CHAPTER TWO
The missionaries in Heiragabis, the first Walser home, were peacemakers during the 1903–1908 war.
The Roman Catholic Oblates of St Francis of Sales had mission stations south of the Orange River and were eager to expand into Great Namaqualand. The Rhenish Mission prevented it. The chance to bypass this opposition came when Charles Wheeler, the owner of Heiragabis, was planning to retire and put his farm on the market. He met the Roman Catholic Prefect at Schuitdrift and gave him a tour of the farm with its six wells and water tunnels. The mission found a benefactor in Munich to pay the required $6 250 for the land and moved the Fathers and Sisters from Matjieskloof and Pella to their new station.
Sister Louise-Alphonse (born Fanny Kuendig in 1871) and Sister Joseph Alexis (Eugénie Montavon, 1859) arrived in 1899. Although they were French-speaking Swiss, they also had a good grasp of the German language. They were shocked when they found the Nama subsisting on a diet of locusts and acacia gum and wearing nothing but rags. The Sisters taught at the mission and helped the sick, hungry and elderly. European donations and the income from the gum Arabic, harvested according to the Walser tradition, provided funding. They were soon joined by Father Malinowsky, a German-speaking Pole.
Before the Walsers departure to Kinderdam, they welcomed them as neighbours, visiting regularly and supplying goods. At the onset of the war, the Roman Catholic mission in Heiragabis was on good terms with the Germans in the nearby Schutztruppe station at Ukamas and with the Bondelswarts. Father Malinowsky worked as a military chaplain for German soldiers and as an advisor and mediator for German officers as well as for the Bondelswarts captains. He was proficient in Nama and Cape Dutch and knew the Nama leaders well. His Sisters nursed sick and wounded Germans and Bondelswarts back to health in Heiragabis, Ukamas, Kalkfontein and Pella.
In their even-handed friendliness, the Sisters and their superior ran the risk of arousing enmity from both factions. German soldiers nearly shot Father Malinowsky when he was on a peace mission, realising in the nick of time that it was their beloved chaplain.
Eventually, German settlers would accuse Roman Catholic and Rhenish missionaries like Fenchel of supporting, and even instigating, indigenous rebellions, and radical Bondelswarts would regard them as Schutztruppe supporters. Undeterred, they persisted in their work.
The war put strain on all parties. The nuns feared for Malinowsky’s life during his long absences. They had heard about the killing of the mission employee Holzapfel and about mishaps at two other mission stations. In October 1904, Gibeon’s district chief, Henning von Burgsdorff, rode off to talk to his former friend, Hendrik Witbooi, but before he could catch up to him, Salomo Zaal, one of Witbooi’s men, shot him from his horse. Hendrik Witbooi, who was already at a point of no return, condoned the shooting but afterwards felt remorse. In the Fish River Canyon in 1905, a similar incident occurred. Thilo von Trotha was engaged in well-prepared and promising peace talks with Bethany’s Cornelius Frederiks, his former comrade-in-arms. A skirmish between German and Bondelswarts groups regarding raided cattle occurred in the area at the same time and Thilo, suspected of being in cahoots with his countrymen, was shot.
German taxpayers loathed the financial burden of the never-ending war. Social Democrats and the Roman Catholic Centrum Party exposed atrocities. Nama fighters ambushed, raided and retreated successfully but knew that they could not win the war. In this situation, Father Malinowsky became a peace emissary. He made sure that surrender resulted in amnesty and that land was reserved for the warring groups. The Bondelswarts leaders, Jakob Marengo, Johannes Links, Johannes Christian and Abraham Morris, had occasionally visited Father Malinowsky in Heiragabis at the foot of the Great Karas Mountains but then dispersed into the Richtersveld and the Kalahari. Malinowsky had to find them and gain their trust, ensuring them that the German promises would be honoured. Riding alone, Malinowsky reached all the leaders with the exception of Marengo. The peace process was concluded in Heiragabis and Ukamas in time for Christmas 1906. One conference took place on the hill west of the riverbed overlooking Heiragabis and the church, and another in Ukamas. Weapons and ammunition were surrendered in Heiragabis and the ceremony was concluded with a very emotional church service.
Malinowsky finally succeeded in working out the same conditions for the surrender of Marengo but before he could relay this news, Marengo evaded the watchful eye of the police in Upington to join Simon Koper, the only active Nama rebel in the Kalahari. Major Elliott from Gordonia pursued him and his handful of men. On 20 September 1907, at Eenzaamheid in the Kalahari dunes, Marengo and his men were confronted and Marengo was killed. The survivors fled deeper into the sandveld.
Father Malinowsky opened up a second station at Gabis. Both stations were involved in alleviating the suffering caused by the war. Under his leadership, however, missionary expenses rose extraordinarily. He was recalled to Poland, never to return. He had already departed by the time of the Roman Catholic mission’s triumph.
The two Sisters had enormous workloads and as nurses they were exposed to multiple health risks. Sister Louise-Alphonse died in Gabis in 1911 aged 40. Sister Joseph-Alexis caught pneumonia and died in 1919, aged 60, and was buried in Heiragabis.
(Join us every Sunday to take a step back in time and follow the interesting, sometimes sweet, sometimes heart-wrenching tale.)
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