and Dr. Schoeman asked the administration to remove these idlers and game exterminators from the game park - with the exception of the few who are employed by game conservation and the police… It was immediately heard by the Administration, and in 1954, there were only a few groups left in the less accessible parts of the game reserve. However, there is a danger that some of the Bushmen who work on adjoining farms will from time to time run away to their hunting paradise, to hunt free again and cause wildfires.[translation Dieckmann] 

He doesn’t mention though that he was part of the Commission for the Preservation of Bushmen (see 1953)..

With regard to hunting in the game reserves, Schoeman is of the opinion that a certain management/i.e. shooting might be necessary to keep balance in between the difference species, otherwise, zebra and wildebeest would dominate [‘uitdruk’].

In Etosha, unfortunately, there are totally too few of the larger predators. It is highly doubtful whether at this stage there are far more than 100 lions living permanently in the game reserve. No one can expect these groups to control the breeding of thousands and thousands of zebras and blue wildebeest in an area of 26,000 square miles. Wildlife conservation is doing everything in its power to help this group of lions. Because lions are by nature the most lusty animals on earth, they do not like to hunt long distances from water. They prefer to take a position near or near a water and wait for the game in the area. And they do not like to stay in large numbers around one water either. Most groups have their fixed hunting grounds, and do not tolerate other lions there. We now have 6 windmills where previously there was no water. And as the game concentrates around this new permanent water, groups of lions settle there as well. We get more permanent lions and they hunt in a larger range. The permanent waters should also mean that the younger and older males who are being bitten by the leaders will not so easily move to farms to be shot dead or poisoned there. Since their numbers are still small, we shoot from time to time some zebra or wildebeest for them and leave them at the windmill. Where lions get food, they will settle…. Thus, it will take quite a number of years for us to raise a thousand lions, and in the meantime the zebras and wildebeest will have gotten out of hand. Of these two game species, therefore, in the interest of the other game, a number will have to be shot from year to year. With this shooting, the example of the farmers in the Karoo and in the Free State with goats on their farm will be followed: And that is that there is only shooting in one particular area, there will be no shooting in the areas through where the tourist roads pass.

He further reports that the problem is with too many zebra and wildebest while other species, such as elephants, eland, gemsbok and hartebeest, are critical in numbers.

Now, however, comes the issue of scientific inquiry and control. Matters such as the following must be observed throughout the year: the external and internal parasites that live on and in the animals, and may lead to their downfall; too many old bulls or rams in a herd are extremely harmful to the breeding of such a herd; morbid or injured game. These cases mean that one or more animals have to be shot from time to time.

He therefore recommends that no elephants or eland will be shot in the game reserve during the next two-three years. Furthermore, he recommends that he and de la Bat will report at least twice a years to the executive committee which game must be shot ‘for scientific purposes’.[919]

The administrative centre of Welwitschia [later renamed Khorixas] is established following announcement by administrator Mr JGH van der Walt and purchase of land from Mr Sias Koekemoer, [40] where farmers could sell pelts/wool through the Farmers Co-operative Union (FCU) and later Boere-Samwerk Beperk (BSB)[920]. Services were established for settlers in the area, including a bus from Outjo and telephone lines from Outjo and from Omaruru via Sorris Sorris, ending two farms east of Twyfelfontein (at Witwatersrand, no. 521, Piet Carstens)[921]. In April Twyfelfontein is offered to David Levin to buy for £736/5/0 (R1472.50)[922]. In May the Monuments Commission communicates with David Levin asking if he would like ‘to act as honorary supervisor of the rock engravings’ and [57] be furnished ‘with a visitors’ book to be signed by visitors’[923].

Archival research of files regarding farm records in the former ‘Damaraland’ indicates that Some farms are already established by 1954; others are established in 1954 and the years following[924]. Kambatuku reports that it is unclear how the then South West Africa Administration obtained farms, i.e. ‘whether they were virgin land [?] or confiscated from either Germans or the indigenous people’: ‘[s]ome of the farms in the Grootberg area were established on land previously inhabited by indigenous people, while others were established before the Union era’[925]. A pers. comm. from former Inspector of Lands, H.J. Lombard, indicates that ‘the farms around Otjikondo were established German holdings, while most of the Ugab area might have been virgin land[??]. The Damara people were confined to the Erongo mountain range when the farms were being established’[926]: but this is an erroneous assumption as many sources document the presence of local people, esp. ǂNūkhoe, in the area of the Ugab, including the Okambahe Reserve.

 

State Settlement plan

In October 1954 (the year that Dept. of Lands records go back to) farms were advertised so that ‘landless white farmers’ could apply to an established Land Board, approved by the Administrator (‘the highest authority in Namibia back then’) for monthly grazing licenses on them[927]. These could be revoked at anytime, and applicants had to be a bona fide farmer, i.e. ‘making a living from farming only’ [echoed in later land reform bill[928]], and had to occupy a farm within six days of receiving approval[929]. The Inspector of Lands reviewed their progress after twelve months, following which the lease was extended or revoked[930]. Lessees were not supposed to allow anyone else to graze on the farms to which they had a license, but frequently they did assist each other with access to grazing and water - this was to reduce the likelihood of overgrazing through the lessee and sublessee having more livestock deemed appropriate for the estimated carry capacity; or to fell trees without permission from the district magistrate, in accordance with Proclamation 23 of 1925[931]. Normally many farms were applied for and the Administrator would allocate a specific farm to the applying farmer[932].  The first grazing licences were issued in Sept-Oct 1954[933].

Of this process in the west in 1954 Sullivan writes,

[t]he region which later became the communal area of Damaraland was one of the last areas to be surveyed and settled due to its vulnerability to drought and its peripheral location regarding more established agricultural areas (Rohde, 1993: 29). According to recent archival work by Kambatuku (forthcoming[934]) it appears that the majority of surveyed farms in the north-west of Damaraland were not settled until 1954. Farms in the area were initially made available to white farmers through the issuing of monthly grazing licenses. Farmers would state their preference for a number of farms on their application and the Land Board would approve one of these to which the licensee had to move within six days of receiving notice of this approval. Qualifying licensees were required to be making a living from farming only, and their farming practices were regularly monitored as the basis on which they could retain their license (Kambatuku, forthcoming: 1). It is interesting to note that these restrictions are echoed almost to the smallest detail within the conditions laid down in the 1995 Commercial (Agricultural) Land Reform Act regarding eligibility for land holdings on acquired agricultural land…[935]

Damara are uprooted from the former Aukeigas (!AoǁAexas) Reserve and displaced to Okombahe/Otjimbingwe[936], causing enlargement of the Okombahe Reserve to 400,000has ‘through the addition of the farm Sorris-Sorris in order to accommodate the Damara inhabitants of the deproclaimed Aukeigas Reserve near Windhoek,due to the pending proclamation of this area as Daan Viljoen Game Park’[937].

The first mission in Kaokoveld is established at Oromana[938]. The Swakop River comes down and runs for a fortnight[939].

In the wake of the recommendations of the Commission for the Preservation of the Bushmen, and connected with increasing tourism[940] and international conservation lobbying, it is decided to remove the Haiǁom from Etosha. Schoeman himself is afraid of informing the Haiǁom in the reserve about the Government decision, and the task falls to the native commissioner of Ovamboland:

... because he considers that their removal from the Game Reserve is bound to [lead to] antagonism amongst these Bushmen, Dr. Schoeman feels that he should not present the matter personally as such antagonism may hamper his work in the Game Reserve. There is, therefore, no alternative but to ask [the Native Commissioner of Ovamboland] to take the necessary steps for their removal...[941] 

The native commissioner of Ovamboland, Mr. Eedes, fulfils what is asked of him, writing a detailed letter describing the procedure:

I addressed 24 men, 33 women and 35 children ... on the 30th January 1954 at Namutoni and 14 men, 15 women and 21 children ... on the 31st January at Okaukueyo, in the following terms:

‘I have come here to tell you that it is the order of the Administration that you move out of Game Reserve N° 2. The reason for this order is that you are destroying the game. You may go into the Police Zone and seek work on farms South of Windhoek, or elsewhere. You must take your women and children with you, also your stock. There are many farmers who will take you into their employ and I am sure allow you to have your stock with you. Those of you who do not wish to go and work on farms must move into Ovamboland, but without your stock of any description, i.e., cattle, horses, goats, donkeys, fowls, dogs etc. You will have to be out of the Game Reserve the 1st May, 1954. If you are still in the Game Reserve on that day you will be arrested and will be put into gaol. You will be regarded as trespassers. ... None of you will be allowed to return to Game Reserve N° 2 from Ovamboland. Those of you who go to farms will not be allowed to return to the Game Reserve unless you are in possession of a permit issued by a Magistrate. .... I hope you understand this message. If you have something to say I will listen but I wish to tell you that there is no appeal against this order. The only Bushmen who will be allowed to continue to live in the Game Reserve are those in the employ of the Game Wardens. Convey what you have heard today to your absent friends and relatives.’

Replies made by some of the Bushmen at Namutoni do not deserve any comment. Those of Okaukueyo made no representations... I should have held these meetings with the Bushmen in November but was asked to postpone them by your telegram... In the meantime 80 % of the Bushmen have already left the Game Reserve and have taken up employment in farms in the Outjo, Tsumeb and Grootfontein districts. Although I told those remaining at Namutoni and Okaukueyo that they should seek work on farms South of Windhoek, I added, or elsewhere, as the whole object is to get them to leave the Game Reserve. It would be impracticable and certainly undesirable to try and compel them to take up employment on farms in a particular portion of South West Africa. I understand that since November, 1953, certain farmers were given permits by Magistrates to enter the Game Reserve for the purpose of recruiting Bushmen labour. …[942]

In his article ‘Etosha 75 years’, about these events De la Bat only mentions:

[t]he small number of Heikum still living in the park were induced by the Bantu-Affairs Commissioner, Harold Eedes, to settle at the rest camps where proper housing, medical care and work opportunities were available. They became our trackers, builders, camp workers and later our road graders and bulldozer operators.[943]

Dieter Aschenborn, the famous Namibian painter, who was game warden in Okaukuejo between 1952 and 1954, does not mention the Haiǁom in his highly readable and amusing memoirs about those years in Etosha.[944]

Berry comments:

The Nature Conservation section in the 1950s decided to move the estimated 400 to 500 Hei//om-people living in the veld to alternative places. This was considered necessary because they begged from tourists and disturbed game and tourists at water-holes. Some Hei//om-people trekked of their own accord to Owambo or took jobs on farms bordering Etosha. In the 1960s, European farmers, aided by Hei//om-people who knew Etosha intimately, organised hunting in the south-eastern sector of the Park, near Txai-Tkab sink-hole. Etosha's Chief Nature Conservator, Peter Stark, countered this effectively by rounding up the poachers, prosecuting the leaders, and taking the Hei//kom aides into service as trackers. The descendants of these Hei//kom are among Etosha's present personnel.[945]

However, he writes that the Nature Conservation section [ must have been Game conservation section according to Schoeman?] was only created in 1955, which was after the decision to remove the Hai||om has been taken.[946][2]

Dieckmann later reports Haiǁom memories of these developments and the eviction.[947].  

Köhler reports that two main groups of ‘Bushmen’ had their hunting areas in the original district of Grootfontein: the “Hei-ǁunm” in the west and north and the “!Ku” in the north-east and east, “both groups still differ in language, the Hei-ǁum speaking Nama (Hottentot) while the !Ku have preserved their Bushman dialect of the northern Bushman language type. He further reports:

[a]t the beginning of this century, the “Kumg’-au” Bushmen lived to the north and north-east of the Police Stations Choantsas (Xoantsas), east of the present Police Station Tsintsabis. Their leader was Nama-Gurub, a name which in its linguistic form is Nama, and it may be that the “Kumg’-au” in von Zastrow’s spelling were the Xom-khoin mentioned by Dr. Vedder… It is said that the “Kumg’-au” did some trading and bartering as far north as the Okavango and even beyond it among the Bushmen in Angola. A Police raid on Nama-Gurub’s camp reveald that the Kumg’au even had some rifles at that time. The Kum’au were most likely Hei-ǁum.[948]

In 559 farms in the Grootfontein district, SWANLA supplies about 40% of all farm labour, “Bushmen constitute an important source of labour”, on average 4-5 labourers per farm, “Bushman labour included… Members of Bushman families usually give a hand at this time [cleaning maize] when labour shortage is particularily felt.” Köhler reports the following numbers of Non-European population on farms in the Grootfontein district:

36 ‘Khoi’; 68 ‘Bastards/Coloureds’?]; 548 ‘Herero’, 1382 ‘Ovambo/Okavango’; 1484 ‘Bergdamara’ 1154 ‘Bushmen’, 45 ‘Others’; Total 4718.[949] He confirms that,

Some Bushmen on the farms also own stock. The figures for Otavi and Grootfontein given below may seem remarkable, but it should be borne in mind that the Bushmen there are mostly Hei-ǁum, i.e. Bushman half-castes, who are fairly adaptable. The !Kung in the Nurugas area do not care much about stock.:[950]

Police area

Cattle

Horses

Donkeys

goats

Otavi

117

11

41

320

Grootfontein

60

5

85

140

Nuguras

-

-

-

-

Source: Köhler 1959, p. 30.

