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DIFFERENTIATING ‘BUSHMEN’ FROM ‘BANTUS’: IDENTITY-BUILDING IN WEST CAPRIVI, NAMIBIA, 1930–89*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2010

JULIE J. TAYLOR
JULIE J. TAYLOR
Affiliation:
Oxford University
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Abstract

This article focuses on the historical and political factors that shaped Khwe (San) and Mbukushu ethnic identities and their interrelationship between 1938 and 1989 in west Caprivi, Namibia. While acknowledging the multi-authored nature of identity-building, the article demonstrates that the colonial and apartheid states made significant contributions to the construction of ethnicity in west Caprivi through veterinary interventions in the 1930s and apartheid policies regarding ‘Bushmen’ in the 1950s, and by securing Khwe collaboration during Namibia's liberation struggle in the 1970s and 1980s. These state interventions, together with Khwe and Mbukushu responses to them, also shed light on why land and political authority became so central to struggles between the two groups.

Keywords

IdentityethnicityapartheidNamibialand
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , November 2009 , pp. 417 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 See G. Boden, ‘Caught in the middle: impacts of state decisions and armed conflicts on Khwe economy and ethnicity since 1998’, in T. Hohman (ed.), The San and the State: Contesting Land, Development, Identity and Representation (Cologne, 2003), 161–204; I. Orth, ‘Identity as dissociation: the Khwe's struggle for land in west Caprivi’, in Hohman, San, 121–59; U. Dieckmann, Hai//om in the Etosha Region: A History of Colonial Settlement, Ethnicity and Nature Conservation (Basel, 2007), 293–344.

2 For reviews, see B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991), 1–8, and Spear, T., ‘Neo-traditionalism and the limits of invention in British colonial Africa’, Journal of African History, 44 (2003), 3–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also J. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1979), 318–41; L. Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (London, 1989), 1–20; T. O. Ranger, ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’, in E. J. Hobsbawm and T. O. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), 211–62; L. D. L. Gorgendiere, K. King, and S. Vaughan, Ethnicity in Africa: Roots, Meanings and Implications (Edinburgh, 1996), esp. 17–166; A. Du Pisani, ‘State and society under South African rule’, in C. Keulder (ed.), State, Society and Democracy: A Reader in Namibian Politics (Windhoek, 2000), 49–76; Kössler, R., ‘From reserve to homeland: local identities and South African policy in southern Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 26 (2000), 447–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 T. Ranger, ‘The invention of tradition revisited: the case of colonial Africa’, in T. O. Ranger and O. Vaughan (eds.), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-century Africa: Essays in Honour of A. H. M. Kirk-Greene (London, 1993), 62–111; Glassman, J., ‘Sorting out the tribes: the creation of racial identities in colonial Zanzibar's newspaper wars’, Journal of African History, 41 (2000), 395–428CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lentz, C., ‘Colonial constructions and African initiatives: the history of ethnicity in northwestern Ghana’, Ethnos, 65 (2000), 107–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friedman, J. T., ‘Making politics, making history: chiefship and the post-apartheid state in Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 31 (2000), 23–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See B. Oomen, Chiefs in South Africa: Law, Power and Culture in the Post-apartheid Era (Oxford, 2005), 1–36; J. Alexander, The Unsettled Land: State-Making and the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe, 1893–2003 (Oxford, 2006), 1–17.

5 The findings presented here are based on eight months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Namibia carried out over a two-year period, and also on archival research. The central component of the research comprised semi-structured interviews and discussions with Khwe and Mbukushu, many of which required the assistance of an interpreter. The National Archives in Windhoek were important for triangulating Khwe and Mbukushu oral history sources, but nevertheless presented a number of problems. The most useful material came from the Katima Mulilo and Runtu [sic] Native Commissioners' correspondence and reports between the late 1920s and the mid 1950s. These reports, however, in addition to suffering temporal gaps, pay minimal attention to west Caprivi. Another limitation was my inability to read documents in German and Afrikaans, although most of the Caprivi material was in English. The archival research of German-speakers such as Boden, Fisch, and Dieckmann on the same time period was thus critical for cross-referencing my findings.

6 Alexander, Unsettled Land, 5.

7 Other labels through time include Bugakhwe, Kxoe, Khoe, Kwe, Hukwe, Xukhwe, Hakwengo, Barakwena, and Barakwengu. The latter three terms derive from the Mbukushu language.

8 Group discussion, Khwe women, Omega III, 13 Aug. 2006.

9 Discussion, Khwe man, in transit, 17 Aug. 2006.

10 Discussion, Mbukushu man, Mutc'iku, 24 Aug. 2006.

11 Interview, Mbukushu woman, Mutc'iku, 24 Aug. 2006.

12 M. Taylor, ‘Life, land and power: contesting development in northern Botswana’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2000).

