Himba: Nomads of Namibia

Cape Town, South Africa: Struik, 1990 An excellent, clean and tightly bound book. Gift quality. "The Himba are semi-nomadic pastoralists who live in Kaokoland in the remote north-western corner of Namibia. Their world is harsh, dry and starkly beautiful, sandwiched between the Namib Desert's forbidding Skeleton Coast and, until recently, the conflict between South Africa and Swapo. Today these people are under pressure as never before. In the early 1980s the worst drought in living memory killed more than 130 000 head of cattle in Kaokoland - two thirds of the stock. This, coupled with the effects and aftermath of the war, paints a bleak future for the Himba. The text introduces the Himba's world by means of evocatively described scenes from the past and present, most of which Margaret Jacobsohn has personally observed or participated in. The immediacy and integrity of her account together with Peter and Beverly Pickford's magnificent full-colour photographs provide a unique record of the 'ochre people of the dry river beds'."