Urieta Kazahendike / Johanna Gertze [1836-1936] – Namibia | Germany
Life stories
Eckhard Möller, 2024
In 1999, the Namibian Post honoured a woman with a stamp who had made a significant contribution to the writing of the Herero language over a hundred years earlier: Johanna Gertze - born Urieta Kazahendike - was significantly involved in the translation work of a missionary from the Rhenish Missionary Society (RMG), who translated the New Testament and other Christian texts from German into Otjiherero.
There are two different perspectives on her life. The retired missionary Heinrich Vedder published two tract-like booklets about her life in 1936, which were primarily aimed at RMG donors. The first booklet focuses on Urieta Kazahendike's baptism as the culmination of the missionary work in Hereroland. The second booklet portrays her life as pious and pleasing to God - in keeping with the social role that the mission accorded African women.
Brigitta Lau, the first director of the Namibian State Archives after independence, takes a different view, deconstructing Vedder's account and characterising Johanna Gertze as a self-confident woman. She makes it clear that the success of the missionary Carl Hugo Hahn in translating biblical and theological texts is primarily due to Johanna Gertze.
This article traces her biography. In the years before her baptism, she was called by her birth name Urieta Kazahendike, then by her adopted Christian first name Johanna. After her marriage to Samuel Gertze, the surname Gertze is used.
Contact: Eckhard Möller, Roonstr. 7, D 33330 Gütersloh – E-Mail: eckmoeller@t-online.
References:
Lau, Brigitte (Hrsg.): Hahn, Carl Hugo: Tagebücher 1837–1860. A missionary in Nama- und Damaraland, 1985.
Lau, Brigitte: Johanna Urieta Gertze and Emma Hahn: some thoughts on the silence of historical records, with Reference to Carl Hugo Hahn, in: Logos, 6. Jg. (1986), S. 62–71.
Möller Eckhard: Schwarzafrikaner*innen im Gütersloh des 19. Jahrhunderts. Ein bislang wenig beachteter Aspekt der Stadtgeschichte, in: Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Gütersloh, 2022, S. 19–27.
Vedder, Heinrich: Die schwarze Johanna. Lebens- und Zeitbild der 99jährigen Johanna Gertze, der Erstlingsfrucht vom Missionsfelde des Hererolandes. Erzählt von Missionar D. H(einrich) Vedder, Band 1 und 2, 1936.
Stationen
Childhood and youth
Return to Carl Hugo Hahn and baptism
A year in the small Westphalian town of Gütersloh
Translator of the New Testament and other theological texts
Return to Namibia, marriage and life in Otjimbingwe
Midwife, nurse, pharmacist