13 A. Schulz and A. Hammar, The New Africa: A Journey up the Chobe and down the Okavango Rivers; A Record of Exploration and Sport (London, 1897), 162–80; M. Fisch, The Caprivi Strip During the German Colonial Period 1890–1914 (Windhoek, 1999); M. Fisch, The Mbukushu in Angola (1730–2002): A History of Migration, Flight and Royal Rainmaking (Cologne, 2005), 27–40.

14 T. J. Larson, ‘A preliminary ethnographic survey of the Mbukushu of Ngamiland’ (unpublished BLitt thesis, University of Oxford, 1968); Fisch, Mbukushu. Fisch's archival and oral sources are often not specified, but her extensive fieldwork with Mbukushu lends credibility to her interpretations (M. Fisch, personal communication, email, 4 Dec. 2007).

15 T. J. Larson, ‘The significance of rainmaking for the Mbukushu’, African Studies, 25 (1966), 23–6.

16 M. Fisch, ‘A history of socio-political relations between the Kxoe and the Mbukushu’, draft manuscript, records of A. Corbett, Windhoek (n.d.).

17 Ranger, ‘Invention’; Iliffe, History of Tanganyika; Lonsdale, J., ‘When did the Gusii (or any other group) become a tribe?’, Kenya Historical Review, 5 (1977), 122–33Google Scholar; Vail, Tribalism; E. N. Wilmsen, Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari (Chicago and London, 1989), 1–32.

18 T. Tlou, A History of Ngamiland, 1750 to 1906: The Formation of an African State (Gaborone, Botswana, 1985); Taylor, ‘Life, land and power’.

19 Larson, T. J., ‘The political structure of the Ngamiland Mbukushu under the rule of the Tawana’, Anthropos, 60 (1965), 164–76Google Scholar.

20 Fisch, Mbukushu, 32–3, 36–40.

21 T. Tlou, ‘Servility and political control: Botlhanka among the Batawana of northwestern Botswana ca. 1750–1906’, in S. Miers and I. Kopytoff (eds.), Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison, WI, 1977), 367–90.

22 E.g. National Archives of Namibia (NAN), SWAA 2083 A460/19 2/1/5, ADM 87 2241/7; Larson, ‘Ethnographic survey’; Fisch, Mbukushu, 25, 41; Tlou, ‘Servility’ and History of Ngamiland; M. Russell, ‘Slaves or workers? Relations between Bushmen, Tswana, and Boers in the Kalahari’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 2 (1976), 178–97.

23 Fisch, Mbukushu, 41; Guenther, M., ‘The world of the Kxoe Bushmen: a review article’, Anthropos, 86 (1991), 213Google Scholar.

24 Tlou, ‘Servility’, 381.

25 Wilmsen, Land; R. J. Gordon, The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass (Oxford, 1992), 10–11, 250–51; J. Suzman, Things from the Bush: A Contemporary History of the Omaheke Bushmen (Switzerland, 2000), 1–12.

26 Wilmsen, Land, 130.

27 Those Khwe in the hinterlands of Mbukushu influence, however, may have felt the effects of this domination less (see Taylor, ‘Life, Land and Power’, 38, for the cases of Khwai and Mababe under Batawana).

28 Fisch, ‘History’.

29 O. Köhler, Die Welt der Kxoe-Buschleute im sudlichen Afrika: Eine Selbstdarstellung in ihrer eigenen Sprache. Vol. 1: Die Kxoe-Buschleute und ihre ethnische Umgebung (Berlin, 1989), cited in Fisch, ‘History’.

30 T. Widlok, ‘Names that escape the state: Hai//om naming practices versus domination and isolation’, in P. P. Schweitzer, M. Biesele, and R. K. Hitchcock (eds.), Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World: Conflict, Resistance and Self-Determination (New York and Oxford, 2000), 361–79.

31 Tlou, ‘Servility’.

32 Fisch, ‘History’.

33 K. Rousset, ‘To be Khwe means to suffer: local dynamics, imbalances and contestations in the Caprivi Game Park’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 2003).

34 Larson, ‘Significance’; Fisch, Mbukushu, 38–46.

35 Du Pisani, ‘State and society’; Kössler, R., ‘From reserve to homeland: local identities and South African policy in southern Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 26 (2000), 447–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Gordon, Bushman Myth, 69–75; Dieckmann, Hai//om, 51–230; Gordon, R. J., ‘Hiding in full view: the “forgotten” Bushman genocides of Namibia’, Genocide Studies and Prevention, 4 (2009), 29–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 For example, Vail, Tribalism.

