Nama

The Nama, older sources call them the Namaqua, are a Khoekhoe people, living by nomadic pastoralism in the dry country south and east of the Namib. Their early clans grazed livestock along the Orange River and in Namaqualand; the suffix -qua, meaning place of, gave rise to the older name Namaqua.

From the late eighteenth century Nama groups, among them the Oorlam clans with horses and guns acquired at the Cape, crossed the Orange River and pushed north into the interior.

Jager Afrikaner founded a permanent settlement beyond the river in 1795, and in 1823–1824 his son Jonker Afrikaner led his people to the hot springs around present-day Windhoek, building a pastoral society based on cattle, long-distance trade and Christianity. The Nama expansion brought them into mounting rivalry with the Herero of the central plateau.