When do we listen as we hear?
Can we glimpse history while listening?
In Acoustic Pasts, Echoed Futures, a loose series curating recordings from the Basler Afrika Bibliographien Archives, the reader is invited to listen to historical recordings—speech, song, music, natural sound, or noise—in order to tease the ear, move the soul or body, and bear witness to the futures of past worlds. The echoes of ‘pastness’ are convergences of the oral, the sense of hearing, and technology. Past aural worlds—compressed and mediated on wax cylinders, magnetic and other tapes or records in mp3 or WAV formats—provide sonic tracks, cracks and soundscapes, voiced anger, scintillating laughter, and raptured dancing.
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On the fourth and fifth of February in 1954 at Omaruru, Adelheid Mbwaondjou, Kristine Kapazu, Asnat Mutanga, Monika Komomungondo, Konstanze Tjiposa, Gustafine Kasuko Hiiko, and Erika Veii sang into the microphone of German linguist Ernst Dammann. During their performances, they made use of the orature in their language, Otjiherero, to speak and sing their history. Navigating a huge body of available songs, poems, and stories, they orchestrated a session in which they recalled the genocidal war of 1904-8 in Namibia, spoke of the traumatic losses their community had endured, and positioned themselves in this history and in Omaruru.
Like all poetry that belongs to the genres of omiţandu and outjina in Otjiherero, the texts of these songs and poems are highly metaphoric. Nevertheless, even in the translations, the hints to historical events become readable.
Reassembling the songs that were recorded on this day, we hear this situation of recording as taking the opportunity to commemorate the battle of Omaruru in February 1904 on different terms. The songs transmit tangible sadness and collective memories of eviction, expropriation, and genocide. The singers turned the recording sessions into a moment of passing on their understanding of their shared history in the form of performances, often sung in several voices.
This was also the case with the following song in which Adelheid Mbwaondjou (1918-2020) sang the main voice, which was supported by the responses of some of the other singers.
These are the words of the song:
Oowami omuari waKaevaeve wongwe yoo Vatje na Ndjoura,
Omukazendu wangwa nana osemba omukazendu waKoruwe
Oowami omuari waTjiyaku womuhanga mbu a tikira mongongo au ha ningi omuwonge
Oowami omuari wovita vya Kazera, Kazera wovita vya Mbonga wovita vya Nandjira
Hee indyeye, tu rire ondondu yetu yaMarurungi ri Kakoru ya Ndanga nge ri Kasewa koya Mbinga ohepundu ndja hepura ovarumendu woya Mbongora
Oo, indjeye, tu rire Omaruru oruwe ndu ri Kasuto na Mularavize ovihekuta vyaRukombo mbyaa vi kekuta kOndjambo.
Hee, indjeye, tu rire ovita vyaKamukandi waKombade, Harakatji waanayaKavi ondondu yOvakweyuva Omaruru.
Hee nu imbwi outuku, owo mbo mau yatamoruwe mau zu ketemba raMunen, ketemba rozongombe ozondumbu zovioko nde ha nunu okuwira.
Owo mbo mau zu kotomuti omwe tjomborora tu tu ri odjuwo yomukazendu waNandomba.
Owo mbo mau zu kombawe yaKamaaerekero, hee mau zu ku Kasamaendo, Kasamaendo waKongwari.
Hee indeye, tu rire ondondu yetu o ha kondwa i omutumba novatjiwereko.
Hee yae tu rire Omaruru owe!
Hee yae tu rire Omaruru owe!
Hee yae tu rire Omaruru owe!
Tu rire ondondu yetu yOvakweuva!
Omaruru owee!
Oomukazendu wangwa nana osemba omukazendu wa Ngombombonde!
Opuwo!
BAB Archives TPA 39 22.7. Original title of recording: “Trauerspruch und -lied über den Verlust von Omaruru”, 5.2.1954.
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We are not able to offer an exhaustive interpretation of this beautiful and touching song. Instead, we take some of the metaphorical elements which appear in Adelheid Mbwaonjou’s performance to point to its significance in the moment of this commemoration, but also as a particular, gendered version of history shared on that day.
