Documenting Cultural Revitalization – Ibenstein Weavers – Namibia

Ibenstein Weavers have been making decorative, high quality, 100% hand-made carpets, runners and wall hangings from the wool of the locally bred Karakul sheep, and fabrics from various natural fibers like linen, cotton, silk and the unique Kalahari wild silk, as well as mohair and Merino blankets for over fifty years. Designs range from classical themes to colorful contemporary creations while others have an African flair.

Anne Ramdohr runs the company together with her husband Wolfgang, both owners of Ibenstein Weavers. Anne is the grand daughter of Marianne Krafft, who in 1952 started the weaving centre on farm Ibenstein.

Ibenstein Weavers are situated on farm Klein Ibenstein near Dordabis, an hour’s drive from Namibian capital Windhoek. A selection of their products is available at the Namibia Crafts Centre in downtown Windhoek. About 90% of all carpets and wall hangings are exported to all over the world. The customers are - in most cases - tourists who visit Namibia or their friends.

Mr. Wolfgang Ramdohr, welcome to the interview.

Q: Scenes evoking the calm of everyday life?
Wolfgang: In an industrializes world, production at Ibenstein Weavers is still being done the ‘old fashioned way’. Every step of producing a carpet is done manually. Every m² of carpet / rug requires at least 50 labor hours. – 100% hand made in the pure sense of the word. No child labor. All employees are with the company for many years, most for 10 years and longer.

The employees live on the property, together with their families, i.e. partner, children, grand parents and even other family members. Also ex-employees, now on retirement, are allowed to stay. One employee has a small brass band which is well known in the Dordabis area and they are often requested to play to various occasions, like funerals, weddings, etc.

Q: The location, edge of Kalahari desert sounds far, dusty and exotic. What is the best way to reach Ibenstein Weavers, the place, the people and community…
Wolfgang: We are located some 100km south-east of Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, and some 4km south of the very small rural village of Dordabis. True, we are located on the edge on the Kalahari, but which is not all a desert and not always consisting of red dunes.

We are located in a farming community where farmers farm cattle, goats and sheep but where also a lot of game is found.

The easiest way to reach us is by road. A good tar road leads from Windhoek to Dordabis and only the last 4km are a good dirt road.

Q: What does it involve to make a quality Ibenstein Karakul carpet?
Wolfgang: Twice annually, wool is bought on a wool auction in Windhoek. Only Karakul wool is used, out of which all comes from farms in southern Namibia. After the wool is unsorted, and we do know some 20 – 25 natural color shades, we first sort the wool into its natural color shades. At the same time, big dirt particles are removed as well.

Using our only machine, the wool is loosened with the help of an electric carding machine (opener). The spinners collect the wool from the electrical carding machine, and hand card it manually. Hand carding the wool already removes a lot of the loose dirt (sand etc.) prior to washing it.

The wool is spun into a solid, strong thread. The spun wool collected once a week, is allowed to soak the whole night in a mixture of cold water and soap, before it is washed and rinsed by hand and hung outside to dry. As wet wool shrinks, some weights will be hung on the drying wool, stretching it to its original length again.

The wool can be used in its natural color shades, or may be died in all imaginable colors. The lighter wool is better suited for dying purposes, while the darker wool is only used in its natural colors. As we only work with the three basic colors, we can dye all color shades as per our customer request. The long strings of wool the spinners produce are cut up in shorter pieces and are rolled up in smaller, fist size bundles.

10 weavers use the wool and weave the most beautiful carpets. Most of designs originate from Mrs. Marianne Krafft (Founder of Ibenstein Weavers and the Namibian weaving industry), Mrs. & Mr. Gebhardt, former owners of Ibenstein Weavers (Mrs. Krafft`s daughter), Mrs. Ramdohr, the current owner of the weaving centre, further from well known Namibian artists, as well as customers themselves. About 50% of the designs originate from the weavers themselves. We encourage our customers to suggest designs or change the existing designs to their taste and preference.

After follows the knotting of fringes to ensure the carpet does not unravel. While moth treating the carpet, the carpet is also moistened slightly on both surfaces. Some wooden planks and heavy stones are then used to flatten the carpet. Under these planks, the carpet is allowed to dry for a few days, and is - ready to be sold.

