Senwabarwana, previously known as Bochum, is a town in the Blouberg Local Municipality within the Capricorn District Municipality of the Limpopo Province of South Africa.
The town is located approximately 93 km north-west of Polokwane, the provincial capital of Limpopo Province.
Senwabarwana is the administrative seat of the Blouberg Local Municipality.
Bochum, the town’s colonial name may refer to the German industrial city of Bochum or be a corruption of Bochim, a biblical name (Judges 2:1 and 5). The place was named by the German missionary Carl Franz and his wife Helene to a mission station they established here in 1890.
The majority language group of the area is Northern Sotho people and they refer to themselves as Bahananwa. They call the town Senwabarwana, a commemorative name for an incident that took place in a pond where the Khoi people found and drank water in their travelling, thus passing by. Due to their height they are proclaimed dwarfs by natives which literally means Morwana in Northern Sotho (Sepedi) and in a plural form is Barwana, hence “Sen-wa-barwana”.
History
German missionary Carl Franz and his wife Helene founded a hospital that used to cater for people with leprosy. The missionary station was part of the attempts of the Berlin Missionary Society to Christianize Southern Africa in the 19th century. The hospital is now known as Helene-Franz hospital. It has a bad reputation because of its high mortality rates and it is often referred to by old people as “the hospital of death”.
The place is also known for its diverse people from chieftaincies such as Ga-Manthata, Ga-Matlala, Ga-Mmalebogo, Makgababeng, Moletši and the small town of Mogwadi.