Conservation status | Introduced in the 19th century |
---|---|
Use | Horse-drawn vehicle, transport, safari, endurance, etc. |
The horse (tswana: itona; shona: bhiza) was initially introduced to Botswana from South Africa by European explorers and colonists in the 19th century. The number of horses increased sharply in the second half of the 20th century, after the country gained independence, due to their use for hunting and the increasing scarcity of their use for transport. With a population of over 30,000 in 2014, horses are used for subsistence hunting, endurance competitions and tourist safaris.
The presence of horses is most marked in the Maun and Western regions, where the sand of the Kalahari Desert makes it difficult to travel with motorized vehicles. Botswana is home to a dozen different breeds of horse, including Arabians and Thoroughbreds. It is also home to several horse-killing diseases, including African horse sickness, nagana and rabies.
The domestic horse (Equus caballus) is not part of Botswana's history and is not native to the country, [1] which is better known for its plains zebras (E. quagga), an emblematic species [2] predated by the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). [3]
The first horses imported into southern Africa came from Cape Town in the 17th century. [4] Most of Botswana's horses were imported from South Africa. [1] There are records of exploration of the territory that became Bechuanaland and then Botswana by the Englishman William Cornwallis Harris in 1836, followed by other white European riders in the 1840s. [5]
When the territory known as "Bechuanaland" was declared a British protectorate on 21 May 1884, it took just six weeks for police forces, mostly of British origin, to begin organizing to control the new territory. [6] These included a mounted police force, used in particular to control the border between Bechuanaland and South Africa. [7] [6] The Bechuanaland Mounted Police, created in 1885 [8] by Major Stanley Lowe to maintain order and suppress cattle rustling, [9] was succeeded by the Bechuanaland Border Police in 1889–1890. [10]
Evidence of local contact with horses comes later. In 1916, Khama, the Ksogi (tribal chief) of the Bamangwato people in Bechuanaland, was struck in the knee by a horse; he then invited his son Sekgoma II, who had been in exile for 10 years, to rule in Serowe. [11] In 1954, author John Brown described the presence of ponies in the Gordonia region of the Kalahari Desert, whereas he had previously thought that the desert was not a liveable environment for horses. [12]
In 1961 Botswana's horse population was estimated at 7 663 head. [13] The domestic horse is described as "the aristocrat of Botswana's cattle", since its price is 3 to 6 cows, or 15 to 30 donkeys. [14] The men of the Nyae Nyae region used to hunt giraffes on horseback, but the South West African government declared this illegal in 1953. [15] From then on, horses were used mainly as a means of transport, but hunting undoubtedly continued more cautiously. [16] Game ambushes are carried out at night, when hunters are less likely to be spotted. [16] The Dobe !Kung depended heavily on hunting in the early 1960s, when their population grew and relied on the use of horses, firearms and motorized vehicles. [17]
The gradual development of roads and transport infrastructure has made the use of horses unnecessary in some densely populated areas of the country. [1] Nevertheless, the horse population grew from 11,000 head in 1970 to around 34,000 in 1990. [1] One of the main reasons for this development was the popularity of hunting on horseback. [18] Horseback riding became the most effective hunting technique in the 1970s. [19] In the 1970s and 1980s, the San of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve gradually adopted horseback hunting, and at the same time abandoned the use of bows with poisoned arrows in favor of spears, thanks to the speed afforded by horseback riding, [20] [21] as shown by studies carried out in the Xai/Xai region (Ngamiland) between 1973 and 1980. [22]
This was a major change both in their hunting strategy and in their success rate: the use of horses increased the area explored during the hunt. [19] In the 1980s and 1990s, young people able to buy or rent a horse favored this spear hunting technique, thanks to the transmission of riding skills. [19]
Like the donkey, the horse is still used for mounted transport and as horse-drawn vehicle. [1] [23] However, it is only used for this purpose in the Western and Maun regions, due to the poor condition of the roads, which are regularly silted up. [1] Horses are more frequently ridden than harnessed. [1] Karakul sheep breeders in the southern Kalahari use horses, donkeys and mules. [24] Owners of hunting horses use their animals for a variety of other activities. [25]