Two mines in the district, Abenab Mine and Berg Aukas Mine belonging to the S.W. A. Company, mine labour is mostly provided by “northern and alien”: 640 compared to 109 locals, of the latter were 49 “detribalized”, meaning, “Northern Natives” changed into local inhabitants.[951] Köhler reports with regard to the ‘Bushmen’ community in the town of Grootfontein: [they] live scattered among the Bergdama and Ovambo and had retained no traditional customs whatever. One Bergdama informant [reportedly] said: ’The Bushmen are like apes. They copy the ways of life they see around them in the Location as closely as they can’. In former years, the spokesman and unofficial foreman of the Bushmen was a certain Noah Hendrik Tsanegab, a literate man with a knowledge of some European languages. He called himself a Hei-ǁom though he was apparently a Khoi hybrid. After his death, the Bushmen started taking their troubles to the Location constable Eddie Naibeb.[952]

For the town of Otavi, Köhler reports that the Bushmen living in the Location were all Hei-ǁum: ‘[m]any of them have intermarried with Bergdama. These Bushmen have their relatives in the Otavi Police area’[953].

Martin Gusinde, missionary and anthropologist, regarding Haiǁom as racial and cultural “hybrids”, exludes them from his further writings on ‘Bushmen’. He states at a lecture in 1954 at the South West Africa Scientific Society, later published in the journal of the organisation:

The main source of many fatal errors of judgment and misjudgement of the Bushmen's has been reiterated: that for decades, and right up to the present day, the much-named Heikom, easily accessible to white travellers from the south, who live in the southern part of Etosha Pan and are have been regarded and portrayed as real, genuine Bushmen. However, a close examination of the history of the area convincingly shows that the supposed unity of the people in the area is nothing more than a mixture of races rich in forms and a diverse cultural mixture of mainly Hottentot, Dama and Ovambo, as well as some Bushman and Betschuana elements, which has also been infused with Herero blood.[954] 

1955

​​Control over Native Affairs in Namibia is ‘moved from Windhoek to Verwoerd’s department in Pretoria’.[955]


The Administration decides to establish a permanent section for “Game Preservation” with De la Bat [1953] its first chief (Chief Game Warden for South West Africa)[956] and Rudi Bigalke as biologist, the total staff in Etosha consisting of three whites, 12 ‘Ovambo’ contract workers and 16 ‘Heikum Bushmen’:

[m]arried workers received better remuneration than single ones. In the opinion of the government, however, the Bushmen were not married legally. We solved this problem by transporting 28 couples with their children to Outjo where they were married by the magistrate in one mass ceremony. This was followed by a huge party with lots of meat and beer and dancing into the early hours of the morning.[957]

Joubert writes that,

[t]he personnel, who until then were appointed on a 1 year contract basis, became incorporated in the Administration of SWA.[958]

At the establishment of this section (‘Game Preservation’), Game Reserves 1, 2 and 3 (establishment under German colonisation in 1907) were under its jurisdiction, with the present Etosha National Park [#2] undergoing several boundary changes “before being finalized by legislation in 1970”, whilst “the boundaries of the Namib Desert Park [#3] remained virtually the same since its proclamation in 1907”[959].  

Regulations of Game Preservation Ordinance of 1951 are applied to African Reserves, thereby cementing in law a de facto ban on hunting in these areas.[960]

Amy Schoeman writes in 2007, the year of the centenary of Etosha that in 1955

[T]he SWA Administration established a permanent section to manage the country’s game and game reserves, and De la Bat was appointed Chief Game Warden for South West Africa. In the same year the Game Conservation Section was established, consisting of the new Chief Game Warden, a clerk and 28 workers. This signified the end of the game protection era. Under De la Bat’s leadership, the emphasis had shifted to the holistic approach of conservation of Namibia’s natural assets.[961]

and

The history of formal conservation in Namibia revolves largely around one man, Bernabe de la Bat, who was appointed biologist and then chief Game warden in Etosha in the early early fifties. De la Bat orchestrated the birth of the country's first official conservation body and served as its director until the 1980s. With remarkable vision, courage and foresights, he created a rich legacy of game parks, reserves and resorts on which conservationists could build in the years to come. He also laid the cornerstone for tourism in Namibia.[962]

The new veterinary boundary of 1955 (moved from its 1937 position) enables the addition of a large area of potential freehold commercial farmland to the west of Outjo (see maps below).

Fifty-seven farms were gazetted in (today’s) Outjo district in 1955, most of them in the western part, the so-called Kaross Block.[963]

Source: Miescher 2009, p. 282f.

San / Haiǁom are removed from Etosha[964] [1954]. Game ordinances only refer specifically to African Reserves from this year and preservation was the responsibility of the Dept. of Native Affairs but was ‘ineffectively implemented’[965]. The western portion of Game Reserve no. 1, east of Grootfontein, is converted into 30 farms[966], and surveyed farms expand greatly in Outjo District up to Palmwag in the west:

 

Expansion of surveyed farms in Outjo District. Source: scan from Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 13.

Source: Map in Schnegg 2007, p. 259 [**source not in reference list].

The map shows the occupation around Franzfontein as well as the farms cut off later during the implementation of the Odendaal plan. Though the data were taken from maps updated about every ten years, the map gives no precise information on how fast the land was settled, occupied or cultivated after being surveyed but only provides an approximation of the process of land occupation.[967]

Sesfontein is described as ‘approximately in the middle of the Kaokoveld’ and as ‘occupied by about 200 Topnaar Hottentots, who have continued growing the tobacco, mealies and other crops for their own comfort and sustenance’[968]. ‘Klipkaffirs’ from ‘across the Kunene … are reported to have mingled with the coastal sand-dwellers or Strandlopers’[969].

1955-1958

Damara are uprooted from the former Aukeigas (!AoǁAexas) Reserve and displaced to Sorris-Sorris[970]. [**nb. to add: interview with Meda Xamses describes this experience, plus descriptions in LAC report].

1955-1965

​​SWA Administrator D.P. Viljoen introduces ‘a more formal approach to nature conservation’[971].

1956

In 1956, the SWA Parks Board [according to Amy Schoemman it replaced the SWA Game Protection and Hunting Board[972]], in the 1980s known as Nature Conservation Board, is appointed.[973] [see 1954, the first report of the Board states that it started functioning in 1954 and did not replace the SWA Game Preservation and Hunting Board, also note the inconsistency re. naming, according to Bridgeford, Ordinance 18 of 1958 replaces the ‘Hunting Board’ [1951] with the ‘Parks Board’ which has similar functions but includes ‘civil servants from agriculture, police, native affairs, the chief game warden and members of the farmers’ and hunting associations’, and gives the Administrator ‘the power to declare any area a game park’, to amend park boundaries and to provide for ‘the establishment and proclamation of private game reserves’.)[974]

The SWA Publicity and Tourist Association is established around this time to promote the country as a tourist destination resulting in increasing number of tourists…. Development in the fields of both conservation and tourism now gain momentum.[975]

De la Bat writes:

Etosha was to a large extent still terra incognita. Official maps were unreliable because land was mostly unsurveyed. Blank areas on the maps were simply filled in with the words ‘Apparently all dense mopane bush. Of no communicational interest’. The old German military maps were much more informative. Road routes, unknown springs, plains and omurambas were reconnoitred on foot or from the air and I felt like an explorer of old…. In September of 1956 I walked across the Etosha Pan from south to north. In the middle I unexpectedly found a river running from west to east. An interesting fact was the presence of hundreds of pelicans. A year later flamingo chicks were found wandering around Rietfontein. This confirmed Flamingo breeding on the pan. More than one million were counted at a later stage.[976]

 According to Amy Schoemann,  recommendations of the Elephant Commission of 1956 resulted in the expansion of the boundaries of Etosha to include the area around Otjovasandu. She further reports :

Problems caused by elephants on farms in the Kamanjab area were addressed by sinking a chain of almost 80 boeholes along the 19th latitude to lure the elephants to Etosha. This scheme was almost too successful, as in the later years Etosha’s elephants had to be decreased by culling due to the damage they were doing to the habitat of the park.[977]

A German Professor called Dr. Lutz Heck visits Etosha ‘at least twice’ [1953 and 1955] as a tourist and in an article published this year writes:

[w]hite and never-ending, the plain of the Etosha Pan lay in front of us. The paths of the game lay criss-cross over it, trodden by the hoofs of thousands of thirsty animals who since the beginning of time visit the watering places. Below us, at the foot of a steep ridge the water of a pool was reflected sparkling in the sunlight. It was midday and the zebra, wildebeest and a few gems buck lay peacefully by the water. It was like a picture of the Garden of Eden, and when we looked back on to the steppes the giraffe came into view among the Acacia trees.[978]

He also writes:

[i]n order to keep the few remaining elephants within the bounds of the Reserve a water hole has veen constructed half way between Ombika and the edge of the pan, called ‘Olifantsbad.’ This has been the cause of a new ‘Elephant Walk.’ The huge animals now wander from Ombika to Olifantsbad… Not far from Olifantsbad another water hole, with the aid of a windmill, was built at ‘Gemsbokvlakte.’ Soon after the water began to flow through the borehole, we drove out only to find the impressions of naked feet of Bushmen; not an animal had come to drink.[979] 

He also reports seeing around 120 Eland:

[u]p to now it had not been possible to see such large numbers of Eland in the Pan. Only a short time ago this herd moved into the Pan.[980]

The Secretary of S.W.A. mentions in a letter to Mr. Horsham, Cape Town, that ‘the creation of a nature reserve for mountain zebras, elephants and rhinoceros between the  Hoab and the Hoanib rivers on the West Coast is being considered. The exact extent … is, however, not yet known.[981]

1956: An article in the Sunday Times, Johannesburg, titled ‘Slaughter of game in Africa’s Largest Reserve Alleged’resulted in concerns regarding Game Reserve No. 2. The biggest game reserve in the world and the most difficult to get into is at present being “shot out” by trigger-happy prospectors and miners, stated Mr. D. Woods, a member of the Western Province branche of the Wild Life Protection Society of South Afria, who has returned to Cape Twon from a museum expedition to the four game reserves in South-West Africa.

The severe restrictions which keep most people out of the Reserves just fall away for minders and prospectors”, he told the “Sunday Times” “and these people are really getting away with murder as far as indiscriminate killing of wild animals is concerned. “These idle hunters in the guise of mining men are denuding the reserve of rare game. They did enormous holes in the earth, often deep enough to trap men and elephants and they leave the land as untidy as trippers on a bank holiday spree,” he said. “Even the rare South-West African elephants and  lions are being shot for fun.[sic] “It is a shame that this enormous and wonderful reserve into which you could put three Kruger Park Game Reserves and still have scape to spare, is being fast turned into a game-less wilderness.

To make things worse, in the northern part of the Kaokoveld where most of the game is, live 6000 Natives with herds of cattle, more than they could ever need or use. And these cattle are trampling the soft soil of the reserve into a desert. From Otjindjerewe, Okorosave, Oukonongo and Ozambazu, an area of some 700 miles, soil erosion is a tragic reality. “The reserve was proclaimed by the Germans in 1907. It was teaming with wild life right until 1915 and now some of the animals are actually extinct. They are shooting the Harmann’s zebras, lions, elephants and the exquisite Damara dik-diks out of existence.”

[Waterberg is mentioned as forth reserve recently proclaimed, the members of the expedition are named].

Two disturbing features of this trip, added by Mr. Woods, were the fact that the Natives, who had much to gain and nothing to lose by the indiscriminate shooting of wild life, constantly brought news of the shooting especially by the tin minders of Uis, and the fact that almost every general dealer in town and out, had the sign above the shop “arms and ammunition”.’[982]

Mr. Dennis Woods also writes a letter of inquiry to the Administrator of S.W.A. with a copy of their report to the Chief Native Commissioner (Mr. Allen) and his reply, saying that: ‘It would seem to us that if South-West Africa is ever to have a National Park, Game Reserve No. 2 in its entirety would be the ideal area, and it would be the one way of really safeguarding Kaokoveld for all time.’[983]

The report of Woods states more or less same complaints as the article, e.g. mining men and prospectors indulging in indiscriminate shooting (information comes mostly from ‘natives’, ‘who… have no particular axe to grind in matters of this nature’); mining people leaving their digging holes open, which is dangerous; amount of rubbish, including abandoned petrol drums; too easy to smuggle fire arms in the Reserve (‘In our case our expedition’s permit included instructions for the Police to seal our firearms, but these instructions were completely ignored by the Sergeant who interviewed us and stamped the permit forms.’). Furthermore he writes:

The Kaokoveld Reserve is the best part of the only worth-while Game Reserve left in South-West Africa, and we know that your Administration has a system of control and stringent regulations designed to prevent unnecessary harm being done to  fauna and flora, or to the land itself, either by idele…[unreadable] frivolous shooting or by reckless and untidy exploitation. In practice, however, it would seem that a lot of people do not worry about these regulations, and effectively get away with such evasions, and we would respectfully draw your attention to this. There are two other factors influencing things in the Kaokoveld which cause our deep concern. One is shooting by Native Affairs Officials in the Reserve, including destruction of lions which have now become too few to maintain a proper balance of nature up there…(missing parts), superabundance of native cattle and small stock, which in recent years have been allowed to increase beyond numbers anywhere near the reasonable requirements of their owners, so that they are now not only destroying the easily-damaged land like locusts, but are tramping out the soft soil valleys so that large areas have already been ruined beyond repair through erosion, and more are rapidly going the same way. The cattle, in particular, are not of any great value, either to their owners or to any one else, as their export is prohibited.[984]

Mr. Allen’s reply states the following inter alia:

‘I wish to mention that probably as a result of your representations ot the Honourable the Administrator he has decided that prospectors and other persons visiting the Kaokoveld are in no circumstances to be permitted to take fire-arms with them in future and that he is not prepared to issue further permits “to shoot for the pot'' therein….As regards to the excessive number of large and small stock, I can only say that my Branch has done all it can to arrange for the surplus animals to be exported and largely as a result of our efforts yearly inoculations of the large stock against lungsickness are being undertaken so that after some years authority to send the surplus out may be obtained. In the case of small stock, representations have again been made, on the instructions of the Honourable the Minister of Native Affairs, for permission to be granted so that an old arrangement to enable owners of surplus animals after compliance with quarantine regulations to dispose thereof to buyers in the Police Zone may be resuscitated. ….[other complaints being addressed too] Lastly, as regards to your critical remarks concerning the shooting of lions, etc. by Native Affairs, officials, I would ask you to remember that the  Kaokoveld is in the first place a Native Reserve and it is the duty of our officials to protect the Native inhabitants against the depredations of lions and other carnivora. I can, however, assure you that these officials limit themselves to such protective measures and have no intention of undertaking any wholesale destruction of these animals.’[985]

 End of 1956, the ‘Weidingsnavorsingsbeampte’ [grazing-research officer] compiles an inspection report on the grazing in Etosha, he describes the different veld types and states inter alia, that the grazing in Etosha is much better than on the surrounding farms.[986]

A dry year ‘for the whole of the Kaokoveld, extending all the way to Etosha Pan’ and meaning that farmers like the Levins from Twyfelfontein have to trek continuously, first to Langberg south of Khorixas[987]. On 1 June David Levin becomes title-holder of Twyfelfontein [see 1954][988]. There is not enough land for his neighbour Willie de Wit to the west (which becomes crown-land, i.e. belonging to the state), who drops stones into the borehole that had been drilled for him so that it is useless to anyone who wishes to graze west of Twyfelfontein[989].

