A Pastoral Land-Use History of Omaheke, Namibia, Uppsala

Journal of Namibian Studies, 2 (2007): 141–146 ISSN: 1863-5954

Review: Karl-Johan Lindholm, Wells of attempts to suggest that previous work Experience: a Pastoral Land-use History has poorly understood the relationship of Omaheke, Namibia, Uppsala Uni- of herders with the Omaheke. He goes versity, Studies in Global Archaeology 9, across the border to look at the Dobe 2006. area, and here he uses Wilmsen’s identification of a cow at /Xai/xai as a clue to how much contact probably Karl-Johan Lindholm’s PhD thesis is an existed with herders and hunters in the in-depth study of the history of a dry past. The so-called ‘cow’ from /Xai/xai is section of northeastern Namibia by somewhat problematic. It is an idio- herders. It documents the archaeology syncratic find around any waterhole (as and later historical record of use of Lindholm himself would probably admit, wells in the Omaheke, a communal land since he later in the work describes how area, distinct from the mostly white- little bone does exist around water- owned commercial farms of Ghanzi in holes, and mostly from wild animals). Botswana, Gobabis and Grootfontein in Other researchers have raised doubts Namibia which ring the Omaheke to the about how correct the identification was, west and south. but this can no longer be verified, as Let me begin by saying that this work is the bone has been lost. a major tour de force as a PhD thesis. Lindholm’s survey of the research Lindholm has done an excellent job of background to his thesis is first class. mining the literature, which will be He engages with the history of the Great welcome to future researchers in the Kalahari Debate, and, not surprising area. His research and analysis are both since one of his main sources of well-founded, and his interpretation, encouragement is Ed Wilmsen, there is with somewhat limited archaeological a slight partisan leaning towards the data, logical. revisionist side of the argument. In this Lindholm situates his thesis around there is criticism of the Bushman- misrepresentations of the use of the centred research which he believes area by pastoral people, and focuses on gave primacy of direction in favour of “the ambiguity of livestock herding in the Ju/’hoansi. He is critical of the the archaeological record”. It would ‘isolated and pristine’ vision of the appear that the author’s ideological Bushmen propounded by the Harvard direction is to support possible land Research Group, but does recognise claims of Herero historical right to the that this was an extreme position that Omaheke. This is done by archaeo- even the Harvard Group knew to be logical interpretation and attempts at incomplete. This could be seen as early ‘reading’ the historic record. as Richard Lee’s PhD thesis from The published work is structured into Berkeley in 1964 where he mentioned eight chapters, the second of which that some of his Ju/’hoansi informants looks at the history of research and had worked as herdsmen for Tswana. debates. It also situates Lindholm’s own In some ways this colours the author’s interests around pastoralism, and view of the history of the region, and

allows him to state that interpretation of consisted only of staring at each other the work I did with Richard Lee at for an hour or so, once every two Cho/ana which suggested independence weeks, and had no significant influence of Ju/’hoansi towards outsiders until upon our life there”. Marshall also recently, is our “greatest bias” (p. describes how isolated the different 139).1 Ju/’hoansi groups were from each other An example of how peripheral the (ibid: 21), never mind the outside world. Ju/’hoansi were to outsiders can be One of our informants, an elder named seen in Marshall where she describes N/ani, showed us his campsite from the the police post at Cho/ana in the early 1960s at Cho/ana. We mapped the site 1950s.2 This was the de facto border that was located behind the remains of with British Bechuanaland and the route the round huts of the Tswana, pre- by which Ovambo labour was trans- sumably Moremi’s family.3 Thus there ported by the Witwatersrand Native was a strict hierarchy in the layout of Labour Association to the mines on the the settlement. highveld of South Africa. The post was Chapter 3 is a good description of the controlled by a Tswana man named environment of the Omaheke, with a list Moremi. Marshall (ibid: 7) says: “…a of pasture grasses, and the animals to group of !Kung worked for him, tending be found in the area. Current settlement his cornfields and his cattle. Tsho/ana patterns and population densities found was also the waterhole of Band 24; the during the research are also offered, band lived independently of Moremi’s along with some discussion on the post”. Moremi had deepened the Communal Area, and the Nyae Nyae waterhole at Cho/ana by either blasting Conservancy. The latter is described in or digging (ibid: 73). rather negative terms, such as She goes on to say (ibid: 8) “Our “despair”, “dependency” and “vio- contact and that of the !Kung with the lence”, without any reference to the Bantu who passed through Tsho/ana history of SADF use of the area in the 1970s and the introduction of a cash economy and a liquor store at Tsumkwe 1 A. B. Smith, & R. B. Lee, “Cho/ana: that disrupted the traditional sharing archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence for recent hunter-gatherer/agropastoralist contact in ethic. The two paragraphs on this give a Northern Bushmanland, Namibia”, South African sub-text that the pastoralists make Archaeological Bulletin 52, 1997: 52-55; A. B. better use of the land, so should have Smith, “Ethnohistory and archaeology of the more rights? Ju/’hoansi Bushmen”, African Study Monographs, Supplement Issue 26, 2001: 15-27; R. B. Lee, Chapter 4 is a history of the Omaheke, “Solitude or servitude. Ju/’hoansi images of the with the intended purpose to show “how colonial encounter”, in: S. Kent, (ed), Ethnicity, the assumption of an unsuitable Hunter-gatherers, and the ‘Other’. Association or environment came into being”. The Assimilation in Africa, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press,2002: 184-205. 2 L. Marshall, The !Kung of Nyae Nyae. 3 A. B. Smith, “The archaeology of the Ju/’hoansi Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Bushmen”, Archeologia Africana, 1999, 5: 75- 1976. 84.

