People & Culture of the Okavango Delta

Culture & People of the Okavango Delta

The Okavango Delta has never been a place of high population density. The presence of malaria and sleeping sickness, erratic rainfall and poor soils, together with aggressive neighbouring kingdoms, meant that the delta was a place to where people have tended to flee.

The Banoka, a Khoisan people, have lived in the delta since the Late Stone Age. Hunter-gatherers, they were joined some 300 years ago by the Bayei, a Bantu tribe fleeing from conflict to the north. The two tribes coexisted peacefully and shared technology and hunting techniques. The Bayei became skilled fishermen and hippo hunters and the Banoka, or river Bushmen, were adept at trapping.

The striking Herero people of the southern delta are descended from those who escaped German retribution during a colonial uprising in Nambia. The pockets of San Bushmen to the west were pushed there by the expanding Batswana clan.

Another tribe, the Hambukushu, were Bantu farmers who settled in the northern delta and specialised in hunting elephants. The Hambukushu are also famous for their beautiful hand-woven baskets.

The 19th century European colonisers found the delta of little value, save as a hunting area, and it has only been in the last 50 years that the delta has experienced substantial development and population growth, spurred by tourism, commercial hunting and support services.

A British colonial history has led to the adoption of English as Botswana's official language, with Setswana as the national language. Individual tribes maintain their mother tongues, whether Bantu or Khoisan.

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