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In reply to a request by research.ceda I found the following information. Upon reading it I found it extremely interesting and thought it would make a fine addition to "The Shebeen"

Chapter 21 - Pages 181 - 190 of "Words cannot be found" German Colonial Rule in Namibia

An annotated reprint of the 1918 Blue Book

Jeremy Silvester & Jan-Bart Gewald BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
South-West Africa. Administrator’s Office. [Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany] Words cannot be found : German colonial rule in Namibia : an annotated reprint of
the 1918 Blue Book / by Jeremy Silvester and Jan-Bart Gewald.
p. cm. – (Sources for African history, ISSN 1570-8721 ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 90-04-12981-2 (pbk.)
1. Indigenous peoples–Namibia–Government relations. 2.
Namibia–History–1884-1915. I. Silvester, Jeremy. II. Gewald, Jan-Bart. III. Title IV.
Series.
DT1603.S68 2003 323.1’6881’09034–dc21

ISSN 1570–8721 ISBN 90 04 12981 2




THE BERG-DAMARAS OF SOUTH-WEST AFRICA
In addition to the Hottentots and 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-******s” 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 Hottentots 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.
So late as 1892 a German writer relates how, coming unexpectedly on a party of Berg-Damaras near Heusis in the Windhuk district, he called to them with a view to conversation. But the whole party at the sight of the white man sprang up and fled like deer up the mountain side, never stopping to look back once. Such terror of a white face must not have been without its sinister reasons.
The origin of this ebony-skinned race, which now speaks pure Nama 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.168
The Rev. Hugo Hahn, who had lived amongst them for over 30 years, wrote about 1876 as follows (extract from article in the “Cape Monthly Magazine”):–
The Berg-Damaras are a nation whose language and past history remain an insoluble riddle. So much is certain, that they inhabited these parts (i.e.. Damaraland) and those far southward towards the Garieb or Orange River long before the Namaquas (Hottentot) came from the south, and afterwards, when the invasion of the Hereros took place about one hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, they were still to a great extent the owners of the mountainous parts of North Great Namaqualand and the undisputed masters of Hereroland, living in large and powerful tribes. It can scarcely be doubted that they also, before they were enslaved, worked in their rude way the different copper places in Great Namaqualand and Hereroland. Numerous indications prove that such working was carried on in former centuries.
Hahn held that the Hottentots, as South African aborigines, had moved up from the south, but this theory is not generally accepted, and his contention that, at the the of the Herero influx, the Berg-Damaras were still masters of Hereroland does not find support from the facts. If this were so, a conquest by the Hereros of the large and powerful tribes would have been necessary, and in that event it would be quite impossible to explain how it is that the conquered people, having lost their own language, speak not Herero, but Nama.
The more tenable theory is that the Berg-Damaras had been entirely conquered centuries before the Herero influx by the southward-moving Hottentot hordes. After the stream had passed down to the south it is quite possible, in fact, it is certain that, here and there, scattered groups came together and settled down under their tribal chief with some semblance of racial cohesion, but then they were already speaking Nama, and their period of servitude under the “Khoi-Khoi” must have been, therefore, even then of considerable duration. Only thereafter did the resurrected tribe come under Herero influence. Whether these very black, thick set, but not over tall people are also a branch of the Bantu group is very doubtful. Their outward appearance presents all the characteristics of the pure negro.
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 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 councillors, but beyond the fact that they are able to give the names of no less than fifteen Chiefs who at various thes ruled over them, and unhesitatingly assert that they were the very first people in this land, one can glean very little of their mysterious past.
In reply to questions, the Chief Judas Goresib169 of Okambahe (the headvillage),
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 that these were Ovambos. He says that the Hereros 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 …
It is clear that the head village at Okanjande or Kanubis (a Hottentot name) must only have been established after centuries of subjugation to the Hottentots. Probably the southward-moving stream had, when once the main body was settled in the Cape and Namaqualand areas, left gaps of uninhabited or thinly populated Hottentot areas and under some bold Berg-Damara leader a successful war of emancipation was fought with the now weakened Nama rearguard. By that time, however, the race had already lost its language to such an extent that even the surnames and tribal names were Nama.
Nawabib, who was the grandfather of Abraham, must have had to evacuate Kanubis and to move south to Windhuk about the beginning of the last century, and he could not have been very long there before the Berg-Damaras, and with them the Hereros. were once more brought under the ancient yoke of the Hottentot under the brigand leadership of Jonker Afrikaner.