142

author concludes with the statement (p. the region. This is done by survey and 51) that “the common notion of the excavation of a number of wells across Omaheke…which implies a dry a large area from the Epukiro and Eiseb impassable barrier unsuitable for drainages in the south to Dobe Pan livestock herding, may be open to north of Tsumkwe. As predicted by the question”. His reading of the history is historical data there are huge number that Herero used the entire Omaheke, of water points in the upper reaches of including the lower reaches of the the Epukiro and Eiseb Valleys. These Epukiro and Eiseb before the German become fewer elsewhere in the study occupation, and not just as a result of area, but when combined with hunting being forced away from the richer upper blinds the number is augmented. The end of this catchment. author admits that “traces of human Lindholm accepts Passarge’s statement activities are few and obscure in that Tswana cattle were being herded in Omaheke”. This is certainly our experi- Nyae Nyae by Bushmen (probably a ence in doing casual surveys around mafisa arrangement, as documented in wells, partially, I believe, because there Lee), and that Herero “inhabit the has been so much disturbance by cattle sandveld at the upper end of the there. While Later Stone Age materials Epukiro and Eiseb…the Omuramba and pottery are not plentiful, Cho/ana Omatako”.4 Passarge also mentions does give some indication that they several “colonies” of Herero further exist, and I found flaked stone to a east in Kaukauveld. This can be read as depth of 40 cm close to /Gam, as does the Bushmen were basically in control of Lindholm at Otjozondema (pp. 121- the lower Eiseb (i.e. around /Gam), as 128). All this demonstrates prior hunter well as Nyae Nyae and Kaudom. That use of the area. the southern area had been controlled Chapter 6 offers data on the potential of by Bushmen under the leader ≠Dukuri the Omaheke for pastoral use, and in the mid-19th century when Baines and shows that “the assumption that the Chapman travelled in the area is well Omaheke environment cannot sustain documented.5 Outsiders’ use of the livestock herding can be questioned on area would have been contingent on almost every point” (p. 108). I doubt negotiation with the Bushmen. that any researcher would even Chapter 5 looks at a different source of question this, especially after the information: that of the archaeology of original cattle experiment of John Marshall with the Nyae Nyae Farmers Cooperative in the 1980s that initially 4 E. N. Wilmsen, (ed.)., The Kalahari Ethnogra- was so successful. As long as the cattle phies (1896-1898) of Siegfried Passarge, Köln, Köppe, 1997: 205, 86; R. B. Lee, The !Kung San: numbers were low and they were Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society, protected from lions, they did very well Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979. in and around /Gautsha and !ao/a, 5 M. Guenther, 1993-94. “‘Independent, fearless especially after the elephant-proof and rather bold’: a historical narrative on the pump system was in place at the latter Ghanzi Bushmen”, Namibia Scientific Society, 44, 1994-94: 25-40.

143

well.6 The problem would be in elements in hunting societies. His sustainable use of the land for herding if revision of the archaeology wants to numbers increased. One could see the make the pottery the result of area having seasonal potential after the pastoralist occupation. He fails to rains, and most likely this would have recognise that the pottery found in the been the practice in the lower Epukiro Kaudom and Nyae Nyae is mostly cross- and Eiseb drainages in the past by hatched ware of Mbukushu origin.7 The Herero. Mbukushu are fisher/farmers on the Chapter 7 is an attempt at offering a Kavango River to the north. Kinahan chronology for the Omaheke wells. notes the appearance of another There is little in the argument by the pottery type in Nyae Nyae, a comb- author to give confidence that the water stamped ware that is not Mbukushu.8 In points in the Nyae Nyae were originally our excavations at Cho/ana, comb- opened up by the Herero, rather than stamped ware was found stratified Ju/’hoansi, even when the herders have beneath the Mbukushu pottery, and names for the wells. I think Lindholm is identified by Tom Huffman as Divuyu pushing his luck by suggesting that ware from the Tsodilo area.9 because the origin of the small circular As argued by Smith & Lee, and by Lee and oval rectangular wells are unknown from the information given by Ju/’hoansi to his informants this necessarily elders, there were no black people in indicates an earlier phase of pastoral the Kaudom and Nyae Nyae until the use (p. 121). His use of the data from late 19th century, a situation that would Otjozondema shows a mixture of flaked appear supported by Passarge’s notes stone and undecorated pottery, along on the people he met south of the with 15 small bone fragments are too Kavango River in the Kaudom Valley.10 amorphous to say much. Wilmsen’s Passarge does say he saw the Herero predictive plotting of dates with depth is ‘colonies’ in the Upper Chaudum (which questionable in the sandy matrix, and according to his map would refer to the should be used with extreme caution. Nhoma Valley where Cho/ana is Any dates younger than 500 years are located).11 These he suggested were always suspect. At best, there may be a the result of pressure from warfare, but stratified sequence. more likely herders fleeing the rinder- One gets the impression that the author pest epidemic. wishes to conflate the Omaheke with the area to the north, including the Kaudum 7 Smith/Lee, Cho/ana ; J. Kinahan, “Settlement and the Omatako Omuramba. He earlier patterns and regional exchange: evidence from in the work (p. 13) debates the issue of recent Iron Age sites on the Kavango River, Northeastern Namibia”, Cimbebasia, (Ser. B) 3 pottery occurrences over this large (4), 1986: 109-116. area, suggesting that previous research 8 Kinahan, “Settlement”: 115. had the bias towards pottery as exotic 9 Smith, “Ethnohistory”. 10 Smith/Lee, Cho/ana ;Lee, “Solitude”; Wilmsen, 6 A. B. Smith, Pastoralism in Africa, London, Kalahari . Hurst, 1992: plate 14. 11 Ibid,: 86.

