(centre) and his companions The
Khoisan peoples of South Africa and southern Namibia maintained a
nomadic life. The
Khoekhoe were farmers and the
San people lived as hunter-gatherers. The Nama originally inhabited the banks of the
Orange River in southern Namibia and northern South Africa. The early colonialists referred to them as
Hottentots. Their alternative historical name, "Namaqua", stems from the addition of the
Khoekhoe language suffix
"-qua/kwa", meaning "place of" (found in the names of other Southern African nations like the
Griqua), to the tribe name.
Ancestry from the Khoekhoe People in the Cape Colony In April 1652,
Jan van Riebeeck, an official of the
Dutch East India Company, arrived at the
Cape of Good Hope with 90 people to create a Dutch settlement. There they found the
Khoekhoe people, who had settled in the Cape region at least a thousand years earlier. The Khoekhoe at the Cape practiced pastoral farming; they were the first pastoralists in southern Africa. They lived alongside the
San people, who were hunter-gatherers. The Khoekhoe had several
Nguni cattle and small livestock which they grazed around the Cape. The region was well suited to their lives as pastoralists because it provided enough water for them and their livestock. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as conflicts intensified and Dutch settlements were growing, taking up more space in the colony, the expansion of the colony frontier pushed the Khoekhoe eastwards into the
Eastern Cape and then the "closed frontier" reserves,
Transkei and
Ciskei; and some including the Nama fled northwards, across the so-called "open frontier" into the
Northern Cape and crossed the
Orange River into
German South West Africa, renamed Namibia in 1968. In 1991, a part of
Namaqualand (home of the Nama and one of the last true wilderness areas of South Africa) was named the
Richtersveld National Park. In December 2002, ancestral lands, including the park, were returned to community ownership and the governments of South Africa and Namibia began creating a transfrontier park from the west coast of southern Africa to the desert interior, absorbing the Richtersveld National Park. Today, the Richtersveld National Park is one of the few places where the original Nama traditions survive. There, the Nama move with the seasons and speak their own language. The traditional Nama dwelling – the |haru oms, or portable rush-mat covered domed hut – protects against the blistering sun, and is easy to move when grazing becomes scarce.
Nama People in German South West Africa Some Khoekhoe groups including the Nama under the leadership of David Witbooi (
Hendrik Witbooi's grandfather) had crossed the
Orange River into
German South West Africa. Jager Afrikaner was the Nama indigenous leader from Little Namaqualand to establish a permanent Nama settlement north of the !Garib in 1795 (after the murder of Petrus Pienaar, a Dutch burger) beginning in the late 18th cemtury. In 1823-24, his son |Haramûb |Hoa|arab (Jonker Afrikaner) eventually led a part of the |Hoa|ara ||aixa ||aes (Oorlam Afrikaner Nama community) to the area of |Ae||gams (modern day Windhoek) where they developed a communal society centered on cattle, trade and Christianity and Tsui-||goab and Heitsi-Eibib worship. After his death in 1861. His oldest son Christian Afrikaner assued Chieftancy but fell in battle during the war against Charles Andersson during the early 1860s. The famous and legendary Jan Jonker Afrikaner took over the gaosib (Chieftainship) until his death in battle against the |Khowese gaob (Chief) !Nanseb |Gâbemab (Hendrik Witbooi). Moses Witbooi (Hendrik Witbooi's father) assumed chieftaincy and remained in that position until 1883. Like his father, Hendrik followed Christian practices and worked closely with Johannes Olpp, a Protestant missionary affiliated with
Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft (
Rhenish Mission Society, RMG) who arrived in Gibeon in 1868. Moses, the pr3decessor of Hendrik Witbooi (his father) supported Olpp's efforts to build a church and mission station, and helped found an RMG school in the settlement.
Conflicts between Nama people and Herero people In June 1884
Hendrik Witbooi had taken over leadership from his father, and in that year he began the first of his several treks with his people, north into central
Damaraland in search of new settlement. He had resigned from his position as a church elder a year before. He styled himself as a biblical prophet and gained the support of the most prominent families in
Gibeon. Witbooi established a settlement in Hoornkrans, an important stronghold territory controlled by the
Herero, led by Chief
Maharero. Witbooi's decision to expand his influence into Hoornkrans sparked a protracted military conflict between the two tribes. However, a few months before the conflict began, Maharero had finalized a protection agreement with officials from the newly arrived German colonial administration. Although he knew about Maharero's treaty with Germany, Witbooi never waivered in his decision to confront the Herero people. Witbooi was campaigning for his tribe's supremacy in the colony and he continued to clash with other tribal communities that were under German protection. These rivalries between the Nama people and other tribes posed a significant problem for the imperial government because the Germans' mandate for the colony was gradually being weakened. German leaders therefore sought an end to the conflicts between the Herero and Witbooi Namaqua. François was pressured by the Colonial Society to take action against Witbooi. On April 12, 1893, he launched a surprise attack on Witbooi and his tribe at Hoornkrans. 214 soldiers had been sent with an ultimate objective to "destroy the Witbooi Nama tribe". Though Witbooi and majority of his male soldiers escaped the encirclement, German troops killed nearly one hundred Nama women and children in their sleep. The Nama were unprepared for the raid, believing François was still committed to neutrality. Previously Hendrik had scrupulously avoided harming Germans, but now was compelled to join the colonizers in war. In a series of running skirmishes that lasted for more than a year the Nama had great success, stealing horses and livestock from the German headquarters in Windhoek. At the end of 1893
Theodor Leutwein replaced Von François. He was appointed to the colony to investigate the reasons for the continuing failure to subdue the Nama people. In July 1894 Leutwein asked for 250 troops and with the enlarged army he was able to defeat the Nama people who had run out of ammunition; the English at the Cape and Walvis Bay had refused them assistance. Leiutwein successfully thus subdued the Nama and forced Hendrik to sign a protection treaty. The Nama people were fighters in pre-colonial times, the Namas and the Herero people having fought for control of pastures in central Namibia. This battle continued for much of the 19th century. From 1904 to 1908, the
German Empire, which had colonized present-day Namibia, waged a war against the Nama and the
Herero, leading to the
Herero and Nama genocide and a large loss of life for both the Nama and Herero populations. This was motivated by the German desire to establish a prosperous colony which required displacing the indigenous people from their agricultural land. Large herds of cattle were confiscated and Nama and Herero people were driven into the desert and in some cases interned in concentration camps on the coast, for example at
Shark Island. Additionally, the Nama and Herero were forced into slave labor to build railways and to dig for diamonds during the
diamond rush. In the 1920s diamonds were discovered at the mouth of the
Orange River, and prospectors began moving there, establishing towns at Alexander Bay and
Port Nolloth. This accelerated the appropriation of traditional lands that had begun early in the colonial period. Under
apartheid, remaining tribespeople were encouraged to abandon their traditional lifestyle in favour of village life. At the beginning of the 19th century, the
Oorlam people encroached into Namaqualand and
Damaraland. They descended from the
indigenous Khoekhoe but were a group with mixed ancestry including Europeans and slaves from
Madagascar, India, and
Indonesia. After two centuries of assimilation into the Nama culture, many Oorlams today regard
Khoekhoegowab (Damara/Nama) as their mother tongue, though others speak
Afrikaans. The distinction between Namas and Oorlams has gradually disappeared over time to the extent that they are today regarded as one ethnic group, despite their different ancestries.{{cite book ==Subtribes==