---
title: "SA through the lens of mission stations — Steinkopf, Concordia, Kommagas and Pella"
description: "A journey through Northern Cape mission stations traces Nama and Khoi history, missionary legacies, community activism and the threat of extractive mining. These mission communities preserve oral histories, language and identity while raising the spectres of historical erasure and an uncertain future."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "TIME CAPSULE"
author: "Laurie Gaum"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/laurie-gaum/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-11-02-sa-through-the-lens-of-mission-stations-steinkopf-concordia-kommagas-and-pella/"
published: "2026-11-02T19:30:00"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1025
---

# SA through the lens of mission stations — Steinkopf, Concordia, Kommagas and Pella

> A journey through Northern Cape mission stations traces Nama and Khoi history, missionary legacies, community activism and the threat of extractive mining. These mission communities preserve oral histories, language and identity while raising the spectres of historical erasure and an uncertain future.

By Laurie Gaum · Published 2 November 2026, 21:30 SAST

## Key points
- A journey through Steinkopf, Concordia, Kommagas and Pella uncovers the Nama and Khoi histories embedded in Northern Cape mission stations.
- Oral traditions, language and community memory challenge the erasure of figures such as Zara, whose contribution to missionary work was overshadowed by her German husband, Hinrich Schmelen.
- These close-knit communities are fighting to preserve their heritage while confronting mining, prospecting and development that threaten to extract without fairly returning value.
- From Steinkopf’s fading missionary identity to Pella’s cathedral and damaged date industry, the stations pose a bigger question: can their enduring spirit resist modern-day exploitation?

## Content

Our next mission stations trip takes the team – Sandra Prinsloo, cameraman Tim Wege, Juan Coetzee of the Stigting vir Bemagtiging deur Afrikaans (SBA, Foundation for Empowerment through Afrikaans) and Laurie Gaum – to the Northern Cape where we visit Steinkopf, Concordia, Kommagas and Pella.

This makes us venture somewhat further off the beaten track and immediately we find the spoor of Hinrich Schmelen, the German missionary who came via the London Missionary Society to the Northern Cape. Here he married the indigenous Nama-Khoi woman Zara (not her original name). While Schmelen was instrumental in the founding of many of these mentioned mission stations, Zara helped translate the Gospels into Nama. What Schmelen “found” at these locations was indeed locals who had already congregated around water sources which were key in the arid landscape. The Nama and Khoi communities living here, however, had a nomadic lifestyle which would have influenced the ministry towards them as well.

Our travels with icon Sandra Prinsloo are themselves an experience. If it is not Hermien from Kelders van Geheime who gets invoked by fans, it goes back to a character in Egoli or Sandra’s interviews in the SBA’s previous documentaries on Afrikaans language variants which were televised on kykNET. This means our travels are often interrupted by photo opportunities. Sandra stays remarkably patient and interested in everyone we encounter. She is clearly our trump card as people are eager to be interviewed by her, except for those who are camera shy. Sandra simply holds space without much interruption for the storytellers from the different communities as we aim to capture the oral history of these old mission stations. Here and there she prompts. And so, people and their stories become visible and their voices audible.

![SA through the lens of Mission Stations](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/LOTBGKXsvR-x_hsX8nFJmt6LUho=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Oped-2ndMissionStations-NCape2_980026.jpg)

*Tim Wege, Sandra Prinsloo, Danneline and Maria Martha Eva (Densie) Ramsden, Kommagas. (Photo: Laurie Gaum)*

The missionary trail in the Northern Cape feels more challenging than where we started off at the historic Moravian missionary stations in Genadendal with its extensive museum, and Wupperthal almost in the crevasse where the Cederberg Mountains meet the Klein Karoo. Steinkopf seems to have almost shed its missionary origins, having morphed into a mining town. While this was the original hub from where Schmelen and others operated to establish other stations, it could be the transition from London Missionary Society to then operating under the Rhenish Mission and nowadays resorting under the Uniting Reformed Church which has caused a lack of cohesiveness, one senses. Navigating complicated relations and division within church congregations is furthermore challenging. But here one also finds exceptions of innovative tourism initiatives unearthing the old Nama knowledge and language and making it accessible for new generations.