The International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) database recognizes one national equestrian federation in Botswana, the Horse Society of Botswana (HSB). [26] However, the country has never won a medal at a major international equestrian event (World Equestrian Games or Olympic Games). [26] In 2023, the Horse Society of Botswana is organizing ten official competitions in the country: four in show jumping, one in dressage, one in combined driving, five in endurance riding, one in reining, one in acrobatics, one in para-dressage and one in para-harnessing. [26]
In her thesis defended in 2020 at the University of Botswana, Tinieri Maeresera argues that horse manure can fertilize Cenchrus ciliaris plantations. [27]
Mounted subsistence hunting is legally permitted under Botswana law, allowing native people to hunt in reserves with the aid of horse, shotgun and hunting dogs. [28] [29] The Wildlife and National Parks Wildlife Act of 1992 prohibits hunting from motorized vehicles, which explains the use of horses. [15] Botswana's laws differ from those of neighboring Namibia, which bans hunting on horseback altogether. [29] Horse hunting is particularly common along the border between Botswana and Namibia. [15]
The Mbanderu use it for long-distance hunting, sometimes accompanied by !Kung. [25] Around a third of Xai/Xai hunters are familiar with hunting on horseback with firearms or spears. [30]
Mounted hunting is particularly effective for stalking elands, giraffes, and oryx gazelles. [21] It is also very effective for hunting large antelopes, such as eland (Taurotragus oryx). [19] There is also some bushmeat poaching (particularly in the Okavango delta), based on the recent development of horse-drawn pursuit practices, which is detrimental to tourism. [31]
According to the president of the Botswana Endurance Riding Association (BERA), Sharon Du Plessis, the national practice of endurance riding dates back to the late 1990s, when several Botswana riders jointly realized that there were enough of them to organize viable competitions in their own country, rather than travel to South Africa. [32] The practice gradually gained in importance, and by 2006 had two local clubs, one in Ghanzi and the other in Lobatse. [32] BERA uses a vet-gate system for its competitions, in accordance with the rules laid down by the Fédération équestre internationale. [32] The endurance racing season usually runs from February to June, when temperatures can be very hot. [32] Around six endurance races are held each year in Botswana, usually over 80 km. [33]
One of the most famous endurance races is at Tau Tona Lodge in Ghanzi, in the Kalahari Desert. [32] The Lobatse race, another prestigious event, takes place on stonier ground and attracts participants from Spain, Abu Dhabi, Britain, Namibia and South Africa. [32] Botswanan riders compete in South Africa to qualify for the longer distances required for the World Endurance Championships. [33]
Endurance is generally practiced with an Arabian horse, a breed bred in Botswana. [33]
Botswana is one of Africa's most popular destinations for mounted equestrian tourism, in the adventure tourism category. [34] A sample survey published in 2021 shows that horse-riding activities are highly appreciated as part of an ecotourism approach. [35]
Several guidebook authors describe Botswana (in 2010 and 2022) as one of the best African destinations for a horseback safari, thanks in particular to the variety of its wildlife. [36] [37] [38] These safaris are generally reserved for riders over the age of twelve who are comfortable at all three gaits. [39] [38] Mounted safaris are available in the Okavango Delta [40] and along the Zambezi River, also with Victorian-style horse-drawn carriages. [41] This is a potentially dangerous activity, as predators (lions, etc.) are likely to attack the horses. [42]
Horse breeds used on safari include Thoroughbreds, half-bloods, Arabians, Anglo-Arabians, Friesian crosses and the local sport horse, a cross between the Boer and the American Saddlebred. [43] All are trained and measure between 1.42 m and 1.73 m. [43]
The Tswana, a pastoral people, are accustomed to breeding all kinds of domestic animals. [44] A few !Kung began owning horses in the 1960s, either for themselves or as part of a job for a white farmer. [14]
The book Equine Science (2017) provides no estimate of Botswana's horse population; [45] however, Chris J. Mortensen indicates on the basis of data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) the presence of a herd of 30 907 head in 2014. [13]
In 2008, Oladimeji Idowu Oladele and Milly Monkhei provided the following gendered and quantified data on the ownership of a total of 25,387 horses in the country:
Region | Horses owned by men | Horses owned by women |
---|---|---|
Southern region | 3 316 | 526 |
Gaborone region | 2 079 | 370 |
Central region | 4 795 | 590 |
Francistown region | 869 | 168 |
Maun region | 5 319 | 1 226 |
