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 Copyright © 2007 Otjivanda Presse.Essen Eckl & Hartmann GbR 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 130 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 131 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.