GATHERING AS RESISTANCE IN THE NAMA AND DAMARA COMMUNITY

Opening vignette

It was the middle of winter, and all nineteen of us sat in our polypropylene chairs – closely arranged, our eyes fixed on Ouma Dudu as she took out her bag filled with indigenous herbs and medicines from the Damara people. She unrolled each herb one by one, laying them out in her black bag. Some were stored in old Nola containers for preservation. Chairs creaked as we leaned forward, curiosity and excitement narrowing the space between us.

As Ouma introduced us to various medicines – like Sã-i, used for good luck and as a perfume, and ǃNãu/aru, a remedy for bladder infections, period pains, and even as an abortifacient – our smiles grew wider, and the room filled with eager whispers. With each revelation, our curiosity deepened. Yet, when the demonstration ended, a deeper question lingered. For the Khoisan communities present, this gathering meant more than just learning; it marked a step towards healing from a long history of violence that has scarred the Nama and Damara. Was this gathering the very 'work in motion' that Athambile Masola (2020) calls ukuzilanda, the act of reclaiming oneself by engaging with collective histories? The notion of remembering oneself through telling intimate stories of our past?

In the following four days, we immersed ourselves in these histories, examining the cultural heritage of the Nama and Damara and the lasting scars of German occupation. Elder women from both groups led the sessions, guiding us through traditional healing practices and medicinal knowledge, demonstrating how Indigenous practices persist outside conventional biomedical frameworks. For example, ǃNãu/aru, used for home-based abortions, remains criminalised by Western medical standards. This restriction reveals how colonial legacies still shape healthcare, highlighting how race and medicine intersect to limit access to holistic Indigenous healing today. These traditional healing practices, often dismissed by Western medicine, serve as vital lifelines, reaffirming the community's identity and autonomy in a post-colonial landscape.

In this small room, the Nama and Damara people understood that they had come together as an act of resistance against historical and ongoing violence experienced by their communities. This was a step towards preserving their cultures and seeking recognition in the Namibian state.

In this small room, as my colleague and I, both South African women of Xhosa and Zulu origins, gathered to learn from and with the community of the Nama and Damara people, we came together to remember and retell the lived experiences for the preservation of healing practices. The intergenerational dialogue in itself is a refusal to draw on history only against historical and ongoing violence experienced. This gathering served as a learning experience and emerged as a powerful act of resistance, healing, and cultural reclamation for the Nama and Damara communities.

History

Understanding our present begins with acknowledging our past; thus, we explored the historical backdrop of Nama and Damara's struggles.

Historical records suggest that the Khoisan, among the first settlers in Southwest Africa (now Namibia), arrived around 2,000 years ago, followed by subsequent Khoisan groups, including the pastoral Nama. By the 9th century AD, the Damara had also arrived, settling in central Namibia in what is now Damaraland. Over the centuries, the Nama and Damara endured violence and displacement, first through indentured servitude in the 19th century, then under genocidal policies during German colonisation, and later through apartheid spatial policies.

In 1904, conflict erupted when German General Lothar von Trotha ordered the extermination of those in resistance. By the end of the war in 1908, up to seventy-five per cent of the Nama, fifty per cent of the Herero, and fifty-six per cent of the Damara had been killed. German troops, known as the Schutztruppe, poisoned water supplies, leading to dehydration and death for many Indigenous people. Those who survived were sent to forced labour camps, where disease, malnutrition, and abuse claimed even more lives, cementing the genocidal intent of the German Empire.

In the present day, the Nama and Damara communities exist within the periphery of Namibian society, with their everyday lives at the margins of the state's imagination. Today, these communities continue to face cultural erasure in Namibia's collective memory, an erasure that deepens their past traumas.

Gathering as resistance

As we gathered—a mix of elders and younger community members- it became clear that these stories were being told as acts of resistance. Oral traditions became powerful tools, challenging the limitations of the "official" archive.

