The term 'Sanga' is an Ethiopian word meaning 'bull' and it relates to the origin and centre of dispersal of this group of cattle breeds. It is in this part of East and Northeast Africa where sanga cattle first evolved as a result of the interbreeding of the Longhorn-, Shorthorn- and zebu type cattle, commencing about 3000 to 4000 years ago, a process that has continued up to the present time (Payne and Wilson, 1999). The sanga show a mixture of features from the zebu (humps and dewlap) and Humpless cattle (long horns and no humps). Another theory based on archaeological findings (Muzzolini, 2000) maintains that African humped zebu evolved in central Sahara in the first millennium BC, which possibly provided the foundation for crossing with the Humpless Longhorn cattle to produce the sanga in the Sahara, from where it gradually spread with migrating Nilo-Hamitic and Hamitic peoples across central and southern Africa. However, recent molecular genetics evidence (Hanotte et al., 2002) suggests that genetics introgression of the Bos indicus (zebu) spread from the Horn of Africa to the west of the continent and the zebu genes might have dispersed rapidly into the indegenous Africa populations. In any case, the sanga breeds of cattle dominated the cattle population in the region until 1887, when Italian priests imported a shipload of Italian cattle and introduced the cattle plague (Rinderpest). This disease annihilated most of the existing cattle populations, especially the Sanga, and led to the first great Famine in East Africa. After the epidemic, zebu cattle were continually introduced along the coastline and crossbreeding with Sanga remnants resulted in several zebu-Sanga and Sanga-zebu populations (Felius, 1995). The present distribution of the sanga cattle extends from Eritrea, through Ethiopia, southern Sudan and the Great Lakes region of East Africa to southern Africa where they are the traditional cattle in all countries south of the Zambezi. Since the cattle plague, eastern Africa has been dominated by the short-horned zebu. While there are hardly any breed improvement programmes for the sanga of eastern Africa, the majority in southern Africa have well-organised programmes and most have breed societies. Selective breeding of the Mashona, Tuli, and Africander resulted in local cattle more productive in beef productivity than exotic beef breeds. They have also provided the basis for the Commercial Composite breeds of South Africa, namely Drakensberger and Bonsmara (Payne and Wilson, 1999).
Breed Origin :
Damara or Herero are two clans of the same Bantu tribe. Their cattle are believed to have descended from the waves of Sanga cattle first brought in by the Bantu people during the 16th century. However, much of their original stock was lost to the rinderpest epidemic and cattle raids by the Khoikhoi. The present-day Damara cattle evolved from remnants of the original stock as well as neighbouring Sanga cattle, and hence they are less uniform (Felius, 1995).
Main Location:
Found in southern Angola, northern Namibia and adjoining parts of Botswana.
Habitat:
Special
Characteristic:
The original Damara cattle had typical Sanga characteristics, including cervico-thoracic hump and long horns. The modern Damara have shorter but spreading horns, and they resemble the Kaokoveld cattle. The hump is moderately larger than other Namibian Sanga cattle. The traditional Damara herds consisted of cattle of the same colour, bright brown being the most popular. The present-day herds have variable colour (Felius, 1995).
