Kavango (ethnic group)
The Kavango ( Rukwangali : MuKavango , English Kavango people ) are a community of five Namibian tribes of around 200,000 originally from East Africa dating black Africans . The history of the Kavango is largely unexplored, but they have been living on both sides of the Okavango river, which now runs between Angola and Namibia, at the latest since the 16th century and, since the beginning of the 20th century, the vast majority have only lived in the river with the same name on the southern bank of the river Regions Kavango-West andKavango East .
etymology
Etymologically , the name "Kavango" goes back to the Portuguese name Cubango / Kubango for the (entire) river, which first became Kavango and then with the prefix "O" derived from the Otjiherero to O kavango . In the meantime, the term kavango experienced a semantic expansion and referred first to the river, then to the territory on both sides of the river and later also to the population living on it.
history
The Kavango originally come from an area in the southwest of today's Tanzania and only migrated to the marshland near Mashi, east of the Kwando , an area in what is now the western province of Zambia . The five tribes that had already formed on the Kwando then moved on to the Okavango in several temporal stages between the 16th and 18th centuries due to fighting with local peoples and a persistent drought:
- the Kwangali and Mbunza in the areas west of today's Rundu ,
- the Shambyu and Gciriku in the areas east of it and
- the Mbukushu in the adjoining area north of the Okavango Delta in the Caprivi Strip .
These areas to the left and right of the Okavango were only inhabited by a few of the San , mainly between the 9th and 12th centuries , who, as a result of the newcomers, moved partly further south and partly merged into the society of the Kavango. In particular, the Mbukushu, the easternmost tribe of the Kavango, mixed here with the population of the San tribes of the Zhu-ǀhoa , ǁGhanikhoe and ǁAni-Kxoe - and also some Herero, who still live to the southeast . The Mbukushu today also have a special cultural status among the Kavango: not only does their language differ more from that of the other Kavango languages , but they were also the only ones among them who practiced the art of making rain until the 20th century. On the other, western end of the Kavango settlement area, there are many family ties , especially between the Kwangali and Owambo , who are related to the Kavango.
In the course of the 19th and 20th centuries there was an immigration of different peoples from the north - initially due to flight from intra-African slave traders , displacement and later due to the civil war in Angola - and further mixing of the Kavango with minorities of the Chokwe and Nyemba population . The Portuguese colonial policy and the civil war finally caused the relocation of almost all Kavango to the southern river bank of the Okavango, which belongs to Namibia. Since then, the north side has been very sparsely populated and there are no larger settlements worth mentioning. However, the border between the two states is artificial, as the Kavango have lived on both sides of the Okavango for centuries.
However, since a border agreement recently concluded with Angola, residents of two-sided border areas have been able to visit the other country freely up to certain borders again - even without official entry and exit. However, this provision does not apply to visitors or tourists.
Population development
Two independently performed population estimates from 1903 are the oldest sources for the population of the Kavango. At that time it was estimated that between 1500 and 2000 people were for the Kwangali, around 1000 for the Mbunza, around 1300 for the Gziriku and around 4500 for the Mbukushu; around 9,000 people in total (not including the Sambyu who were in exile at the time). In the 1960s the population was already over 60,000 and has risen to almost 200,000 to date - mainly due to a population explosion typical of developing countries , but also because of immigration from Angola (this currently corresponds to around 10% of the total population of Namibia ) . For the regions of Kavango-West and Kavango-East, a further increase to over 350,000 and by 2050 to over 450,000 is assumed. This is despite the continuing migration of many Kavango to other regions of Namibia .
Economy and culture
The Okavango, which gives the Kavango its name, is one of the three largest rivers in southern Africa, along with the Zambezi and the Orange , and is the lifeline and basis of life for them and the peoples who lived here before. This, on the one hand, because of its still large abundance of fish (including tiger tetra ), on the other hand, because of the fertile areas on both sides of the river that were flooded during the rainy season (February, March). In this respect, the Kavango are a river people and today, as in the past, live mainly from fishing and agriculture (including cultivation of mahangu , sorghum , maize and field crops ), which led to an agricultural culture that was geared towards self-consumption and less towards production for the market ( subsistence economy ). The men traditionally take over the cultivation of the soil and most of the harvest, while the women are responsible for tilling and cultivating the fields. Cattle breeding was also pursued to a lesser extent ; A local subspecies of the Watussi cattle is common . Hunters and gatherers occur mainly among the approximately 10,000 Kavango living in the dry inland, but they were imports of other cultures, namely some San tribes such as the Hai-ǁom and others, who also took over most of the iron processing of the Kavango.
