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The Living Museum of the Damara

Introduction

The living museum of the Damara is a museum about the damaras and their tradition.The damaras are indigenous people of Namibia (like the San), used to be hunter-gatherers but they also kept cattle, sheep and goats. Colonial Europeans therefore learnt about them as shy ‘Bergdamara’ (Mountain Damara). Today their communal land next to the Namib covers the area from around Usakos to Sesfontein.The damara people consist of many clans such as the ǂAo-daman,Ao-guwun,Dâure Daman,ǀGaio-daman ,theǀGobanin, ǁHuruben, ǀKhomanin, ǃKhuise-daman, ǃOe-ǂAn, Hago-Daman and Tsoaxudaman.

Location

The living museum of the damara is situated 10km north from the famous Twyfelfontein rock engravings, in the Kunene region.

History

Werner Pfeifer a man with a very good heart together with five committed people founded the Living Culture Foundation in 2004 and thus triggered the revival of Namibia’s indigenous cultures .Since the damara people are one of the indigenous cultures they come up with an project to built a museum in the Damara Land and they called it the Living museum of the damara. Firstly the people lost hope in continuing with the project as the tradition of the Damara already disappeared. They come up with a solution to reconstruct the museum on basis of old pictures and text and from the help of the San from The Living Museum of the Ju /’Hoansi, the living museum of the damara was founded early in 2010. The living museum of the damara is unique in Namibia and the world, as it is the only place to experience the traditional Damara village.

Activities

The programs offered at the living museum of the damara are: Traditional life in the village and bushwalk, bush walk is the opportunity for traditional hunting with bow and arrows, setting traps and getting to know the amazing diversity of edible and medicinal plants. The daily routine of the traditional museum includes the traditional blacksmith (making of weapons and tools), tanning of leather (production of traditional clothes), jewellery and crafts, dancing, singing and traditional games, Holy Fire and fire making and much more.

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