“The Bergdama”

Journal of Namibian Studies, 2 (2007): 129–140 ISSN: 1863-5954

Review: Adi Inskeep, Heinrich Vedder’s gies to make themselves unobtrusive. “The Bergdama”. An annotated They have not, however, always been translation of the German original with innocent refugees or simple hunters additional ethnographic material, and gatherers. They have never been Volumes I and II, Köln, Köppe, 2003. disinclined to trespass and steal when it appeared that they could get away with it, and have sometimes planned raids The human species is widely regarded on their neighbours, whether of their as having evolved into its present form own type or of other peoples, no less somewhere in Africa and as having eagerly than their neighbours have set subsequently spread out to populate about robbing them. Nevertheless, in much of the rest of the globe. There are the book translated here, the author good grounds for this belief, grounds so makes it clear that whereas attacks on good that these days any alternative other Dama were usually provoked by view is generally felt in intellectual blood-feuds or the violation of what they circles to be idiosyncratic and worthy, saw as hunting and gathering rights, perhaps not exactly of scorn, but at their quarrels with their Nama and least of a doubtful smile. Nevertheless, Herero neighbours often resulted from despite all the attention lavished during the Dama practice of attracting game by the past two centuries on attempts to firing what these others regarded as lighten the darkness of the Dark grazing grounds and thereby occa- Continent, despite the abundance of sioning the growth of fresh vegetation. scholarship devoted to it both externally Other factors, mainly their occasional and internally, there yet remain aspects identification by Nama with even more of the populating of Africa itself which powerful peoples such as the Herero, have so far defied straightforward on occasion helped them to elude elucidation; and not the least of these is culpability. the mystery of one of its humblest population groups: the Dama of In two ways especially they seem always Namibia. to have stood out, phenotypically, from their other neighbours. Among Bush- Perhaps one reason for this may lie in man San or Nama Khoi, they have been the attitudes of their immediate conspicuously black, so that for some neighbours and the extent to which this time they have been seen as part of has coloured the conclusions of newer encroaching Bantu-speakers, and re- arrivals towards them. In ages when the garded as connected with the Herero resources of Namibia have been a (who are, or were, themselves also matter of contention among more referred to as Dama by the Nama), settled and more recent immigrants not cattle-less contrasted with cattle-Dama. only have the Dama tended to withdraw The fact that, like the Herero, the Dama themselves, often into obscure and have a cult of the sacred fire, would relatively inaccessible fastnesses, or to have contributed to this, and although submit quite readily to subjection, but the two cults differ significantly in detail they have also practised other strate- they share enough common features to

suggest strongly that they originally Hermann Heinrich Vedder was born in derived from a common origin. The 1876 at Westerenger in Westphalia into looser beliefs and practices of the a devout family of farmers and weavers. Herero in this regard may be connected He was educated at the local Volks- to a different attitude to place than that schule, trained as a missionary of the possessed by the Dama – the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft, and sacrosanctity of the fire to the Dama, arrived in Namibia in 1903. Of major and the beliefs respecting its extinction advantage to a missionary is linguistic and rekindling, can be readily linked to competence, and Vedder possessed the anxieties of migration, allayed this to an outstanding degree. He had among the Herero by a securer sense taught himself Greek (koine, kathare- of possession associated with becoming vousa) from a study of the New geographically settled The Dama are Testament, quickly mastered English in hunter-gatherers, but then so are the a few months in England, and in then Ovahimba, an offshoot of the Herero. German South West Africa attained great Confusion has also been further proficiency in Nama and Otjiherero as confounded by the fact that the well as in an Ambo and a Bushman language that the Dama speak is not a (San) language. Though it is not Bantu one, but Khoisan: not only that, precisely stated which this Ambo but identical except in a few minor language was, it seems most likely to details with that of the Nama. This led have been Oshindonga, since he would for a time to the theory that the Dama almost certainly have had access to the arrived in the region as slaves of the dictionary and abbreviated grammar of Nama, slaves who, like slaves else- Otjiherero, heavily interlarded with where, had lost their own language(s) comparisons from Oshindonga, (taken and been forced to assume that of their as the type-language of Ambo), masters. This is something which they compiled by Heinrich Brincker of the themselves strongly deny, though up Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft and until quite recently some of them have published in 1886. The San language indeed been held in subjection by was !Kung, of the fundamentals of which Nama. A puzzle evidently centuries old, Vedder published an account in 1910- and one which it took a remarkable man 11 in the Zeitschrift für Kolonial- to set about solving. This book sprachen. His earliest duties had by discloses his efforts and comments in then already brought him into contact detail on his results and those of his with the Dama at Karibib and Swakop- successors. To what extent he, and mund; he later moved to Omaruru with those who followed him, have been the objective of ministering to them, and successful is still not clear; but he – and then on to Ghaub in the Otavi Highlands, his translator – at least have contri- where he began to devote specific study buted more to the solution, and more to their dialect(s) of Nama and to the lucidly, than anyone else before or traditions and customs of the people since. themselves. Out of this grew the first of his two greatest and most detailed