This use of orality echoed Wanelisa Xaba's (2021) intervention in their work The black Body as a Moving Ancestral Archive, which stresses that the body should be recognised as a living, breathing archive. The body is a vessel that straddles physical and metaphysical realms that can reposition us and our histories in the immediate and present, existing as a repository for retelling our stories – often stories that are not kept within archival institutions. As we venture into the oral, we use our body as an archive to store and relay these ideas between those close to us and our communities. Through this act, we memorialise these histories, etching them onto our bodies and the contemporary world that we manoeuvre. Indeed, this is how the gathering operated, with different individuals, such as Ouma Dudu, relaying histories of the Damara people through the use of the oral – the use of her body – in order to weave the past and present moments of the community.

Similarly, Babalwa Magoqwana (2018) describes the figure of uMakhulu as a matriarch embodying living, breathing knowledge and history. We're reminded of uMakhulu's importance away from the notions of being regarded as a forgotten archive but as a productive force behind the sharing and continuation of Indigenous knowledge systems. This was exampled through, yet again, Ouma Dudu's simple yet profound act of laying out her traditional herbs, which connected us to the historical practices of the Damara people and later, as Ouma Cornelia, draped in the multi-patterned attire of the Nama, evoked her people's identity with pride, further interlacing different generations of people into the histories of the Nama people.

Within the session, we also had Mr Hans, who joined us from Twyvelfontein, the Damara Living Museum in ǀUi-ǁAis, which is a testament to these communities' resistance against erasure. The museum in ǀUi-ǁAis showcases Damara's history, traditional dance and other ways of life. The museum regards itself as 'living' because it sees itself as a 'living and breathing' archive, not frozen in time but critically factoring into the present lived realities of the community (Shange 2023). By enacting their history, they assert control over how their past and cultural identities are presented, creating a space for community memory and ongoing reclamation. Mr Hans and Nicolet, who had accompanied Mr Hans, further indulged the collective in their traditional attire. They were made from the animal hide of a springbok and sometimes goat skin, with bangles dangling with every movement, suggesting various ways of expressing Damara culture.

Our discussions soon broadened to cover the interconnected issues of healing, land, and access in Namibia. Centuries of displacement, first by the Germans and later by the South African apartheid regime, severed the Nama and Damara from their cultural lands, disrupting livelihoods and vital cultural practices essential for community well-being. We raised critical questions about women's rights, land ownership, and the urgent need for redistribution within Namibia. Like movements in the Americas and Australia, the efforts of the Nama and Damara reflect a global trend among Indigenous peoples to reclaim their narratives and rights. For the Nama and Damara communities, land holds meaning as a relational component of healing and well-being.

The intersection of gender and land rights emerged as particularly poignant, with women in these communities often shouldering both historical and contemporary injustices as they advocate for roles in cultural preservation and economic empowerment. The women's deep connection to the land was clear, expressed through the phrase, "A woman who works the land, works with the land to give life." This signposts the powerful relationship between women and land through cultivation for sustenance and healing.

Colonialism, and later apartheid, disrupted Indigenous healing practices, centring Western medicine and marginalising Indigenous methods. The former soon dominated, dismissing Indigenous practices and their experts as 'immoral, primitive, dirty, uncivilised, and superstitious 'pretenders of great skill in herbs and plants.'

As we concluded the gathering, we recognised that these conversations- rooted in oral history, healing, and community-led preservation – form an active resistance. Through these stories, the Nama and Damara affirm their histories, create new paths towards healing and reclamation, and continue to push for redress and reparations.

Confronted with a legacy of violence, displacement, and cultural erasure, these communities reclaim their identity and history through shared memories and practices. By reviving Indigenous knowledge, particularly in contexts where colonial and Western frameworks have marginalised it, they assert agency, preserve their heritage, and counter ongoing erasure within the Namibian state. This gathering represents a powerful means of cultural preservation and an active step towards self-determination and collective healing.

As these gatherings continue, they could play a crucial role in shaping policy discussions, potentially leading to greater representation of Indigenous voices in Namibia's governance and narratives of preservation and heritage.

This article was originally published on AfricLaw