Q: Your undertaking is over fifty years old – fifty six to be precise - looking back which were the milestones?
Wolfgang: Year 1952: Being an artist and not a weaver, Marianne Krafft employed various master weavers. The first was Jeanette Ganzert from Germany. She brought looms, spinning wheels and other accessories and started to train local employees. Work started on May 2, 1952 and the weaving centre was set up in the old dairy on the farm Ibenstein. A few weeks later the first Karakul carpet in Southern Africa was produced. Then 27 different natural colors were available. No sooner, the first carpets were knotted and Marianne Krafft provided the geometric designs.

1954: A new master weaver, Gonda Pengel, arrived on Ibenstein. She started to dye wool with dye imported from Germany.

1956: Anna Perlia is employed as new master weaver on Ibenstein. A new weaving technique, the Swedish Rollakan Technique is introduced - and is still being used today. Knotted carpets were also produced.

1965: Master weaver Sabine Pannier begins encouraging the weavers to use their own designs. For the first time, the carpets designed by the weavers themselves, picturing African flora and fauna, were woven in Namibia.

1974: The daughter of Marianne Krafft, Berenike, and her husband Frank Gebhardt take over the weaving centre.

1980: Some 100ha were taken off farm Ibenstein and the weaving centre was moved to the new site called Klein Ibenstein, some 4 km south of the Ibenstein farm house.

1982: 30 years of Ibenstein Weavers is celebrated with an exhibition in the ‘Kunstkabinett’ in Windhoek. From now on, only woven carpets were produced. Berenike and Frank begun weaving designs from various artists, among which John Piper from England and Conny Zander, a local artist. Many churches in Germany and England have our wall hangings showing biblical scenes. Those were all designed by weavers themselves.

2002: 50 years of Ibenstein Weavers is celebrated in the National Art Gallery of Namibia, with the Honorable Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Hidipo Hamutenya as main guest speaker.

2003: The daughter of Berenike and Frank Gebhardt, Anne and her husband Wolfgang Ramdohr take over the weaving centre.

2005: Anne & Wolfgang Ramdohr invest in a new loom and start weaving fabrics from natural fibers like cotton, linen, silk, etc.

Q: Yours seems to be an exciting family story, German settlers in Africa, search for diamonds, farming Karakul sheep, would you be prepared to share it with us?
Wolfgang: Books were and are still being written about August Stauch - father of Marianne Krafft - and the beginnings of the Diamond Industry in then German South West Africa. Much to long for an extensive report, but here is a summery.

August Stauch was a German railway worker. He had asthma and this was the main reason for his decision to leave Germany for the dry, sunny climate of the German colony of South West Africa. Arriving in the coastal harbor town Lüderitzbucht of southern South West Africa in 1907, August Stauch was given the responsibility over a 9km long stretch of railway line between the desert towns of Lüderitzbucht and Aus. His duty was to see that the railway line between Kilometers 18 and 27 was kept in order and free of sand. He took up position as railway supervisor at the railway siding Grasplatz in May 1907.

This was an area of stark desolation in the middle of the desert. His home was a rough shack of corrugated iron. It was a lonely life in an incredible harsh environment. But Stauch took a lively interest in his surroundings, learned "to know" the desert and – even enjoyed his solitude. He studied the desert to see if he could devise some effective means of staving off the wandering dunes which often covered the railway tracks and became very interested in the mineral possibilities of the desert. He therefore bought two prospecting licenses and asked his laborers to show him any unusual stones.

A few weeks later his laborer Zacharias Lewala found the first diamond while shoveling sand. He brought it to his white foreman, who also did not recognize it as diamond, who in turn handed it over to August Stauch. Stauch tested its hardness on the glass of his watch. It cut the glass and he was convinced it was a diamond. He sent the stone to a laboratory in Swakopmund –then major harbor town of the colony, north of Lüderitzbucht - for official confirmation. The laboratory not only confirmed that the stone was a diamond but that it was – despite of its small size - of outstanding quality.

