context?

[rj]

TF
> ... They would finish the extermination the Germans
> began in 1904.
> 
>   A generation earlier, the declining number of live Herero
> births was a topic of medical interest throughout southern
> Africa. ...

I.e., "a generation earlier" than 1904. At least, that's how I read it.
It seems to be an imperative of textual cohesion that the comparative
"earlier" refers to the date mentioned immediately prior.

> Why did it decline? 

The Herero *women* had "chosen to commit tribal suicide". At least, this
is the intimation at 317.30-8. It is the "white Afrikaner", not the
Germans, who are puzzled by this. The "birth decline" (fairly clearly
and coherently documented as pre-existing before 1904) and the "tribal
suicide" are here identified as one and the same.

> What does this have to do with your
> moral relativism? 

They are new possibilities, or undisclosed "truths", which alter
historical and moral preconceptions: both those of characters within the
text (eg Weissmann's) and beyond it (i.e the reader's).

best