History
The Hai||om have a legend about Etosha being the lake of a grieving mother’s tears. The devastating history of these people over the last two centuries makes the link between grief and Etosha a poignant one. Yet there is reconciliation. Johannes Kapner is one of a number of modern Hai||om bridging the negative past with a positive future in Etosha. Johannes is amongst MET’s most experienced field staff. Whenever practical skills, bush knowledge and courage are needed, Johannes is there. He is based in Etosha, but has worked across much of Namibia on game translocations, rhino conservation and more.
The bounty of the Etosha environment has attracted the attention of people for probably hundreds of thousands of years. Without clear oral histories and lacking definitive pre-colonial or even early colonial records, attempts to disentangle and categorise the historic ethnicities of Khoesan hunter-gatherers in southwestern Africa have been relatively unsuccessful. Yet it’s likely that the direct ancestors of the Hai||om inhabited much of the Central Highlands of Namibia and parts of the Cuvelai Basin for at least a thousand years.
Unlike other San, the Hai||om speak a language of the Khoekhoegowab group, which has caused much speculation about their origins. Amongst many labels, they’ve been called an ‘ethnographic anomaly’. More than other San even, the Hai||om have been exposed to marginalisation, oppression, dispossession and active extermination. The history of Etosha is infused with their story. Many lived traditional lives in the park until they were evicted in 1954. Close to 400 still live in Etosha’s staff quarters today.
The Ovambo (also known as Ambó) arrived in the Cuvelai in the early 1500s during the broad Bantu expansion across southern Africa. As croppers and herders, they found this an ideal place to settle and spread out across the basin. Relatively fertile soils and permanent water from shallow wells, abundant indigenous fruit trees and wildlife, and the annual flow of the iishana that offers prolific fish catches enabled a higher population density than most parts of southern Africa. The people planted crops and grazed their livestock on vast grasslands. They hunted, and they harvested salt from the saline pans. They blossomed into eight closely related dynasties, with the Kwanyama and Ndonga being the largest. Together, they became the most powerful and numerous people in the area. Less than 100,000 in the 1800s have multiplied to a population of over one million today.
Herero pastoralists arrived in the region at a similar time to the Ovambo. While the majority subsequently settled across the Central Highlands, some remained in the northwest and have utilised the western fringes of the Ovambo Basin and parts of what is today Etosha National Park for centuries.
Life in the Ovambo Basin was not always tranquil. The slave trade had a significant impact on the people, reaching a peak in the 1800s. Slavery was officially abolished in 1875, but was for several decades replaced by a system of forced labour in Angola. Development of the German colony of South West Africa led to an increasing demand for labour on mines here and the establishment of a migrant labour system. Over time, this involved about three quarters of all Ovambo men. Labour export remains an entrenched practice – many people still leave the Cuvelai today to seek employment elsewhere.
The first European known to have traversed parts of the Cuvelai was Andrew Battels, an English prisoner sent to Angola by the Portuguese. He escaped and fled south in 1589, and lived with the Ovambo for 16 months. His account, published in 1595, was the first description of the interior of this part of southern Africa.
European explorers only reached the area over a century later – the Swede Karl Johan Andersson and the Brit Francis Galton were the first to survey parts of Etosha Pan in 1851. The western and southern entrance gates are named after them. Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was an industrious explorer and scientist, who later devised human fingerprint identification.
Etosha served as a stop-over for the Dorsland Trekkers on their epic journey to and from Angola. They settled in the Etosha area twice, between 1876 and ‘79 and again from 1885 to ‘87, and were based at Namutoni and Rietfontein.
The first colonial infrastructure was established in the vicinity of Etosha Pan a decade after the proclamation of the German colony. When rinderpest broke out in 1896, Okaukuejo and Namutoni were set up as livestock control posts to stem the spread of the disease, which caused massive losses of wildlife and livestock across southern Africa.
Okaukuejo and Namutoni were turned into fortified military posts in 1901 and ‘03 respectively. The military presence was not welcomed; the Ondonga King Nehale ya Mpingana ordered an attack on Namutoni in 1904. The first onslaught was warded off, but the Germans fled and the fort was destroyed. A stronger fort was built in 1905, which is today a tourist attraction. The northern park gate is named after King Nehale.
During World War I, the British considered the Kwanyama King Mandume ya Ndemufayo, who had been involved in clashes with the Portuguese in Angola, ‘uncooperative’. A military offensive was dispatched and the king was killed in battle in 1917. Mandume was the first and most prominent of several Ovambo leaders killed during the periods of British and South African rule.
The Oshivambo word etotha, which evolved into today’s Etosha through European use, is interpreted as ‘place where no plants grow’. The spelling Etotha can still be found in early literature. Other interpretations include ‘great white place’, ‘place of emptiness’ and ‘bare place’.
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