Western region | 5 275 | 854 |
Total | 21 653 | 3 734 |
The Maun and Western regions breed the most horses. [46] There are also geographical differences in horse ownership: women in the Maun region own more horses than those in other regions. [47]
Little is known about local horse breeding. [1] Most horses in Botswana are kept on traditional farms, which presumably use little controlled selective breeding. [1]
The DAD-IS database lists twelve breeds of horses that currently are used in Botswana, though formthe most part these are not local native breeds: Appaloosa, Arabian, South African Boer, Hanoverian, Kalahari pony, Nooitgedachter, Quarter Horse, Thoroughbred, Tswana, Warmblood and Welsh pony. [48]
The Thoroughbred is bred locally for outbreeding, working equitation and income generation, as well as for cultural reasons such as horse racing and sport riding. [49] The Appaloosa, [50] Quarter Horse, [51] Nooitgedacht, [52] Arabian [53] and sport horse [54] are bred for the same reasons, plus hunting, pack farming and manure recovery. The Boer is also used for children's riding. [55] The Tswana is bred for all the above purposes, as well as for its meat. [56]
No data are available on the use of the Hanoverian [57] or the Welsh. [58]
The Kalahari pony [59] is described as a "locally adapted breed", but no population or usage data are available.
Botswana is endemic for rabies, which can affect horses with rare frequency (3.13% of rabies cases detected in the country between 1989 and 2006). [60] Numerous outbreaks of equine influenza were reported in South Africa, Lesotho and Namibia, near the border with Botswana in 1987, but no cases have been recorded in Botswana; as soon as the outbreaks were reported, horse movements were restricted. [61]
The hottest regions of southern Africa are infested with tsetse flies (Glossina), which transmit trypanosomes, blood parasites that cause a fatal disease in horses, nagana. [62] These flies are found along the Limpopo river, particularly where it meets its tributary, the Pongola river. [5] The explorer Frank Vardon discovered these insects in the region while traveling on horseback in 1845 or 1846. [5]
African horse sickness is a virus transmitted by tiny midges which regularly devastates southern Africa. [62] Epidemiological monitoring shows that between 1995 and 2004, 99 clinical cases were detected in Botswana, all in non-vaccinated horses. [63] The vector species in Botswana are Culicoides miombo and Culicoides imicola, [64] which is the most frequently found according to research carried out in Gaborone in 1997. [65]
This has an economic impact on horse owners (e.g. safari organizers), but also an emotional loss. [66] Carnivores who eat the meat of an infected horse may in turn be contaminated. [67]
There are campaigns to raise awareness among horse owners and get them vaccinated. [64]
In L'enfant et le cheval de vent (2016), author Rupert Isaacson recounts a journey with his autistic son Rowan to ride horses among the Bushmen of Namibia, then in Botswana. [68] Because of his support for native peoples in his book Les deniers homes du Kalahari (2008), Isaacson was banned from Botswana. [69]
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 per cent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, Zambia to the north and Zimbabwe to the northeast. With a population of slightly over 2.4 million people and a land area similar to France, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. It is essentially the nation-state of the Tswana people, who constitute nearly 80 per cent of the population.
The history of Botswana encompasses the region's ancient and tribal history, its colonisation as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and the present-day Republic of Botswana. The first modern humans to inhabit Botswana were the San people, and agriculture first developed approximately 2,300 years ago. The first Bantu peoples arrived c. 200 CE, and the first Tswana people arrived about 200 years later. The Tswana people split into various tribes over the following thousand years as migrations within the region continued, culminating in the Difaqane in the late 18th century. European contact first occurred in 1816, which led to the Christianization of the region.
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for 900,000 square kilometres (350,000 sq mi), covering much of Botswana, as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa.
Khama III, referred to by missionaries as Khama the Good also called Khama the Great, was the Kgosi of the Bangwato people.
The Tswana are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa. Ethnic Tswana made up approximately 85% of the population of Botswana in 2011.
The San peoples, or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. Their recent ancestral territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and South Africa.
