Hardap

Hardap is the slice of southern Namibia that runs from the Sossusvlei dunes to the Kalahari, with Mariental as its capital. It is old Nama country: Gibeon was the seat of Hendrik Witbooi, who fought German rule and is on the country's banknotes, and Rehoboth is the home of the Basters, who held off a German attack in the mountains in 1915. Knowing that makes the small towns along the B1 far more interesting than they look from the road.

1. Before 1845

   Damara people of the ǃAinîn community were the first known inhabitants of Rehoboth and the country around it. They chose to live at a distance from the hot springs so as not to scare off the game that came to drink there. source

2. 1845

   The Swartbooi Nama arrived at the springs with Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt of the German Rhenish Mission Society, who named the place Rehoboth (Hebrew for broad places) and opened a mission station. Attacks by the Oorlam Afrikaners from Windhoek later drove the Swartbooi out. source

3. 1863

   Kido Witbooi, first Kaptein (chief) of the ǀKhowesin, or Witbooi Nama, reached a place called Khaxa-tsûs after a long trek north from the Cape and renamed it Gibeon. It has been the Witbooi home town ever since. source

4. 1870 to 1872

   The Basters, a community of mixed Khoekhoe and European descent who had trekked out of the Cape Colony at the end of the 1860s, were given permission to settle at Rehoboth at a peace conference in Okahandja on 23 September 1870. In 1872 they adopted their own constitution, the Paternal Laws (Vaderlike Wette), and in 1885 their Kaptein Hermanus van Wyk signed a protection treaty with Germany. source

5. 1904 to 1908

   Hendrik Witbooi of Gibeon, who had made a conditional peace with the Germans in 1894 and then fought on their side against the Herero, led the Nama into war against them in 1904. He was killed on 29 October 1905, and the war ended in the genocide of the Herero and Nama, in which about 10,000 Nama died, around half of their pre-war number. The last Nama fighters gave up in 1908. source

6. 1915

   When Germany tried to send Baster soldiers north during the First World War, the Basters broke with them. On 8 May 1915 German troops attacked some 700 to 800 Basters, women and children among them, on the mountain of Sam Khubis, but withdrew the next day as South African forces approached. South Africa then ruled the territory until 1990. source

7. 1925

   Under South African rule a second rising broke out at Rehoboth. It ended when the administration marched in with machine guns, backed by two warplanes, and arrested more than 600 people. source

8. 1976 to 1990

   Under apartheid, a 1976 law made the Rehoboth area a self-governing Baster homeland, similar to South Africa's bantustans (the separate ethnic territories of the apartheid system). It ran until 29 July 1989, and after independence on 21 March 1990 the new SWAPO government gave the Basters no special legal status. source

Language

In the 2023 census Khoekhoegowab (the language of the Nama and Damara) was the main home language in 41.9% of Hardap households and Afrikaans in 39.4%. Oshikwanyama came next at 5.9%, and English was the home language of only 1.9%. source

Who lives here

Out of 106,680 people counted in the 2023 census, 31.1% identified as Nama, 21.0% as Baster and 12.6% as Damara. Only about 2,500 people, 2.3%, identified as white. source

Sam Khubis Day, May

The night before the German retreat in 1915, the Basters vowed to remember the day for ever if they were spared. Every 8 May the community gathers at Sam Khubis for church services that begin with shots fired at dawn, the hour the attack started. source

Nama dress

Nama women's formal dress is long and full skirted, close to Victorian fashion. The style came from what the missionaries wore in the 1800s, and Nama people now count it as their own traditional dress. source