1997
XIII, 337 pp.
2 maps, 14 b/w photos
Text language: English
Namibian historiography is a very young discipline. It was only after independence that the search for the new nation’s history started. The idea of collecting and editing oral traditions from amongst the Herero speaking peoples of north-western Namibia and south-western Angola was conceived while carrying out anthropological fieldwork in the vast Kunene province. There were the people themselves who thought that their history ought to be written down. Six years after independence and four years after a successful restructuring of regional boundaries, people sought an identity in history.
The 12 texts which resulted from interviews with older people from Kaokoland are edited without comments in order to retain their character as personal statements.