The Exclusive Prospecting License (EPL) area which Extract Resources discovered in the Namib Desert, near the coastal town of Swakopmund in Namibia, is known as the Husab Uranium Project mainly because the EPL area is beneath the Husab Mountain. But what does the word “Husab” mean and where does it stem from?
Folklore has it that it means “The deserted place” or “The place that the people left behind”. However, at least one authoritative source casts an entirely different light on the matter.
According to a book entitled Toponymeca Hottentotic, written by GS Nienaber and PE Raper (Raper is also the author of the Dictionary of Southern African Place Names), Husab is inferred from the Nama verb “hu” (pronounced with a click of the tongue, followed by “huuu” and not “hu”), which means “to make holes”. The literal translation is therefore “place of the hole”, but with reference to a waterhole because of its proximity to the Swakop River. It can therefore be deduced that “Husab” means “place of the water hole”.
Norman Green, CEO of Swakop Uranium, says he rather likes the above connotation, since favourable comparisons may be drawn between the significance of water holes in Namibia’s desert climate and their precious nature, with the ‘richness’ and prospectivity of the Husab Project. “We believe that Husab is going to be a mine of the first water.”