Another culturally significant industry is the arts and crafts of the Kavango wood carvers, whose work is now sold throughout Namibia. Most of the Kavango wood carvers are descended from the Chokwe , who immigrated from Angola and the Congo , and are very widespread in this craft. They mainly carve from the wood of a type of bloodwood trees ( Pterocarpus angolensis ) that grow in Kavango and the sand fields of the Kalahari basin. The handicrafts produced include a number of ceremonial drums, musical instruments, various household items, ornaments, wall decorations, masks, kitchen utensils and furniture such as chairs and tables, but also canoes ( mokoros ). Wood carving is a professional domain for men; Women, on the other hand, mostly weave baskets and create pots and ornaments from clay.
Because of the more attractive working conditions in the cities of central and southern Namibia, many skilled fishermen move from the Kavango to the port cities of Walvis Bay and Lüderitz . The Kavango wood carvers often seek to sell their products in the better tourist cities of Windhoek, Swakopmund and Okahadja.
languages
The Kavango languages are closely related Bantu languages . The Kwangali , the language of the Kwangali and Mbunza; Shambyu and Gciriku (also summarized as Rumanyo ) are the languages of Shambyu and Gciriku. The Mbukushu language is Mbukushu , which is also spoken in Botswana . Communication between speakers of these individual languages is possible. RuKwangali has the most literature and is the most widely spoken of the Kavango languages; Since Namibia's independence, English has been the only official language and, in addition to the administrative and preferred language of instruction, is also developing into a second and lingua franca, especially in the city of Rundu.
Society and religion
The Kavango have a matrilineal social structure, with a king or queen ( hompa ) in each of the five tribes as the head of the community. The king is usually hereditary and confirmed by a council of elders. This social structure also influences traditional religion, belief systems and mythology of the Kavango, which is monotheistic. The Supreme Being ( God ) is Karunga (the Mbukushu call it Nyambi ) and has an equivalent in the Herero belief system ( Otjiherero for God: Omukuru ). The heavenly bodies help Karunga to protect the people against drought and Shadipinyi , the apostate servant of God. Ancestral cult and occultism also play a role in the traditional belief of the Kavango, with women playing a major social role as spiritual healers . The Kavango have been evangelized only occasionally since the beginning (and more since the middle) of the 20th century and are today around 80% Christians, with traditional mythologies having a parallel status.
In a similar way, traditional (secular) laws - anchored in the Namibian constitution since 1990 - and modern cultural influences are in a tense relationship. Mpo , the RuKwangali word for culture , often only stands for traditional culture for young people , whereas kulcha , a Namlish derivation from the English word culture, stands for modern culture (= pop culture ). The Rukwangali word for lifestyle / way of life is Nkareso .
literature
- Publications of the Frobenius Institute at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt / Main: The Kavango peoples . Franz Steiner Verlag , Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 978-3-515-03343-5 .
- Axel Fleisch, Wilhelm JG Möhlig: The Kavango Peoples in the Past . Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologne 2002, ISBN 978-3-89645-353-2 .
- Maria Fisch: The Mbukushu in Angola (1730-2002), A History of Migration, Flight and Royal Rainmaking . Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologne 2002, ISBN 978-3-89645-350-1 .
- Michaela Chancellor: Maria Fisch: a life for the Kavango . Sister Namibia, Windhoek 2006.
- John Mendelsohn and Selma el Obeid: Okavango River. The flow of a lifeline. Struik Publishers, Cape Town 2004, ISBN 1-86872-963-X .
- Maria Fisch: The Kavango hunters in northeastern Namibia, hunting methods, religious-magical practices, songs and prize poems . Namibia Scientific Society , Windhoek 1994, ISBN 978-99916-702-3-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 26th, 2009 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Eileen Kose, Iron Age Archeology of the Kavango Region, Northern Namibia, University of Cologne
- ↑ DNB 97334640x / 34 Andreas Eckl, Confrontation and Cooperation on the Kavango (Northern Namibia) from 1891 to 1921, University of Cologne , 2004
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. A History of Migration, Flight and Royal Rainmaking
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001332/133274e.pdf Heike Becker: Women, politics and peace in northern Namibia