 

In the context of this dry year, the evictees from Aukeigas / !Aoǁaexas are trekked to Sorris-Sorris – the farm added to the north of the Okombahe Reserve[990].

Anglican Rector Frank Haythornthwaite (based in Walvis Bay) publishes his memoir All the Way to Abenab, recounting experiences and observations in his parish (see 1950) including visits to Brandberg West mine on the Ugab River:

The light changes and with it the colouring of the landscape, from a bright, glistering, eye-straining, sun-bleached landscape it grows softer and warmer in colour, yellow, red and brown, and the distance turns from pale blue to deeper blue and purple. The track loses its dark hard flatness of small stones, and soon the road is down the dried and sandy bed of a river that runs eventually into the U'gab below the mine. There is struggling 'blinkhaar' grass, the aristides and the bushman grass growing in the river bed and a few acacia bushes. The descent goes deeper into the gorge, and the last glimpse of the Brandberg is of its flaming red and orange in the setting sun, and you see then one reason why it is called Brandberg, the burning or flaming mountain.  

   Suddenly round a bend in the river bed ahead there is a [101] cluster of roughly built huts. These belong to Berg Damaras or 'Klipkaffirs' as they are often called. They live here and some of them work at the mine. …  They are remnants of early inhabitants of South-West Africa whom the Hereros hunted down and enslaved [a little simplistic..]. The Berg Damaras saved themselves from enslavement by taking refuge and hiding in the mountains (berg) and among the rocks (klip). Their huts are built of reeds and straw. They have a few goats. They too use the naras where they can find it. These particular Berg Damaras here have lived in the past on the proceeds of the alluvial tin they have won from the river beds. Now to-day this has been lost to them by the coming of the big companies to whom they hire their skill in handseparating the tin ore from the rubbish by 'scuttling', an action rather like a combination of winnowing and panning at the same time. They use long shallow wooden dishes, carved by themselves out of very soft indigenous wood [a ¹gôub]. Holding with both hands the dish filled with dry, finely crushed 'diggings', they perform a curious action rotating the dish on the right hand while at the same time they cant the powdered rock into the air with the left hand. The light dust blows away, and the 'pay-ore' collects at the right-hand end of the dish. The women are particularly good at this. As they can sell to illicit dealers the separated tin ore at more per pound than they can earn in a day's working for the white baas, it is not surprising that there is a leakage of ore when they are employed at scuttling, and a close watch and check has to be kept to prevent it.  

Just below the huts another tributary river bed joins the descending one. The truck turns right and goes up it. Ahead, for it is usually quite dark by the time the truck gets there, are the lights of the Brandberg West Mine, scattered like fairy lights over an indiscernible landscape.  

People loom out of the darkness as the truck pulls up under the lights outside the mine office. The truck's arrival means not only supplies for the mine. It means mail too. Most of the white men who work at the mine, about forty all told, drift in to see if there is any post for them.      

[102] The mine manager's house is on top of a hill overlooking the mine valley. After arriving here at night, waking in the morning to see the valley in daylight for the first time is a fantastic experience. Brown rounded hills flank the valley with their twisted and exposed strata clearly to be seen. Over the tops of these hills faintly looms, now blue and now flaming, the rounded top of the Brandberg. Up the head of the valley there is clanking machinery, clanking stamps and rattling kokopans, and the machine-gun noise of the drills. Dotted about below are the houses, offices, stores and workshops of the mine. The white rectangular compound of the native workers stands a little apart. There are some goats straggling about in the valley and a few dogs.  

In the freshness of the morning air, before the sun has begun to 'sting', is the best time to climb to the top of the hill behind the manager's house. It is worth the effort. There is a breathtaking vista of hills, hills, hills, rolling, rounded, brown, with little or no vegetation visible except for occasional patches that may be plants or lichen. Bare track-like paths cross and re-cross all over the sides of the steep hills and I do not know the cause of these. Far below is just visible the yellow sand of the river bed going down to join the U'gab. In every direction that one looks there are endless hills fading into the pale blue of the horizon. To the north are the high mountains of the Kaokofeld. To the south-east is the mighty Brandberg and its attendant Twelve Apostles.  

   Brandberg West Mine began as a mine for alluvial tin and wolfram, but the alluvial ore has been practically exhausted. Adits have been cut into the sides of the valley where the bedded ore has been found. It took some time to develop this, but the mine settled down to a steady output of ore as more and more machinery reached it after being brought that long journey from Swakopmund or, about the same distance, from Omaruru. The Berg Damaras are used less and less as scuttlers, except when the machinery breaks down temporarily and the output has to be maintained, or when new prospects are being tested. There is no water here. The nearest water is in the bed of the U'gab River four miles away, but that is too 'brak' for white [103] tastes, although the Africans drink it freely. Until recently all the drinking water for the white people had to be brought to the mine by truck. At first the water for the plant had to be carted up from the river bed by truck, too, until a four-mile-long pipeline was installed. Recently an ionization plant has been installed to render the brak water drinkable even for white people, and restrictions on drinking water are now a thing of the past, but this ionization is an expensive process.

   Just as the Brandberg dominates the view and much of one’s thoughts, so too does the U' gab River 100m large in the life of the Brandberg West Mine. I was taken down to the river bed, late in the afternoon of the first full day I spent at the mine, by Con Steenkamp, then mine manager. We went in a Landrover, down the tributary river that does not seem to possess a name. The descent was down the firm sandy bed between sides of the river gorge that become deeper and deeper as one descends. There is soft bush growing in the river bed and some grass, but nothing grows on the rocky sides of the gorge. Here again one sees the fantastic twisting and contorting of the rock strata, great synclines, anticlines, monoclines, isoclines, and contorted combinations of them all. At one point the strata of the rock stands completely on its head, and goes straight up sheer for three or four hundred feet. At another point, where there has obviously been some downthrust and a fault, water washing through the broken rock has first washed out great natural squared pipes at the base of the cliff and then lined them, layer upon layer, with a lime deposit, till some have been completely filled in, in a square geometric pattern. Others are still open but eventually they too will probably be closed up. One of these openings was big enough for the dachshund we had with us to go right up it and disappear out of sight. Only the echoing sound of his hard little claws ringing on the stone gave sign of his still being there.  

   Down at the river bed where this tributary joins the U'gab there is 'open water', water actually standing in pools on the surface. Dense reeds ten to twelve feet high grow in the water. Among the reeds lurk lions and ticks, each in its own way waiting to prey on any luckless animals that come there to drink. I did [104] not see any lions, only some spoor, but I found when I returned to the mine that I had to take off all my clothes to 'delouse' myself of the ticks I had acquired. …

There are some gigantic anaboom trees growing in the river bed, testimony in their size to the rarity with which the river comes down in flood to-day. Even in the 1934 and 1950 floods they were not uprooted. A deep caisson[991], smaller version of those at Rooibank, has been sunk into the river bed. A pump draws the seeping water out of it and drives it up the pipeline to the mine. A 'boy' lives down in the river bed to look after the pumps. He keeps donkeys down there. The Africans love donkeys.  

   So do lions. This 'boy' lost three of his donkeys in one night from a lion whose spoor had been seen the afternoon before. …

[105] Occasionally a solitary rhino will go by, bound for open water up or down the river. Rhinos love trekking in this manner. I do not know of anyone who has actually seen rhino go by since the pumps have been put in, but spoor has been seen. With no reeds to rustle, a rhino would go quietly by.  

   In addition to the Brandberg West Mine, the South-West Company have other 'prospects' nearer the actual slopes and foothills of the Brandberg. One of these was one hundred and ten miles away by road. As this prospect, worked by one white man and thirty 'boys', had to be 'rationed' and watered from Brandberg West, this meant a weekly journey of two hundred and twenty miles, an expensive and difficult undertaking that took two days.  

   The Company's chief geologist, Dr. Brand, who has an intimate knowledge and great love of the Namib and the Kaokofeld, decided that this was much too far. After poring over his own maps of the area, very much more detailed and exact than the official, rather sketchy, survey maps, he set out one morning on foot, accompanied by two 'boys', from Brandberg West. He found a way through the mountains and marked it by placing beacons of stones as he went. He reached the prospect, known as 'Alberts' Prospect' from the miner working there, after he had covered twenty-seven miles instead of one hundred and ten. Behind him, following his beacons, came gangs of 'boys' making a road. The road was completed in three weeks. Most of the road making consisted of clearing away loose stones and rocks, but in some places a great deal more than this, cutting down gradients and filling in holes, was required.  

   I have travelled this road to Alberts' Prospect. I could not help being filled with the greatest admiration for Dr. Brand's eye for country in spotting the route for the road. It is not exactly the [106] kind of road over which one would take an expensive limousine, but Landrovers and trucks with four-wheel drive go over it with no difficulty at all. When one says it is a fantastic journey, one means just that as so much of this country seems like belonging to a world of fantasy, lacking reality. At times it does not seem possible that there can be a road ahead through ridge after ridge of gaunt rocky mountains. But the road goes on.  

   The U'gab river bed provides a valuable level portion of the road and some breathtaking scenery. The descent into the river bed is fairly steep but never more than one in seven, and that only for short stretches. The climb out the other side is much the same. The river runs through a very deep gorge that has cliffs at least five hundred feet high. Green bushes, grass and flowering plants grow down in the river bed as well as an occasional tree.  

   One of the trees under whose shade we stopped for some food is near a mighty up rushing cliff of tormented strata. Bands of black basalt, white marble, green apatite, quartz, calcite and many other rocks sweep up almost perpendicularly, and the pattern is repeated on the other side of the gorge. It is awe-inspiring this sudden and violent intrusion of rock from some tectonic disturbance and upheaval perhaps a hundred million years ago or twice that time, although there are some who think this has all been very much more recent and that the whole of the U'gab river bed is the axis of a fault that is still on the move. All over one sees twisted upheavals. There is something almost pulsatingly alive among these tormented rocks. They have not the deadness that one would expect from such stark aridity of their barren sides. In their shapes and in their changing colours as the sun moves across the vast cloudless dome of sky, they seem personal. They are not unfriendly or repellent. They are exultant.  

   As the road climbs out of the river bed and reaches again the high plateau on the other side, occasional deep ravines run down through the rocks to the river bed once more, and there are glimpses through their red-brownness of the yellow sandy river bed. We stopped by one of these ravines. In the middle distance, rising sheerly a thousand feet, was a rockface that had, threequarters of the way up, a white square as if painted on with white-[107] wash. We saw more than one of these white squares high up on the rocks. They are caused by the 'dassie' or rock rabbit, the coney of the Bible. This, like the welwitschia plant, is a survival from a prehistoric age. The dassies are creatures of habit. These white squares mark the communal urinals of centuries of micturating dassies. The crystalline urine has given some idea of how long the dassies have been on this earth. It has been found in layers of rock that indicate the dassie has survived possibly over one hundred million years. On the wide plateau above the U'gab River roam much game, zebra, blaauwildebeeste, ostriches, eland, springbok as well as smaller game, duikers, stembok and the like. The wild turkey, the paauw or bustard abound as well as the omnipresent guineafowl.  

All the time the majestic Brandberg presides over the whole landscape. It was quite early in the morning and the mountains still were in their matutinal[992] blue mistiness. But on the eastern shoulder of the Brandberg occasionally there could be seen the tinge of pink as some crag caught the sunlight. Later in the day, as we returned, the Brandberg was aflame with the sun lighting up all the bare red rocks, giving it even greater vividness and majesty than its remote blueness of the early morning and late afternoon and evening.  

