Zara Schmelen

Zara Schmelen , née Hendriks- ǁXeigas (* around 1793 possibly in Steinkopf , Cape Colony ; † April 2, 1831 in Tulbagh ), was a missionary among the Nama in what would later become Namibia . Together with her husband Heinrich Schmelen, she wrote down the Nama ( Khoekhoegowab ) and was the first to translate the Gospels into this language. To do this, she invented characters for click sounds .

Life

Zara Hendriks was born in the Cape Colony. We only know about her origins that she belonged to the Orlam population group and that her mother lived in Steinkopf. Her mother tongue was Nama. As a young woman she came into contact with missionaries from the London Missionary Society , where she was not only one of the first Nama to accept the Christian faith, but also learned to read, write and English. Shortly after her baptism in February 1814, she accompanied the missionary Heinrich Schmelen, who came from Germany, on a journey through Namaqualand . They married that same year, with the husband performing the ceremony himself. Since the mission society initially rejected marriages between white missionaries and local women, Schmelen kept his marriage a secret until 1817. He defended his marriage to the mission society with Zara's "excellent reputation among the people" and the benefit that her language skills brought to the mission. In 1818 the Mission Society lifted the suspension of missionaries married to local residents. The marriage had four children, Anna (* 1815), Hanna (1817–1884), Frederika (* 1819) and Nikolas (1821–1838).

Together with a group of Orlam, they moved north in 1815, where he founded the Bethanien mission station and built the so-called Schmelenhaus , which the family lived in while the father made frequent trips across the country. There they got into clashes between the Orlam and the Herero . The missionaries were also blamed for a drought. Her daughter Hanna reported robberies in her memories. The children were therefore taken to Cape Town , where they attended school. The parents also left the place in 1822 because they no longer felt safe there and returned to the Cape Colony.

After fleeing Bethanien, the family initially lived in Kamiesberg . There Zara began writing the Nama language and translating the Gospels in 1823. To do this, she developed characters for the different click sounds. After several unsuccessful attempts to regain a foothold in Bethanien, they founded the Komaggas mission station in what is now the South African province of North Cape in 1829 and brought their children back home. After letters for the characters for the click sounds had also been produced in 1830 , the family traveled to Cape Town to bring the translations to print. Zara Schmelen, who was already seriously ill, was able to correct the proofs. She died of tuberculosis on the way back to Komaggas .

Although her husband published all of the jointly written works, with the exception of the Gospels, a grammar, a dictionary, a catechism, and school books under his name after her death, he admitted that he lacked the linguistic prerequisites for this work. While Zara was fluent in English, he had a poor command of Khoekhoegowab all her life, despite her teaching. Zara Schmelen's work formed the basis of the history of click spelling . The click letters were further developed by Johann Georg Krönlein , Karl Richard Lepsius and Wilhelm Bleek . Her daughter Hanna continued to write down the Khoekhoegowab.

Descendants

Zara's only son died in 1838 at the age of 17. Their three daughters supported their father and stepmother Elisabeth Bam (1804–1848) with their work. All three married missionaries. As the wife of Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt from the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft, Hanna continued her mother's work on the codification of the Khoekhoegowab and created the first liturgy so that the Nama could celebrate their services in their mother tongue. Thanks to her lessons, Kleinschmidt spoke the language well enough to preach and hold pastoral talks without an interpreter. Frederika married Christian Bam, a brother of her stepmother.

The descendants of Zara and Heinrich Schmelen's daughters in German South West Africa were classified as "natives" in 1908 and thus lost their German citizenship. This also affected the Finnish missionary Martti Rautanen , who was married to Frieda Kleinschmidt, a granddaughter of Zara Schmelen. Descendants of Zara Schmelen living in Germany hid their great-grandmother during the Nazi era when they had to provide proof of Aryan status.

annotation

1. ↑ Note: This article contains characters from the alphabet of the Khoisan languages spoken in southern Africa . The display contains characters of the click letters ǀ , ǁ , ǂ and ǃ . Further information on the pronunciation of long or nasal vowels or certain clicks can be found e.g. B. under Khoekhoegowab .

literature

• Stefan Castelli: "If she had been called home, my effectiveness would have received a hard blow." - Hanna Kleinschmidt and the implementation of the language and language policy of the Rhenish Mission Society . In: Birte Kellermeier-Rehbein, Matthias Schulz, Doris Stolberg: Language and (post) colonialism: Linguistic and interdisciplinary aspects . De Gruyter 2018, pp. 175-204.
• Ursula Trüper: The Hottentottin. The short life of Zara Schmelen (approx. 1797–1831) missionary assistant and language pioneer in South Africa. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologne 2000 ISBN 3896453165 .

Web links

• Horst Kleinschmidt: Zara and Hinrich Schmelen 200th Anniversary. In: horstkleinschmidt.co.za. (English). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Reunion honors an ancestor
2. ↑ Bettina v. Clausewitz: The "invisible woman" becomes visible . In: in the world for the world 1/2015 , p 22f. (pdf, accessed April 1, 2021).
3. ↑ Heinrich Vedder: The old South West Africa. South West Africa's History up to the Death of Maharero in 1890 , pp. 197–199.
4. ↑ Castelli: "If she had been called home, my effectiveness would have received a hard blow." , P. 179f.
5. ↑ Castelli: "If she had been called home, my effectiveness would have received a hard blow." , P. 193.
6. ^ Susann Lewerenz: Colonial and racist thinking and acting under National Socialism . Memorial circular 192, pp. 21–30.