Stauch proceeded to peg claims in the area where the diamond was found. He pondered on where the source of the diamonds could be. By the time he knew the desert well. The great winds blew mainly from October to February from south to north, so Stauch conjectured that the diamonds probably had their origin in the south. At first he concentrated on an area 2 km north of the railway line, extending to about 7 km south of it. He focused his attention on the valleys between the dunes where the strong winds, after winnowing the gravel, had concentrated the diamonds. He applied for further licenses and resigned from his job with the financial backing from his superiors and started mining.

In the beginning Stauch’s mining was limited to the digging of trenches of about two meters in depth from which the gravel was sifted. When the news of the diamond discoveries broke, a diamond fewer broke out and thousand of people came to Lüderitsbucht in search of diamonds. As few had experience of diamond mining, it was done in the simplest and most primitive fashion. Men either crouched on their knees or lay on their stomachs searching for diamonds. These were picked up with the sharp edge of a blade and put into a tin container which for convenience sometimes hung from a string around the neck.

The following is also worthwhile mentioning: August Stauch got to know the scientist Robert Scheibe from the Royal Mining Academy of Berlin. Scheibe and Stauch left on a joint expedition in search of further diamond deposits and set off for the area opposite the island Pomona south of Lüderitsbucht. Together, they with few laborers, set off but well equipped with mules, wagon and water. It was extremely difficult crossing a sand-dune barrier. Utterly exhausted they reached a valley in the Pomona area, which Stauch named Idatal (Ida’s Valley) in honor of his wife. They set up camp there hoping that their tents would provide some protection against the blistering sand storms and cold, wet, all-enveloping fog. A laborer had gone in search of driftwood for the camp fire. Holding an arm full of wood, Stauch said to him jokingly, "Jakob, don’t look for wood. Look for diamonds."

Jakob promptly dropped the wood and knelt on the desert sand. He was barely on his knees when he picked up diamonds by the hundreds. Stauch saw in his amazement that Jakob’s hands were full of diamonds. Not knowing where to put them, Jakob began stuffing them into his mouth to gather more handfuls. Stauch and Jakob were busy picking up diamonds that lay in such profusion in the sand that Scheibe later described them as laying "like plums under a plum tree"..

What is important is that August Stauch invested his wealth in many ways. One was in farming. He had various farms in southern Namibia and the other into Karakul industry, of which he is one of the pioneers.

Q: The story of farming the Karakul sheep in Namibia…
Wolfgang: Climatic conditions in southern Namibia are very harsh and make farming in this part very difficult. Also, during the late 1800’s until about the middle of the 1900’s the Karakul pelts (also called Persian pelts) was very fashionable in Western Europe.

Since the Karakul sheep originates from central / southern Asia, an area which is climatically very similar to southern Namibia, the German colonial authorities have decided to import Karakul sheep to the German South West Africa. The first animals have adapted very well so that more animals were imported. By the middle of the 1930’s, some 1.5 million Karakul sheep lived in Namibia and due to the great demand for the pelts their number have increased to about 5 million in the 1960’s – 1970’s.

A drop in the demand for the pelts led to a drop in the number of sheep to about 200 000 at present. For many years the Karakul sheep were also called the black diamonds of Africa, as Karakul farming was for many years was very profitable. Also August Stauch invested in farmland and was involved in the farming of Karakul sheep. Farm Ibenstein and Farm Dordabis were only two of his farms. The drop in demand for Karakul pelts was very dramatic as many farmers were forced to find alternative ways of farming and many of them went bankrupt.

Farming Karakul sheep meant that the young lambs were slaughtered for their soft skin. The adult animals have to be sheared once or twice a year. The wool is very hard and scratchy and not suited for clothing and was therefore thrown away. Some farmers have used the wool the pave the sandy farm roads. As an artist Marianne Krafft disliked the idea of throwing this raw product away and came up with the idea of using it for carpets. The idea proofed to be a golden because carpets made out of Karakul wool are virtually indestructible.

Q: You are the third generation of Ibenstein weavers, which are the challenges today?
Wolfgang: For a small company like ours, producing hand-made items and surviving in an ever globalizing world, can be difficult. For example, we have to compete against Asian labor costs, as African labor costs are higher than those in most Asian countries. We also do not employ any children.

Unfortunately our production costs are higher then in many Asian countries. For many years weaving carpets was the company’s main activity. In order to survive, we have to modernize further and the carpet production will become more of a sideline.

