Heinrich Schmelen

Johann Heinrich Schmelen, actually Johann Hinrich Schmelen ( born January 7, 1776 in Checkout fracture in Bremen, † July 26, 1848 in comma gas, South Africa) was a missionary of the London Missionary Society (LMS ) and founder of the mission station Bethany.

Schmelen came from middle-class home. In order to avoid military service, he fled to England and came by Karl Friedrich Adolf Steinkopf (1773-1859) with the London Missionary Society in contact. The meeting with three converted to the Christian faith Nama had to Schmelen made ​​such a strong impression that he opted for the missionary work and had to send, after appropriate training in 1811 to South Africa. There Schmelen initially worked under the guidance of Christian Albrecht (1773-1815) in the Pella mission station.

As a larger group Orlam because of better grazing grounds Pella left and crossed the Oranje to Schmelen joined them. On Khoekhoegowab - For " the permanent source, which can not be closed with a stone " | called Ui ǂ gandes [ Khi 1], and in Afrikaans Klipfontein - they found a new place of settlement. Schmelen named the place in reference to the biblical place where Jesus was baptized, Bethany and built here, the second built by Europeans stone house in South West Africa, known Schmelenhaus, which can still be visited today. The residing Orlam than the Bethanier were accordingly referred to in the literature. Despite initially successful missionary work there was because of the increasingly warlike and predatory behavior of Orlam to a rift with Schmelen, so that he ended his 1822 mission work in Bethany.

After lengthy investigation trains through East Africa, which led him under the most difficult conditions to Walvis Bay and Windhoek to, Schmelen finally took over the task of the New Testament translated into Khoekhoegowab. This took his Khoekhoegowab speaking woman Zara Schmelen (around 1793-1831 ), a large part of the work. After 7 years of work, the contract was fulfilled. A short time later Schmelens woman died near Tulbagh. Schmelen took over the leadership of the Mission Station in gas comma ( south of the village Springbok ), where he died in 1848. Schmelens daughter Hanna (1819-1884) was the wife of the missionary Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt.

Sources and Literature

  • Walter Moritz: On the riding oxen across Africa 's south-west - Missionary Schmelen, a pioneer of the language of the Nama (1811-1848) at the Orange, Bethany, Steinkopf and Komaggas. John Meinert Printing, Windhoek 2004, ISBN 99916-63-30-4. ( With extensive references and quotations from mission reports. )
  • Ursula Trüper: The Hottentot. The short life of Zara Schmelen (ca. 1793-1831 ). Mission helper and language pioneer in South Africa. Ruediger Koeppe, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-89645-316-5
  • Protestant missionary
  • Person ( German Southwest Africa )
  • German
  • Born in 1776
  • Died in 1848
  • Man
Hagen im Bremischen Nama people Mission (station) Oorlam people Khoekhoe language Name Authority File
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