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The traditional Swazi region recognizes a supreme God/creator in its pure form while the ancestors are recognized. The S...
20/06/2025

The traditional Swazi region recognizes a supreme God/creator in its pure form while the ancestors are recognized. The Swazi religion is based on a creator known as Mvelincanti (he who was there from the beginning). Most Swazis intertwine this belief with modern day Christianity that was brought by missionaries, yet many remain faithful to their original African spiritual beliefs.
Spiritual rituals are performed at the level of family associated with birth, death and marriage.
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Kasenene, Peter (1992). Religion in Swaziland. South Africa: ABC-CLIO. p. 384.

The Xhosa are part of the South African Nguni migration which slowly moved south from the region around the Great Lakes....
20/06/2025

The Xhosa are part of the South African Nguni migration which slowly moved south from the region around the Great Lakes. Xhosa people were already well established by the time of the Dutch arrival in the mid-17th century, and occupied much of eastern South Africa from around the Greatest Fish River area to lands inhabited by Zulu-speakers south of the modern city of Durban.
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History of South Africa 1486 - 1691, GM Theal, London 1888

In general the Nama practice a policy of communal land ownership. Music, poetry and story telling are very important in ...
07/06/2025

In general the Nama practice a policy of communal land ownership. Music, poetry and story telling are very important in Nama culture and many stories have been passed down orally through the generations.
The Nama have a culture that is rich in the musical and literary abilities of its people. Traditional music, folk tales, proverbs, and praise poetry have been handed down for generations and form the base for much of their culture. They are known for crafts which includes leatherwork, skin karosses and mats, musical instruments (such as reed flutes), jewellery, clay pots, and tortoiseshell powder containers.
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Hoernlé, A.W. (1918) “Certain Rites of Transition and the Conception of !Nau among the Hottentots”, in Oric Bates (1918) Harvard African Studies lI; Varia Africana II, pp. 65-82, Cambridge, Massachusetts.,(Review by: Robert H. Lowie (Apr. - Jun., 1919) American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 208-210

The Musgum people in Cameroon constructed their mud houses with compressed sun-dried mud. Earth is still used as a build...
07/06/2025

The Musgum people in Cameroon constructed their mud houses with compressed sun-dried mud. Earth is still used as a building material and appears environmentally more acceptable for low cost housing, as cement production releases large amounts of carbon emissions. Mud is laid over a thatch of lashed reeds. They are compared to adobe structures or variants of cob structures, which are made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material such as sticks, straw, and or manure. Although of simple design, they are well planned from a utility viewpoint.
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The houses were built with geometric designs. They were built in the shape of a shell in inverted “V” or conical form. Ronald Rael, an architect and author of the book entitled Earth Architecture, has observed that the Musgum houses are of “a catenary arch— the ideal mathematical form,” which can withstand the load of the building with minimum use of material. Because of the inverted form of an arc of a chain, the domes are slim and work on the principle of compression providing rigidity to the structure without any twisting or bending moments. The geometric patterns on the exterior face of the domes provide a foothold for workers who stand on them during construction and also during subsequent maintenance. The exterior design and large height of the structures (nearly 9 m (30ft)) keeps the houses cool inside on hot summer days.
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Nelson, Steven (2007). From Cameroon to Paris: Mousgoum Architecture In and Out Of Africa.
University of Chicago Press.

The Senufo are predominantly an agricultural people cultivating corn, millet, yams, and peanut. Senufo village consist o...
08/05/2025

The Senufo are predominantly an agricultural people cultivating corn, millet, yams, and peanut. Senufo village consist of smal-mud brick homes. In the rainy southern communities of Senufo, thatched roofs are common, while flat roofs are prevalent in dry desert-like north. The Senufo is a patriarchal extended family society, where arranged typically cousin marriage and polygyny has been fairly common, however, succession and property inheritance has been matrilineal.
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John A. Shoup III (2011). Ethnic Groups of Africa and The Middle East: An Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedia.
ABC-CLIO. pp. 253-254.

In 1914, the Southern Nigerian Protectorate was combined with the Northern Nigerian Protectorate to create the Colony an...
08/05/2025

In 1914, the Southern Nigerian Protectorate was combined with the Northern Nigerian Protectorate to create the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, which has the borders of modern-day Nigeria. By the late 1950s, the call for independence of territories in Africa and the decline of the British Empire led to the country being granted independence on 1 October 1960 as the Federation of Nigeria. Three years later, the constitution was amended and the country was declared the Federal Republic of Nigeria with Nnamdi Azikiwe, previously Governor-General, as the first President.
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Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria: The Failure of the First Republic, Larry Jay Diamond, Syracuse University Press, 1988, page 64

Since the 18th century, the Hadza have come into increasing contact with farming and herding people entering Hadzaland a...
05/05/2025

Since the 18th century, the Hadza have come into increasing contact with farming and herding people entering Hadzaland and its vicinity; the interactions were often hostile and caused population decline in the late 19th century. The first European contact and written accounts of the Hadza are from the late 19th century. Since then, there have been many attempts by successive colonial administrations, the independent Tanzanian government, and foreign missionaries to settle the Hadza, by introducing farming and Christianity. These efforts have largely failed, and many Hadza still pursue virtually the same way of life as their ancestors are described as having in early 20th-century accounts.
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Marlowe, F. W. (2010). The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania. Berkeley: Univ. California Press.