38 M. Bollig, ‘Power & trade in precolonial & early colonial northern Kaokoland, 1860s–1940s’, in P. Hayes, J. Silvester, M. Wallace, and W. Hartmann (eds.), Namibia under South African Rule: Mobility and Containment, 1915–46 (Oxford, 1998), 175–93; NAN, SWAA 2268 A503/25; NAN, SWAA 2267 A503/1; Bollig, M., ‘The colonial encapsulation of the north-western Namibian pastoral economy’, Africa, 68 (1998), 506–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 G. Boden, personal communication, email, 10 Nov. 2006.

40 The Native Commissioner (NC) for east Caprivi wrote in 1946, for example, that ‘Makwengo (Bushmen) confine their wanderings mainly to the country across the Mashi [Kwando], but since the movement of the Mambukushu [to the east bank] there appears to be a tendency on their part to follow the Mambukushu’: Report, 22 Mar. 1946, NAN, KCA V21 N8/21/5.

41 Letter from J. W. Potts, Resident Magistrate, Gaborone, 26 Oct. 1929, NAN, SWAA 2267 A503/1.

42 Bollig, ‘Power’; Bollig, ‘Encapsulation’.

43 Assistant NC, Runtu, Extract from Report, July and August 1941, NAN, SWAA 2268 A503/25; Magistrate and NC, Eastern Caprivi Zipfel, Report, 22 Mar. 1946, NAN, KCA V21 N8/21/5; NC, Runtu, Letter to Chief NC, 18 Nov. 1942, NAN, SWAA 2267 A503/1.

44 Fisch, Mbukushu, 53; Fisch, ‘History’.

45 Bollig, ‘Encapsulation’, 526.

46 Gordon, Bushman Myth, 157–67.

47 NAN, SWAA 2268 A503/25; G. Boden, ‘Prozesse sozialen Wandels vor dem Hintergrund staatlicher Eingriffe: Eine Fallstudie zu den Khwe in West Caprivi/Namibia’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cologne), 68–9.

48 See also Bollig, ‘Power’.

49 Secretary for SWA, Letter to Secretary to the Prime Minister, Cape Town, [1941], NAN, SWAA 2268 A503/25.

50 Assistant NC, Runtu, Letter to Chief NC, 5 June 1941, NAN, SWAA 2268 A503/25 No 25/5.

51 Gordon, Bushman Myth, 161–2.

52 Dieckmann, Hai//om, 181–3.

53 Gordon, Bushman Myth, 163.

54 Orth, ‘Identity’, 132.

55 Orth, ‘Identity’, 130.

56 Gordon, Bushman Myth, 162; Dieckmann, Hai//om, 177–190.

57 NC, Annual Report on Native Affairs, Okavango Native Territory, 1948, NAN, SWAA 477 A50/188/12.

58 SWA, Government Commission for the Preservation of Bushmen (1950), point 57.

59 NC, Runtu, ‘Tribal meeting held at Runtu’, March 1951, NAN, SWAA 2394 A519/29.

60 NC, Runtu, Monthly Report, August and September 1950, NAN, SWAA 2387 A511/1/1.

61 NC, Runtu, Monthly Report, January to May 1951, NAN, SWAA 2387 A511/1/1.

62 NC, 1953, NAN, SWAA 434 A50/67, cited in Boden, ‘Prozesse’, 77.

63 Boden, ‘Prozesse’, 68–78, 322–6.

64 NC, ‘Extract From Monthly Reports on the Okavango Native Territory for the months of July, August, and September 1948’, Minute No. 2/I6/5, NAN, SWAA 2268 A503/25.

