Ovaherero

The Ovaherero are cattle-keeping peoples of southwestern Africa, whose communities include the pastoralists of Kaokoland near the Kunene River. Their ancestors moved south from Angola into the region around the sixteenth century. Herds of cattle and smaller livestock are central to household wealth and kinship, while movement between pastures helps sustain them through the dry seasons. The mountains and river valleys of the northwest form part of a wider Herero-speaking world that extends into the inland plateau.