Order out of chaos

Mandume ya Ndemufayo and oral history

Bibliographic Data

ID4825713
AuthorsPatricia Hayes (0000-0002-8937-4273, Bucknell University, corresponding author)
Year1993
Volume19
Issue1
Pages89-113
Publication date1993-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057079308708349
OpenAlexW2084624168
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited14

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