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contributions to Namibian studies, Die In doing so she discovered the need Bergdama, published by L. Friedrichsen also to amplify Vedder’s record by of Hamburg in 1923. The second, Das taking into account the later work of alte Südwestafrika, was published in Viktor Lebzelter, which she has done by 1934 by the Martin Warneck Verlag of supplementing her work with a trans- Berlin and, in an excellent (though lation of the 80 pages of the latter’s incomplete) English translation by Cyril Eingeborenenkulturen in Südwest- und Hall, by Frank Cass & Co of London (in Südafrika which deal with the Dama and arrangement with the Oxford University by scattering the results (fittingly Press) in 1938. Die Bergdama, acknowledged) at appropriate places in however, remained available only in Vedder’s text. Vedder, a meticulous German until the publication of the ethnographer, by this and by his present volumes. translator’s occasional passages of Adi Inskeep was first seriously drawn to commentary, is brought more into line study the Dama when, bedridden in with the requirements of contemporary Oxford and finding the management of anthropology. This has called for heavy volumes difficult or impossible, something which would be not simply a her serious reading was virtually limited straightforward translation interleaved to the perusal of xerox sheets provided in places with commentaries and for her by the Bodleian Library. Among additions taken from other observers these was what amounted to a complete and writers. The expansion that has copy of Vedder’s Die Bergdama. resulted has necessitated to some German was not a language entirely extent a breaking up of the original (in familiar to her, but she was intrigued by no way a deconstruction) and the the records of the existence of a hunter- recapitulation of some of Vedder’s work gatherer society of very dark people into sections additional to those who, though certainly not San or Khoi, originally intended. As a result we are spoke a Khoisan language and presented not only with the original practised an individual culture distinct work and some supplementation, but from those of other Khoisan-speaking also with a third section which makes hunter-gatherers and of the neigh- additional use of some contemporary bouring Bantu-speaking Negro pasto- facilities not available to Vedder but ralists. She resolved to dig deeper. This which we can be reasonably certain that of course needed more German than a man of his calibre and interests would that at her command, and, finding that have welcomed. Thus perspectives are the book had never been translated into broadened and avenues opened, in a English, she embarked on a serious way perhaps not so much simply placing study of German, which led on, contemporary Dama into the context of ultimately, to a resolve that, having contemporary Namibia as providing found a gap that needed to be filled, them and their congeners with the she would fill it by making a translation secure confidence of at least a well- herself. checked recent historical and socio- cultural background. In this the

