Mandume ya Ndemufayo (1894 – 6 February 1917) was the last king of the Oukwanyama, a subset of the Ovambo people of southern Angola and northern Namibia.

Ya Ndemufayo took over the kingdom in 1911 and his reign lasted until 1917 when he died of either suicide or machine gun fire while he was under attack from South African colonizers.

Internally, he issued decrees prohibiting the picking of unripened fruit to protect against droughts and the unneeded use of firearms, an important commodity obtained from European traders.

[1] No European colonizer challenged the well-organized and well-armed Ovambo kingdoms until 1915 and the beginning of World War I which coincided with a massive local drought.

Due to heavy losses, ya Ndemufayo was forced to relocate the Kwanyama capital to the area of South West Africa.