Herero Women, dressed to protest.

One often imagines Victorian inspired gear as being classically European. The Herero people, however, extracted multiple elements from their oppressors to form a unique style of dress. Here is an interesting extract from a Daily Mail article:

“The history of Herero clothing is extraordinary. Rhenish missionaries first introduced Victorian dress, which the tribe gradually accessorized by adding, for example, cow horn headdresses. Later, during the 1904 war with Namibia’s German colonizers, Herero tribe members claimed the military uniform of dead German soldiers.

Germany officially claimed their stake in a South African colony in 1884, calling it German South-West Africa until it was taken over in 1915. The first German colonists then arrived in 1892, and conflict with the indigenous Herero and Nama people began. Between 1893 and 1903, the Herero and Nama peoples’ land as well as their cattle were seized by militarily superior German forces who regarded them as subhuman.

Then in 1903, the Herero people learned that they were to be placed in reservations, leaving more room for colonists to own land and prosper. By 1904, the Herero and Nama began a disastrous rebellion that lasted until 1907. During this time the Germans devised a plan to annihilate the Herero nation. Experts estimate that around 80,000 Herero lived in German South-West Africa at the beginning of Germany’s colonial rule over the area.

When the revolt was defeated, they numbered around 15,000. In a period of four years, approximately 65,000 Herero people perished. Those who survived, once freed from concentration camps, were robbed of their lands, segregated from whites and forced to work in slave-like conditions.

German rule ended in 1915 when the German army was beaten by the South African - but, once liberated, the Herero men began not only dressing as much like their German oppressors. Herero women also affected the styles and the airs and graces of the Christian missionary ladies who had come among them in the 1890s. At the 100th anniversary of the massacre, German Minister for Economic Development and Cooperation Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul apologized for the crimes on behalf of all Germans.

But the clothes the Herero choose to wear, both men and women, are a permanent reminder of the great scar gashed in the tribe’s history when they came close to being exterminated.” (Read full story on the Daily Mail)

For more: Herero Women Challenge German Amnesia, Herero People: the Fearless and Warlike African Tribe that Suffered the World’s First Holocaust at the Hands of Germans.

Photography by Jim Naughten.