The Ovambo form the biggest population group in South West Africa: at the 1960 census they numbered 239, 363, or 45 per cent of the total population of all races, and in 1966, 270, 900, or 44 per cent of the total (South Africa 1967, p. 18). By 1971 their numbers had increased to 342,000, or 45 per cent of the population (South Africa 1971, introduction). The Ovambo people have been settled within the area now known as Ovamboland, or Owambo, for about four centuries. The territory is bordered by the Kunene River and Angola in the North, the Kaokoveld in the West, and Kavango in the East (see Map 1). It is isolated from the southern and western parts of South West Africa by vast tracts of uninhabited land. This comparative isolation has protected the Ovambo people from interference and attack by other tribes; on the other hand, it has made communication and trade with the most developed part of South West Africa difficult and expensive and has, therefore, tended to inhibit the economic development of the territory.

There are seven Ovambo tribes: the Ndonga, the Kuanyama (“the meat eaters”), the Ngandjena, the Kuambi (“those who work with clay”), the Kualuthi, the Mbalantu, and the Nkolonkati-Eunda. These tribes are linked by broad ties of kinship and by the fact that their languages are, for the most part, interintelligible. These factors, and the territorial isolation of the Ovambo people, have combined to create in them a strong sense of solidarity.