African Tribes

THE EARLIEST SOUTH AFRICANS

South Africa has provided a home for human settlement since very early times. The presence of homo sapiens goes back perhaps 125 000 years. These first South Africans" were followed much later by hand-toolmakers of the Middle Stone Age (probably 40 000 years ago), the so-called Wilton-Smithfield cultural system (small flake tools, weapons, pottery) has been uncovered.

There are three reasons for the linkage between these Late Sone Age people and the earliest negroid inhabitants, who may have arrived as early as 8000 years ago. The Khoison (that is Bushman-Hottentot) and Negroid peoples emerge from common gene pools. Before stock-raising and agriculture had arrived, people had always been reduced to gathering edible roots and hunting to stay alive. The third clue is provided by the remarkable evidence of rock art.

Distinctive gene pools emerged under different environmental influences. The manner and the dating of language diffusion are particulary difficult to measure even if significant contact between human groups can be traced through the spread of loan words".

The explanation of the spread of technology requires an overview of changes in the continent of Africa as a whole. Thus the spread of pastoralism in Africa may will have resulted from the desiccation of the Sahara (once there grew crops) after about 6000 BC. There was a movement southwards into the west and east African savannahs, and it is very likely that stock-holding nomads (moving from the desiccated regions of the north) took with them techniques of metallworking which seem to have been acquired through contact with the Mediterranean world. These techniques were not only needed for the making of weapons, but more for the cutting of crops. The iron blade made the reaping of though stems possible and this facilitated the emergence of agriculture.

THE KHOISAN PEOPLE

San hunter-gatherers, likely descendants of the Late Stone Age peoples, may never have exceeded 20 000 in number. They lived in small bands of twenty to two hundred persons. They were highly mobile because of their dependence on game, and for same reason widely dispersed territorially. The political organisation was very rudimentary. Chiefs seem to have had ritual importance in rain-making and in various other ways, and they seem to have been respected as leaders of families. San languages have been divided into three main groups, located today in south-eastern Angola, between the upper reaches of the Zambesi and the Limpopo and on the Botswana-Namibian border in the northern Kalahari.

The Khoikhoi, numbering at most 100 000 people when the Durch arrived, lived mainly along the Orange. They had a more elaborate social organisation than the San and were distributed in tribes of up to 2500 members and occasionally more. they possessed fat-tailed sheeps and cattle. Before the white man's arrival it seems they conducted a trade with their Bantu-speaking neighbours in cattle, iron and copper. They also interacted, and to some extent intermarried, with Cape Nguni, Thlaping and other groups. After the white settlement they traded their cattle for the Dutch Company's tobacco and began to arrange a developing trade between the Europeans and the Xhosa to the east, but the European advance finally cost the Khoikhoi their land, their stock and their trading role. After two battles they lost their identity as a distinct group. Most were driven into the white man's service, as herdsmen, labourers or militiamen in the Colonial forces or gained admission to one of the mission stations set up by the Europeans from the late eighteenth century onwards. Some withdrew to the valley of the Orange.

THE EMERGENCE OF BANTU-SPEAKING CHIEFDOMS

The southward penetration of pastoralists brought Khoikhoi stock farmers to the western Cape, where sheep can be traced to the early Christian era, and cattle to about the end of the first millenium AD. But befor the beginning of agriculture it is necessary to look to the east. The growing of millet, associated with the very early settlements, and (from about 1700) of maize, which required much higher rainfall, limited the main areas of settlement to the summer rainfall regions. There a pattern of mixed farming developed, as settlers acquired livestock and lived as a rule in small villages within rang of pastures up to 1000 metres above sea level.

Probably there were major cultural changes at the start of the late Iron Age, though all elements of the later Iron Age were already present in the earlier. Livestock increased, and so did the population. The villages grew in seize, and settlement on the highveld spread. Forms of social and political organisation now became more complex, pottery styles became more localised, stone buildings began to appear, and metal production became linked with trading activities. The distribution of communities on the highveld depended largely on the location of minerals -gold, copper, and above all iron ore- and on the directions followed by new trade routes between Mozambique and the highveld. There were a few trade centres as Great Zimbabwe.

This late Iron-Age cattle raising community of over 10 000 people reached the height of its prosperity in the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, thanks to its geographical position, to control trade between the gold-producing areas of Matabeleland" and the coast. The buildings were unquestionally the work of Bantu-speakers.

The collapse of Great Zimbabwe dates from the sixteenth century mainly as a result of economic exhaustion. This probably induced a migration westwards to Khami. Another Shona state, Torwa, now emerged, based on Khami, and it was here that a domestic revolution in the late seventeenth century saw the emergence of a new ruler, the Changomire, whose followers were collectively known as Rozvi, who developed a strong government to subordinate chiefdoms.

