Stampriet
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Stampriet is a village in
Hardap Region Hardap is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, its capital is Mariental. Hardap contains the municipality of Mariental, the towns Rehoboth and Aranos, and the self-governed villages Gibeon, Gochas, Kalkrand, Stampriet and Maltahöhe. It is ...
,
Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
. It is located 64 km north-east of Mariental and above sea level, in a barren area on the upper reaches of the
Auob River The Auob River is a tributary of the Nossob River in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Headwaters * in Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlan ...
where humans and animals alike depend on
borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petrol ...
water.


History

Stampriet was founded in 1898 as a trading post in what was then
German South West Africa German South West Africa (german: Deutsch-Südwestafrika) was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With a total area of ...
. It was the scene of many battles between German and Nama troops. In 1970, the population included 70 whites, 1 mixed-race person, and 195 blacks. The name ''Stampriet'' is an
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
translation of the
Khoekhoe Khoekhoen (singular Khoekhoe) (or Khoikhoi in the former orthography; formerly also '' Hottentots''"Hottentot, n. and adj." ''OED Online'', Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. ...
name Aams. Given that ''stamp'' is Afrikaans for "bump," and ''riet'' is Afrikaans for "reed," it is likely named ever after the reeds one must trample to reach the watering hole or as a place where the "reed dance" or Umhlanga (ceremony), the famed royal ritual in southern Africa, was held. At first it was called ''Stamprietfontein'', but the suffix was abandoned later.


Economy and infrastructure

The local boreholes are strong, sometimes yielding up to 3.5 million liters of water a day, allowing local farmers to irrigate grain crops, especially corn and lucerne. Stampriet is home to Privatskool Elnatan, founded in April 1992 and growing to educate 370 students in grades 1 through 12 with a staff of 61 (including teachers, administrators, groundskeepers, and dormitory staff). Due to the town's small size, 80% of students live in the school's four dormitories, coming from around the country since few private schools in Namibia offer Afrikaans-language education through grade 12. All instruction is in Afrikaans except for the vocational department.


Politics

Stampriet is governed by a village council that has five seats. In the 2010 local authority election, a total of 349 votes were cast in the village. SWAPO won with approximately 74% of the vote. Of the three other parties seeking seats, Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) received approximately 20% of the vote, followed by
Democratic Turnhalle Alliance The Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), formerly the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), is an amalgamation of political parties in Namibia, registered as one singular party for representation purposes. In coalition with the United Democratic ...
(DTA, 5%) and the
Congress of Democrats The Congress of Democrats (CoD) is a Namibian opposition party without representation in the National Assembly and led by Ben Ulenga. It was established in 1999, prior to that year's general elections, and started off with a number of notabl ...
(CoD) which received 0 votes despite being on the ballot. SWAPO also won the 2015 election and gained four seats (460 votes). The remaining seat went to the DTA which obtained 63 votes. In the 2020 local authority election "serious procedural errors" were discovered for the Stampriet village council. Some voters had been handed ballot papers without being registered as living in the village, as is required for the local authority election. No initial result were announced, and the electoral court ordered a re-run. The re-run was conducted on 26 February 2021 and won by the newly formed
Landless People's Movement The Landless People's Movement was an independent social movement in South Africa. It consisted of rural people and people living in shack settlements in cities. The Landless People's Movement boycotted parliamentary elections and had a histor ...
(LPM). LPM gained 353 votes and three seats in the village council, followed by SWAPO with two seats (272 votes).


People

Former Namibian Rugby star
Jacques Burger Jacques Burger (born 29 July 1983 in Windhoek, South West Africa) is a retired Namibian rugby union loose forward who finished his career at Saracens in the Aviva Premiership. Club career He played for Saracens, having joined them in the 2009/ ...
resides in Stampriet.


References


Notes

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Literature

* (af
Elnatan Private School website
URL accessed January 13 2016. * (en) Potgieter, D.J. (edit.) 1974.
Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa The ''Standard Encyclopædia of Southern Africa'' (''SESA'') is a 12-volume encyclopaedia that is principally about the Republic of South Africa and nearby countries. About 1400 people contributed to the encyclopaedia. The first two volumes wer ...
. Cape Town: Nasou Limited. * (en) Raper, Peter Edmund. 2004. New Dictionary of South African Place Names. Johannesburg & Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Villages in Namibia Populated places in the Hardap Region Populated places established in 1898 1898 establishments in German South West Africa