The move of the remnants of the Berg-Damara tribe from Kaisabis (Windhuk) to Okambahe took place about 1866, when, as a result of the Herero war of emancipation in which the Berg-Damaras were phlegmatic and rather useless allies, the ascendency of the “Khoi-Khoi” in Damaraland vanished for ever.
The Chief goes on to say:–
Our origin I cannot speak definitely of, but we remember a long line of Chiefs who lived in this country. I am descended from them. Their names have been handed down by tradition, but beyond their names we know very little.
The first Chief our elders spoke of was Saub. He was followed by Ahhana, Knu-‘Karib, Kari-‘Karup (= the young tiger), Narira, Kong-‘Kteb, Arusib, Karesib, Tsobasib, Nawabib, Kausib, Abraham, Cornelius. (The change from Hottentot to European names designates conversion to Christianity.)
I am the eldest son of Cornelius. Of the last four Chiefs, Nawabib lived to a very old age, Kausib died young, Abraham got so old (he was Kausib’s son) that he had to resign the Chieftainship to my father, Cornelius. Cornelius died at Okambahe in 1910, aged about 60, and I succeeded him. I am now about 46 years old.
The Berg-Damaras of today divide themselves into two classes, namely: (a) the Omene or settled people, and (b) the Chau-Damaras (Hottentot = Dirty Damaras) or wild people.
The
Omene, or settled people, are those living in villages, possessing sheep and goats and later on even cattle. They have managed, apparently from the days of Saub, despite the oppression of the Nama and Bantu peoples, to retain some semblance of tribal unity and identity. They were a conquered people, but under Saub appear to have emerged from utter slavery and through the ensuing generation gradually to have rehabilitated themselves to a certain extent.
These people call themselves Berg-Damaras now, or Omene, and strongly resent the Nama appellation of Chau-Damara, which is a term of utter contempt, the real translation of which decency forbids. The translation already given is merely relative. What Palgrave wrote of them in 1877 may with perfect truth be repeated today.
He writes (referring to their life at Okambahe):–
They make gardens in which they grow mealies, pumpkins and tobacco. In 1875 they had a mile of the river-bed under cultivation and harvested 300 muids of wheat, the greater part of which was sold for more than 40 shillings a muid. For people who have been so recently reclaimed from a perfectly savage state the progress they are making is astonishing. They are a provident people, and are fast becoming rich in cattle and goats… They have not that love for cattle which distinguishes the Hereros and Namaqua, and from the fact that so long as they have been known they have made gardens it is assumed as probable that they were originally a agricultural people, like the Ovambos … They are industrious and make good servants.
With this most people who know them will agree, but they are as a rule not nearly so intelligent as the Hereros, nor are they personally so clean and proud. The Herero s pride keeps him from committing theft, while the Berg-Damara will occasionally fail to resist temptation in regard to his neighbour’s or his master’s goods. As a manual labourer the Berg-Damara far excels the Herero, who, not unlike some Europeans, is inclined to be too proud to work. It is as cattle herd and caretaker that the Herero excels. He is probably the finest native cattle master in the world, and an indispensable assistant to every cattle farmer in Hereroland.
The Berg-Damara is the hewer of wood and drawer of water, and he rather likes it! With him the fates have made it constitutional.
It is not necessary to deal with Berg-Damara customs and laws, as they were not a ruling people at the time of the German annexation, and made no protection agreement. They speak of having made an agreement with Leutwein, but he does not mention it and there is no record of it.
Before giving a few historical details it is necessary to mention that the second class of Berg-Damara, probably four-fifths of the tribe, known as Chau-Damaras, was scattered throughout the Protectorate. They either lived as neighbours of or with the Bushmen in the inaccessible bush or mountains, or as servants and slaves of Hereros and Hottentots; they were content to exist and to labour merely for their food and the rude protection afforded them. Some of them intermixed with Bushmen, and the tall Bushmen of the Kaokoveld and the
Hei-Kom Bushmen of the Grootfontein area are probably to a certain extent the result of an ancient intermingling of these two wild and aboriginal races.