   'Alberts' Prospect' is on a level piece of ground below the slopes of one of Brandberg's foothills. It is an alluvial tin and wolfram deposit. It is worked by a number of 'boys' with a few Berg Damara women doing the scuttling. There is a slight breeze blowing there most of the time, and the women make use of it in their scuttling. Working on a large spread-out canvas wagon cover they fill their scuttles with the crushed rock. They hold the scuttles high above their heads and carefully standing on the windward side, slowly pour the crushed rock to the ground, so allowing the wind to winnow away the useless dust. This they continue to do for some time, then proceed to scuttle in the more usual way.  

   The sight of these two women had a touch of the incongruous that I find always accompanies their wearing the Victorian cos-[108]tume of full skirts, high-waisted bodice, mutton-chop sleeves, fancy aprons and high head-dress, although theirs is not so high as the Herero women wear theirs. The two women I saw at Alberts' Prospect were each wearing dark blue flowered dresses. One had lemon trimmings and a lemon apron. The other had hers trimmed in red, with a frilly red apron. Their smartness was in great contrast with the men who wore torn and discarded 'European' clothes, often patched with all manner of unmatching cloth. [most of the male labourers seem to have been ‘Ovambo’]

   [109] When Brandberg West was first opened, it was very remote, but to-day there is a radio link between it and the Company's headquarters at Grootfontein. Every morning at nine and again at four-fifteen in the afternoon, the mine manager goes on the air and reports to headquarters. A telephone would be costly to instal and difficult to maintain. There is an airstrip, too, to-day near the mine, and in three hours the distance between Grootfontein and Brandberg West can be bridged by air. By road it takes at least two days.

   [110] It is remote country. It is not to be played with, but it can enwrap itself round one in all its moods. The mining community there find it so. Tempers sometimes get a little frayed through too much close proximity to one another day after day at work, but when the weekends come, one or more of the trucks takes those who wish down to the coast twenty-five miles away to the finest fishing in the world. Fresh fish is always welcomed by the camp. Competition among the fishermen runs high.[993]                   

1957

400 ‘completely impoverished’ Anglo-Boers who had remained in Angola ‘were brought back to South Africa and South West Africa, but ‘[t]he black people who had accompanied the trekkers to Angola were not repatriated’[994]. In this year the newly surveyed farms north-west of Khorixas are advertised for potential settlers[995]. David Levin at Twyfelfontein employs a Damara man called Stefaans to assist with looking after the farm, including building fences such as a 6.9 km fence along the eastern border of the farm, supported with a loan from the Land Board (rec’d May 1958)[996]. Levin is ‘called to serve as an elder’ of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), his ward stretching west of the Huab River north to Ohopoho / Opuwo[997].

 

A road to Tsumeb is built from Ondangwa, reducing use of the route Olukonda to Okaukuejo, west of Etosha Pan[998].

F. Gaerdes writes an article for the S.W.A. Annual in this year entitled “Nature Preservation and the works of the Monuments Commission in S.W.A.”, which is revealing regarding the idea of “nature conservation” and the role of the “white man” in this regard during these years. He starts the article in the following way:

[t]he present is shaped by the past. Therefore we cherish the historical tradition embodied in the monuments which bear witness to our past. Primitive nature with her riches of plant and animal life forms part of this heritage. In many parts of the world it has of necessity had to yield to the demands of an expanding and increasing population. This process of cultivation, and the necessary impoverishment of wild life which it entails, cannot be halted, however much we may regret the loss of the irreplaceable. Not only scientists and naturalists…have felt concern. The longing to experience nature where she still bears her original face, is alive in many people. Out of their need was born the concept of nature preservation which has gained increasing acceptance over the last 50 years. … The nature preservation movement originated in Europe and North America, from there it spread to other continents. Primitive people are not concerned about nature preservation, and it was left to the white nations to spread the idea all over the globe. The initiative of European settlers created exemplary parks in many parts of Africa which are gaining a growing international reputation among scientists and nature lovers…. In South West Africa too, the idea is gaining ground that the preservation of nature is not merely a hobby-horse of utopian eccentrics, but a duty which the community owes to posterity.[999]

According to him, three official organisations are concerned with nature preservation: 1. “the Game Preservation and Hunting Board” has the function “of advising government on suitable measures for the preservation of wildlife generally, and game in particular, with difficulties frequently arising where the interests of agriculture and of game preservation conflict…;

2. the maintenance and expansion of game reserves is the responsibility of a second body, the recently appointed Parks Committee…. A certain numbers of game reserves had already been created under the German administration;

3. a “general policy of systematic preservation has been initiated with the appointment of the Commission for the Preservation of Natural and Historical Monuments, or, briefly, the Monuments Commission. Rights and obligations of commission defined in 1948.”[1000] Phillip’s Cave (Erongo), White Lady (Brandberg) Bushman Paradise (Spitzkoppe), Burnt mountain, rock engravings at Twyfelfontein among others, are declared as monuments and Waterberg Plateau as nature park on recommendations of this Commission which consists of S. Hofmeyr, D.W. Krynauw, F. Gaerdes, G. Kirby, E.R. Scherz, A. Weber, M. Zschokke.[1001]

De la Bat as Chief Game Warden recommends the change of name from game preservation to game conservation, i.e. the section to be renamed section of game conservation and that the change of name should also be applied in any new legislation.[1002]

Fort Namutoni is restored and opened for tourists.[1003]

Around 1957, a report is prepared by de la Bat, 50 years after the proclamation of the game reserves (in Afrikaans]. Kaokoveld, being part of Game Reserve no. 2, is also a native reserve and is administered by the Department Native Affairs of the Union, while the Etosha Game reserve is administered by the Administration of S.W.A.[1004] He reports that

During 1956 the Parks Board of South West recommended that an additional nature reserve between the Hoab and the Hoanib rivers south of the Kaokoveld be created as a refuge for rhinos ..., mountain zebras ... and elephants and that it should be considered as an extension of the Etosha game park. The Executive Committee has accepted these proposals and practical implications are currently being further investigated. The animals that are abundant in this area are relatively rare or absent in the Etosha Game Reserve. Although the area has not yet been declared a reserve, money has already been allocated for the construction of three strategically located dams. With the provision of sufficient water to the animals, it is hoped that they will no longer move to nearby farm areas, where they cause damage, during the dry season.[1005]

He continues to describe the Etosha game reserve around the pan, flora, Okaukuejo and Namutoni and mentions that 7268 visitors came to the two restcamps in 1956.

He mentions that the last elephants were killed around Namutoni in 1880 and that only in 1912 elephants were noticed again. He estimates around 150 elephants and 180-200 lions in the game reserve around 1956. 150 miles of fences are already erected. He continues to provide the estimated numbers of 14 species counted during a daylong patrol at the great plains.

Significant seasonal migration of game occurs annually and concerns mostly elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, springbok, eland and gemsbok, reasons for these migrations are apparently complex, he mentions bushfires, lack of water, summer- and winter grazing and lack of minerals as influencing factors and hopes that research will provide better insights.

He describes the various species, their occurrence and increase/decrease of numbers.

De la Bat mentions in another report [English] on the game reserves in S.W.A., dated 30 July 1957 with regard to Game Reserve No. 2 that ‘the greater part constitutes the Kaokoveld Native Reserve however and visitors are only allowed to enter that portion which immediately surrounds the Etosha Pan. This is known as the Etosha Game Park. Its area is estimated at roughly 12000 square miles of which a considerable number are taken up by the Etosha Pan itself.’ The main camp at Okaukuejo consists of six brick bungalows and seven reed huts with beds and matresses. Furthermore, visitors equipped with their own bedding can use a number of tents and fifteen groups of Ovambo-style rondawels which encircle the waterhole or camp sites. A swimming pool, hot and cold showers, a small store and a petrol pump are also there.  Further huts will be built during the following months. At Namutoni in the Fort are a number of single rooms, a few dormitories, shower rooms and a communal cooking yard, as well as dining yard and camping sites, store, petrol pump and swimming pool. The park is open from May 1 to November 15, permits provided in Windhoek or the magistrates of nearby towns.

As Schoeman, he mentions that the dust around the tourist roads causes animals to avoid the vicinity of roads, same is true for waterholes where roads are too close.[1006]

In 1957, some correspondence between the Wildlife Protection Society of South Africa and the Chief Game Warden is taking place with regard to military manoeuvres in the Kaokoveld and their potential effects on wildlife. Yet, de la Bat has no information in this regard.[1007]

late 1950s

Stoffel Rochér, ranger at Namutoni, sees ‘one of the last buffalo in Etosha killed by lions at Twee palms on the fringe of Fischer’s pan’ and around this time two buffalo are photographed at Andoni water point[1008].

In Kaokoveld, 43 boreholes are drilled around Opuwo or or south-east of Opuwo[1009]:

Boreholes in Kaokoveld in late 1950s. Source: scan from Bollig 2006, p. 44.

1950s-early 1960s

… ‘During the 1950s and early 1960s, Etosha staff had begun an intensive borehole drilling programme in the woodlands west of the Etosha pan’; ‘Etosha’s herbivores exploited grazing areas where water was not previously available’[1010].


[1] Contribution statement: an initial 180 pages of literature review organised into a chronology was shared by Sullivan with Dieckmann on 1st September 2020. We have collaborated iteratively on these documents since then.

[2] As historian Lorena Rizzo (2012, pp. 3, 7) writes, historical and present dynamics demonstrate ‘Kaoko’s instability and its shifting materiality as a territory and socio-political space’, especially in relation to mobilities that blur ethnic, geographical and economic colonial boundaries.

[3] Gordon 2009, p. 32.

[4] Gordon 2009, pp. 33, 34.

[5] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 17; Gordon 2009, p. 33, 41.

[6] Gordon 2009, p. 33

[7] Rizzo 2012, p. 22.

[8] Gordon 2009, p. 41.

[9] Although see ǁGaroes 2021 for a fuller discussion of circumstances here.

[10] Odendaal Report 1964, p. 67.

[11] Schmokel 1985, p. 96.

[12] Schmokel 1985, p. 96.

[13] Gordon 2009, p. 33.

[14] Gordon, 1991: 3-4

[15] Sullivan 1996, p. 14.

[16] Gordon 2009, p. 33.

[17] Gordon 2009, p. 33.

[18] Jill Kinahan 2000, p. 20 after Dreschler 1980, p. 231.

[19] Miescher 2012 op. cit., p. 3. Yet, the map below shows that the border went through Game Reserve No. 2 and not along the southern border.

[20] Kruger, n.d., pp. 17-18.

[21] Wegener 1907, p. 31 in Moritz 2015, p. 13.

[22] Emmett 1999, p. 75.

[23] Zimmerer 2000, p. 84.

[24] Dieckmann2007, pp. 72-73.

[25] Miescher 2012, p. 13 writes four.

[26] Bridgeford 2018, p. 12.

[27] Bridgeford 2018, p. 12.

[28] Bridgeford 2018, p. 13.

[29] Rohrbach 1907, p. 22, trans. by Ute Dieckmann.

[30] Bollig 1997, p. 19.

[31] Bridgeford 2018, p. 13.

[32] Budack, 1977, p. 4; Van den Eynden et al., 1992, p.  5; Botelle and Kowalski, 1995, pp. 2, 12-13, 18; GRN 2010; Jill Kinahan 2017, p. 298.

[33] Jill Kinahan 2017, p. 307.

[34] Budack, 1977, p. 4; Van den Eynden et al, 1992, p. 5; Botelle and Kowalski, 1995, p. 2, 12-13, 18.

[35] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 75, and references therein. Also Berry 1980, p. 53.

[36] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 75, and references therein. Also Berry 1980, p. 53.

[37] ZBU MII,E.1, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 75-76.

[38] Berry 1997, p. 4.

[39] Gordon 1992, p. 54.

[40] Gordon 1992, p. 54.

[41] Gordon 1992, pp. 54-55.

[42] Miescher 2009, pp. 102-103.

[43] Miescher 2009, pp. 99-102.

[44] Berry 1998, p. 4.

[45] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 75, and references therein.

[46] ZBU FXIII B.4, 15.1.1909, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 81.

[47] The ‘Nama’ were 6 people measured in Walvis Bay and 50 prisoners mostly in Keetmanshoop; the ‘Bushmen’ were 6 people in southern Botswana (Lehututu or Letlake Pan) and 3 ‘Namib Bushmen’ who Gordon asserts were probably impoverished Nama – Gordon 2009, p. 45..

[48] Gordon 2009, p. 45.

[49] In Gordon 2009, p. 44.

[50] Passarge 1907, p. 21.

[51] Passarge 1907, p. 23.

[52] Passarge 1907, p. 18.

[53] Passarge summary is from Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 57-58.

[54] Fritsch 1906, p. 72, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 58.

[55] Kruger, n.d., p. 6.

[56] Kruger, n.d., p. 7, see also Schlettwein 1914 [1907].

[57] Rohrbach 1907.

[58] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 275.

[59] Rizzo 2012, p 22.

[60] du Pisani 1986, p. 13; also Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 37.

[61] du Pisani 1986, p. 13.

[62] du Pisani 1986, p. 13.

[63] Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 38.

[64] Carstens et al. 1987, F15 p. 175 after Levinson 1983, p. 49.

[65] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 74.

[66] Külz 1909, p. 119.

[67] Gordon 2009, pp. 32, 33.

[68] Gordon 2009, p. 34.

[69] Kruger, n.d., p. 18.

