Oorlamn.adj.

1815 J. Campbell Trav. in S. Afr. 284 In his kraal there are, of persons who speak the Dutch language, and who are called Orlams—215.

a1867 C. J. Andersson Notes of Trav. (1875) 79 The Oerlams (people born or bred in the colony, or in a wider sense, simply brought up by white men).

1882 S. M. Heckford Lady Trader in Transvaal 78 He had several families of what are called Urlams, or civilized Kaffirs, living in mud houses on his property. These families dressed like Europeans, and had food like Europeans, even to the drinking of early coffee.

1939 R. F. A. Hoernlé S. Afr. Native Policy 174 They were the first truly ‘detribalized’ Natives; and they and their descendants, the so-called ‘Oorlams’, became so completely assimilated, in a hereditary master-servant relationship, into the structure of Afrikaner society that their very mother-tongue became Afrikaans, and they took over..their masters' religion, dress, food, ways of life.

1980 D. B. Coplan Urbanization of Afr. Performing Arts (Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Indiana) 55 The majority of professional Coloured musicians..belonged to a broader social category known as oorlams.

a1838 A. Smith Jrnl. (1975) 289 All the Orlam went to Barend.

1889 F. Galton Trav. in S. Afr. 41 ‘Oerlams’, or Namaquas born in or near the colony, often having Dutch blood and a good deal of Dutch character in their veins.

1922 Rep. Admin. Bondelzwarts Rising (UG30–1922) 1 The Bondelzwarts..originally came from the Cape, and like all Orlams, are not pure Hottentots.

1961 O. Levinson Ageless Land 27 The Orlams were Hottentots, who for various reasons, ranging from a desire for freedom to flight from the police, had left the Cape in small groups. Their leaders were mostly of mixed European and Hottentot blood.

1969 J. M. White Land God made in Anger 57 Jonker was head of the Afrikaners, who in turn were one of the three tribes of a branch of the Nama people known as the Oorlam.

2001 Africa (Nexis) 22 Sept. 713 The Oorlam, an amalgam of Khoi, runaway slaves and baster immigrants from the Cape in the mid-nineteenth century.

1838 J. E. Alexander Exped. Discov. Interior Afr. I. 137 He and the hunter were captured some months after by the Orlam Namaquas.

1842 J. Tindall Jrnl (1959) 40 The Great Namaqua and Oorlam tribes commenced oppressing them (the Great Damaras).

1877 Rep. Special Commissioner Mission to Damaraland p. ix There I met with some Namaquas, who said they were Orlam Hottentots belonging to the Gobabis people.

1928 H. Vedder in Native Tribes S.W. Afr. 116 The Orlam tribe, containing many hybrids of Dutch descent, who had adopted something of European civilization, possessing horses and supplied even with firearms, made on the Nama who had never been in contact with civilization, the impression that they were a highly developed people.

1975 Jrnl. Afr. Hist. 16 568 The various Oorlam groups. [Note] These were the primarily Khoikhoi groups, of mainly, though not exclusively Nama descent, who controlled most of southern and central Namibia during the middle of the nineteenth century.

1992 D. L. Sparks & D. Green Namibia i. 10 As one analyst suggests, the Nama adopted much of the Oorlam identity, making the transition from a precapitalist, pastoral economy to a military economy based on raiding.

2001 Africa (Nexis) 22 Sept. 713 Gewald argues that the Herero heavily appropriated terms and structures of the political institution of the Commando existing in Oorlam society.

1881 T. Hahn Tsuni-‖Goam 153 If..they give a traveller a man as a servant, they say, ‘He is very orlam; he is not baar’ (he is very handy; he is not stupid).

1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 349 Oorlam,..Also used of a coloured servant whose laziness prompts him to a variety of scheming either to dodge or to scamp his work.