The Scourge of the Kaiserbird 9780994691316

The Scourge of the Kaiserbird

by Koos Marais

ISBN 9780994691316

Cordis Trust Publications,Lynnwoodridge, South Africa 2018

The Scourge of the Kaiserbird is a novel based on the author's perspective of Namibian colonial history.

Centuries ago in Namibia, the Khoi-Khoin, who were livestock farmers, and the Khoi-San, Bushman roaming hunters, migrated to the south, away from the water-rich interior of Africa in search of land and freedom from black domination. Many years later these Khoi-Khoin watched as three sailing ships unloaded a considerable number of white people on the beach of a bay beneath a flat-topped mountain that resembled a table. Some of these Khoi-Khoin farmers, the Namas, later fled north again, this time to escape the white domination that came with the sailing ships. They settled in the hinterland of Namaland, across the Gariep River. The nineteenth century saw the arrival of German missionaries, the businessman Adolph Lüderitz, steamships laden with immigrants, Schutztruppe, and later, war in Namaland. The novel Scourge of the Kaiserbird depicts, in alternate chapters, the trials of the Luchtenstein family and the history of the Nama tribes, specifically the !Aman from Bethanien, between 1883 and 1906.