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WIELDING THE EPOKOLO: CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY IN COLONIAL OVAMBOLAND*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2015

DAVID CRAWFORD JONES
DAVID CRAWFORD JONES*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
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Abstract

Based on both archival research and oral interviews conducted in northern Namibia, this article traces the history of public flogging in Ovamboland throughout the twentieth century. In contrast to recent scholarship that views corporal punishment in modern Africa mainly through the lens of colonial governance, the article argues that because the South African colonial state never withdrew the power to punish from the region's traditional authorities, these indigenous leaders were able to maintain a degree of legitimacy among their subjects, who looked to the kings and headmen to punish wrongdoers and maintain communal norms. Finally, the article explores why nostalgia for corporal punishment remains a salient feature in Namibian society today, 25 years after the end of colonial rule.

Keywords

Namibiacolonialismlawcrimechieftaincy
Type
Enduring Violence
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 301 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

The research for this article was made possible by a J. William Fulbright grant from the Institute of International Education, a Bernadotte E. Schmitt grant from the American Historical Association, and generous financial assistance from the Department of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York. I would like to thank my advisor, Dr Iris Berger, as well as my dissertation committee, Drs Susan Gauss and Meredith McKittrick, for their support and counsel over the years. Insofar as the present article relies heavily upon interviews conducted in Ovamboland, I would like to especially thank Rachel Hatutale for all her assistance in interpreting and translating the interviews from Oshiwambo into English. A draft copy of this research was presented at the April 2013 Northeastern Workshops on Southern Africa (NEWSA) conference in Burlington, Vermont; the input I received from conference participants was a tremendous help. Lastly, I would like to thank the anonymous readers of this journal whose feedback significantly improved the present article. Needless to say, whatever errors remain are my responsibility alone. Author's email: [email protected]

References

1 Interview with Ndaxu Namoloh, Windhoek, 2 Apr. 2009.

2 S.A. 557 (3), Affidavit of Yanamoloh, Ndaxu Namoloh in Wood and Others v. Ondangwa Tribal Authority and Another, Supreme Court of South Africa (Appeals), 1974, 81–2Google Scholar.

3 Interview with Ndaxu Namoloh.

4 ‘Owambo heading for civil war and Windhoek for disturbances – Black leader’, The Windhoek Advertiser, 6 Nov. 1973, 1.

5 Interview with Nestory Shanjengana, Okalongo, 5 Aug. 2009.

6 ‘Alleged political offenders treaded in barbarous and untraditional way – Advocate’, Windhoek Advertiser, 25 Feb. 1974, 3.

7 Ruling of C. J. Rumpff, Wood and Others v. Ondangwa Tribal Authority and Another, 50.

8 McKittrick, M., To Dwell Secure: Generation, Christianity and Colonialism in Ovamboland (Portsmouth, OH, 2002)Google Scholar.

9 Affidavit of Robert James Gordon, Wood and Others v. Ondangwa Tribal Authority and Another, 191.

10 Affidavit of David Shihepo, Wood and Others v. Ondangwa Tribal Authority and Another, 98.

11 Affidavit of Robert James Gordon, 191.

12 Tönjes, H., Ovamboland (Windhoek, 1996), 122–3Google Scholar.

13 National Archives of Namibia (NAN), A.450, Box 6, Folder 2/2.

14 See Spierenberg, P., The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression – From a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Botsman, D. V., Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan (Princeton, 2007)Google Scholar; and Salvatore, R. D., Aguirre, C., and Joseph, G. M. (eds.), Crime and Punishment in Latin America (Durham, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Each of these works captures something of the dynamic interactions between state and society that Foucault famously summarized through the ‘spectacle of the scaffold’. Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison (New York, 1977), 32–69Google Scholar.

15 Rao, A. and Pierce, S., ‘Discipline and the other body: humanitarianism, violence, and the colonial exception’, in Rao, A. and Pierce, S. (eds.), Discipline and the Other Body: Correction, Corporeality, Colonialism (Durham, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 21.

16 S. Pierce, ‘Punishment and the political body: flogging and colonialism in northern Nigeria’, in Rao and Pierce (eds.), Discipline and the Other Body, 186–214.

17 Anderson, D. M., ‘Punishment, race and the “raw native”: settler society and Kenya's flogging scandals, 1895–1930’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 37:3 (2011), 479–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hynd, S., ‘Law, violence, and penal reform: state responses to crime and disorder in colonial Malawi, c. 1900–1950’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 37:3 (2011), 431–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fourchard, L., ‘The limits of penal reform: punishing children and young offenders in South Africa and Nigeria (1930s to 1960)’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 37:3 (2011), 517–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. By contrast, Paul Ocobock's research on punishment in colonial Kenya does address how ordinary Kenyans viewed flogging. Ocobock, P., ‘Spare the rod, spoil the colony: corporal punishment, colonial violence, and generational authority in Kenya, 1897–1952’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 45:1 (2012), 29–56Google Scholar.

18 In this respect, scholars on punishment in colonial Africa would do well to heed Emile Durkheim, who writes that ‘passion … is the soul of punishment, and vengeance is the primary motivation which underpins punitive actions’. Durkheim, E., The Division of Labour in Society (New York, 1933)Google Scholar, 86.

19 In this respect, oral history serves a function similar to oral tradition, which Jan Vansina has argued constitutes ‘inside information’ that provide ‘intimate accounts’ about matters ‘that are otherwise apprehended only from outside points of view’. Vansina, J., Oral Tradition as History (Madison, 1985)Google Scholar, 197.

20 Cooper, A. D., Ovambo Politics in the Twentieth Century (Lanham, 2001)Google Scholar, 175.

21 Ibid. 235–71.

22 Ibid. 206–7.

23 Chanock, M., Law, Custom, and Social Order: the Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Portsmouth, OH, 1998)Google Scholar, 47.