[70] Gordon 2009, p. 48.

[71] ZBU W II B.2, 15.10.1908; in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 77.

[72] ZBU WIII, A.3. Bd. 1, 1.11.1908 in Zimmerer 2000, p. 142.

[73] Quoted in Paksi forthcoming**, p. 3.

[74] In Gordon 2009, p. 43.

[75] Gordon 2009, p. 34.

[76] Passarge 1908, p. 189.

[77] Passarge 1908, p. 190.

[78] Passarge 1908, p. 197.

[79] Passarge 1908, p. 198.

[80] Passarge 1908, p. 291.

[81] Passarge 1908, p. 291.

[82] Passarge 1908, p. 296.

[83] Fitzner 1908.

[84] Fitzner 1908, pp.100ff.

[85] Fitzner 1908, pp. 110-163.

[86] Gordon 2002, p. 215.

[87] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 285 referencing Almeida 1935, pp. 151-152.

[88] Carstens et al. 1987, F12 p. 155 after Harper and Stern 1978, 147-148.

[89] Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 37.

[90] Gordon 2009, p. 32.

[91] Silvester and Gewald 2004, pp. xxvi-xxvii.

[92] Joubert 1974, p. 35.

[93] ǁHawaxab 2019, p. 2.

[94] Bollig 1998, p. 170; Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 274.

[95] See map German Southwestafrica1913_Moser** can we include this map?.

[96] Külz 1909, p. 112-113.

[97] Külz 1909, p. 114.

[98] Külz 1909, p. 114.

[99] Külz 1909, p. 114.

[100] Kruder, n.d., p. 18.

[101] Külz 1909, p. 116; also Dieckmann 2007a, p. 66.

[102] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 66.

[103] Külz 1909, p. 117.

[104] Külz 1909, p. 117.

[105] Külz 1909, p. 117.

[106] Külz 1909, p. 118.

[107] Rohrbach 1909.

[108] Külz 1909, p. 120.

[109] Kruger, n.d., p. 18.

[110] ZBU FXIII B.4, 15.1.1909, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 81.

[111] Hutter 1910, p. 30.

[112] Wandres 1909, p. 658 quoted in Lau 1979, p. 29.

[113] Gordon 2002, p. 215.

[114] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 79, Gordon 1992, p. 57.

[115] ZBU WII O.2, 3.1.1912, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 79.

[116] Zimmerer 2000, p. 212.

[117] Schultze 1914, p. 294.

[118] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 81.

[119] Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 81-82.

[120] In Gordon 2009, p. 35.

[121] ZBU WII O.2, 24.10.1911, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 83.

[122] Gordon 1992, p. 58.

[123] In Gordon 2009, p. 35; Dieckmann 2007a, p. 83.

[124] Stals 1984, p. 84, cited in Gordon 1992, p. 69.

[125] ZBU W II O.2, 20.1.1913, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 84.

[126] either photo 006682 0r 007025 or 007026, Namibian National Archives.

[127] Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 84-85.

[128] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 85.

[129] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 6; Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 44.

[130] Haythornthwaite 1956, p. 23.

[131] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 75; Berry 1980, p. 53.

[132] Kruger n.d.,p. 20; 25.

[133] Kruder, n.d., p. 20.

[134] Gordon 2009, p. 48 after Wellington 1967, p. 43.

[135] Owen-Smith 2010, p. 57.

[136] NAN.A.327 Krause and Kuntz, Kuntz 25/8/1910, report to the Kaoko Land und Minengesellschaft.  

[137] Bollig 2006, pp. 56-57, quoting Kuntz 12/10/1910 report to the Kaoko Land und Minengesellschaft, NAN.A.327.

[138] Bollig 2006, p. 58.

[139] NAN.A.327 Krause and Kuntz, Kuntz 25/8/1910, report to the Kaoko Land und Minengesellschaft, plus pers. comm. notes from M. Bollig.  

[140] Gordon 2009, p. 33.

[141] Bollig 1997, p. 19; 1998, p. 165.

[142] Bollig 1997, p. 19.

[143] Bollig 2009, 330.

[144] Bollig 1998, p. 170.

[145] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 77.

[146] Weule 1910, p. n.p.; also Weule 1910 in Inskeep 2003, p. 62. 

[147] Schultze 1910, p. 266.

[148] Schultz 1910, p. 294.

[149] Schultze 1910, p. 284; although see ǁGaroes (2021) for a different interpretation.

[150] Heydinger 2021, pp. 83-84, citing Hoole 2007[?2008].

[151] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, pp. 275-277.

[152]  Bollig 2020, p. 72.

[153] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 65.

[154] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 64 referencing Steinhart 2001.

[155] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 67.

[156] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 44.

[157] Calvert 1915, p. 16, 21.

[158] Gordon 2009, p. 32.

[159] Calvert 1915, p. 22, after British Consular Report.

[160] Gordon 2009, p. 32.

[161] Deaton 2011, p. 181.

[162] In Union of South Africa 1918, p. 107.

[163] Kruger, n.d.: 28.

[164] Gordon 2009, p. 34.

[165] Quoted in Gordon 2009, p. 34.

[166] In Gordon 2009, p. 35.

[167] Moritz 2015, p. 21.

[168] In Gordon 2009, p. 43.

[169] Seiner 1913, Dieckmann 2007a, p. 88.

[170] Sprigade 1911, pp. 22-23.

[171] In Gordon 2009, p. 35.

[172] Bollig 1998, p. 165.

[173] Statement by Oorlog to Manning 09081917, p. 1.

[174] Statement by Oorlog to Manning 09081917, p. 1.

[175] Statement by Oorlog to Manning 09081917, p. 1.

[176] Bridgeford 2018, p. 12.

[177] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 75; Berry 1980, p. 53.

[178] Calvert 1915, p. xxii.

[179] Calvert 1915, pp. 15-16.

[180] Calvert 1915, p. 16.

[181] Calvert 1915, p. 22, after British Consular Report.

[182] Gordon 2009, p. 33, 37.

[183] Gordon 2009, pp. 33, 34.

[184] Gordon 2009, p. 34.

[185]  Gordon 2009, p. 35.

[186] Gordon 2009, p. 46.

[187] Gordon 2009, p. 44.

[188] In Gordon 2009, p. 42.

[189] Discussed in Kranz 2016, p. 77.

[190] Gordon 2009, p. 34.

[191] Gordon 2009, p. 35.

[192] Köhler 1957, p. 57.

[193] Rudner and Rudner 1974[1899], f35 p. 179.

[194] Gordon 2009, p. 35.

[195] Gordon 2009, pp. 35-36.

[196] Seiner 1912, p. 278, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 59.

[197] Seiner 1912, p. 278.

[198] Seiner 1913a, p. 322, cited in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 59.

[199] Seiner 1912, p. 279-280.

[200] Seiner 1912, p. 284, also in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 59-60.

[201] Wadley 1979, p. 24.

[202] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 280.

[203] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 69.

[204] Bank 2016, p. 36.

[205] Sullivan 1996, p. 14 after Fuller 1993, p.  25.

[206] Calvert 1915, pp. 15-16.

[207] Calvert 1915, pp. 21-22.

[208] Moritz 2015, p. 7 after Vedder 1923, p. 170.

[209] Botha 2000, p. 2.

[210] Schmokel 1985, p. 98.

[211] Berry 1997, p. 3.

[212] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, pp. 278-279.

[213] Gordon 2009, p. 34.

[214] Gordon 2009, p. 36 and sources therein.

[215] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 91.

[216] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 91.

[217] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 92-93.

[218] Gordon 2009, p. 37, see also Dieckmann 2007a, p. 91.

[219] Gordon 2009, p. 46.

[220] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 86 and references therein.

[221] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 86.

[222] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 70, numbers from Külz 1909, pp. 112;117 and von Schöllenbach 1926, pp. 113, 126.

[223] Külz 1909, pp. 112, 117.

[224] Oelhafen von Schöllenbach 1926, pp. 113, 126.

[225] Kruger, n.d. 26.

[226] Kruger n.d.: 26.

[227] Vedder 1953, pp. 80-81; cited and translated by Widlok 2003, p. 92.

[228] Oelhafen von Schöllenbach 1926, p. 70, cited in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 71.

[229] Emmett 1999, p. 50, see also Dieckmann 2007a, p. 71.

[230] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 72.

[231] Moser 2007, p. 20, Bild 3: Übersicht über die Verteilung des Landbesitzes in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1913 (Jäschke, 2002a, Abb. 79,S. 194/195, verändert).

[232] Moser 2007, p. 20.

[233] Land was paid for on a lease-purchase basis which involved no payment in the first year, and payments with interest in subsequent years which remained lower that the going bank rate of 5%, Sullivan 1996 p. 15 after Fuller, 1993, p. 29.

[234] Sullivan 1996, p. 15.

[235] Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 44.

[236] Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 46.

[237] Bollig 1998, p. 170.

[238] Rizzo 2012 p. 5.

[239] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 285, quoting Vedder 1928, p. 199. Also Bollig 2020, p. 72.​​

[240] Rizzo 2012 p. 5.

[241] Pers. comm. Welhemina Suro Ganuses, Khorixas, 09/03/17 after her visit to ‘old church’ in Outjo.

[242] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 64 referencing Vedder 1914

[243] Bollig 2006, p. 59.

[244] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 42; I have been told by Suro via ?? that Jan |Uixamab’s grave is in the Hoanib??. There is a farm called Palafontein close to Outjo, which was already occupied during German times.

[245] Van Warmelo 1986(1951), p. 42.

[246] Fuller 1993, p. 69.

[247] Vigne 1994, p. 8.

[248] Quoted in Gordon 2009, p. 29-30.

[249] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 10.

[250] Kruger n.d., p. 44.

[251] Von Zastrow 1914, pp. 2ff., in Dieckmann 2009, p. 355.

[252] Von Zastrow 1914, pp.2-3.

[253] Von Zastrow 1914, p. 4.

[254] Schultze 1914, pp. 295, 290 in Gordon 2009, p. 45.

[255] ǁHawaxab 2019, p. 2.

[256] Hayes 1998, p. 172.

[257] Rizzo 2012, p. 16.

[258] Gordon 2009, p. 36; also Gordon 1986.

[259] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 44.

[260] Bridgeford and Bridgeford 2002, p. 31.

[261] Kanzler 2012[2003], pp. 44-45.

[262] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xvi.

[263] Bruwer 2006[1985], pp. 5, 7.

[264] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 14; Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 7.

[265] Sullivan 1996, p. 14.

[266] Silvester, Wallace and Hayes 1998, p. 3.

[267] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xv.

[268] Calvert 1915, p. xi.

[269] In Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 60.

[270] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 21.

[271] Silvester, Wallace and Hayes 1998, p. 4.

[272] Gordon 2009, pp. 30, 38.

[273] Joubert 1974, p. 35.

[274] Hartmann et al. 1998, p. 66; Silvester, Walllace, Hayes 1998, p. 9.

[275] Timm 1998, pp. 146-147.

[276] Hayes 1998, p. 181.

[277] Bollig 1998, p. 167.

[278] Statement by Oorlog, Sesfontein 09081917, p. 1.

[279] Jacobsohn 1998[1990], p. 14; Bollig 1997, p. 19.

[280] Bollig 1997, p. 19.

[281] Bollig 1997, p. 22.

[282] Rudner and Rudner 1974[1899], f35 p. 179.

[283] Rudner and Rudner 1974[1899], f36 p. 179.

[284] Hayes 1998, p. 173.

[285]  Rizzo 2012, p. 16. The nullification apparently ‘caused a major lawsuit against the South African government in the high court of the Völkerbund in Geneva’, Bollig 1997, p. 23.

[286] Hayes, 2000, ‘Camera Africa’, p. 49.

[287] Bolten und Dieckmann 2010, p. 171.

[288] NAN, 8077.

[289] NAN, 3743.

[290] NAN, 034.

[291] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 22.

[292] Kruger n.d., p. 45.

[293] Hayes 1998, p. 173, 174.

[294] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 23.

[295] Rizzo 2012, p. 16.

[296] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[297] Miescher 2012 op. cit., p. 16.

[298] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 3.

[299] Gordon 2009, p. 36.

[300] Hayes 1998, p. 175.

[301] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 9.

[302] Hayes 1998, p. 175.

[303] Manning Report 1917**

[304] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 119.

[305] Joubert 1974, p. 36; Bridgeford 2018, p. 13.

[306] Germishuys and Staal 1979, p. 113.

[307] NSS 2016, p. v.

[308] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 120.

[309] Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 120-121.

[310] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xv.

[311] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xvii.

[312] Bruwer 2006[1985], p. 31.

[313] Rizzo 2012, p. 16.

[314] Rizzo 2012, p. 16.

[315] Hayes 2000, p. 3.

[316] Hayes 1998, p. 171.

[317] Hartmann et al. 1998, p. 69.

[318] A Facebook comment on 190717 by a Cathy de Villiers writes: ‘This postcard was sent by my father, Jan Jacobus de Villiers (a k a John) to his, mother Bertha. The writing on back - Madombee kill in action Namakmidee Feb 6 1917. Ovambo Chief look and wounded "cannot decipher 2 words" M.C. 21 ....? My late brother John me British Officer received Military Cross for the kill.’ + comment from George Erb – ‘Kwanyama oral tradition has it that Mandume ya Ndemufayo actuaĺly shot himself when the South Africans were in hot pursuit near Oihole / Chiede in the northern Uukwanyama region. Nobody knows for sure if his remains were buried in Angola. He was most likely decapitated and his skull is supposedly buried in a little memorial park opposite the Windhoek railway station. Hence Talstrasse got renamed after Mandume ya Ndemufayo.’ Nb. See also the film The Power Stone**

[319] Manning Report 1917, pp. i-ii.