![Roselien Links in traditional Nama dress, Steinkopf](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/SP9PGrSTNc_wYuidc7ZB--NXZ6o=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Oped-2ndMissionStations-NCape5_857220.jpg)

*Roselien Links in traditional Nama dress, Steinkopf. (Photo: Laurie Gaum)*

Dealing with invisible history surfaces as an important issue, be it in the case of the Kinderlê graveyard outside the town pointing to a painful event, or the remains of 63 Khoi and San recently returned from European museums after experiencing a similar fate to that of Sarah Baartman. And then the fact that Zara equally faced historic invisibility because of being an indigenous woman whose life wasn’t as well documented as her German missionary husband’s (Zara’s life is powerfully reimagined in a just-launched novel, Zara by Valda Jansen).

![Tour guide Letitia Vries shows us the "Kinderlê" graves of the 1867 massacre of 32 Nama children outside Steinkopf](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/lE2MHxpEYT_sxL0fdqCSfUtLDck=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Oped-2ndMissionStations-NCape4_611479.jpg)

*Tour guide Letitia Vries shows us the ‘Kinderlê’ graves of the 1867 massacre of 32 Nama children outside Steinkopf. (Photo: Laurie Gaum)*

### Komvandaan

Hinrich and Zara’s footprints, however, also lead to Kommagas west en route to the coast, a more remote town. Here one experiences a sense of pride in the history and residents’ *komvandaan* (where they come from). It makes one reflect on how this differs from communities that have been uprooted through forced removals and how mission stations in many cases gave people a strong “sense of place”. In Kommagas one hears the rumblings of prospecting for minerals going on in the surrounding mountains while this threat is echoed in Concordia, another mission town outside Springbok.

In Concordia the energy of activism is in the air, resisting development that doesn’t acknowledge the communities from which labour as well as minerals are often extracted. That these communities are sometimes the last to learn full disclosure of mining plans and seldom receive many returns on their investment, is sad and unjust. The challenge of walking the tightrope between resisting development at all costs and negotiating a fair exchange that is humane and life-giving, seems ominous at times.

![A guiver tree (kokerboom) outside Concordia](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/WrCiT7sCOXMDkWCNn_VdPgOVqKA=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Oped-2ndMissionStations-NCape3_947826.jpg)

*A quiver tree (kokerboom) outside Concordia. (Photo: Laurie Gaum)*

Our last stop requires us to pass a mine that has just been visited by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Pella is an oasis town long known for its booming date production which even had an export market. There are indeed many trees in this town, while it’s said that fire has damaged much of the date plantation, causing the collapse of the industry. This station is unique so far in our travels since it is Catholic and one is indeed surprised by the rise of a cathedral between the date trees. Here French Catholic missionaries went through different stages of giving up on the harsh surroundings, one even being killed by a Khoi spear, and restarting the mission.

[Read more

SA through the lens of mission stations: Genadendal, Goedverwacht and Wüpperthal

August 16, 2026 ![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/zUaHZ4qtleIzol1ZLwpOzVdKDL4=/450x0/smart/file/attachments/orphans/IMG_20260723_161957_1_529227.jpg)](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-08-16-sa-through-the-lens-of-mission-stations-genadendal-goedverwacht-and-wuepperthal/)

And so, this brings me back to reflections about what these unique communities offer us today and if and how they adapt and survive. Such close-knit communities are in some cases better custodians of values and of “community” itself through their original isolation, but how do they survive in an interconnected world? I’m reminded by a friend that some of the missionary zeal of Protestants was linked to their ancestors escaping Catholic persecution in Europe. Resisting church corruption and excesses is in their blood. Can these remaining communities and their descendants carrying sparks of the original missionary spirit perhaps provide the bulwark against modern-day extractive corruption threatening their continued existence? **DM**

*If you want to watch the SBA’s documentary series, keep an eye on the space at*[*www.sbafrikaans.co.za*](http://www.sbafrikaans.co.za)*. And be on the lookout for their further travelogues in Daily Maverick.*