The national flag of Botswana consists of a sky blue field cut horizontally in the centre by a black stripe with a thin white frame. Adopted in 1966 to replace the Union Jack, it has been the flag of the Republic of Botswana since the country gained independence that year. It is one of the few African flags that utilises neither the colours of the Pan-Africanist movement nor the colours of the country's leading political party.
The Bechuanaland Protectorate was a protectorate established on 31 March 1885 in Southern Africa by the United Kingdom. It became the Republic of Botswana on 30 September 1966.
Kanye is a village in southern Botswana, located 83 kilometres (52 mi) south-west of the capital, Gaborone. It is the administrative centre of the Southern District, and had a population of 48,028 as of the 2022 Population and Housing Census. This is an increase compared to the 45,196 of the 2011 census, making it the ninth-largest village in the country. Kanye is the traditional capital of the Ngwaketse tribe, who first settled in the area in the 1790s. The village is the longest continuously-occupied tribal capital in the country.
Besides referring to the language of the dominant people groups in Botswana, Setswana is the adjective used to describe the rich cultural traditions of the Batswana - whether construed as members of the Setswana ethnic groups or of all citizens of Botswana. the Batswana believe in the rich culture of Botho-Ubuntu, ‘‘People are not individuals, living in a state of independence, but part of a community, living in relationships and interdependence.’ Batswana believe in working together and in being united.
The Makgadikgadi Pan, a salt pan situated in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana, is one of the largest salt flats in the world. The pan is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadikgadi, which once covered an area larger than Switzerland, but dried up tens of thousands of years ago. Recent studies of human mitochondrial DNA suggest that modern Homo sapiens first began to evolve in this region some 200,000 years ago, when it was a vast, exceptionally fertile area of lakes, rivers, marshes, woodlands and grasslands especially favorable for habitation by evolving hominins and other mammals.
Batswana were put under so called sotho group against their will in the 1935 preliminary survey of the bantu tribes, page 96. Batswana have only ever looked upon themselves as Batswana never basotho or western sotho, the term western sotho doesn't exist in Setswana and Batswana are older than basotho. Batswana have their own way of saying black person or brown skinned and mosothois not one of the words. https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/77107
The Java pony is a breed of pony developed on the island of Java in Indonesia. It is thought to have descended from wild forebears of Mongolian Wild Horse ancestry. It is larger and stronger than the Timor pony, with more Arabian breed influence.
John Henry Selby was an African professional hunter who made a name for himself in Kenya and then in Bechuanaland. Selby honed his hunting skills early in life while working for the Safariland safari company and under the tutelage of legendary hunter Philip Percival. During his time with Ker & Downey Safaris, he also met and befriended Robert Ruark, whose subsequent writings about safaris he did with Selby made Selby famous around the world.
The Henson horse, or cheval de Henson, is a modern horse breed from northeast France. It was created by the selective breeding of light saddle horses with the smaller, heavier Norwegian Fjord horse to create small horses suitable for the equestrian vacation industry. The breeders' association, Association du Cheval Henson, was formed in 1983. In 1995 the studbook was closed to horses not born from Henson parents, and in 2003 the breed was officially recognised by the French government agencies for horse breeding. A hardy breed of horse, each winter the broodmares and youngstock from several breeders are let loose together to graze freely in the wetland reserves in France.
Ancestral land conflict over the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) arose in the 1970s between the government of Botswana and the San people (Bushmen), and is ongoing, resulting in one of the most expensive court cases in the history of Botswana.
Bathoen I was a kgosi of the Ngwaketse people (1889-1910). Together with Khama III and Sebele I he is credited with saving the young British Bechuanaland Protectorate, a predecessor of Botswana, from being absorbed by expansionist forces in the 1890s.
The history of the Cinema of Botswana comprises film-making in the Southern African country of Botswana, both before and after Botswana's independence.
Batswana nationality law is regulated by the 1966 Constitution of Botswana, as amended; the Citizenship Act 1998, and its revisions; and international agreements entered into by the government of Botswana. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Botswana. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. The Botswana nationality is typically obtained on the principle of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth to parents with Botswana nationality. It can be granted to persons who have lived in the country for a specific period of time, who have performed distinguished service to the nation or who have an affiliation to the country through naturalisation.
The History of Botswana includes its pre-state history, its colonial period as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and its modern history as a sovereign state.