Q: What then is your plan, vision?
Wolfgang: We are producing high quality carpets and wall hangings as well as fabrics from various natural fibers. Our vision is to keep traditions alive and create employment, which, in a country with an unemployment rate of over 30%, is in our opinion - vital.

Q: Natural fabrics from Namibia, "Kalahari silk"…
Wolfgang: Only the Kalahari Wild Silk is coming from Namibia. The linen, cotton, bamboo, mohair merino etc. are all imported from South Africa.

The Kalahari Wild Silk originates from a local silkworm (Gonomta postica) living in the Kalahari, i.e. in south-eastern Namibia, Botswana and northern South Africa. Once the adult has emerged from the cocoon, the latter will eventually fall off the tree. The ingestion of the cocoons by commercial livestock and wildlife indigenous to the Kalahari has caused thousands of deaths through rumen impaction, culmination in huge financial losses to both commercial and communal farmers.

Until a few years ago the only solution has been surgical removal of ‘bezoars’ (the build-up of silk and plant material in the stomach), which is very expensive and difficult to monitor. Farmers have therefore called for the pest’s eradication through chemical control but this has been deemed impractical because of the huge distribution area, high cost and negative impact on the environment.

A way has been found in which the cocoons could be processed and a pest has been turned into an opportunity. The cocoons are now being collected by the local communities, they are then de-gummed and spun into a yarn. There are two operations in Namibia processing the cocoons. We do buy the yarn and use it for our fabric production.

Q: Highlights, such as woven bank note for the Namibian President, and others:
Wolfgang: Our carpets were woven for a couple of celebrities and for various special occasions. The carpet for Namibia’s first president is only one of them. Also we did three carpets for the centennial Karakul celebrations 2007. As far as I know one carpet went to Denmark, to a company 'Kopenhagen Fur' which auctions all of Namibia’s Karakul pelts, one to Namibia’s President and one is hanging in the offices of the Karakul Board in Windhoek. Another carpet was woven for the Namibia stand at Expo in Hannover, Germany in 2000 and. We were also requested to weave a carpet for the Expo in Spain this year. This carpet was a present to Spain.

Q: What makes the art of weaving?
Wolfgang: I myself, am not a weaver. But I would say that weaving is an age old technique and art. Weaving enabled man to inhabit cold places; to protect themselves against the elements of nature. It also played a vital role in the evolution of mankind. Through the technique of dying, weaving became art and a way the weaver could express himself and tell stories.

What makes the production of hand woven carpets and wall hangings so interesting for us, is that each piece is unique. Even the same design turns out slightly different each time it comes off the loom. Our weavers make their own designs and they are always different, always unique. We weave all kinds of designs, from modern to traditional…

Q: Where are your products displayed, do you participate in local or international fairs?
Wolfgang: We are specialized in producing custom made carpets and do therefore not have many carpets on stock. Only an outlet in the Namibia Crafts Centre in Windhoek has our carpets, and off course we sell to visitors at our workshop. A small shop in Cape Town’s Waterfront in South Africa also has some of our carpets, and a company in Toronto has a selection. A friend of mine close to Bremerhaven, northern Germany, has a few carpets.

We participate in the annual Windhoek Trade Show. In the past we have participated in the ‘Heim und Handwerksmesse’ in Munich, Germany, as well as the ‘Süd-Afrika Tage’ – a trade fair specializing on products from southern Africa – and in fairs in Hamburg, Cologne and Munich. Unfortunately it has become expensive visiting fairs and sales were not too great in 2005.

A world about customers, business partners?
Wolfgang: Customers and clients contact us directly and we deliver carpets directly to them. In this way, we can keep the sales price low. Also, because our carpets are all custom made, it is important that we are in contact with the customers directly. As for the fabrics and some felted carpets we cooperate with a Finnish funded NGO, Pambili, in Windhoek.

Final thoughts:
Wolfgang: I thing everything has been said. Thank you for the opportunity of introducing ourselves to the world.

Mr. Wolfgang Ramdohr in Namibia, thank you!

Picturing a beautiful hand made Ibenstein carpet

Ibenstein Weavers Namibia
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