36
Michael Bollig
Anthropos 92.1997
Himba grave styles are all the more astonishing
when we regard the apparently slow pace of cul
tural change in other areas of the society. Women
still wear their leather garments and anoint their
bodies with a paste of fat, red ochre, and perfumes.
Young men still wear the pigtail coiffure (ondato)
and when they marry they change to the elaborate
ondumbo hairstyle. Without going into detail here,
a look at other fields of culture shows that neither
the social organisation nor the religious system
has changed tremendously. If so, few other things
have changed over the century, why did mortuary
display change rather rapidly? We may further ask
whether the burial custom for the rich changed at
the same rate as it changed for the poor, and if
the presentation of gender in mortuary display fol
lowed these general trends? Frequently the Himba
graves are addressed as “holy grave sites” by the
national and international press. In what sense are
these graves “holy”? Who is buried there and how
do the living communicate symbolically with the
dead at these sites? In short, why do the Himba
fight with such a vigour for these graves? The Him
ba opposition to the inundation of their graveyards
has an appeal to the wider Herero society as graves
have been central at many crucial points in Herero
history (Kriiger and Henrichsen 1996; Irle 1906).
Furthermore the fight against the destruction of
“holy graves” has an attraction to the First World
eco-movement and for many Western outsiders
seems to embody the Himba’s close relationship
with their environment evidenced, in this instance,
through their care for ancestral graveyards.
The topic of grave sites is interesting for an
thropology and neighbouring disciplines, and from
a more theoretical viewpoint too. Anthropology,
in contrast with archaeology, has little to say
about graves as such (but see Bloch 1971). Ar
chaeologists frequently deplore “the relatively im
poverished nature of the ethnographic accounts
of mortuary differentiation” (Buikstra 1987: 323).
Although anthropology was concerned with death
from its beginnings (Tylor, Frazer, Durkheim) the
nonmaterial aspects connected with death (i.e., rit
uals, mourning) were of much more interest than
the material aspects (i.e., graves, coffins, etc.).
Burial customs were frequently analysed as rites
de passage (van Gennep 1960). On the other hand
graves are unique sources for archaeologists (e.g.,
Saxe 1970; Binford 1971; O’Shea 1984; Can
non 1989). From the remains of graves they try
to analyse societal stratification, gender relations,
and the interethnic relationship of ancient cultures
(c.f. O’Shea 1984 for a systematic exploration
of this potential). While O’Shea and others have
shown that mortuary display correlates with soci
etal structures, Hodder (1982) cautioned against
too optimistic conclusions from burial remains.
Although differing in degree, archaeologists agree
that graves may give evidence of vertical (wealth,
status, political office) and horizontal (gender, age,
descent, ethnic affiliation) structures of a society.
The data presented here will try to follow up some
of these questions by putting one ethnographic
example at the centre of the analysis. The emphasis
on graveyards in recent political debates urges us
to elicit the meaning and function of these sites
in a much broader context. How are wealth and
status represented in mortuary display? In what
way are gender relations reflected in grave sites?
A question archaeologists rarely address is why
mortuary display changes over time. Comparing
the development of Victorian British, Iroquois, and
ancient Greek graveyards, Cannon (1989) detects
cyclical patterns in mortuary display. However he
has little to say on why styles change. Frequently
archaeologists assume that changes in mortuary
display reflect changes in the worldview or in
the social organisation of a society. What are
lacking are ethnographic observations on how and
why changes in mortuary display take place. What
makes people change styles? Are they inspired by
changes in their worldview or by other consider
ations?
This paper will try 1) to give an ethnographic
description of changing grave styles in northwest
ern Namibia, 2) to follow up on the question
of how and why mortuary display changes over
time, and finally 3) to show the legal and religious
significance of graves in the present day.
2 The Himba
The Himba emerged as a distinct ethnic group
towards the end of the last century. According
to oral traditions, before that time the pastoralists
of Kaokoland identified themselves as Ovaherero.
The ferocious Nama raids forced many pastoralists
to flee from Kaokoland to southwestern Angola
where they came into close contact with the Por
tuguese colonial economy. During their sojourn
in Angola the refugee group became identified as
Himba, while those stockless people who remained
in Kaokoland became known as Tjimba. Between
1900 and 1930 many Himba migrated back to Kao
koland as the Portuguese colonial administration
had become too oppressive in Angola and as the
German and later South African administrations in
Namibia had put an end to Nama raids. Although