[320] Manning Report 1917, pp. 2.

[321] Manning Diary Notes 24/08/17.

[322] Manning Report 1917, p. 1.

[323] Bollig 1997, p. 22.

[324] See discussion in Rizzo 2012.

[325] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 66.

[326] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 279.

[327] Bollig 2006, p. 59.

[328] Manning Report 1917, p. 1.

[329] Manning Diary Notes 28/08/17.

[330] Manning 1917, Extracts, 2 August 1917.

[331] Manning Report 1917, p. 2.

[332] Manning Report 1917, p. 2.

[333] Manning 1917, Extracts, 2 August 1917.

[334] Fuller 1993, p. 70.

[335] Bollig 1997, p. 26; Bollig 1998, p. 165; Hayes 2000, pp. 49, 52.

[336] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 280.

[337] Bollig 1998, p. 165.

[338] Bollig 2009, p. 330.

[339] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xvi.

[340] A ‘Blue Book’ is a published British Government report (Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xiii).

[341] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 14; Gordon 2009, p. 38; an annotated version of the Blue Book has been republished as Silvester and Gewald 2003, with a 2nd edition in 2004 (referred to here).

[342] Erichsen 2008, p. 8.

[343] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xix.

[344] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 60.

[345] Republic of South Africa 1918, pp. 148-150.

[346] Republic of South Africa 1918, p. 110.

[347] Republic of South Africa 1918, p. 110.

[348] Gordon 2009, p. 38.

[349] In Gordon 2009, p. 48.

[350] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 42.

[351] Gordon 2009, p. 51.

[352] Bruwer 2006(1985), p. 27.

[353] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 64.

[354] Green 1953, p. 203.

[355]  Jacobson 1980, p. 24; see Maack 1923; Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1989, p. 6 describe this find as taking place in 1917.

[356] Hoernlé 1918.

[357] Bank 2016, p. 32.

[358] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 61.

[359] Bruwer 2006[1885], p. 28.

[360] Deaton 2011, p. 243.

[361] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xix..

[362] Bruwer 2006[1885], p. 28.

[363] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 56 – altogether 4,941 Germans are ‘forcibly “repatriated”’ with another 1,433 leaving of their own accord (ibid. p. 59).

[364] Bruwer 2006[1985], p. 40.

[365] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 60.

[366] Bridgeford 2018, p. 14.

[367] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 78.

[368] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 306 citing NAN SWAA 2516 A552/22 Second Tour to Kaokoveld by Major Manning 1919 [35].

[369] Quoted in Gordon 2009, p. 46.

[370] Kinahan 2001[1991], p. 62, after Köhler 1959.

[371] E.g. Abel 1954.

[372] Bruwer 2006[1985], p. 40.

[373] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 61.

[374] Kanzler 2012[2003], p. 90 – at some point the ‘encampment at Wêrelsend’ – later the north-west field headquarters of Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation – is ‘built by the Consolidated Diamond Mining Company as an operational base from which their prospectors plumbed the surrounding country. Once their explorations were completed the company had donated the camp intact to the Wildlife Trust. Set down on a basal littered plain, it comprised several one-room prefabricated buildings crouched in the shade of a wild ebony grove and surrounded by bare buttes that that glowed vermilion at sunset. The windmill blades of a borepump stuck up above the trees, the machinery creaking plaintively as it drew sweet subterranean water to the surface. A collapsible swimming pool standing nearby has on occasion been visited by wandering elephants that come silently at night, ease their monumental thirsts and depart just as unobtrusively’ (Reardon 1986, p. 32).

[375] Deaton 2011, p. 58.

[376] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 280.

[377] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 8.

[378] Schmokel 1985, p. 99

[379] Botha 2000, p. 9.

[380] Suzman 2017, p. 57.

[381] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 125.

[382] Suzman 2017, p. 57.

[383] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 10.

[384] Bollig 1997, p. 25.

[385] Mason 1984, p. 67, after Malan 1974.

[386] Mason 1984, p. 67, and Jacobsohn 1998(1990), pp. 14, 23, after Malan 1974; also Owen-Smith 1972, p. 32.

[387] Owen-Smith 1972, p. 32.

[388] Bollig 1998, p. 167.

[389] Hayes 1998, p. 173.

[390] Lebzelter 1934, p. 83.

[391] Moritz 2015, p. 21, also Moritz, 2003 p. 78ff.

[392] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 24.

[393] Gewald 1998, p. 120.

[394] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 23; Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xix. Olusoga and Erichsen, 2010, p. 20, reports this to have taken place in 1919. Hayes 1998, p. 173 reports the mandatory award to take place in 1921. Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 61 says 1920.

[395] Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 61.

[396] Bank 2016, p. 36.

[397] Rizzo, 2012, p. 17.

[398] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xxx.

[399] Bollig 2009, p. 330.

[400] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 19-21; Silvester 1998, p. 141.

[401] Miescher 2012, p. 2.

[402] Miescher 2012, p. 10.

[403] Miescher 2012, p. 10.

[404] Hayes 1998, p. 177.

[405] Bollig 1997, pp. 7, 25.

[406] ADM 3238/3, C.N. Manning -C.G. Courtney-Clarke 4/10/21, in Emmett 1999, p. 176.

[407] ADM 2279/4, e.g. 14/9/21, in Emmett 1999, p. 176.

[408] Silvester et al. 1998, pp. 19-21; Silvester 1998, p. 141.

[409] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 23.

[410] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 19.

[411] Bollig 1997, p. 28.

[412] Rudner and Rudner 2007, p. 7.

[413] Hayes 1998, p. 173; Hayes et al. 1998, p. 3.

[414] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 15.

[415] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 8.

[416] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 19.

[417] SWAA 1921, pp. 13; also Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 19.

[418] SWAA 1921, p. 14.

[419] Emmett 1999, p. 101.

[420] Emmett 1999, p. 113.

[421] South West Africa 1922, quoted in Gordon 1992, p. 91.

[422] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 23-24.

[423] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 24.

[424] Joubert 1974, p. 35; Germishuys and Staal 1979, p. 113.

[425] Bridgeford 2018, p. 14.

[426] Hayes 1998, p. 173; Hayes 2000, p.52.

[427] SWAA A511/1, Administrator to the COmmandant, SWA Police, 24.8.1928, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 146, FN 140.

[428] NAN A450 Vol.4 1/28, Manning - Royal Geographical Society, London 19/12/1921, in Hayes op. cit. p.253.

[429] SWAA 1921.

[430] Hayes 1998, p. 173, 174.

[431] LAN 1/1/89 31, 53 Vol. III: 1939, Annual Reports Land Settlement.

[432] Emmett 1999, p. 91.

[433] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 19.

[434] Emmett 1999, p. 93; Silvester et al. 1998, p. 23.

[435] ǁHawaxab 2019, p. 2.

[436] Hayes et al. 1998, p. 3; Silvester et al. 1998, p. 14.

[437] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 14-15.

[438] Hayes 1998, p. 175.

[439] Hayes 1998, p. 174; Hayes 2000, p.52.

[440] Bollig 1997, p. 23 reports these dates as 1923-1949.

[441] Hayes 1998, p. 171.

[442] Hayes 1998, p. 176.

[443] Bollig 1998, p. 165.

[444] NAN A450 Vol. 14 4/1, Big Game in Ovamboland by C.H.L. Hahn, undated, discussed in Hayes 1998, p. 181.

[445] NAN A450 Vol. 14 4/1, Big Game in Ovamboland by C.H.L. Hahn, undated, discussed in Hayes 1998, p. 181.

[446] Hayes 1998, p. 183.

[447] Hahn cited in Hayes 1998, p. 183, cited in Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 67.

[448] Hayes 1998, p. 174.

[449] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 280.

[450] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 66 after Hayes 1998, p. 180.

[451] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 67 and references therein.

[452] Sullivan 1996, p. 14 after Odendaal Report, 1964: 69; Adams and Werner, 1990: 20-24.

[453] Sullivan 1996, p. 14; Odendaal Report 1964, p. 27.

[454] Dierks 1999, p. 97.

[455] Sullivan 1996, pp. 15, 14.

[456] Rizzo 2012, p. 3 describes this as more theory than reality.

[457] Owen-Smith 1972, p. 31; Bollig**.

[458] Owen-Smith 2010, p.**.

[459] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 24.

[460] du Pisani 1986, p. 18-19.

[461] Grove 1987, p. 30.

[462] Bridgeford and Bridgeford 2002, p. 33.

[463] Kanzler 2012(2003), p. 84.

[464] Dierks 1987/88, p. 29.

[465] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 23.

[466] Dierks 1987/88, p. 29.

[467] Botha 2005, p. 185, says that this was a contributory factor in the uprising but writes that the uprising took place in 1923.

[468] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 19; Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 23; Hayes 2000, p. 54.

[469] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 5.

[470] Hearn 2003, p. 12 after Shortridge 1934.

[471] Bank 2016, p. 36.

[472] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 37.

[473] Moritz 2015, p. 6 after Lebzelter 1934.

[474] Moritz 2015, p. 7.

[475] Bollig 1997, p. 26; Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 280; Rizzo 2012, p. 3; and Owen-Smith ** writes that this takes place in 1922, and that Oorlog Thom, with well-armed Herero and Himba followers, is entrenched as most powerful ruler north of Sesfontein.

[476] Bollig 1997, p. 26.

[477] In Hearn 2003, p. 13.

[478] Jacobson and Noli 1987, p. 173.

[479] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 67.

[480] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 67 referencing Shortridge 1934, p. 398.

[481] Du Pisani and Jacobson 1985 reviewing Vedder 1923.

[482] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 22; also Gordon 2009, p. 50.

[483] Gordon 2009, p. 51.

[484] Deaton 2011, p. 33.

[485] NAO 33/1, quoted in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 150.

[486] Bollig 1997, p. 23.

[487] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xxx.

[488] Kanzler 2012(2003), pp. 72-73.

[489] Silvester and Gewald 2004, pp. xxx-xxxi.

[490] Erichsen 2008, p. 8.

[491] Wallace 1998, p. 132.

[492] Botha 2005, p. 175.

[493] Deaton 2011, p. 58.

[494] Hartmann et all. 1998, p. 46.

[495] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 24.

[496] Bollig 1998, p. 168.

[497] Bollig 1998, p. 168.

[498] LAN 1/1/89 31, 53 Vol. III: 1939, Annual Reports Land Settlement.

[499] Emmett 1999, p. 91.

[500] NAN ADM 128 5503/1, 30.1.1924, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 145.

[501] Rudner and Rudner 2007, p. 7.

[502] ǁHawaxab 2019, p. 2.

[503] Rudner and Rudner [Möller] 1974[1899], f58 p. 181.

[504] Joubert 1974, p. 35.

[505] Bridgeford 2018, p. 14.

[506] ǁGaroes 2022.

[507] Owen-Smith 1972, p. 32.

[508] Fuller 1993, p. 73 and references therein.

[509] Gordon 1998. P. 112.

[510] Gordon 1998, p. 111; Gordon 2002, p. 216.

[511] Gordon 2002, pp. 216-218, emphasis in original – Fourie quote cited in Gordon (2002, p. 218) is to Bain on 10 December 1925.

[512] Gordon 2002, p. 216.

[513] Gordon 2002, p. 216.

[514] Additional information in pre-published version of the chapter shared with Sian Sullivan by Rob Gordon.

[515] Gordon 2002, p. 221.

[516] Gordon 1997, p.1.

[517] Bollig 1997, p. 25.

[518] Bollig 2006, p. 43.

[519] Silvester and Gewald 2004, p. xiii. Silvester et al. 1998, p. 19, write that the Blue Book is banned in 1927 through demand of the newly constituted Legislative Assembly in Windhoek. Gewald 1998, p. 120.

[520] Dierks 1999, p. 103.

[521] Hartmann et al. 1998, p. 54.

[522] Bollig 1997, p. 23

[523] Bollig 1998, p. 165.

[524] Fuller 1993, p. 72.

[525] Botha 2000, p. 3.

[526] Joubert 1974, p. 35; Germishuys and Staal 1979, p. 113.

[527] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[528] Germishuys and Staal 1979, p. 114.

[529] SWAA 50/26, 20.8.1926, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 128.

[530] Gordon 1992, p. 90; Dieckmann for discussion.

[531] SWAA A50/26, 20.8.1926, cited in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 151.

[532] NAO 33/1, 17.9.1928, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 151.

[533] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 152.

[534] SWAA 50/26, 20.8.1926, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 155.

[535] Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 155-157.

[536] Wilfrid Haacke, pers. comm. to Sian Sullivan 12 January 2021.

[537] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 9.

[538] Bank 2016, p. 17.

[539] Fuller 1993, p. 69.

[540] Bollig 1997, p. 28.

[541] Bridgeford 2018, p. 14.

[542] Botha 2005, p. 179.

[543] Botha 2005, p. 175.

[544] Hayes 2000 p. 53, from NAN A450 Vol. 4 1/28 Manning - Hahn, Rehoboth 10.1927.

[545] Hayes 2000 p.53-54, from NAN A450 Vol. 4 1/31, Hahn - Smit, undated.

[546] Bollig 1997, p. 26.

