Karas

ǁKaras is Nama country, the far south of Namibia between the Kalahari, the Orange River and the Atlantic. The German colony began on its coast in 1884, Nama fighters, the Bondelswarts among them, fought German troops across it from 1903, and the Shark Island camp at Lüderitz (ǃNamiǂNûs) was one of the worst places of the genocide. Diamonds found in 1908 still shape the coast, much of which is still restricted ground.

1. About 30,000 years ago

   People sheltering under a rock overhang in what is now the ǀAi-ǀAis/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park painted animals on stone slabs. Carbon dated to about 30,000 years ago, these Apollo 11 Stones are the oldest figurative art found in Africa, and they are kept at the National Museum of Namibia in Windhoek. source

2. 1796 to 1820s

   Klaas Afrikaner and his sons Jager and Titus, leaders of an Oorlam clan (people of Khoekhoe descent who had moved north out of the Cape Colony), built the stone fort of ǁKhauxaǃnas as a hideout from the Cape authorities. It is the oldest systematically planned structure known in Namibia, older than any European building. source

3. 1805 to 1834

   Abraham and Christian Albrecht of the London Missionary Society began the first mission station in the territory at Warmbad in 1805. Jager Afrikaner's Oorlam destroyed it in 1811, and in 1834 the Wesleyan missionary Edward Cook put up a new mission building on the old foundations. source

4. 1904 to 1908

   The Herero rose against German rule in January 1904, and Nama groups fought a guerrilla war against the Germans across the south. During the genocide that followed, the Germans held Herero and Nama prisoners on Shark Island at Lüderitz from March 1905 until the camp closed in April 1907. Estimates of how many men, women and children died there run from 1,032 to 3,000. Prisoners were worked on the harbour and on the railway inland to Aus. source

5. 1908

   Zacharias Lewala, a railway worker, picked up a diamond near Lüderitz and showed it to his supervisor August Stauch. Germany then closed a huge strip of the coast as the Sperrgebiet (forbidden area), and the mining town of Kolmanskop grew up in the dunes. source

6. 1922

   South Africa, then ruling the territory under a League of Nations mandate, sent 400 armed men and aircraft to bomb the Bondelswarts, a Nama clan of the far south, after they refused a dog tax and protected five wanted men. About 100 Bondelswarts were killed, among them some women and children. source

7. 1960s to 1989

   Under the apartheid Odendaal Plan, South Africa set aside a Nama homeland, Namaland, made up of the reserves at Berseba, Tses and near Bethanie and Gibeon. The Bondels people of Warmbad were expected to move there. In 1980 it was replaced by a Representative Authority of the Namas, based on ethnicity rather than on fixed borders. source

8. 1966 to 1990

   SWAPO (the South West Africa People's Organisation) began its armed struggle against South African rule in 1966, and in 1973 the United Nations recognised it as the representative of the Namibian people. Namibia became independent on 21 March 1990. source

Languages

In the 2023 census Afrikaans was the main home language in 31.8% of households, followed by Khoekhoegowab (the Nama and Damara language, 17.8%), Oshikwanyama (14.2%), Oshindonga (7.4%), Rukwangali (5.1%) and English (3.9%). source

Nama place names

Keetmanshoop's older Nama name is ǂNūǂgoaes, given by Kaptein Hendrik Tseib of the Kharoǃoan. It means place of black mud, after an iron-rich spring, and the Afrikaans name Swartmodder means the same. source

Grapes on the Orange River

At Aussenkehr, downstream of Noordoewer, the Orange River is used to irrigate vineyards in a valley where almost no rain falls. The heat means the table grapes can be picked three to five weeks earlier than elsewhere. source

Colonial Lüderitz

Lüderitz still has a cluster of German colonial buildings from the 1900s, several of them national monuments. The Deutsche Bank building of 1907 was the town's first bank, and diamond workers collected their pay through a sliding window. The Krabbenhöft & Lampe building went up in 1909 as a shop with a home attached, with bricks shipped in from Cape Town and the roof tiles and rafters from Germany. source