Keystrokes ... Herero History

from Haynes McFadden, 03.09.2008

Omaruru/Namibia To understand the history of the Herero tribe one must study Wilhelm Christiaan Zeraeua (1800-1876).

We know little of the first forty years of his life. His tribe is Herero and seems to trace itself back matrilineally to a single woman. In the early to middle 1840’s he organized several men from his tribe into a “Troope” and started what in its day was probably equal to a “Security Company”. The Nama and Herero tribes both used flags in their Wars to mark their military troops. Both used a White Flag to mark their war troops. Several times this had caused the Herero to attack their own allies by mistake. In 1853 the Nama captured Maherero, his mother’s sister’s son (his 20 year younger first cousin). He decided that he had to save his “Brother” (cousin), so he took almost all of the tribe’s cattle to Walvis Bay to sell. He used the money to purchase guns, ammunition, coffee and other trade goods. While there his British military friends made for him a large flag out of red material, because then the Herero military unit could tell itself from the Nama.

He used the trade goods and the threat of the use of the weapons to free Maherero from the Nama. At the end of the war in 1856, Wilhelm Zeraua settled in Otjimbingwe as Chief of the Herero Tribe who also wanted to elevate him to military head. He chose instead Maherero who was twenty years younger and a ferocious warrior in his own right. Wilhelm showed him the red flag. He explained the concept of different coloured flags to mark their military from the Nama.

By the early 1860’s Wilhelm convinced Maherero to move with his followers to Okahandja nearer the war front with the Nama and he would move to Omaruru (then called Okozondje). He left the remainder of the tribe in Otjimbingwe under his son, Zacharias. He also let it be known that Maherero would take the Red Flag with him and Wilhelm would use the While Flag, which he had modified to look more like the German Flag and less like the Nama Flag, to mark his own territory.

Wilhelm arrived in Omaruru in 1868 and settled there for the remainder of his life, dying peacefully in 1876.

At the end of the war with the Germans from 1904-1907, the Herero tribes were thrown into chaos. Their numbers were decimated and their tribal social order was in a shambles. Zacharias’ son, Barminas, took over the tribal leadership and settled finally by 1915 in Windhoek. Barminas formed a social order around the military training he had gotten in his job working for a German officer. So he set up “Komandoes” or social clubs for the youth, dividing them into troops and giving them ranks based loosely upon the German military. Slowly this imposed structure replaced the destroyed tribal structure, and by 1925 there were “Komandoes” in most of the Herero locations around central Namibia (South West Africa). Early in the 1920’s the women had demanded that a Women’s troop also be founded. They designed their own costumes which have changed slightly from the inception. Each tribe used it’s own family flag colours (white, red or green) for their costumes.

Barminas never let the youth in his Komando forget he was a Zeraua of the white flag tradition. When he died in 1926 his youthful troops carried his remains to Omaruru, and on the first weekend in October, 1926, they held a memorial march and interment of his remains in the historic cemetery in the center of Omaruru. And lest anyone ever forget the history of the Zerauas, they called it White Flag Day.

Every year since 1926 there has been a commemoration of White Flag Day honouring the family and the progenitor who had moved to Omaruru to maintain family unity. This year, 2008, marks the 82nd year that this event has been commemorated.