Although there are today marked differences in customs between the Konso and their Oromo neighbors, Konso society has al...
05/05/2025

Although there are today marked differences in customs between the Konso and their Oromo neighbors, Konso society has also retained some commonalities with traditional Oromo culture. The latter include the gadaa generation-grading system of social organization, similar high priests and a cult of phallicism.
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Hallpike, Christopher Robert (1972). The Konso of Ethiopia: a study of the values of a Cush*tic people Clarendon Press. p. 4.

In the late 19th century, after the Berlin conference had ended, European empires sailed with their armies to the Horn o...
29/04/2025

In the late 19th century, after the Berlin conference had ended, European empires sailed with their armies to the Horn of Africa. The imperial clouds wavering over Somalia alarmed the Dervish leaders Mohammed Abdullah Hassan and Sultan Nur Ahmed Aman, who gathered Somali soldiers from across the Horn of Africa and began one of the longest anti-colonial wars ever. The news of the incident that sparked the 21 year long Dervish rebellion according to the consul-general James Hayes Sadler was spread or as he alleged was concocted by Sultan Nur of the Habr Yunis. The incident in question was that of a group of Somalia children that were converted to Christianity and adopted by the French Catholic Mission at Berbera in 1899. Whether Sultan Nur experienced the incident first hand or whether he was told or it is not clear but what is known is that he propagated the incident in June 1899, precipitating the religious rebellion that later morphed into the Somalian Dervish. The Dervish movement successfully repulsed the British empire four times and forced it to retreat to the coastal region. As a result of its successes against the British, the Dervish movement received support from the Ottoman and German empires.
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Encyclopedia of African history, Page 1406

The Pedi are of Sotho origin and are defendants of the Kgatla (Bakgatla) a Tswana speaking clan that migrated to ‘Bopedi...
29/04/2025

The Pedi are of Sotho origin and are defendants of the Kgatla (Bakgatla) a Tswana speaking clan that migrated to ‘Bopedi`, present-day Limpopo around the 1700s. The Pedi heartland is known as Sekhukhuneland, and it’s situated between the Olifants and Steelpoort River also known as the Lepelle and the Tubatse. The Pedi were the first of Sotho-Tswana peoples to be called Basotho, the name is derived from Swazi word uku shunta which referred to their clothing style, the Pedi took the name with pride and other similar groups began to refer to themselves as Sothos.
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HUNT, D. R. (1 January 1931). “An Account of the Bepedi”. Bantu Studies. 5 (1): 275-326.

The Baggāra or Chadian Arabs are a grouping of Arab ethnic groups inhabiting the portion of Africa’s Sahel mainly betwee...
15/04/2025

The Baggāra or Chadian Arabs are a grouping of Arab ethnic groups inhabiting the portion of Africa’s Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and southern Kordofan, numbering over six million. They are known as Baggara in Sudan, and as Shuwa Arabs in Cameroon, Nigeria and Western Chad. The term Shuwa is said to be Kanuri origin.
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The Baggāra mostly speak their distinct dialect, known as Chadian Arabic. However the Baggāra of Southern Kordofan, due to contact with the sedentary population and the Sudanese Arab camel herders of Kordofan, has led to some Sudanese Arabic influence on the dialect of that zone.
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Owens, Jonathan. 2003. Arabic dialect history and historical linguistics mythology. Journal of the American Oriental Society.

By 1868, Said bin Habib el-Afifi had raided Luba operations and with force taken 10,500 pounds of copper. By 1874, anoth...
15/04/2025

By 1868, Said bin Habib el-Afifi had raided Luba operations and with force taken 10,500 pounds of copper. By 1874, another Arab-Swahili trader Juma bin Salum wad Rakad, and a friend of Tippu Tip, had entered into an agreement with one of the llunga Kabale’s son and established the base of his elephant hunting and ivory trade operations in the heart of the Luba people’s land. The Arab-Swahili raids, such as those by Tippu Tip, into Luba people’s lands were organized with Nyamwezi subordinates and slaves armies. These raids and attacks by the outsiders also introduced smallpox into the Luba population.
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Elizabeth Heath (2010). Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates (eds.). Encyclopedia of Africa. Oxford University Press. pp. 88-89.

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