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translator has been supported and subsequent travellers to the south- encouraged by her husband, the western parts of Africa during the next archaeologist Ray Inskeep, who has two centuries became increasingly likely provided a preface for this work. It is to to include the Dama. The accounts of him that we are indebted for pointing the most informative among such out that the Dama are not, strictly travellers have been edited by E. E. speaking, just hunter-gatherers, and Mossop and published by the Van this not only because part of their Riebeeck Society. The names Damara subsistence often depends on their and Damrocqua frequently recur, as do keeping a few goats, but also because mentions of copper-working, a charac- they are, strictly speaking, trapper- teristic Dama skill, as well as accounts gatherers, since a greater proportion of which progressively discriminate them their diet derives from setting traps than more sharply from their neighbours. As from hunting. Sadly, Ray Inskeep died the influx of perceptive missionaries and shortly before this book was published. travellers into the area grew in number, The first traceable mention of the Dama so did unmistakable mentions of the is credited by Vedder in Das alte Dama. No longer were they encountered Südwestafrika to the appearance in an mainly by passing sailors, encroaching (unspecified) Portuguese map of a settlers, fleeing adventurers or youthful Kingdom of Mataman in the north of emissaries of the Dutch East India what is now Namibia. The ascription is Company: the newer observers were dubious, involving as it does the likely to be traders or educated assumption that the Portuguese carto- clergymen and scientists and strongly grapher kept ma- as signifying a motivated army officers or civil servants. collective plural in some language of This led to more detailed though not Angola, with the first consonant of the necessarily mutually altogether compa- stem becoming unvoiced and the Nama tible accounts of the Dama, scrupulously masculine pluraln being retained. summarized by Vedder’s translator from Furthermore, it may be doubted the accounts in Lebzelter and in whether the Dama have ever lived in Vedder’s own section on them in The any concentration under so imposing a Native Tribes of South West Africa. The government as to merit the title of a scattered passages dealing with them in kingdom. It is nevertheless quite likely the travel records of Baines, Alexander, (though not certain) that the dark-hued Campbell, Schinz, Andersson, von honey-gatherers encountered by Vasco François, Möller, Lichtenstein, Galton, da Gama at St. Helena Bay may have Gürich, Irle, Coates Palgrave, Burchell, been Dama. On the other hand, the Chapman, and others have had good statement in the Roteiro of Gama’s use made of them by Adi Inskeep, voyage that the keepers of substantial particularly in her own major herds of cattle encountered a few days contribution which makes up Part Three later at Mossel Bay resembled them of this work. The multiplicity of suggests that they were not. Be that as mentions, however, have served less to it may, the various peoples described by explain the Dama than to add to

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ongoing confusion about their struck by a more startling parallel, the background, not made any easier by curious likeness of the myth to the Vedder’s determination to include as classical Greek tale of Leda, especially many as he could of the facts at his the rebirth of twin brothers, separately disposal. It needs to be borne in mind from their sister, out of an egg.) that, although the Dama are scattered An appreciative note by great linguist in pockets across Namibia, Vedder’s Carl Meinhof prefaces a section devoted direct contact with them occurred mainly to the Poetic Art of the Bergdama; but in the area to the north and west of the the interest of this turns out to be as Swakop River. This is, admittedly, the great from a literary as from a linguistic area most densely inhabited by them standpoint. The songs and narratives and is known as Damaraland. It includes and praises of the Herero fit quite neatly the fastness of the Parasis Mountains into a poetic tradition that has followed where the “caste” distinction between the Bantu expansion, and those of the the /Ou-khoin or Mountaintop Dama and Nama are strongly influenced by a fairly the !Hom-khoin or Bergdama, of which long contact with Christian missionaries. Vedder makes much, has been Both these peoples and the Bushmen particularly evident. Nevertheless, he share with the Dama the same range of was careful to enumerate the “tribal” musical instruments, horns, pipes, the divisions among the Dama as well as he musical bow and a stringed instrument could, culling information from a number variously described as a harp or a of sources and discussing it amply while guitar. Both and the Dama differ from setting it down. In places this leads to their Bushman neighbours in having left elaborations above and beyond the no legacy of pictorial art or of curing simply geographical, until at times it with the help of dances. There is almost seems to verge on the fanciful, though as great a profusion of Dama proverbs one is brought up sharply by the as there are in many Western European recollection that Vedder was a man of languages, and some of them happen high principle and unlikely to invent coincidentally to echo each other (the baseless facts. Nonetheless the book is Dama “There are two dawns” = the packed with facts to such an extent that Afrikaans “Môre is nog ‘n dag,” there’s it would be unlikely if there were no another day tomorrow.) The effect of clashes. There are differences, for the missionaries on the Dama has not instance, between different versions of been of such long duration, and Vedder the Aga-Abes myth, which might appear and Lebzelter both had the opportunity at first sight to be so general as to unite to comment on the nature and content rather than divide, but seems rather to of traditional poetic expression and derive from a single narrative which in make textual records of or about it. It its serial transmission has split into contrasts with that of most peoples by deviant versions – no more so, one reflecting but in no way codifying their might say, than divergent climactic traditional religious beliefs. It frequently passages among the four Christian has a dramatic narrative content, Gospels. (This reviewer, however, was actually acted out in performance with

