Herero (redirected from Ovaherero)

Herero (hərār`ō), Bantu people, mainly in Namibia and Botswana. They number about 75,000. A pastoral tribe noted for their large cattle herds, the Herero probably migrated from the region of Lake Tanganyika in the 18th cent. They warred against their neighbors, the Khoikhoi, and enslaved many smaller tribes. Their territory was annexed (1885) as a part of German South West Africa, and from 1903 to 1907 they rebelled against German rule and were almost exterminated. In more recent times the Herero have often pressed for independence.

Bibliography

See J. M. White, The Land God Made in Anger (1969).

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Herero

Group of closely related Bantu-speaking peoples of southern Africa (central Namibia, eastern Botswana, southern Angola). The Herero formerly subsisted mainly on the milk and meat of their cattle, but after European contact in the mid 19th century many came to depend on horticulture as well. A series of uprisings against German colonial encroachment (1904–07) led to the extermination of some four-fifths of their population and the resettlement of survivors in the mostly inhospitable sand veld of the western Kalahari. Contemporary estimates number the Herero at more than 200,000.

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Herero 

Ovaherero, a group of people living in Namibia (South West Africa) in the territory between the cities Windhoek and Grootfontein, and in Angola on the lower Kunene River. There are 40,000 Herero people living in South West Africa and 50,000 in Angola (1967, estimate). More than two-thirds of the Herero people were annihilated at the beginning of the 20th century when their uprising against the colonizers of the area was suppressed (the Herero and Hottentot Uprising of 1904-07). The Herero language belongs to the western branch of the Bantu language family. The majority of the Herero have retained their local traditional beliefs, although some of them have become Christians (Protestants). The principal occupation in the reservations is agriculture—millet, sorghum, corn. Part of the Herero people work on plantations owned by Afrikaners and in the mines of the Grootfontein area.

REFERENCES

Luttig, H. C. The Religious System and Social Organisation of the Herero. Utrecht, 1933.
Irle, Y. Die Herero. Gütersloh, 1906.

B. V. ANDRIANOV