Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Bamileke
Bamileke is a collective term referring to a loose agglomeration of some 100 kingdoms or chiefdoms of the eastern Grassfields in the Western Province of Cameroon. These kingdoms have similar cosmology and social and political structures;...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Bemba
The Bemba are the largest ethnic group in the Northern Province of Zambia. Seventeen or eighteen ethnic groups in this general area of Zambia comprise the Bemba-speaking peoples, and they form with the Bemba a closely related culture...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Ewe and Fon
"Ewe" is the umbrella name for a number of groups that speak dialects of the same language and have separate local names. Fon and Ewe are often considered to belong to the same, larger grouping, although their related languages are...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Dyula
"Dyula" is a Manding word typically referring to "traders" as a socio-professional category, particularly to Muslim long-distance traders who speak one or another dialect of Manding. The name is used as an ethnic label by...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Dogon
The Dogon are a group of about 250,000 people who live primarily in the districts of Bandiagara and Douentza in the western African nation of Mali. They are primarily agriculturists, their principal crops being millet, sorghum, rice,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Dinka Kinship
"Dinka" is a term that has been used for centuries to refer to a people who speak of themselves as "Moinjaang," or "the people of the people." They live over a wide area in southern Sudan, amid the many streams and small rivers that feed...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Bakhtiari
The term "Bakhtiari" refers to a group of people and the area they occupy. The Bakhtiari inhabit the central Zagros Mountains of Iran. The Bakhtiari are traditionally nomadic pastoralists who make their winter encampments in the low...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Anuak
The Anuak live in a region straddling the border of the southern Sudan and Ethiopia. The Anuak language is most closely related to Shilluk. Together, the two languages comprise a subfamily within the larger classification of Nilotic....
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Introduction to Africa
This introduction provides some basic information as background for the detailed accounts of the particular cultures that follow. The cultures have been selected to represent Africa, in the sense that they include the larger and...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Aimaq
In western Afghanistan and far eastern Iran, "Aimaq" means "tribal people," which distinguishes the Aimaq from the nontribal population in the area, the Persians (Fariswan) and Tajiks. Most of the population of live in Afghanistan; those...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Afrikaners
The Afrikaners are descendants, to a great extent, of Dutch, German, and French Huguenot settlers, and, to a lesser extent, of English, Scottish, Irish, and other settlers of South Africa. The Dutch language of the first White settlers...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Bagirmi Kinship
The term "Bagirmi" refers to a multi-ethnic society organized as an archaic state. Major populations in the Bagirmi region were the Barma, who formed and dominated the state; Arabs, who were its most numerous inhabitants; and the Fulani,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Baggara
"Baggara" as a term refers to a group of tribes that share certain cultural characteristics and claim kinship to each other and to a tribe in the Hejaz (southern Arabian Peninsula). The five main tribes of Baggara are the Messiriya,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Assyrians
Ancient Assyrians were inhabitants of one the world's earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia, which began to emerge around 3500 B . C . The Assyrians invented the world's first written language and the 360-degree circle, established...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Amhara
Amhara culture is often identified with Abyssinian culture, which is regarded as the heir to the cultural blending of ancient Semitic and Cushitic (African) patterns. "Ethiopia" is derived from an ancient Greek term meaning "people with...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Alur
The Alur speak DhuAlur, a Western Nilotic language of the Lwo Group. They live in northwestern Uganda and in the neighboring parts of northeastern Zaire. Some two-fifths of the Alur live in Uganda and three-fifths in Zaire. The family is...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Akan
The Akan comprise a cluster of peoples living in southern and central Ghana and in southeastern Ivory Coast. They form a series of distinct kingdoms and share a common language, known as Twi, which has many dialects. Twi is a tonal...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Afar
The Afar occupy an area of Djibouti and northeastern Ethiopia, sometimes called the Afar Triangle. There is a long history of hostility between the Afar and the surrounding groups; the Afar are often considered fierce and warlike. The...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Kpelle Kinship
The Kpelle are the largest ethnic group in the West African nation of Liberia and a significant group in neighboring Guinea. They are arguably the most rural and conservative of the major Liberian peoples. The only significant kin group...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Kurds
The Kurds have inhabited an area of rugged mountains and high plains at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for over two thousand years. Their traditional mode of subsistence is pastoralism and agriculture. The territory...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Lango
The Lango are one of the largest of the non-Bantu ethnic groups in Uganda. Since Ugandas independence, the Lango have become integrated into national political life. Music and dance are important aspects of Lango life; the finger piano,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Lobi Dagarti Peoples
The terms "LoDagaa" and "Lobi-Dagarti" (or Dagara) are used for a cluster of peoples situated across the frontier of Burkina Faso and Ghana. Hoe farming of cereals (sorghum, pennisetum [pearl millet], maize), together with some yams are...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Lozi
The Lozi consist of a number of interrelated ethnic groups located along the Zambezi River in Barotse Province of western Zambia. The term "Lozi" refers both to the Lozi proper and to those groups that have become subject to and...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Luba of Shaba
The patrilineal Luba of Shaba differ in their descent system from the Eastern Luba by their culture and language, they are distinct from the Western Luba. Most live in southern Zaire. The Luba practice slash-and-burn agriculture; fields...