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its recitation. It cannot be divorced from which the Nama have discarded. There song and dance, or, it seems, from is also idiosyncratic use of some parts death: a great many of the texts of speech and of post-positions, and recorded are laments. None of the also suffixial extensions of varying examples given expresses in the signification. The absence of particles narrative a myth or a legend, though which in Nama convey nuances is some have a kind of ritual significance. especially distinctive; this is noticeable There is a curious simplicity about the in the expression of tense and could traditional central religious creed, which argue for a disregard for temporal involves a single Supreme Being precision among the Dama. A juggling instrumental for both good and evil, and with word order can also on occasion an afterlife to which no term, it appears, lead to confusion among non-Dama is allotted. Both writers are, from the addressed. evidence of the examples given, justified Lexical differences are more likely to be in regarding the Dama as poetically changes in cognates than distinctive peculiarly gifted. elements. Such cognates are abundant. One main interest of the Dama There are nonetheless a number of contribution to verbal art arises from words which have a Nama form but no the evidence it in places appears to meaning in Nama. It is possible that provide for the original possession by these are true remnants of one or more the Dama of a language other than the older languages. Such are found in the one shared with the Nama. Vedder poetic repertoire more commonly than discusses the possibility that pro- (if at all) in every day speech, and may nunciation, articulation of the click- in fact represent survival for poetic sounds and the command of verbal rather than more ordinary reasons. tone, may afford an indication of the Examined individually such lexical influence of a lost language, but elements do not invariably carry what dismisses this as in many cases might elsewhere be regarded as a anatomically conditioned. For this he poetic significance. (but then such cites the fact that such variations significance is not readily definable: one appear to occur among Dama indi- is reminded of a Shona love-poem viduals. He does, nevertheless, adduce collected by Hodza and Fortune, in the fact that there are differences from which the length of the beloved’s neck Nama speech which are of a gramma- is acclaimed as being unable to be tical nature and relate to accidence and climbed by a louse without resting.). syntax and differ from one Dama group Vedder acutely draws attention to the to another, being most distinctive fact that none of the non-Nama words in among the /Ou-khoin of the mountain- fact contain click-sounds; unfortunately tops and some dwellers in the veld. He he does not comment on tone-pitch regards these as archaic residues, variations, but it is unlikely that so acute though he does ascribe some of them an observer would not have noted these to retention among the Dama of if they were manifestly significant. The essentially Nama linguistic elements attempts occasionally made to link the

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Dama linguistically with Nilo-Hamitic these to the “settlement tree” and the elements do not appear to this reviewer place of the Holy Fire. At the same time to carry much weight derivable from such basic patterns as those of kinship these abundant and characteristic recognition and mutual responsibilities examples of Dama poetic expression. would have remained relatively constant Considering the extent to which the among people subjected to similar Dama have segmented, though, and the stresses. degree of variation, there is among There is a degree of fission, not always them even in the Nama which they directly attributable to historical factors, speak, it is surprising how coherent but the essential patterns and principles among them the family structure and appear to be due to shared sets of the domestic economy are and how experiences and to differ mainly in the markedly these differ from those of the expedients devised for dealing with neighbouring peoples. Much the same them. This provides good grounds for applies to their games, which tend to be the postulation of a single (shared) secular and derivative, and to their evolution over a number of generations, dances, which tend to embrace a one, moreover, which has taken place religious element. The latter, together not in the course of migration but in the with their overriding fundamental course of adaptation to a single but monotheism, provide us with some of difficult terrain. This could have led to the best grounds for thinking their economically provoked segmentations settlement in the region to have been of during which drifting apart of, and considerable antiquity. Furthermore, perhaps strife for resources between, where resources are sparse it takes a the segments might be responsible for great deal of trial and error to find ways any major subsequent distinctions. of making the best of them, and more There are, of course, objections which still for the solutions of fundamental can be raised to any such postulates. If problems to gain general acceptance. the Dama do comprise a single people, The construction of dwelling-places, for why should there be within them instance, admittedly depends on where different traditions concerning the they are situated and on the building direction from which they originally materials available. But there are came? It may be argued that for a relatively immutable rules which have “primitive” people there would not be all come to be accepted in all the Dama that much difference between the south- "tribes": for instance those governing east suggested in one tradition and the the layout of settlements, the positions east proposed in the other. To anyone of the Holy Fire and of the “male” and who has worked among preliterate “female” houses, the situations of the peoples such an argument carries little firewood, the water-vessels, the other weight. Those who keep records in their utensils, the areas where strangers and heads are much more aware of the children might sleep, and the storage natural world than are those who have areas for clothes and the pens for learned to depend on the written word. livestock, and the relationship of all Moreover, the disparate stories can

