Anthropos 92.1997: 35-50
Contested Places
Graves and Graveyards in Himba Culture
Michael Bollig
Abstract. - Nowadays the significance of ancestral Himba
graves has become controversial among a wider public, as they
seem to represent major impediments to a huge hydroelectric
dam project. Himba graves, however, are contested places in
various senses: while their symbolic and religious meaning
is being evaluated between local society and Namibian and
Angolan government agencies, the graves have been an arena
for the expression of power structures within Himba society.
The repressive South African government kept Himba pastoral-
ists away from larger markets by force and prevented pastoral
elites from displaying wealth and status by means of Western
commodities. Internal competition for prestige led to various
changes in mortuary display over the last century. Through
their relation to ancestral graves, individuals and groups express
relationship to land in a context where pastoral actors are
competing for communally-owned resources. [Namibia, Him
ba, graves and land tenure system, burial and commemoration
ritual ]
Michael Bollig, Ph.D. (1991), Lecturer at the Institut für
Völkerkunde, University of Cologne. Field research in north
ern Kenya and northern Namibia on conflict management and
risk-minimizing strategies of pastoral peoples. - Publications:
Die Krieger der gelben Gewehre. Intra- und interethnische
Konfliktaustragung bei den Pokot Nordwestkenias (Münster
1992); see also References Cited.
1 Introduction
The graves and graveyards of the pastoral Himba
living in Namibia’s remote northwestern mopane
savannah have recently become central to the de
bate about the disputed Epupa hydroelectric dam
site. 1 Whilst they had been the subject of tour
ists’ photographs for some decades, they suddenly
became a topic subject to political debate. Whilst
Himba leaders maintain that their culture is at risk
if their ancestral graveyards along the Kunene are
to be inundated by the dam waters, proponents of
the dam maintain that these graves could easily be
relocated without violating Himba custom. They
refer to the fact that, for example, the remains
of Samuel Maharero, the paramount Herero chief
at the turn of the century, were shifted from Bo
tswana to Okahandja in 1923 and that the grave
of the popular Kaokoland folk hero, Vita Tom,
who died and was buried in Ondangwa in 1937,
was shifted to Opuwo in the 1980s. The Himba
have voiced their opinion that such exhumations,
technical problems set aside, are virtually impossi
ble and will destroy the significance of the graves
as much as the inundation will do. An analysis
of the discourse between proponents of the dam
and those who oppose it reveals that both sides
have very different concepts of what constitutes a
grave. Whilst for the one side the grave is merely
the locality in which the physical remains of a
deceased person rest, for the other side the con
cept (and the place) is much more comprehensive:
the ancestral grave is a focal point for defining
identity, for expressing relationships with the land
and for practising religious beliefs and rituals.
From an anthropological point of view several
interesting topics arise from this debate concerning
the meaning and style of the graves. What do these
graveyards mean to the inhabitants of northern
Kaokoland? In order to answer this question we
have to dig deep into Himba ethnography. The
graveyards which are found along the Kunene con
front us with at least some 150 years of history. A
first glance at grave sites shows that very different
styles of mortuary display are presented in grave
yards. Questioning senior informants reveals that
there are both synchronic and diachronic differen
tiations. Whilst Himba graves differ at any given
point in time according to wealth, sex, and ethnic
affiliation of the deceased person, they also show
variation through time. We may ask why people
decide to bury their relatives in different ways and
why they changed the styles of mortuary display
several times within one century. The changes in
1 The governments of Namibia and Angola plan to build a
huge dam at the Kunene in order to produce electricity.
The local pastoral population is strictly against the dam. At
the moment the gigantic project is scrutinized by a group of
consultants. The “Epupa Debate” has found a wide concern
in the Namibian public.