Martti (Martin) Rautanen (10 November 1845 Tikopis (Russian:Тикопись),Ingria – 19 October 1926Olukonda,South West Africa) was the pioneer of the Finnish Mission inOvamboland,South West Africa.
Rautanen was born in a poor Finnish family inIngria nearSt. Peterburg, Russia. Rautanen's family lived in the village of Tikanpesä in the parish of Novasolkka (Russian:Новоселки,romanized: Novoselki) in theYamburgsky Uyezd ofSaint Petersburg Governorate. The family originated fromJoroinen in the province ofSavo in Eastern Finland, but had moved to Ingria. Rautanen considered himself a Russian as he was born and living in Russia. Encouraged by the pastor of his church and his mother, Rautanen left Ingria in 1863 forHelsinki to study at the preparatory school for missionaries organized by theFinnish Missionary Society.
He spoke several languages included Finnish, English, German, Dutch, Russian, Latin and Greek; he later learnedOtjiherero andOshindonga.[1]
Rautanen departed from Finland with four colleagues on 24 June 1868 towards Ovamboland in present-day Namibia. Initially they worked withCarl Hugo Hahn of the German Rhenish Mission Society.[2] FromWalvis Bay they travelled viaHereroland where they arrived in April 1869 and spent there over a year. Finally, they reached Ovamboland in July 1870. The Finnish missionaries managed to start work primarily in the southeastern territory of theOndonga tribe. The first mission station was founded that year in atOmandongo, moving toOlukonda the following year.[2]
Rautanen worked in Ovamboland over 50 years acting as the director of a missionary station established in Olukonda in 1880, translating the Bible, and very patiently educating the local populations. The first local people to become pastors emerged in 1925.
Rautanen's literary work consisted of translation of hymns and the publication of a hymnal in 1892 inNdonga. Rautanen also wrote poems which were used as texts for new hymns in Ovamboland. Rautanen started translating the Bible into Oshindonga[3] in 1885. TheNew Testament was published in 1903, but it took until 1920 before the wholeOld Testament was translated and it was not printed until 1954. Rautanen's 'testament' for the Ovamboland people was a selection of texts published posthumously with the titleTravel Rod in 1934.
Rautanen was also active in the study of ethnography. He respected and gave great value to the indigenous culture. His ethnographic collection is now deposited in theNational Museum of Finland. Rautanen's contribution to scientific knowledge concerning Ovamboland is also considerable. He made meteorological observations and collected plants. His interest in plants followed on the 1885–86 visit by the Swiss botanistHans Schinz; Rautanen was inspired and became an enthusiastic collector of plants and ethnographic material, collections which were later assimilated by museums in Finland, Germany and South Africa. In turn Schinz was impressed by Rautanen and named the genusNeorautanenia[3] and the mongongo nut treeRicinodendron rautanenii after him, while the German botanist and authority onLythraceae,Bernhard Koehne, commemorated him inNesaea rautanenii.[4]
Shortly prior to his death, Rautanen received an honorary doctorate in theology from theUniversity of Helsinki.[1] The local people in Ovamboland called himNakambale - "the one who wears the hat".[5] He loved to wear a skullcap, which for the locals resembled a small basket -okambale. His nickname was written on his tombstone. Rautanen is a respected person in present-day Namibia as well.
His diaries are held at the University of Turku.[6]
The family’s home in Olukonda is now the Nakambale Museum.[5]
Rautanen married Frieda Kleinschmidt in 1872. She was the daughter of the German missionaryFranz Heinrich Kleinschmidt; the couple had nine children, many of whom died at an early age due tomalaria.[5] Their daughter, Johanna was a teacher at Olukonda and died in 1966 at Onandjokwe.
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