[547] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 129.

[548] SWAA A50/27, 1927, Proclamation N° 32.

[549] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 125.

[550] Dierks 1999, p. 103.

[551] SWAA 50/67, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 131.

[552] Bleek 1927, p. 57-58.

[553] SA Museum Files, Bleek to Peringuey, November 22, 1920, December 6, 1920 cited in Gordon 1997, p. 115.

[554] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 107.

[555]  Quoted in Gordon 2002, pp. 221, 228 (Gordon’s translation and emphasis), after Lebzelter 1934, p. 82.

[556] Gordon 2007, p. x.

[557] See Gaerdes 2002.

[558] Gordon 2002, p. 221

[559] See https://www.namibiana.de/namibia-information/literaturauszuege/titel/jan-gaerdes-ein-maerchen-vom-quagga-erlebnisse-am-kunene-von-jan-gaerdes.html 21 May 2020.

[560] Bollig 1998, p. 168; Hartmann et al. 1998, p. 46.

[561] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 6.

[562] Owen-Smith 1972, pp. 31, 33.

[563] NAN A450 Vol. 5 1/43, Hahn - Regent Institute London, 1.11.1928 in Hayes op. cit. p.57.  

[564] Botha 2005, p. 181; Bridgeford 2018, p. 14.

[565] Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 145-146.

[566] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 145.

[567] Fuller 1993, p. 72.

[568] Hayes 1998, pp. 183-184, drawing on NAN A450 Vol. 14 4/1, Big Game in Ovamboland by C.H.L. Hahn, undated.

[569] Hayes 1998, pp. 183-184, drawing on NAN A450 Vol. 14 4/1, Big Game in Ovamboland by C.H.L. Hahn, undated.

[570] Hayes 1998, pp. 183-184, drawing on NAN A450 Vol. 14 4/1, Big Game in Ovamboland by C.H.L. Hahn, undated.

[571] Hayes 1998, pp. 183-184, drawing on NAN A450 Vol. 14 4/1, Big Game in Ovamboland by C.H.L. Hahn, undated.

[572] Hayes 1998, pp. 183-184, drawing on NAN A450 Vol. 14 4/1, Big Game in Ovamboland by C.H.L. Hahn, undated.

[573] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 64.

[574] Rudner and Rudner [Möller] 1974[1899], f63 p. 181; also du Pisani 1986, p. 20.

[575] Hayes 1998, p. 174.

[576] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 16.

[577] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 285 citing Miescher and Rizzo 2000, p. 20.

[578] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 17.

[579] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 17.

[580] Gordon 1992, pp. 129-130; Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 125-126.

[581] Olivier 2006, p.1; also Carstens 1985, p. 21.

[582] Fourie 1928, p. 84, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 106.

[583] Dieckmann 2007b, p. 162.

[584] Botha 2000, p. 10.

[585] Wadley 1979, p. 24.

[586] Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[587] Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[588] Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[589] Bollig 1998, p. 166; 2006, p. 59.

[590] Bollig 19998, pp. 166, 170.

[591] Bollig 2006, p. 59.

[592] Bollig 19998, pp. 166, 170.

[593] Fuller 1993, p. 72.

[594] Heydinger 2021, pp. 83-84, citing Hoole 2008.

[595] Heydinger 2021, p. 84 and references therein.

[596] Hartmann et al. 1998, p. 61; Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 11-12.

[597] NAO 33/1, 10.8.1929, 17.10.1929, cited in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 153.

[598] Suzman 2017, p. 58.

[599] Köhler 1959, p. 22.

[600] Hayes 1998, p. 178.

[601] Hartmann, Silvester, Hayes 1998, p. 87.

[602] Hayes 1998, p. 181.

[603] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 22, 25.

[604] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 26.

[605] Fuller 1993, p. 70.

[606] Deaton 2011, p. 33.

[607] Fuller 1993, p. 74.

[608] SWAA 1930, para. 487 (sic. should be 467) and 473,  p. 72.

[609] SWAA 1930, para. 474, p. 72.

[610] Reported in Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[611] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 293 referencing Nink 1930.

[612] De Schauensee 1932

[613] De Schauensee 1932, p. 150.

[614] Olivier 2006, p. 1; also Carstens 1985, p. 21.

[615] Schapera 1930, pp. 34-35.

[616] NAO 33/1, 24.10.1930, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 150.

[617] Jacobson 2004/2005, p. 78.

[618] Fuller 1993, p. 74.

[619] Bollig 2006, p. 40.

[620] Bollig 2006, p. 41.

[621] Botha 2000, p. 3.

[622] ‘Cogill’s report’ 1931.

[623] ‘Cogill’s report’ 1931, p. 2.

[624] ‘Cogill’s report’ 1931, p. 2.

[625] ‘Cogill’s report’ 1931, p. 3.

[626] ‘Cogill’s report’ 1931, p. 3.

[627] ‘Cogill’s report’ 1931, p. 3.

[628] ‘Cogill’s report’ 1931, p. 2.

[629] Fourie 1959[1931], pp. 211ff., in Dieckmann 2009, p. 355.

[630] Fourie 1959 [1931], p. 211.

[631] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 111.

[632] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 112.

[633] Moritz 2015, p. 17 quoting Vedder 1931, p. 45ff.

[634] Moritz 2015, pp. 17-18 after Vedder in Schatz nd.

[635] Wallace1998, p. 137.

[636] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 22.

[637] Wallace 1998, p. 134.

[638] Dierks 1999, p. 107.

[639] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 25.

[640] Hayes 1998, p. 181.

[641] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[642] SWAA 1933, para. 431, p. 54.

[643] Bollig 1998, p. 168.

[644] Deaton 2011, p. 40.

[645] LGR 3/1/16 17/15/9 Annual Report 1933 in Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 132-133.

[646] Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[647] Bollig 1997, p. 25.

[648] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 290 after Henrichsen 2000.

[649] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[650] Dieckmann 2007a, pp. 139-144.

[651] SWAA A50/26, 5.9.1940.

[652] SWAA A50/26, 5.9.1940.

[653] SWAA A 50/67, n.d. (mid of 1940), in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 144.

[654] Dierks 1999, pp. 108.

[655] Manasse ǁGam-o |Nuab (d.) and Hildegaart |Gugowa |Nuas (née Ganuses), oral history interview by Welhemina Ganuses and Sian Sullivan, Sesfontein, 1999.

[656] Deaton 2011, p. 236.

[657] Gordon 2002, p. 218 and sources therein.

[658] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 16-17.

[659] Du Pisani and Jacobson 1985, p. 110 after Lebzelter 1934.

[660] Du Pisani and Jacobson 1985, p. 110 after Lebzelter 1934.

[661] Lebzelter 1934, p. 109.

[662] Moritz 2015, p. 7.

[663] Moritz 2015, p. 7.

[664] Moritz 2015, p. 7.

[665] Vedder 1934, pp. 77-78.

[666] Lebzelter 1934, p. 82, part in Gordon 2002, pp. 221, 228 (Gordon’s translation and emphasis), after Lebzelter 1934, p. 82.

[667] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 131 ff.; LGR 3/1/16 17/15/9 Annual Report 1933; LGR 3/1/16 17/15/10, Annual Report 1934, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 132-133.

[668] NAN A450 Vol. 4 4/2, Hahn - Secretary National Parks Board of Trustees, 1.3.1935 in Hayes op. cit. p.54.

[669] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 75; Berry 1980, p. 53.

[670] Botha 2005, p. 176.

[671] Cape Argus, 3 September 1935, cited in Gordon 1992, p. 147.

[672] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 137.

[673] Emmett 1999, pp. 94f.

[674] Bollig 1997, p. 28.

[675] Du Pisani and Jacobson 1985, p. 110.

[676] Du Pisani and Jacobson 1985, p. 110.

[677] Botha 2000, p. 10-11.

[678] Quoted in First 1963, p. 35.

[679] **Ref.

[680] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 133.

[681] NAO 33/1, 24.8.1936, cited in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 151.

[682] Davis and Davis 1977, p. 142.

[683] SWAA A 50/67, 30.9.1936, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 133.

[684] NAO 33/1, 14.11.1936, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 134.

[685] SWAA A 50/67, 15.10.1938

[686] Gordon 2002, p. 220.

[687] SWAA A 198/26, 1938[?], Memorandum, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 137.

[688] Joubert 1974, p. 36; also Bridgeford 2018, p. 14.

[689] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[690] Botha 2005, p. 186.

[691] Dierks 1999, p. 109.

[692] Reported in Bollig 1998, p. 169.

[693] LAN 1/1/89 53, Vol IV, Dieckmann 2007b: 162.

[694] Botha 2000, p. 6.

[695] NAO 33/1 Monthly Return October 1937, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 154.

[696] Rizzo 2012, p. 7, 17.

[697] NAO 33/1, 3.3.1938, Station Commander Namutoni, SWA Police. No difference between ‘wild’ and ‘tame’ Bushmen is apparent. Presumably, the numbers refer to the wild Bushmen [**?I think we need to add qualification here of why ‘wild’ and ‘tame’ might be relevant – I know this comes in elsewhere in the text but I’m not sure why it is invoked here??]. Some of the waterholes could be identified with the help of Haiǁom. For a few, neither the name nor the location was known (Dieckmann 2007a, p. 147).

[698] NAO 33/1, Monthly Return July 1938, cited in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 158.

[699] SWAA A 511/10 Etosha Pan Game Reserve Tourists Facilities, District Commandant, Omaruru, to the Commissioner SWA Police, 11 July 1938.

[700] Wallace 1998, p. 133.

[701] Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 14.

[702] Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 14.

[703] Dierks 1999, p. 110.

[704] Dierks 1999, p. 110.

[705] Hayes 2000, p. 54.

[706] Hayes 2000.

[707] Jacobsohn 1998[1990], p. 21.

[708] SWAA 1939, para. 1123, p. 172.

[709] SWAA 1939, para. 1124, p. 172.

[710] Reported in Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[711] Quoted in Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[712] Dierks 1999, p. 111.

[713] Botha 2000, p. 6.

[714] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 155.

[715] Davis and Davis 1977, p. 144.

[716] Köhler 1959, p. 22.

[717] Miescher 2012, p. 152.

[718] Hayes 1998, p. 187.

[719] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 26.

[720] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 13.

[721] NAN, SWAA A50/26, 5-9-1940, quoted in Dieckmann 2009, p. 356.

[722] Bollig 1997, p. 7.

[723] Bollig 1997, p. 28.

[724] Bollig 1997, p. 25.

[725] Schnegg and Pauli 2007, p. 15.

[726] Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[727] Bollig 1998, p. 166.

[728] Botha 2005, p. 184.

[729] Botha 2005, p. 185.

[730] Kruger, n.d., p. 7.

[731] Hayes 2000, p.61.

[732] Heydinger 2021, p. 84 quoting Hoole 2007 - unpublished meeting minutes, Ehi-Rovipuka Conservancy, August 2006.

[733] Van Warmelo 1962[1951], p. 37.

[734] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), pp. 37, 43-44.

[735] ǁHawaxab 2019, p. 2.

[736] Bollig 1997, p. 28.

[737] Quoted in Suzman 2017, p. 65.

[738] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 13-14.

[739] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 14.

[740] Bollig 2006, p. 59.

[741] Schoeman 1983: 14.

[742] NAO 11/1, Annual Report of the Native Commissioner Ovamboland 1942.

[743] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 146; NAO 11/1: 1942.

[744] ǁHawaxab 2019, p. 2.

[745] ǁHawaxab 2019, p. 2.

[746] Hayes, P. 2000  checkIbid. p.55 and references therein.

[747] Von Moltke 1943, see Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 62.

[748] Dierks 1999, p. 112.

[749] Botha 2005, p. 181.

[750] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 18.

[751] Wadley 1979, p. 24.

[752] In Deaton 2011, p. 51, also p. 96.

[753] Bolten und Dieckmann 2010, p. 172.

[754] ǁGaroëb 2002, p. 4.

[755] Silvester, Wallace, Hayes 1998, p. 26.

[756] Hayes, P. 2000 check Ibid. p.55.

[757] SWA Annual 1946.

[758] De la Bat 1982, p. 14.

[759] Rizzo 2012, p. 18

[760] Officer in Charge, Native Affairs Ohopoho to Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek, 01/11/1946 SWAA.2515.A.552/13 Kaokoveld - Agriculture.

[761] Botha 2005, p. 175.

[762] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 15-16.

[763] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 15.

[764] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 15.

[765] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 16.

[766] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 17.

[767] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 17.

[768] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 18.

[769] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 18.

[770] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 19.

[771] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 20.

[772] LGR 3/1/7 2/20/9, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 178.

[773] LGR 3/1/7 2/20/9, Annual Report on Native Affairs: 1946, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 178.

[774] Rizzo 2012, p. 1; also Owen-Smith 1972, p. **.

[775] See map in Dieckmann 2007a: 76.

[776] UNIN 1986, p. 259.

[777] e.g. Miescher 2012, p. **.

[778] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 145.

[779] De la Bat 1982, p. 14.

[780] SWAA A511/1, 13.4.1948.

[781] Joubert (1974, p. 36) writes ‘J.J. Peinaar’.

[782] Joubert 1974, p. 36; de la Bat 1982, p. 14; Bridgeford 2018, p. 15.

[783] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 187.

[784] Dieckmann 2013, p. 260.

[785] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 20, 7, 9.

[786] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 21.

