When someone comes visiting in your house, it is always important to be a good host and offer the person the best treatment. In order to make a good first impression, people usually go out of their ways to prepare the best meal and entertainment.
For the people of the OvaHimba and Ovazimba tribes, however, this treatment for guests might be just a bit out of bounds.
When a visitor comes knocking on the door of a house in these tribes, the man of the house performs his duties of being a good host by giving the visitor the Okujepisa Omukazendu treatment.
This practice means that his wife is given to his guest to spend the night while the husband sleeps in another room. In a case where there is no available room, her husband will sleep outside.
The practice borders on a lot of patriarchy and female oppression as the woman has little or no opinion in the decision making. Submission to her husband’s demands come first. She has the option of refusing to sleep with the guest but still has to sleep in the same room as him.
Besides being practised for the purpose of spoiling visitors with care when they come, this act is also done in the form of wife swapping.
Wife swapping among Namibia’s nomadic tribes has been practised for generations but a legislator’s call to enshrine it in law has stirred debate about women’s rights and tradition in modern society.
The legislator, Mr Kazeongere Tjeundo, argued that “it [wife-swapping] is a culture that gives us unity and friendship, it’s up to you to choose [among] your mates who you like the most… to allow him to sleep with you wife, we just need to research more on how the practice can be regulated.”
This assertion has, however, raised global concern and attention as more people are concerned about the hazards associated with the practice.
The practice is more of a gentlemen’s agreement where friends can sleep with each others’ wives with no strings attached.
To be fair, this practice is already done in Western communities where some couples try to prevent cheating and allow each other the freedom they need in sex .
However, the practice gives one reason to take a second thought on it especially considering that the tribe is situated in a country with one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rates.
The practice is little known outside these reclusive communities, whose population is estimated at 86,000. The tribes are largely isolated from the rest of the country. They have resisted civilization, keep livestock, live off the land and practise ancestral worship.
Many still reside in pole-and-mud huts and both men and women go bare-chested. Do you think it is a practice that should be stopped?
