Order out of chaos

Oral historical sources from northern Namibia offer powerful new insights into the history of the Kwanyama under their last king, Mandume ya Ndemufayo. Namibian nationalists see Mandume as a great historical hero of resistance. After defending Oukwanyama against Portuguese invasion in 1915, he was forced into a ‘protection’ agreement with South African officials administering southern Ovamboland. He met his death in battle against a military expedition despatched by Pretoria in February 1917. This article is not concerned with Mandume's resistance to colonisation between 1915 and 1917. The period of internal reform under Mandume between 1911 and 1915 is as extraordinary in its own way, and deeply suggestive of the crises facing the Kwanyama kingship prior to colonialism. It also reveals something of the longue duree of the history of this area of Ovamboland. On the eve of colonial occupation, against a backdrop of increasingly frequent drought and scarcity, plus incorporation into the mercantile and mining capitalist economies, Mandume launched a drive for renovation. This aimed fundamentally to roll back powerful headmen who had undermined central royal power. The idioms of regeneration were directed at producers, householders, in a populist project which drew ideologically on reconstructions of past ‘good’ kings and strong central rule in Kwanyama oral tradition

Ancient history · Archaeology · Battle · Colonialism · Economic history · Ethnology · HERO · Ideology · Indirect rule · Monarchy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · Sociology · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · History · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · South African History and Culture

• Cocky’ Hahn and the ‘Black Venus’

  Open Access•Patricia Hayes•Gender & History•1996

  Incluir item

• Between the Book and the Lamp – Interiors of Bureaucracy and the Materiality of Colonial Power

  Lorena Rizzo•African Historical Review•2013

  Incluir item

• The ovamboland expedition of 1917

  Andries M Fokkens•Small Wars and Insurgencies•2023

  Incluir item

• Guns and top hats

  Philipp Prein•Journal of Southern African Studies•1994

  Incluir item

• Similar but different? Assessing the reserve economy legacy of Namibia

  Donna Pankhurst•Journal of Southern African Studies•1996

  Incluir item

• Magic, Memory & Mimesis-the "Power" of the Historical Moving Image to Possess

  Catherine Mary Moore•History and Anthropology•2015

  Incluir item

• The Kwanhama partitioned by the border and the Angolan perspective of cross-border identity

  Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues•African Studies•2017

  Incluir item

• The Roots of rural poverty in Central and Southern Africa

  Neil Parsons, Robin H Palmer•The Roots of rural poverty in…•1977

  Incluir item

• Women of Phokeng

  Belinda Bozzoli•Women of Phokeng•1991

  Incluir item

• Peasant Intellectuals

  Steven Feierman, Steven M Feierman•Peasant Intellectuals•1990

  Incluir item

• Way of Death

  Joseph C Miller•Way of Death•1997

  Incluir item

• Die Anfänge der Herausbildung einer Arbeiterklasse in Südwestafrika unter der deutschen Kolonialherrschaft

  Open Access•Fritz Wege•Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte…•1969

  Incluir item

• Slaves, Peasants and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840-1926

  Douglas L Wheeler, W G Clarence-Smith et al.•The American Historical Review•1981

  Incluir item

• Ideology and Oral Traditions

  Open Access•C A Hamilton, Clive Hamilton•History in Africa•1987

  Incluir item

• Our Common History

  Paul Thompson•Labour / Le Travail•1984

  Incluir item

• Forced Labour and Migration

  Robin Cohen•African Affairs•1990

  Incluir item

• International Journal of American Linguistics

  Open Access•C F Voegelin•Anthropology News•1964

  Incluir item

• Memory

  Luisa Passerini•History Workshop Journal•1983

  Incluir item