[787] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 21 – of course, the mobility of the Damara family did not in fact mean that they did not ‘live there’, but is more a strategy of declaring terra nullius so as to be able to claim the land. See also 1951.

[788] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 22.

[789] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 25, 24.

[790] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 35.

[791] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 36.

[792] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 26.

[793] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 26-27.

[794] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 30.

[795] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 30-31.

[796] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 49.

[797] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 39-40.

[798] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 40.

[799] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 40.

[800] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 37.

[801] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 37.

[802] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), pp. 37-38, also quoted in Fuller 1993, p. 66.

[803] Fuller 1993, p. 67 after Manning Report 1917, pp. 8-42 and Fuller’s oral and genealogical material.

[804] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 38.

[805] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 38.

[806] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 41.

[807] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 44.

[808] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 44.

[809] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 44.

[810] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 45.

[811] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 46.

[812] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 45.

[813] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 45.

[814] Owen-Smith 2010 **.

[815] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 45.

[816] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 45.

[817] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 46.

[818] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 38.

[819] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 38.

[820] van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 40.

[821] Van Warmelo 1962(1951), p. 44.

[822] Bollig 1997, p. 25.

[823] Botha 2005, p. 176.

[824] Botha 2005, p. 181.

[825] Botha 2013, p. 245.

[826] Botha 2013, p. 245.

[827] SWAA A50/241/1; 4.1.1949 Namutoni; 1.2.1949 Grootfontein, 21.1.1949 Tsumeb; in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 165.

[828] SWAA A 50/241/1, 4.1.1949, Station Commander, S.A. Police: Namutoni.

[829] SWAA A 50/241/1, 1.2.1949, Station Commander, S.A. Police: Grootfontein.

[830] SWAA A 50/241/1, 21.1.1949, Station Commander, S.A. Police: Tsumeb.

[831] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 165.

[832]  NAN SWAA A 511/10 Etosha Parn Game Reserve: Tourist Facilities, South African Publicity Association to the Secretary of S.W.A., 22 January 1948.

[833] Dieckmann 2009, p. 356.

[834] LGR 3/1/26 2/16/5: Annual Report on Native Affairs, 1948, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 186.

[835] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 186.

[836] Suzman 2017, p. 151.

[837] Fuller 1993, p. 71 after Van Warmelo 1962[1951], pp. 46-49.

[838] Van Warmelo, 1962(1951).

[839] ǁGaroëb 2002, p. 4.

[840] Gaerdes 1957, p. 42-45.

[841] Quarterly Report 01/01/49-31/03/49 SWAA.2515.A.552/13 Kaokoveld - Agriculture.

[842] NAN SWAA 2513 A552/1 Inspection Report: Kaokoveld Native Reserve, 10th October 1949, Native Commissioner Ovamboland to Chief Native Commissioner Windhoek, cited in Bollig 1997, p. 26.

[843] SWAA A511/1, 9.5.1949.

[844] Dieckmann 2007a, p. 188.

[845] Agricultural Survey of Ovamboland with reference to agricultural and stock improvement in that area, report from Senior Agricultural Officer to the Director of Agriculture, Windhoek 26/10/1949, SWAA.2515.A.552/13 Kaokoveld - Agriculture.

[846] Botha 2005, pp. 174, 180.

[847] Jill Kinahan 1989, p. 33.

[848] Haythornthwaite 1956, p. 13.

[849] Haythornthwaite 1956, p. 68.

[850] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 73.

[851] Heydinger 2021, p. 75.

[852] Taylor 2012, p. 66.

[853] NAN, SWAA A627/11/1, 1956 quoted in Dieckmann 2009, p. 356.

[854] Botha 2005, p. 177.

[855] Taylor 2012, p. 69.

[856] SWAA A50/67, 20.8.1953, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 189.

[857] Haythornthwaite 1956, pp. 13-14.

[858] Haythornthwaite 1956, p. 14.

[859] Haythornthwaite 1956, p. 25.

[860] Haythornthwaite 1956, p. 21.

[861] Owen-Smith 1972, p. 33.

[862] Köhler 1959, pp. 48-49.

[863] Botha 2013, p. 246.

[864] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1; Botha 2005, p. 177.

[865] Botha 2005, p. 181.

[866] Heydinger 2021, p. 88.

[867] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 58.

[868] Heydinger 2021, p. 88.

[869] Fuller 1993, p. 69.

[870] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 285 referencing Abel 1954, 1959.

[871] Bollig and Heinemann 2002, p. 285 quoting and translating Abel 1959, p. 175

[872] Bollig 2006, p. 43.

[873] !Aoǁaexas Community 1991, p. 2.

[874] Bollig and Olwage 2016, p. 67 referencing SWAA 1336/A198/39, Carp Expedition, reports the expedition taking place in 1951. Bollig 2020, p. 22, referencing NAN SWAA Kaokoveld A522, reports this expedition taking place in the ‘late 1940s’.

[875] Quoted in Bollig 2020, p. 22.

[876] Joubert 1974, p. 36; also Bridgeford 2018, p. 16.

[877] Botha 2005, p. 180.

[878] Botha 2005, p. 185.

[879] NAN SWAA A 511/9, Game Reserve: Protection of Fauna and Flora,  Secretary of S.W.A: (Chief Game Warden) to Mr. Edwin W. Hurd, USA, 9 June 1959.

[880] Bridgeford 2018, p. 16., de la Bat 1982, p. 15.

[881] Officer in Charge Ohopoho to the Chief Native Commissioner Windhoek 10-12/1952, NA SWAA A 552/1, quoted in Bollig 1997, p. 28; also Bollig 1998, p. 168.

[882] In Bollig 1998, p. 168.

[883] Inspection report, Kaokoveld. Principal Agricultural Officer to Assistant Chief Commissioner Windhoek, 06/02/52, SWAA.2515.A.552/13 Kaokoveld - Agriculture.

[884] Green 1953[1952], p. 17.

[885] Green 1953[1952], p. 39.

[886] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 45, 42.

[887] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 56-57.

[888] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 71.

[889] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 65.

[890] Bridgeford 2018, p. 16.

[891] Paxton 2018, p. 8, de la Bat 1982, p. 15..

[892] Bridgeford 2018, p. 16.

[893] Bridgeford 2018, p. 16.

[894] Silvester et al. 1998, p. 18.

[895] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[896] Bridgeford 2018, pp. 15, 16, de la Bat 1982, p. 15.

[897] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[898] NAN, SWAA A 511/1, Game reserves general Game Reserve No. 2, 1947-52, 10.7.1952.

[899] NAN, SWAA A 511/1, Game reserves general Game Reserve No. 2, 1953-54, Schoeman to the Secretary of SWA, 4 September 1953.

[900] NAN, SWAA A 511/1, Game reserves general Game Reserve No. 2, 1953-54, 9 November 1953.

[901] Dart 1955, p. 175.

[902] Dart 1955, p. 175.

[903] Dart 1955, p. 175.

[904] Dart 1955, p. 175.

[905] Dart 1955, p. 175.

[906] Dart 1955, pp. 175-176.

[907] Heck 1956, p. 75.

[908] SWAA A627/11/1, 1956 quoted in Dieckmann 2009, p. 356.

[909] SWAA A50/67, 20.8.1953, Secretary to the Administrator-in-Executive Committee, in Afrikaans in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 189.

[910] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 43.

[911] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 59.

[912] Beinart 1989, p. 156.

[913] SWAA Nature Conservation & Tourism, 1959-1981: IV: Introduction.

[914] NAN, NTB 1/8 N13/2: Jaarverslae van Afdeling, Parks Board of South West Africa Annual Report 1st April 1957 to 31st March 1958 (First Report).

[915]  NAN, NTB 1/8 N13/2: Jaarverslae van Afdeling, Parks Board of South West Africa Annual Report 1st April 1957 to 31st March 1958 (First Report).

[916]  De la Bat 1982, p. 16.

[917]  NAN SWAA A511/1, Game Reserves General, 18/5/1954-May 1956 5 April 1954.

[918] NAN, SWAA A 511/1 Game Reserves General, 18/5/1954-May 1956. Jaarsverslag van die Avdeling Wildbewaring van S.W.A. (April 1953 tot Maarts 1954).

[919] NAN, SWAA A 511/1 Game Reserves General, 18/5/1954-May 1956. Jaarsverslag van die Avdeling Wildbewaring van S.W.A. (April 1953 tot Maarts 1954).

[920] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 48, 40.

[921] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 48.

[922] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 45.

[923] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, pp. 56-57.

[924] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[925] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[926] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[927] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[928] cf. Sullivan 1996.

[929] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[930] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[931] Kambatuku 1996, pp. 1, 3.

[932] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[933] Kambatuku 1996, p. 1.

[934] This reference is to Kambatuku 1996.

[935] Sullivan 1996, p. 17 and references therein.

[936] ǁGaroëb 2002, p. 4.

[937] Sullivan 1996, p. 15 after Odendaal Report 1964, p. 69.

[938] Jacobsohn 1998 (1990), p. 15.

[939] Haythornthwaite 1956, pp. 68, 76.

[940] NAN, SWAA A511/10, 1938-1951, in Dieckmann 2009, p. 257.

[941] SWAA A50/67, 19.9.1953, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 191.

[942] SWAA A50/67, 1.2.1954, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 191.

[943] De la Bat 1982, p. 16.

[944] Aschenborn 1957, in Dieckmann 2007a, p. 192.

[945] Berry 1997, p. 5.

[946] Berry 1997, p. 4.

[947] Dieckmann 2007, pp. 192-199.

[948] Köhler 1959, p. 19. Notably, von Zastrow discussed them in the paragraph about the area of Kung-, Sandfeld- or Kalaharibuschleute (1914, p. 3).

[949] Köhler 1959, p. 29.

[950] Köhler 1959, p. 30.

[951] Köhler 1959, p. 31.

[952] Köhler 1959, p. 64.

[953] Köhler 1959, p. 75.

[954] Gusinde 1954, p. 56, in Dieckmann, p. 171.

[955] Heydinger 2021, p. 71.

[956] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[957] De la Bat 1982, p. 15.

[958] Joubert 1974, p. 36.

[959] Joubert 1974, p. 37.

[960] Botha 2013, p. 245.

[961] Schoeman 2007, pp. 50-51.

[962] Schoeman 2007, p. 50.

[963] Dieckmann 2013, p. 260.

[964] Botha 2005, p. 187.

[965] Botha 2005, p. 179.

[966] Botha 2005, p. 181.

[967] Schnegg 2007, p. 257.

[968] Dart 1955, p. 175.

[969] Dart 1955, p. 175.

[970] ǁGaroëb 2002, p. 4.

[971] Botha 2005, p. 180.

[972] Schoeman 2007, p. 51.

[973] De la Bat 1982, p. 16.

[974] Bridgeford 2018, p. 16.

[975] Schoeman 2007, p. 51.

[976] De la Bat 1982, p. 17.

[977] Schoeman 2007, p. 51.

[978] Heck 1956, p. 85 quoted in Dieckmann 2009, p. 372.

[979] Heck 1956, p. 85.

[980] Heck 1956, p. 85.

[981] NAN, SWAA A 511/1, Secretary for S.W.A. to Mr. Horsham, Cape Town, 22 September 1956.

[982] NAN, SWAA A 511/1, copy.

[983] NAN, SWAA A 511/1, D.H. Woods, Ronderbosch, C.P. to the Administrator, S.W.A. Windhoek, 22 November 1956.

[984] NAN SWAA A 511/1, D.H. Woods, Southern Life ASsociation , Rondebosch, C.P. to R.J. Allen, Chief Native Commissioner, Department of Native Affiaris, Windhoek, 18 October 1956.

[985] NAN SWAA A511/1, Chief Native Commissioner, Windhoek to D.H: Woods, 6 November 1956.

[986] NAN SWAA A 511/1, 4 December 1956, Weidingsnavosingsbeampte tot he Direkeur van Landbou, Windhoek.

[987] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 59.

[988] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 45.

[989] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 45.

[990] Sorris-Sorris Communal Farmers 1991, p. 4.

[991] ‘a structure used in underwater work, consisting of an airtight chamber, open at the bottom and containing air under sufficient pressure to exclude the water’ http://www.dictionary.com/browse/caisson, accessed 24 March 2018.

[992] ‘of or occurring in the morning’ http://www.dictionary.com/browse/matutinal, accessed 240318.

[993] Haythornthwaite 1956.

[994] Rudner and Rudner 1974[1899], f63 pp. 181-182.

[995] Sullivan 1996, p. 17 after Kambatuku 1996, p. 2.

[996] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 52.

[997] Levin and Goldbeck 2013, p. 66.

[998] **ref?

[999] Gaerdes 1957, p. 41.

[1000] Gaerdes 1957, p. 42-45.

[1001] Gaerdes 1957, p. 45-47.

[1002] NAN, SWAA A511/1 Game Reserves General 1956-58, 7.3.1957., Hoofwildbewaarder , Okaukuejo to Hoof Algemene Afdeling, Windhoek.

[1003] Schoeman 2007, p.51.

[1004] NAN SWAA 511/1, 1956-58. de la Bat.

[1005] NAN SWAA 511/1, 1956-58. de la Bat.

[1006] NAN, SWAA 511/1, 1956-58, de la Bat, 30.7.1957.

[1007] NAN, SWAA 511/1, 1956-58.

[1008] Bridgeford 2018, p. 12.

[1009] Bollig 2006, p. 43.

[1010] Heydinger 2021, p. 89 and references therein.