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suggest that the Dama may have from his own personal observations. It originated from the fusion of two might even be suggested that he might strains, perhaps from the withdrawal of have benefited later comers had he autochthones from the threatening exceeded the remit he had set himself approach of migrants from two different and attempted more often to hazard directions. This would fit in with the reasons for the state of affairs he was southward movements of Bantu- observing But that would possibly have speakers down and to the east of the deprived his translator not only of the Rift Valley, displacing the relics of earlier opportunity to supplement a record of migrant Khoi and San to the south- facts until it became a useful westward, the former of whom, as anthropological repository but also of pastoralists, would present a challenge much of her reasons for embarking on to the incumbent inhabitants. It is her own researches, for her questioning possible to speculate that the Dama of informants and her grounds for acquisition of the Nama language might deploying recent anthropological have represented a need to establish material towards further unravelling of communications with the newcomers. the puzzles which the Dama pose. The The translator, however, quotes Wilfrid use of what she has discovered, Haacke, Eliphas Eiseb and Levi combined with her commentaries and Namaseb (1997) who have found the the interpretations she has given to it in roots of Dama speech to have been the light of the established work of grounded not, as Vedder claimed, in Vedder and Lebzelter, make up the last Nama, but in proto-Khoe. This would third of what she has transformed into a not, however, exclude the possibility comprehensive and up-to-date work. that this could have helped to enable Furthermore, in this section she has not mutual understanding of a kind between been afraid to speculate, and though the peoples. some might cavil at these speculations Both Vedder and his translator (and, of they are ones which needed to be course, Lebzelter and many of the made. If later work will refute them, well others who have dealt, even in passing, and good: she has not represented with the Dama) have been diligent not them as irrefutable, and indeed all her only in searching written records but work, both in translation and her own have also been in a position to question interpretations of the facts presented, living representatives of the people. amounts to an encouragement to yet Vedder, being the excellent ethno- more scholars to read Vedder and while grapher he was, made a record of what acknowledging his achievement to add was accessible to him, and has to it from what they themselves have furnished us with a compilation which discovered or determined. deals with a previously largely un- Adi Inskeep opens this final section with obtrusive people in great detail. What is a consideration of the Dama and their more, he has very rarely been carried interaction in one way and another with away by speculation; his accounts of their neighbours – especially in the way almost everything he put down derived they might have experienced