The Berg-Damaras under Herero rule
Chief Judas Goresib says:–
I remember the time when my father lived at Okambahe before the Germans came. We were under the Hereros, but. governed in our own way according to our laws and customs. The Herero Chiefs at Omarurn, Tjaherani, and his successor Manasse, ruled the whole area, and we were under their protection. We paid the Hereros no tribute or taxation, but as they were very rich and had plenty of cattle our poor people worked for them as herds and got food for their labour. We were on friendly terms with the Herero Chiefs and, although there was trouble at thes, we were recognised by them as a separate tribe and could always bring grievances and complaints to the notice of the Chiefs… I will say that, taking everything into consideration, we were better off under the Hereros than under the Germans who came later …
The Chief’s uncle and head councillor, a brother of the late Chief Cornelius, corroborates these views. His name is Gottlieb Goresib. He says:–
We hated the Hereros, but they treated us even better than the Germans. They were enemies and conquered us after battles, but then they let us live in peace under our own Chief, and they never interfered with our laws and customs. They were a savage people like us, but they were more lenient than the Germans, and their Chiefs, Kamaherero, Zerua, and others, were just. Only our poor people who worked for the Hereros had a hard the. The rest of us were free and could move about the Hereros land, graze our cattle; rand live in peace. In those days we used to help the Hereros in their wars against the Hottentots. They were not our tribe, so we often disagreed, but our Chief and the Herero Chiefs always settled matters. The Hereros were not a warlike people, they loved their cattle and did not interfere much with their neighbours. I have many good friends among the Hereros, but no German was ever our friend..
It speaks well for the Herero people that quite voluntarily, and many years before German soldiers came to South-West Africa, they set aside for the Berg-Damaras the large reserve at Okambahe, probably over 200,000 acres in size, for the use as residences and grazing grounds of their weaker neighbours. Here the Omene class of Berg-Damara have lived since about 1866, and had up to 1910 enjoyed their own government under the Chiefs Abraham and Cornelius. (After the death of Cornelius the German Government refused to allow his heir, Judas, to rule the tribe, for reasons explained later.)
After the Germans came there was a tendency to scatter again, and today Omene are to be found all over the country. The majority of the Chau-Damara, or unsettled class of Berg-Damara, has disappeared. They were either serfs in the employ of Hottentots and Hereros, or they lived as has already been stated in the wilds, chiefly round the Omatako and Waterberg areas. When the “ironcordon” of von Trotha was stretched from Gobabis to Waterberg, and the squeezing process in terms of his extermination order began, thousands of these wild people met the fate intended for the Hereros. How was the newly arrived German soldier in the field to distinguish between a Berg-Damara and a Herero? He had orders to kill all men, women and children without mercy. Thousands and thousands of Berg-Damara servants went with their Herero masters towards the desert and died there on the way. The same fate was meted out to the majority of those who were servants and serfs to the Witboois and other Hottentot clans.
After all, what did it matter? German policy wished to exterminate the native races and create a “new Germany,” as Professor Bonn puts it. This goes far to explain how a minimum estimate of 30,000 Berg-Damaras (probably far too low) had by 1911 sank to 12,831, according to the official German cen-sus.170 The Hereros certainly did not massacre them, and the Germans must explain what became of these people. When the Hereros went into rebellion the orders of their Chiefs placed Berg-Damaras on the list of those who were to be spared. The Germans were not so delicately discriminative.
Palgrave, in his Report (1877), writing of the reserve at Okambahe, says
I told the Damaras (i.e., Hereros) that any plan they might have to submit to Your Excellency for their own protection and the government of their country must recognise the independence of these Berg-Damaras and provide for their settlement or it would meet with no favour, and they readily agreed with me that it should be the first duty of any one Your Excellency sent to them to select Berg-Damara locations, even if there was no immediate prospect of their being occupied.
The idea, therefore, that the Berg-Damaras were all slaves of the Hereros is quite erroneous. The Chau-Damaras, more by reason of their poverty than from any other cause, were certainly servants and, as such, serfs of their wealthy masters. Even in regard to these, however, there is this singular and somewhat extraordinary fact, that they could by becoming Hereros emancipate themselves, become adopted members of the “Eanda” and “Oruzu,” and immediately acquire the dignity and status of a full-blooded Herero. Very few followed this means of gaining liberty. For this the reasons are probably two. The first is that, no matter how depraved or subjected a native may become, there remains, smouldering in the ashes of his self-respect, a glimmer of national pride. He hates the very idea of losing his nationality. It is one of the characteristics of the South African native that he is always deeply hurt if by any chance he is designated as belonging to another tribe. To call a Zulu a ******, or a ****** a Fingo,
and vice versa, is to these people a grave insult. The same applies to Hereros and Berg-Damaras.
Before the born-Herero male could claim full membership of his family group and religious order certain things had to happen, viz., circumcision and the knocking out of the three lower front teeth and the inverted V-shaped filing of the upper teeth. Hereros who have gone through the ordeal tell, that there was nothing pleasant about it. There were no dentists with cocaine or gas, and the instruments used to remove the lower teeth were a piece of iron (like a cold chisel) and a rock, serving the purpose of a hammer. The filing was also done with a jagged piece of iron.
