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 :
The original cattle were brought to western and southern Uganda by Hamitic tribes migrating from north-eastern Africa and possibly the Sahel in the 13th and 15th centuries. One theory states that the original Ankole cattle evolved around Ethiopian highlands (epicentre of Sanga dispersal) and the Bahima tribes brought them to northern Uganda (Rege and Tawah, 1999). Another theory argues that the Ankole cattle with their characteristic long horns probably evolved around present-day Uganda, and developed further into the local strains of this sanga group (Felius, 1995).
Main Location:
Maintained by the tribe of the same name in two areas that are separated by tsetse-infested territory. One of these is located in north-eastern Zaire and across the border in north-western Uganda. The second group is in southern Uganda and northern Tanzania.
Habitat:
Special
Characteristic:
Typical sanga phenotype, with long horns, large to medium in body size; tall at withers; small and cervico-thoracic hump; moderately developed dewlap. The Bahima are the tallest of the Ankole group of cattle, and they are the most susceptible of the Ankole to rinderpest and trypanosomosis. Coat colour is mainly dark red and light brown, and some are black, grey, dun white and pied. Until the conflicts of the Lakes region in recent decades, the Bahima had been free of zebu influence seen in the sanga of Ethiopia and the Sudan (Rege and Tawah, 1999).