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“Bushman” and “Hottentot” influences, originally hunter-gatherer Kwangali particularly that of the Hei//om, who rulers, and supports this by citing share (variants of) the Aga-Abes myth appropriate myths. She devotes a great with them. She has had at her disposal deal of space and effort to underlining the corpus of recent work, largely that the similarities, and though these are of Trefor Jenkins and Himla Soodyall and present the upshot of a great part of those who have worked with them, her argument is simply a recapitulation though it was originally the work of the of the origin of the Dama as Negroes Knussmans which confirmed that the and the persistence of some essentially Dama had to be considered as Negro attitudes and custom. She sees biologically Negro. It must be granted this as spreading to some extent into that their methods of sample selection Ambo custom and outlook, even to were far from ideal and that their suggesting that the important position contributions are based on demo- of women in Dama society may some- graphically inadmissible premisses, but how have influenced the Ambo to adopt their results stemmed largely from the matriliny – an improbable suggestion, in detection in the Dama of gene markers the light of the broad band of matrilineal which set them definitively apart from societies which runs east-to-west across the San and even, though to a lesser Africa at those latitudes. Notably, too, extent, from the main Negro groups in the position of the smith in Ambo the region. Other workers were soon to society resembles the same in a great confirm in addition that there was a many African societies. However the fact lower Khoisan contribution to the Dama that the situation of the smith alternates genome than had already been between societies from aversion detected among the various Bantu- through fear to cautious respect, and speakers of the region. This fitted in may reflect an original dread of pollution with what Estermann had concluded on deriving from the lowliness or mystery of biologically less sophisticated grounds his origins, is not mentioned. about some of the peoples of southern She cogently raises the subject of other Angola and published in 1956. hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa, to Estermann establishes as far from which Vedder gave very little unlikely (and in fact not uncommonly consideration. For this he is by no acknowledged) connection between means to be blamed, as what was these peoples and the Dama, and known of them in his day was scanty extends it to include some of the most and depended to a great extent on the prominent groups among the Ambo. expectations, to some degree on the Vedder makes a passing reference to intellectual background, of those who this in Das alte Südwestafrika (though observed them and chose to leave Lebzelter records them as being records of their observations. They were antipathetic). Adi Inskeep regards most likely to be seen first by relatively aspects of Kwanyama ritual as an unschooled people who remarked that adaptation to an agricultural setting of they were black and spoke click- hunter-gatherer practices imposed by containing languages which did not

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contain words or speech patterns try to prevent the scent of strange and resembling those of the more familiar frightening strangers from interfering click-using black people such as the and disturbing their prey. They, like the Zulu and the Xhosa. For this reason Dama, were often said often to regard they were lumped together and domestic animals simply as prey, and, dismissed together as “black like the lighter-skinned San were not Bushmen”, a classification at which on infrequently hunted into local extinction. the whole their more organised and Examples of this are common, from the more sophisticated Bantu-speaking stories in central Africa of little men who neighbours connived. Thus it was that demanded one to tell them where they for a long time any specific consider- had first been sighted, and if the reply ation of them tended to be sidelined. implied that they were seen as small They were accepted as being melanotic, that would be dangerous for the person though not morbidly afflicted, Bushmen, asked and might lead to his killing the and that was that. interlocutor in self-defence, to the This could not, however, save them from accounts given to the present reviewer being subsumed into Southern African when he worked among the Transkei legend; not just that of the indigenous Mpondomisi, of campaigns of extermi- peoples and the later Bantu immigrants nation of Bushmen deliberately carried from the north, but the tales told by the out, by blacks and whites to protect white settlers spreading out from the their cattle. south. Of course the stories interleaved The black hunter-gatherers are to be and became confusing, and a number of found not in widespread groups but associations, some of them mutually generally in enclaves. Prominent among contradictory, accrued to them. In many them are the Yeii or Koba of the instances the people referred to were Okavango Swamps, the Bakgalagadi taken as being small. This is, in fact, the inhabiting the desert south of Lake connotation most properly given for the Ngami, and scattered parties of term “Twa” and its cognates, and “Masarwa” (a name cognate with contradicts that of “stranger, foreigner, “Twa”) to the east and south and inferior” originally given by M. D. W. inconstantly spilling over into Zimbabwe Jeffries. It is more often used in a simple and South Afria. The mass of the last- diminutive sense, as in the derivation of named comprises the Denasena. The the names widely given to peoples Kattea, usually included with them, are considered small. It extends far to the more often mentioned than actually north, and is applied to some Pygmies seen. Like the Dama, all of these are (or by their associates. The “black are reputed to be) round-eyed, sharp- Bushmen” were often regarded as featured and dark-skinned, unlike the small, and though their growth was ubiquitous San. Like the Dama, too, they nutritionally restricted in many cases make expert use of traps. Some this did not always accord with physical construct huts resembling those of the actuality. They were shy: not un- Otavi Dama. Many of them speak Sotho naturally, since as hunters they would or Tswana but are said to retain their

