Anthropos: Anthropos, 92.1997,1/3

Anthropos, 92.1997,1/3

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711886

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711886

Persistenter Identifier:: 1513768301723

Titel:: Anthropos, 92.1997,1/3

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1997

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 92, 1997, Heft 1-3

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenartikel

Titel:: Contested Places. Graves and Graveyards in Himba Culture

Sonstige Person:: Bollig, Michael

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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.

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