In the mourning song, Mbwaondjou lyrically identifies as an omuari three times, each time in connection with names that represent ties to known families at Omaruru. Omuari, the short form of omuarikaze, is a term for a young woman who is breastfeeding and has recently given birth, which in this case is clearly not used biographically. When she repeats the term for the third time, the singer becomes omuari wovita vya Kazera, that is, a young woman tied to the war of Kazera. Only after establishing her genealogical connections to the place and its history does the singer request a collective mourning for Omaruru. Adelheid Kustaa remembered in 2004: “We considered ourselves as products of the war. Some of us were born during the war, some, like me, thereafter. The war and its results were what affected us most.”
Another very strong metaphor is that of omuhanga, the necklace. Omuhanga could be translated as something that is strung, its beads arranged into a particular order. The substantive is related to the verb oku-hanga, which can mean brewing (tea or coffee) but also concentrating (troops). It can also refer to assembling or positioning dancers for a dance. The word stem -hanga also appears in ohange, peace, which in this way describes a state of cohesion; it is close to the verb oku-hangana, to connect or to reconcile. The necklace bursts and falls from the neck of Tjiyaku, to whom the singer, Mbwaondjou connects as omuari. This breaking necklace, which conjures the image of dispersed beads that were not picked up because no one was there to gather them, is thus a deep metaphor not merely for a traumatic loss, but also for dispersion and disintegration. It alludes to a historical moment, that of the battle of Omaruru, which irreversibly ruptured the existing social coherence and destroyed a close-knit community. Adelheid Kustaa said in 2004: “We were scattered all over, some fled to Botswana, many have died. We spent the years after the war searching for our relatives.”
The metaphor of the necklace is doubly linked to Omaruru, because in the song, the men of the oruzo Ombongora, that is, the men of the male family line named after the necklace of ostrich shell beads, are also located in Omaruru. Bringing up this specific clan name superimposes the image of the broken necklace on what was once a symbol of beauty and wealth. In another, Victorine Kaura’s version of an omuţandu for Omaruru, these are ovarumendu wombongora, “the men of the shell necklace, the ones with broad backs and no bellies.”
In Adelheid Mbwaondjou’s performance of the mourning song, the beautiful men of the Ombongora also appear, yet it is in a phrase that deploys the river which signifies Omaruru. Here the river has become a widow who mourns her loss of these men. The Ombongora family line appears as a metaphor that extends the meaning of an actual lineage. Bringing up the necklace as a condensed image of collectivity speaks of a flourishing community, both in terms of material well-being, since the necklaces were objects of trade and were often bought from Ovamboland, and as an image for an orderly social organisation and communal cohesion. With the imagery of the torn necklace that falls from the neck of Tjiyaku, the song portrays the scattering of the population and the loss of social ties as a drastic change for the people of Omaruru which was caused by the colonial war.
The choices the women made in terms of the songs they performed speak in and through particular genres. Their grief and preoccupation with the community’s ordeals entered the stage of the recordings wrapped in the opacity that is a crucial aspect of the Otjiherero genres of orature. The genre conventions of Otjiherero orature not only set the rules for creation and transmission, they also allow for recognition and frame the audience’s anticipation.
Second from the left: Adelheid Mbwaondjou. To the left an unknown performer, perhaps Christine Kapuzu or Monika Komomungondo. Second from the right: Konstanze Tjiposa; to the right Asnat Mutanga. Photographed by Ruth Dammann in Omaruru in 1954. BAB Archives D39 2 066.
Renathe Tjikundi-Meroro works as an administrative officer at the Ministry of Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare in Windhoek. She also translates poetic texts from Otjiherero into English.
Anette Hoffmann’s research, writing, and curatorial work engages with acoustic collections from the colonial archive (anettehoffmann.com). She lives and works in Cologne.
Renathe Tjikundi-Meroro and Anette Hoffmann have been working together for more than 20 years.
The Basler Afrika Bibliographien (BAB)—Namibia Resource Centre & Southern Africa Library in Switzerland is the largest Namibia documentation centre outside Namibia. Its vast library and archive holdings are mainly used by scholars working on Namibian historical topics with its website providing information ranging from catalogues, books, comics, posters, photographs, and audio-visual recordings. The series Acoustic Pasts, Echoed Futures is curated by Dag Henrichsen and Doek!.