Perhaps for the first time in the commemorative history of Ohamakari, the day is to be commemorated through a night-long open wailing and mourning by the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu communities, joined by their fellow descendants of the victims of German Genocide, the Nama, tomorrow during the 112th anniversary of the Battle of Ohamakari.
For the unconverted this is by no means meant as a simulation of such a vigil, or in any way a symbolism thereof but the real and actual mourning when tonight leading women of these traditional communities will be converging and entering the designated house or room, but probably a big tent to accommodate hundreds of mourners expected at the Okakarara Community Cultural and TC (OCCTC).
The vigil is expected to last for the whole night until the early morning hours of tomorrow with the mourners taking turns. This is an open wailing and mourning, a means of expiation from more than hundred years of silent and quiet internal mourning and wailing that these communities have been engaged in all along. A women’s ritual, mothers and their daughters, descendants of the Genocide victims, traced to 1896 and subsequently up to 1904 and 1908, would emerge in the early hours of Saturday morning to join the rest of the masses for the commemoration of the Battle of Ohamakari.
Not that it has been an easy decision to hold such a vigil but it comes after intense and meticulous consultations with the communities’ traditionalists and culturalists, lest the ancestors do not take kindly to such a vigil. A vigil in the tradition and culture of the concerned communities is usually a taboo and sacred thing, which is only done in the case of death within the communities. But given that those who vanquished during the Battle of Ohamakari have never been mourned, and as much their remains have never received proper burial, this is one assignment their descendants have taken upon themselves. The position of these communities has always been that because of their various battles against Imperial Germany, culminating in the Extermination Order against the Ovaherero on October 2, 1904, and the one against the Nama on April 24, 1905, these Namibian communities have constantly been in mourning as their near annihilation has never been expiated in any way, form and means.
Given this state of continued mourning, and statelessness, hence the decision to have a mourning and wailing ceremony as a major and central part of the commemorative events on the 112th anniversary of Ohamakari. The decision to mark this anniversary with a sombre occasion is not intrinsic in itself but is meant as a message that the Ovaherero and Nama communities remain in bondage, and thus in wailing and mourning, until and when the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, unconditionally and unreservedly answer to their demand for a direct apology to them, and subsequently to atone for its abominable past excesses culminating in the near annihilation of these communities in the then South West Africa, modern day Namibia.
The 112th anniversary of Ohamakari Day, which is August 11, was yesterday. The battle was fought almost eight months after Ovaherero Paramount Chief, Samuel Maharero, had decided on January 12, 1904, in Okahandja, that he could no longer fathom the oppression, robbing, trickery, and alienation of his people’s property, including cattle, and land, by Imperial Germany’s settler citizens in German South West Africa then.
Thus from January 12, 1904 to August 11, 1904, it was a period of intense battles against the military forces of Imperial Germany. But Ohamakari cannot be seen in isolation to the many battles that the various indigenous leaders and their communities and peoples pitched against Imperial Germany’s occupation and subjugation, coupled with interminable mass killings of the indigenous people.
To cite but a few of such battles, in March 1984, Major Theodor Leutwein moved against Khauas (Nama) at Naosanabis when their leader Andries Lambert was eventually court-martialled. In August the same year, 1894, he attacked the Witboois in the Naukloof and despite their brave resistance they were overpowered. This was after an earlier attempt by Curt von Francois on the Witboois at Hoornkrans in 1893 when Chief Witbooi managed to escape.
Then there was the Battle of Otjunda on May 6, 1896, which eventually led to the capture and execution on June 12, 1896 at Gross Barmen near Okahandja, of Ovambanderu Chief Kahimemua Nguvauva, and Nikodemus Kavikunua.
Soon, we shall be commemorating August 26. In the context of the Ovaherero history, this day has a significant meaning. August 26, 1923, is when the remains of Samuel Maharero were re-interred in Okahandja after their repatriation from Botswana, where he had died earlier the same year. Since, the Ovaherero have undertaken yearly pilgrims, for 93 years now, to pay homage to their ancestors, including Maharero.