Okamatapati is a settlement in the Otjozondjupa Region of

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

, situated south of Grootfontein and north of

Otjinene Otjinene is a village in the Omaheke Region of Namibia. It is the district capital of Otjinene Constituency. Otjinene is connected via a tarred road to the regional capital Gobabis, and via a road which was tarred in 2017 from Otjinene to Groo ...

. The name ''Okamatapati'' is derived from ''Omutapati'', the Otjiherero name for the Mouse-eared combretum, a shrub that is common in the area.

Herero people The Herero ( hz, Ovaherero) are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting parts of Southern Africa. There were an estimated 250,000 Herero people in Namibia in 2013. They speak Otjiherero, a Bantu language. Though the Herero primarily reside in Namibia, t ...

were resettled to this area, then known as Hereroland, in the 1960s. The ''

Odendaal Plan Frans Hendrik Odendaal (1898–1966) (known as Fox Odendaal) was a South African politician, governor of the Transvaal province, best remembered for heading the commission that became known by his last name. Odendaal Commission In 1962 Odendaal ...

'' declared several

bantustan A Bantustan (also known as Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state or simply homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party administration of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now N ...

s, one for each tribe, and forced Blacks to vacate all other areas of then-

South-West Africa South West Africa ( af, Suidwes-Afrika; german: Südwestafrika; nl, Zuidwest-Afrika) was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola (Portuguese colony before 1 ...

. Okamatapati was situated at the western edge of the Herero area. An affluent community developed who soon elected their own

tribal chief A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribe The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categorized as ...

s. The ''Okamatapati Farmers Association'' was founded in 1983. It ran the first ''Okamatapati Show'', an agricultural show for cattle farmers, in 1986. The show has been run for the 28th time in 2016 but is no longer conducted in Okamatapati. In 2012 it moved to Windhoek and became part of the Windhoek Show. Except a one-time stint at the Grootfontein Show in 2014 it is now held annually in Windhoek. Today the area around Okamatapati is a conservancy of that has been established in 2005. it had a population of 1,899 people. The conservancy consists of flat, sandy thornveld

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

and has an average annual rainfall of . The main economic activity is cattle farming, particularly weaner production, which is supported by the occurrence of ''

Terminalia sericea ''Terminalia sericea'' is a species of deciduous tree of the genus ''Terminalia'' that is native to southern Africa. Its common names include clusterleaf, silver cluster-leaf or silver terminalia in English, vaalboom in Afrikaans and mususu in Ve ...

'', a

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree that the animals feed on during the dry season. Devil's claw is also harvested here. The road from Otjinene to Grootfontein, an extension of the

Trans-Kalahari Highway The Trans-Kalahari Corridor is a paved highway corridor that provides a direct route from Walvis Bay and Windhoek in central Namibia, through Botswana, to Pretoria in Gauteng province in South Africa. It initially cost approximately 850 million Nam ...

which passes Okamatapati, is being tarred. The work is expected to be completed in 2017.

References

{{reflist, 30em Villages in Namibia Populated places in the Otjozondjupa Region