65 Rousset, ‘Khwe’; Boden, ‘Caught’; Boden, ‘Prozesse’.

66 Interview, elderly Khwe man, Kongola, 13 Aug. 2006; see also Boden, ‘Prozesse’, 68–78, 322–6.

67 Gordon, Bushman Myth, 163.

68 Boden, ‘Prozesse’, 77.

69 NC, Extract 1948, NAN, SWAA A503/25; Boden, ‘Prozesse’, 77.

70 NC, Extract.

71 Suzman, Things, 73–97; Widlok, ‘Names’; Taylor, ‘Life, Land and Power’.

72 Suzman, Things, 82.

73 Taylor, ‘Life, Land and Power’, 45–6.

74 Interview, NGO employee, Shakawe, 20 Sept. 2006; Taylor, ‘Life, Land and Power’, 49.

75 Boden, ‘Caught’, 186; see also Taylor, ‘Life, Land and Power’, 47.

76 Boden, ‘Prozesse’, 314, 324, 339–40.

77 Boden, ‘Caught’.

78 Cited in Boden, ‘Prozesse’, 79, translated by Boden, email, 19 June 2006.

79 See, e.g. Assistant NC, Runtu, Extract from Report, 11 Sept. 1937, and Assistant NC, Runtu, Letter to Chief NC, Windhoek, 22 Mar. 1939, NAN, SWAA 2083 A460/19; L. L. Van Tonder, ‘The Hambukushu of Okavangoland: an anthropological study of a south-western Bantu people in Africa’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Port Elizabeth, 1966); T. J. Larson, The Hambukushu Rainmakers of the Okavango (New York, 2001).

80 Larson, Rainmakers, 468; Fisch, ‘History’.

81 Van Tonder, ‘Hambukushu’, 15.

82 NC, Runtu, Letter to Chief NC, 26 Oct. 1953, NAN, SWAA 2083 A460/19, File 2/1/2/5.

83 Gordon, Bushman Myth, 165.

84 Orth, ‘Identity’.

85 I am grateful to Kate Meagher for discussion on these points; see J. J. Taylor and A. K. Battistoni, ‘Indigenous identities and military frontiers: preliminary reflections on San and the military in Namibia and Angola, 1960–2000’, Lusotopie 16 (forthcoming, 2009).

86 Discussion, !Xun group, Omega, 21 Aug. 2006. P. W. Botha was defence minister from 1966 to 1978.

87 Cited in G. B. Kolata, ‘!Kung Bushmen join South African army’, Science, 211 (1981), 563.

88 Cited in ibid. 563.

89 Lee, R., ‘The gods must be crazy, but the state has a plan: government policies towards the San in Namibia’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 20 (1986), 91–8Google Scholar; R. Lee and S. Hurlich, ‘From foragers to fighters: South Africa's militarization of the Namibian San’, in E. Leacock (ed.), Politics and History in Band Societies (Cambridge, 1982), 327–46; Gordon, Bushman Myth, 183–209.

90 J. Breytenbach, Eden's Exiles: One Soldier's Fight for Paradise (Cape Town, 1997), 83.

91 Ibid. 80.

92 G. Thatcher, ‘Bushmen: the hunters now hunt guerillas’, in M. Freilich (ed.), The Pleasures of Anthropology (New York, 1983), 417.

93 J. Sharp and S. Douglas, ‘Prisoners of their reputation? The veterans of the “Bushman” battalions in South Africa’, in P. Skotnes (ed.), Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen (Cape Town, 1996), 323–9.

94 Sharp and Douglas, ‘Prisoners’.

95 K. W. Grundy, ‘The use of indigenous forces in Namibia’, in Soldiers without Politics: Blacks in the South African Armed Forces (Berkeley and London, 1983), 249–72; Lee, ‘Gods’.

96 I am grateful to John Friedman for discussion on this point.

97 Interview, Khwe man, Katima Mulilo, 29 Aug. 2006.

98 Rousset, ‘Khwe’; Lee, ‘Gods’.

99 G. Boden, personal communication, email, 13 June 2006.

100 SADF Commandant Botes, Sunday Tribute, 1 Mar. 1980, cited in Gordon, Bushman Myth, 188.

101 Discussion, Mbukushu men, Shamakwi, 17 Aug. 2006. Similar statements were given by several Khwe and Mbukushu men during interviews.

102 Sharp and Douglas, ‘Prisoners’.

103 Ibid. 326.

104 J. Suzman, ‘An assessment of the status of the San in Namibia’, in Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa: Report No. 4 of 5 (Windhoek, 2001).

105 Ministry of Lands Resettlement and Rehabilitation, ‘Feasibility study on the San community in eastern Otjozondjupa, Omaheke region, eastern Ohangwena and western Caprivi’, prepared by the International Development Consultancy, 2002; J. Van Keulen, ‘Report on visit to West Caprivi, September 1989’, NAN; Rousset, ‘Khwe’; Breytenbach, Exiles.

106 Interview, elderly Khwe man, Kongola, 13 Aug. 2006.

107 Cited in Boden, ‘Caught’, 180.

108 Rousset, ‘Khwe’; S. Felton, ‘“We want our own chief”: San communities battle against their image’, in D. LeBeau and R. J. Gordon (eds.), Challenges for Anthropology in the ‘African Renaissance’: A Southern African Contribution (Windhoek, 2002), 55–67.

109 Sharp and Douglas, ‘Prisoners’, 323–9.