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(297) Hottentot

1. General breed information

Species:	Goat
Breed Name/Strain :	Hottentot
Breed Group Name:	Lop-eared goats
Subgroup Information:	South African Lop-eared
Group Origin:
This group of goats is characterized by the long drooping (lop) ears, as in the Zaraibi of Egypt and Nubian of the Sudan. Similar type of goats are heavily represented in the atlas region of north Africa, western Mediterranean region as well as in Syria, Iraq and India. At present their major breeding area is considered to be in India. However, no traces of this type of goats (Zaraibi, Damascus, Jamnapari, etc.) have been found in the Indus valley or west of it. The ancestral stock might have evolved either in India subsequent to the Indus valley civilization, or west of India, possibly Iran, from where it spread to Syria and Egypt in the west. It also appears from the occasional occurrence of homonymous screw-like horns in Zaraibi and Jamnapari bucks, that this goat type was evolved from the screw-horned goats common throughout the ancient world from India in the east to Libya in the west. The so-called Nubian goat probably does not in fact originate from Nubia (the area of southern Egypt and northern Sudan), and certainly not from Ethiopia, and the convex profile is a common characteristic of goats in the Middle East and India (Mason, 1984).
Breed Origin :
The Hottentots orginally had no goats, but acquired some from the Bantu tribes in their neighbourhood in exchange for cattle and sheep and by raiding (Epstein, 1971).
Main Location:
Found in Namibia, mainly in the southern parts and probably the adjoing parts of Boswana.
Special Characteristic:
Because of their origin, these goats display characteristics of the Bantu type goats, particularly the Damara (Herero).