To the pain and inconvenience attendant on these steps preliminary to admission to the Herero “citizenship and full franchise” must be ascribed the second reason why so many Berg-Damara serfs decided to remain serfs.
The Berg-Damaras under German rule
When the Germans annexed the country in 1890 they did not worry much about the Berg-Damaras. Shut away behind the Erongo mountains and bordering on the waterless Namib desert, Okambahe lay outside the main routes to the interior It so happened, however, that when Major Leutwein landed at Swakopmund in 1894 the Chief Cornelius happened to be there with a wagon to fetch provisions, and met the Kaiser’s representative. The following account of what transpired and what resulted therefrom is related in the words of old Gottlieb Goresib, the brother of Cornelius, who says:–
Cornelius happened to be at Swakopmund on business when Major Leutwein handed. He invited Cornelius to come to Windhuk and see him there. Cornelius did so, and ordered his councillors, Mattheus, Lucas, Jonas, Joshua and Solomon to meet him at Karibib. They all went to Windhuk. There Leutwein got Cornelius to sign an agreement placing the Berg-Damaras under the German protection. Cornelius came back and explained matters. He said he had pointed out that the land belonged to the Hereros, and that we were really under their protection by verbal agreement with their Chiefs, and that he, Cornelius, could not sign such an agreement as Leutwein suggested. Leutwein said that he would fix up all disputes with the Hereros, and that he would protect us from them. Then the agreement was made. Cornelius had to agree to German protection and the posting of German troops at Okambahe. He also undertook to supply the Germans with all Berg – Damaras they required for labour on public roads, & c. In return for this Cornelius received 25l. and then 751. in gold and silver. Leutwein. also promised him (a) that the Berg-Damaras would be ruled as an independent nation by their Chief and his successors, (b) that our laws and usages would be respected, (c) that all the scattered Berg-Damaras living under the Hottentot and Herero Chiefs would be collected and one big nation formed at Okambahe, (d) that a big piece of land extending from Okambahe north up to the Ugab River and beyond would be allotted to the Berg-Damara nation.
These were the inducements we had, not a single one of these promises was ever fulfilled. On the contrary, our customs and laws were over-ruled, and the soldiers at Okambahe became the real governors. Cornelius hardly had any power. Our people were flogged and beaten, and there were no courts to which they could go for justice. When Cornelius died in 1910 the Germans said they did not recognise him, and they had decided to have no more Chiefs or allow them to rule their people. They said Judas was no Chief and only an ordinary Berg-Damara like any one else in the tribe. We were all very angry and upset at this, and refused to recognise the five men whom the Germans themselves appointed to rule over us.171 We did not know these people. We only knew the heir of our Chief. We protested, but the Germans merely laughed at us. Once before his death Cornelius and his council went to see the German Governor at Windhuk to complain of the ill-treatment and injustice and to point out that no promises made had ever been kept. The German Governor refused to see Cornelius. Some of the Governor’s men saw Cornelius and chased him back to Okambahe. He got no hearing and no redress. That was in 1909, and Cornelius died the next year. After that we had to apologise and ask forgiveness for having sent a deputation to Windhuk. Then the Germans said we were to have no more Chiefs at all.
In the Herero rebellion we remained loyal to the Germans because we were entirely unarmed. The Germans had taken all our rifles.
After he had made, the agreement, Leutwein, towards the end of 1895, when he had dealt with the Khauas, Franzmann and Witbooi Hottentots, visited Omaruru and had a palaver with the Herero Chief, Manasse Tjaherani. Leutwein writes:–
About a day’s march below Omaruru, on the river of the same name, is the Berg-Damara settlement of Okambahe. I declared (to Manasse) that the German Government required this on account of the labour supply available there.
The Chief, astonished at first that I should have had any knowledge of this settlement … made over the place to the German Government.
Up to the present day (1905) Okambahe has remained directly under the German Government, and has remained loyal during the present rebellion.xvi
It seems curious that Leutwein’s account should differ so much from the Berg-Damara version. Leutwein is silent as to agreements and promises. He does not make any reference to any payments, and in fact, throughout the rest of his work beyond a few passing remarks, he is strangely reticent in regard to the Berg-Damaras.
What the Berg-Damaras thought of this emancipation from “the Herero yoke” and the change to German control has already been stated. Before concluding the chapter a few further opinions may be recorded.
Simon Tsobasib (an old councillor of the tribe, and a cousin of the Chief’s) states on oath:–

Continued in Part 2