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own click-languages as a means of hiding their meanings and intentions George T. Nurse when in the company of Bantu- London speakers. Residues, or memories, of such people are widespread, extending from southern Tanzania to the Lovedu References gynaecocracy in the north-eastern (Rather than transcribing references included in Transvaal. Adi Inskeep has unearthed the book reviewed, the following consist only of and discussed a great deal of what is references which might be helpful to later workers in addition to those in the book. No known of such peoples, but there is still claims are made that these are comprehensive.). much work to be done before we can be sure of any connection with the Dama. Brincker, H., Wörterbuch und kurzgefasste It is worth remarking in conclusion that Grammatik des Otji-Herero mit Beifügung the ongoing emergence from among the verwandter Ausdrücke und Formen des Dama of intellectually curious individuals Otshi-Ndonga – Otj-Ambo, Leipzig, Weigel, interested in and close to the remaining 1886. conservers of their native traditions is Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., "African Pygmies: an evaluation of the state of research", in: L. L. likely before very long to add new Cavalli-Sforza, (ed.), African Pygmies, insights which will affect and transform Orlando, Academic Press, 1986: 361-426. the way in which that people is regarded Chasko, W. J., G. T. Nurse, H. C. Harpending, and in the future. This may mean that some T. Jenkins, (1979), “Serogenetic studies on of Adi Inskeep’s speculations, based to a ‘Masarwa’ population of north-eastern some extent on the findings of recent Borswana”, Botswana Notes and Records 1979, 11: 15-23. external investigators and prompted by Estermann, Pãe Carlos, Etnográfia do sudoeste her anthropological training, may end de Angola, vol.1 Os povos não-bantos e o up losing cogency more rapidly than the grupo étnico dos Ambos, Porto, Ministero ethnographical stringency of Vedder will. do Ultramar, 1956. This would not, however, diminish in any Haacke, W., E. Eiseb and L. Namaseb, “Internal way the credit due to her for not only and external relations of Khoekhoe dialects: making a scrupulous translation of a a preliminary survey”, in: Wilfrid H.G. Haacke and Edward E. Elderkin, (eds.), Namibian seminal work for the study of the Languages: Reports and Papers, Köln, peoples of Namibia, but also the Köppe, 1997: 125-209. copious commentary with which she has Harrison, G. A., (ed.), Population structure and expanded it. These two volumes are human variation, Cambridge, Cambridge likely to remain essential items for any University Press, 1977. study of African peoples in general, and Hiernaux, J., La diversité humaine en Afrique sub- though one cannot but decry the fact saharienne: Recherches biologiques, Bruxelles, Institut de Sociologie, Université that they have waited so long for Libre, 1968. translation into English and for an Hitzeroth, H. W., Fisiese Anthropologie van die expansion such as has been made here, Inheemse Mense van Suidelike Afrika, they can only be welcomed by those Pretoria, Afrika Instituut, 1972. engaged in the study of Namibia and its peoples.

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Hodza, A. and G. Fortune, G., Shona Praise Poetry. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979. Jenkins, T., Genetic Polymorphisms of Man in Southern Africa,. M.D. thesis, University of London. 1972. Jenkins, T., “Human evolution in Southern Africa”, in: B. Bonné-Tamir, (ed.), Human Genetics Part A: The unfolding genome, New York, Liss Inc., 1982. Jenny, H., Südwestafrika:: Land zwischen den Extremen, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1967. Nienaber, G. S., Hottentots, Pretoria, J. L. van Schaik, 1963. Nurse, G. T., J. S. Weiner, and T. Jenkins, The Peoples of Southern Africa and their Affinities, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985. Velho, A., Roteiro da viagem que em descobrimento da India pelo Cabo da Boa Esperanza fez Dom Vasco da Gama, Porto, Academia Politécnica, 1838. Warmelo, N. J. van, Notes on the Kaokoveld (South West Africa) and its People, Pretoria, Government Printer, 1962. Westphal, E. O .J., “The linguistic prehistory of Southern Africa”; Africa 1963, 33: 237-265.

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