Utuseb is a small settlement in the

Erongo Region Erongo is one of the 14 regions of Namibia. The capital is Swakopmund. It is named after Mount Erongo, a well-known landmark in Namibia and in this area. Erongo contains the municipalities of Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Henties Bay and Omaruru, as ...

in western central

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and e ...

. It is situated in the

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; pt, Namibe) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. The name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namib ...

, approximately from

Walvis Bay Walvis Bay ( en, lit. Whale Bay; af, Walvisbaai; ger, Walfischbucht or Walfischbai) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The c ...

on the banks of

Kuiseb River The Kuiseb River is an ephemeral river in western-central Namibia. Its source is in the Khomas Highland west of Windhoek. From there it flows westwards through the Namib-Naukluft National Park and the Namib desert to Walvis Bay. Several settlemen ...

. Utuseb has approximately 700 inhabitants and belongs to the

Walvis Bay Rural Walvis Bay Rural constituency is a constituency in the Erongo Region of Namibia. It comprises the rural area surrounding the constituency's district capital city of Walvis Bay, and additionally some streets on the outskirts of the city. It had a p ...

electoral constituency. The people living here belong to the ǂAonin (Southern Topnaar) community, a subtribe of the

Nama people Nama (in older sources also called Namaqua) are an African ethnic group of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. They traditionally speak the Nama language of the Khoe-Kwadi language family, although many Nama also speak Afrikaans. The Nama P ...

History

Topnaars began settling in the area of Walvis Bay and along the Kuiseb River during the start of the 19th century. They first occupied the area at the mouth of the

Swakop River The Swakop River ( naq, Tsoaxaub) is a major river in western central Namibia. Its river source is in the Khomas Highland. From there it flows westwards through the town of Okahandja, the historic mission station at Gross Barmen, and the set ...

, today the city of

Swakopmund Swakopmund (german: Mouth of the Swakop) is a city on the coast of western Namibia, west of the Namibian capital Windhoek via the B2 main road. It is the capital of the Erongo administrative district. The town has 44,725 inhabitants and cover ...

, and moved south beyond Walvis Bay to the Kuiseb mouth between 1820 and 1830. A small faction moved upriver to

Sandfontein Sandfontein is a town in Bojanala District Municipality in the North West province of South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coast ...

but was attacked and driven away by warriors of the Red Nation. They receded to Rooibank (''Scheppmannsdorf'' during Imperial Germany's colonial rule of South-West Africa). Missionary

Heinrich Schmelen Reverend Johann Heinrich Schmelen, born Johann Hinrich Schmelen (7 January 1776 – 26 July 1848) was a German missionary and linguist who worked in South Africa and South-West Africa. Traveling through the area of today's northern South Africa ...

and

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Amraal Lambert of the Kaiǀkhauan ( Khauas Nama) visited the Topnaar around 1824 or 1825 while searching for a hospitable place at the coast to improve logistics for the support of the missionaries in the hinterland. The place was originally called ''Iduseb'' (

Khoekhoe Khoekhoen (singular Khoekhoe) (or Khoikhoi in the former orthography; formerly also '' Hottentots''"Hottentot, n. and adj." ''OED Online'', Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. ...

: ''people want to live there but there is no water'') but as its spelling and pronunciation changed, so did the meaning of the name: ''Utuseb'' in Khoekhoe means ''something half-round that is situated in a round area''. A memorial stone of the Topnaar, the ''Ebenesser ǁHaibeb Gedenksteen'' (

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...

and Khoekhoe: ''Captain ǁHaibeb Memorial Stone'') is situated in the settlement. It was erected in 1982 and bears the inscription "So far the Lord has helped", as well as the symbols for the ǂAonin (a palm tree) and the Hurinin (a fish).

Economy and infrastructure

The settlement is home to JB Brandt Primary School, a boarding school established in 1978. Utuseb has no improved water and sanitation and is not electrified. Cell phone reception is very poor. The school owns the settlement's only land line telephone. Residents rely on harvesting ǃNara melons, their primary staple food, on livestock farming, and old-age grants. ǃNara products are also sold to tourists in Walvis Bay.

References

Notes

Literature

* * {{cite book , last=Vedder , first=Heinrich , authorlink=Heinrich Vedder , title=Das alte Südwestafrika. Südwestafrikas Geschichte bis zum Tode Mahareros 1890 , trans-title=South West Africa in early times: being the story of South West Africa up to the date of Maharero's death in 1890 , language=German , year=1997 , edition=7th , publisher=Namibia Scientific Society , location=Windhoek , isbn=0-949995-33-9 Populated places in the Erongo Region Nama people