Publications

This paper examines why Zimbabwean households pay bride wealth in instalments rather than a lump sum on the date of marriage. It also poses the question of why the type of cattle that has to be paid is not exactly specified. Starting from the observation that in rural...

On no continent are there as many twins as in Africa, and in no other area of Africa does the rate of twin births come near to that of West African countries like Nigeria, Benin and Togo, where the rate of twin births is over 2.5 per 1000. This article examines the position...

This article describes the contested relationship that existed between the Herero and German missionaries in Namibia between 1900 and 1940. It argues that Herero converted to Christianity with specific aims and intentions, which were not necessarily the same as those...

Writers dealing with the Herero of Botswana have tended mostly to deal with them as a single homogeneous group. Concentrating on Ngamiland during the period 1891-1906, this article outlines and discusses the arrival, at different times and for different reasons, of various...

This chapter reviews the history of anthropology in Namibia, focusing on the work of Guenther Kurt F. Wagner, who was appointed as Assistant Government Anthropologist for South West Africa in 1949. Wagner's unpublished work, 'Ethnographic survey of the Windhoek...

The colonial conquest of Namibia was extremely brutal. Repressive controls continued in the decades that followed as exemplified by the South African colonial administration's regulation of the production and consumption of alcohol by the territory's black African...

This article explores the social impact of the motorcar on the relationship between the colonial State, the mission, and the Herero in Namibia in the period before 1940. It looks at how perceptions of space and reality changed, how information regarding these factors and...