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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Order Out of Chaos: Mandume Ya Ndemufayo and Oral History |
Author: | Hayes, Patricia |
Year: | 1993 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 19 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | March |
Pages: | 89-113 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Namibia |
Subjects: | Kwanyama anticolonialism traditional rulers oral history nationalism History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
About person: | Mandume (d. 1917) |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636959 |
Abstract: | Oral historical sources from northern Namibia offer new insights into the history of the Kwanyama under their last king, Mandume ya Ndemufayo. A forceful leader in both his drive for social renovation and in his resistance to colonial occupation, he stands out as one of the most compelling figures in Namibian history. After defending Oukwanyama, the largest Ovambo polity on the Cuvelai flood plain in northern South West Africa (Namibia), against Portuguese invasion in 1915, he was forced into a 'protection' agreement with South African officials administering southern Ovamboland. This article deals with the period before 1915. After an outline of the historical context in which Mandume came to power, it traces the actual reforms initiated by him during the period 1911-1915. This period is deeply suggestive of the crises facing the Kwanyama kingship prior to colonialism. Against a backdrop of increasingly frequent drought and scarcity, plus incorporation into the mercantile and mining capitalist economies, Mandume launched a drive for renovation aimed fundamentally at rolling back powerful headmen who had undermined central royal power. Sources used in this study are both written and oral. The oral evidence is based on the 'Kaulinge tradition', accounts of Vilho Kaulinge, recorded in Ovamboland in 1989. Notes, ref., sum. |