Hoachanas

Hoachanas was a political centre of the Kai-khaun, or Red Nation, among the Nama-speaking communities of southern Namibia. Local tradition places the discovery of its spring by hunters around 1700, making water an important part of the settlement's remembered beginnings. Its leadership history also records divisions and changing alliances among neighbouring Nama groups. During the eighteenth century the Swartboois separated from the Red Nation and left Hoachanas. Hendrik Jacob Wikar's diary of travels in 1778-79 mentioned the Red Nation leader Gaob Hanamab. Missionaries entered this political world rather than creating it. In 1820 James Kitchingman, Shaw and Schmelen visited the chief Tsawab Gamab; their reception and subsequent difficulties show that conversion was negotiated and contested. The drought of 1829-30 and southward movements of Herero groups brought further disputes over livestock and territory. In the 1830s the Red Nation formed an alliance with Jonker Afrikaner's community, adding another relationship to Hoachanas's established regional politics.

The later city of Gobabis lies here.