144

The combination of the ethnohistoric 1952). The pot must have travelled information we were given by our over 250 km from its source on the Ju/’hoansi informants and the Passarge Kavango River, and was a good journal led us to accept that the illustration of the movement of certain Ju/’hoansi, right up to the 1960s were exotic commodities being transferred going on trading forays to the Kavango through xharo exchange networks.14 from Cho/ana and to choose when to do This piece of pottery had been carefully this and with whom to trade. Details of curated, and seen as an important the trade have been given by Hautmann family heirloom. /Xao !oma told us Muller in 1911.12 This has allowed us to where various commodities came from suggest a scenario of independence in the past. From the north: pots, consistent with the picture offered by copper, wooden bowls, wooden spoons, Lorna Marshall of her observations in large white glass beads, spear points, the 1950s. All contact would seem to knobkerries (with same decoration as have been with the north, except when the pottery), a small red nut. From the refugees on their last legs managed to east (L. Ngami): tobacco, large white escape from the Germans and enter the glass beads, gourd milk containers, area without stock. Anyone who has shoes. From the south: ostrich eggshell, travelled through the waterless country strike-a-lights, small red and black glass and dense vegetation to the west of beads, arrow straighteners, wooden Cho/ana would recognise the difficulty in mortars and pestles, metal enamel getting through, a fact that Mattenklodt bowls. From the west (Eiseb): ostrich found when he almost died trying to get eggshell beads. The north, thus, was a to Grootfontein from Nyae Nyae.13 major source of commodities that had I was fortunate to visit /Gam in 1998 to come through the Kaudom and Nyae with Polly Wiessner. There we met an Nyae. old Bushman named /Xao !oma who What happened in the south, particularly told us about his life, and who showed in the Eiseb area, may have been very us a piece of Mbukushu pottery which different. Since pastoralists always take had been given to him by his aunt advantage of good pasture conditions around 1950, before he was when they find them, there is no reason ‘blackbirded’, i.e. forced into labour by a to doubt that pasture forays out of the white farmer. The pot had been buried, heart of Herero lands before they were then later broken by cattle after John stolen by the Germans would have Marshall arrived (i.e. sometime after meant using the Eiseb as an avenue of infiltration towards /Gam. This does not mean, however, that they necessarily 12 R. J. Gordon, “The !Kung in the Kalahari exchange: an ethnohistorical perspective”, in: C. spent long periods there, and could Schrire, (ed), Past and Present in Hunter- easily have made good use of the water Gatherer Studies, New York, Academic Press, 1984: 195-224: (207). 14 P. Wiessner, “The pathways of the past: !Kung 13 W. Mattenklodt, A Fugitive in South West Africa San hxaro exchange and history”, in: M. Bollig & 1908-1920, London, Thornton Butterworth, F. Klees, (eds), Überlebensstrategien in Afrika, 1931. Colloquium Africanum 1, 1994: 101-124.

145

holes of the Bushmen, enlarging them for animal-watering purposes. It also does not mean that they could be considered the ‘owners’ of the land and water resources. Their tenure would have had to depend on their relations with the Ju/’hoansi. In the work there was only a limited attempt to ask the Bushmen what their history was, and what they remember of the use of the water holes/wells (p. 119), or to ask the Herero what their relationships were with the Bushmen. Although he might not be aware of it, in spite of his excellent research into the oral traditions around the use of the wells, Lindholm tends to leave the Bushmen out of the equation. In this he would diminish any Bushman claims to aboriginal use of the border area of north-eastern Namibia. This will only pander to those in the corridors of power in Windhoek who wish to settle people from the outside, as has been suggested for Nyae Nyae. Like many assumptions that have gone before, such as the gazetting of the Kaudom as a Nature Reserve, or creating Herero- land East, the Bushmen are seen to be incapable of ‘properly’ using the land and resources, or being the ‘owners’ of the wells. The Ju/’hoansi around /Gam today are really third-class citizens in what was once their own land.

Andrew B. Smith Department of Archaeology University of Cape Town

146