24 Hayes, P., ‘“Cocky” Hahn and the “Black Venus”: the making of a native commissioner in South West Africa, 1915–46’, in Hunt, N. R., Liu, T. P., and Quataert, J. (eds.), Gendered Colonialisms in African History (Malden, MA, 1997), 42–70Google Scholar.

25 Ibid. 63.

26 NAN South West Africa Administration (SWAA), 1489, A. 266/2/1, 49.

27 NAN SWAA, 1489, A. 266/2/1, ‘Enquiry into complaints directed against Ovamboland officials’, 109.

28 Skeat, W. William, A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (New York, 1901)Google Scholar, 663.

29 Interview with Ipundaka Amomo, Okaandje, 31 July 2009.

30 Hayes, ‘“Cocky” Hahn and the “Black Venus”’, 63.

31 NAN SWAA, 1489, A. 266/19/1.

32 NAN Native Affairs Ovamboland (NAO), 1, 1–1, 1–2.

33 For a fuller discussion of precolonial Ovambo kingdoms and the European curtailment of Ovambo sovereignty, see Williams, F., Precolonial Communities of Southwestern Africa: a History of Owambo Kingdoms 1600–1920 (Windhoek, 1991), 142–69Google Scholar.

34 NAN SWAA, 1489 A.266/1.

35 NAN NAO, 10 5/7.

36 NAN NAO, 10 5/7/1.

37 NAN NAO, 10 5/7.

38 Cooper, Ovambo Politics in the Twentieth Century, 201; NAN NAO, 9 5/1.

39 NAN NAO, 10 5/7.

40 NAN SWAA, 1503 A266/29.

41 Interview with Kashupuulwa Kaitanus, Onepungu, 3 Aug. 2009.

42 Interview with Joseph Nghinamhito, Ongenga, 5 Aug. 2009.

43 Interview with Antanga Yamushila.

44 Interview with Andreas Shipanga, Uhexe, 26 May 2009. This disciplining of young men is echoed by McKittrick's research on colonial disciplining of migrant laborers who had ‘abandoned’ their wives and families during the colonial period. This suggests that as with debates over who had the authority to chastise ‘disobedient daughters’, the disciplining of young men was likewise contested by colonial officials and indigenous authorities throughout the colonial period. McKittrick, To Dwell Secure, 204–39.

45 Interview with Simeon Simon, Omusheshe, 27 May 2009.

46 Interview with Abraham Indombo, Oshikolongondjo, 29 July 2009.

47 Interview with Keshii Nathanael, Stockholm, 5 July 2007.

48 Interviews with Cecilia Angolo, Enkono B, 22 July 2009; and Sakaria Shahamena Shitaleni, Okandjengendi, 14 May 2009.

49 ‘Ovambo chief on trial’, Windhoek Advertiser, 21 Mar. 1967, 1.

50 ‘Chief's trial: state closes its case’, Windhoek Advertiser, 4 Apr. 1967, 1.

51 ‘Two witnesses collapse at chief's trial’, Windhoek Advertiser, 22 Mar. 1967, 1.

52 ‘Trial of Ovambo chief shifted to Windhoek’, Windhoek Advertiser, 28 Mar. 1967, 2.

53 ‘Two witnesses collapse’, 2.

54 ‘Ovambo chief on trial; Man tells court how he was tied to a tree with bow strings’, Windhoek Advertiser, 21 Mar. 1967, 1–2.

55 ‘Blinded man's sister tells about Bible readings’, Windhoek Advertiser, 23 Mar. 1967, 2.

56 ‘Trial of Ovambo chief shifted to Windhoek’.

57 ‘Chief's trial: accused no. 2 now in hospital’, Windhoek Advertiser, 24 Apr. 1967, 2.

58 For instance, in H. D. Namuhuja's, The Ondonga Royal Kings, the punishment of Vainos is retold without any reference to the fact that the thief's own mother had been the one to carry out the sentence. Namahuja, H. D., Ondonga Royal Kings (Windhoek, 1996), 51–2Google Scholar.

59 ‘Chief Ashikoto in the witness box’, Windhoek Advertiser, 19 Apr. 1967, 1.

60 ‘Senior headman describes tribal criminal code’, Windhoek Advertiser, 31 Mar. 1967, 1.

61 ‘Trial of Ovambo chief shifted to Windhoek’.

62 ‘Blinded man's sister tells about Bible readings’.

63 ‘Ovambo chief and two subjects arrested on serious assault charge’, Windhoek Advertiser, 23 Feb. 1967, 1.

64 ‘Ovambo chief and two subjects arrested on serious assault charge’.

65 ‘Chief Martin Ashikoto is banned’, Windhoek Advertiser, 12 June 1967, 1.

66 Cooper, Ovambo Politics in the Twentieth Century, 280; Namuhuja, The Ondonga Royal Kings, 53.

67 Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, Chapter 3, Article 8 (b).

68 Interview with Tomas Ashiana, Omatanda, 18 May 2009.

69 Interview with Kashuupulwa Kaitanus.

70 Interview with Sakaria Shahamena Shitaleni.

71 Interview with Johannes Mbowa, Onawa, 19 May 2009.

72 Mutongi, K., Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya (Chicago, 2007), 7–8, 193–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Pashukanis, E. B., The General Theory of Law and Marxism (New Brunswick, 2009), 180–1Google Scholar.

74 Interview with Johannes Mbowa.

75 For discussion of spousal abuse, another form of routine punitive violence in Ovamboland, see the author's dissertation, ‘Facing the epokolo: corporal punishment and scandal in twentieth-century Ovamboland’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University at Albany, State University of New York, 2014), 151–89.