Their origins steeped in mystery, the wild horses in the Namib Desert have captured imaginations and touched hearts. These resilient animals have survived in the desert for more than a century and over the years have become a major tourist attraction in southern Namibia.
The book ‘Wild Horses in the Namib Desert’ (now out-of-print) is the outcome of a collaboration, revealing the little-known history and behaviour of the wild horse population. Manni Goldbeck sheds light on the horses’ origins, taking the reader back to the tumultuous time of World War l and exploring the more plausible theories, while Telané Greyling (PhD Zoology) shares her knowledge of the intriguing behaviour of the Namib horses gleaned from her many years of research and life amongst the horses. Freelance writer, Ron Swilling, created a text from the material giving it a breath of life. Finally, from the love for the horse and all things wild, the book was born.
An equine biography of the Namib wild horses, the book traces the beginnings of Equus groups on the sub-continent, following their journey over time to Namibia and the present day.
Join us every Sunday as we share the wild horses’ journey with you . . .
(If you’ve missed any of the posts, you can find them on the PadlangsNamibia website.)
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭 . . .
𝐎𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬
Wild horses of unknown origin encourage speculation and there are many alternate theories as to how they ended up in south-western Namibia. We cannot discount myth and mystery, or the need to entertain the mysterious in our lives.
The origin myth involving a shipwreck appeared in the first articles printed about the horses in the late 1980s. The theory surmises that the horses were part of a cargo of domestic animals on a freighter that ran aground in the late nineteenth century, south of the Orange/Gariep River mouth bordering Namibia and South Africa. Any survivors, however, would have had to make an impossible journey across the Orange River and 200 kilometres of barren desert to arrive in Garub.
Another theory surmises that the wild horses originated from Duwisib Castle, 250 kilometres north of Garub, belonging to Baron von Wolf, and were released or escaped from Duwisib after the Baron’s death in Europe in World War l. The more romantic version relates that his distraught wife threw open the gates to the farm in a fit of grief allowing the horses to run free. The validity of this theory is doubtful because it is in the nature of horses to stay in the area they are accustomed to as long as there is food and water rather than to migrate. Additionally, archival evidence reveals correspondence recording the sale of Duwisib horses and the trekking of horses to Mafeking for sale in 1923. The records also show that there were over 200 horses at Duwisib in the early 1920s, and horses were still listed in the Duwisib books as late as 1940. However, the Garub horses had already made their appearance twenty years previously.