Four main groups are normally distinguished among the Bantu-speakers south of the Limpopo. These were the Venda, the Sotho-Tswana, the Nguni and the Tsonga.

The Venda (of the Soutpansberg), though speaking a language akin to Shona, have cultural associations with the Sotho. Traditions remain largely unexplored, but they began to flourish when iron- and copper-working spread in the trans-Vaal.

The original Sotho-speakers are not easy to identify. The area of Sotho dominance between the Drakensberg, the Kalahari and the Limpopo was apparently occupied by three settler waves. They possessed similar cultures, and it seems possible to associate the beginnings of iron-smelting and different chiefdoms which survived into the twentieth century as separate political entities (Hurutshe, Kwena, Kgatla, Ngwato, Pedi).

At the time when the Kgatla and Kwena were spreading across the trans-Vaal, the Nguni were well established in the coastal regions of Natal and the trans-Kei. Portugese travellers shipwrecked off the southern African coast came across Bantu-speaking peoples in the coastal regions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and received the impression of a considerably larger settlement of people on the pastures set back from the coast. They described them (1554) as very black in colour, with woolly hair" and as herdsmen and cultivators of millet, living in small villages in huts made of reed mats, practising circumcision (which was not a Khoikhoi custom), obeying chiefs called ancosses" and being prepared to barter cattle for iron and copper.

The argument for a very early settlement of the Natal and trans-Keian coastal region by the Nguni peoples derives from further considerations. The Xhosa have a tradition of an ancestral home in the upper Umzimvubu valley. Some Nguni groups living in the trans-Vaal, who now speak Sotho, have a tradition of having arrived there very early from the south-east. Van Warmelo, the pioneer of South African ethnography, was and remains sceptical of all theories about Nguni origins. The most that can be said, perhaps, is that migration of Nguni-speaking peoples from the north at some early date is likely and that the main Nguni migration was in south-westerly direction.

The Tsonga (living on the Save river in Mozambique) spoke a language very different from Zulu. They differed culturally from the Zulu in some respects - by being fish eaters, for example, whereas the Nguni general had fish taboos. They had a special role in the promotion of trade during the eighteenth century with iron, copper, ivory and slaves (as main commodities) on account of their control of the hinterland of Delagoy Bay. Tsonga trading activities ranged inland, along routes which reached the iron-smelting regions of the western trans-Vaal, involving the Pedi as middlemen. North and south along the coast, they sought ivory and introduced European ware -cloth, beads, brassware and, later, guns. Some of the ivory came from Natal and Natal received substantial imports. At first the Tsonga Tembe dominated the trade from their base on the shores of Delagoa Bay, but in the course of the eighteenth century control passed from them to an offshoot chiefdom, the Mabudu, who established themselves south of the Bay at the latest by 1794.

THE ZULU

The Zulu are one of the main Bantu-speaking peoples of Africa. About seven million Zulu live in the Republic of South Africa, mostly in the province of Natal. They make up the largest language group in that country. Many Zulu live in urban areas. Others live in the province of Natal. For many years, the Zulu and other black South Africans have suffered severe discrimination at the hands of South African whites.

During the 1800's a Zulu king named Shaka led his nation in a series of military conquests. In 1838, the Zulu clashed with invading white settlers called Boers. The Zulu remained independent until the British conquered them in 1879.

Before the British conquest, the Zulu were farmers and cattle herders. They lived in cone-shaped houses made of finely matted reeds and straw. They arranged these houses in circles to form villages. The Zulu had a powerful monarch and a well-disciplined army.

Zulu men have traditionally practiced polygyny, the custom of having more than one wife at a time. A traditional Zulu family consists of a man, his wives, his unmarried children, and his married sons and their wives and children. In urban areas, however polygyny is becoming rare, and most families are much smaller.

Since the mid-1980's, conflicts between the Zulu and another black ethnic group, the Xhosa, have led to much violence and thousands of deaths in South Africa. Much of the fighting has occurred between members of the Inkatha Freedom Party, most of whom are Zulu, and supporters of the African National Congress, many of whom are Xhosa. Many people believe the Inkatha group represents a revival of Zulu nationalism.

THE XHOSA

Xhosa (pronounced KOH suh) are a black whose ancestors moved into southern Africa by the 1500's. More than half of the approximately five million Xhosa live in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

Most Xhosa once tended cattle and raised crops for a living. The wealth of each group depended on how many cattle it owned. The Xhosa did not kill their cattle for food, though they sacrificed some of the animals during religious ceremonies.

Xhosa men traditionally practiced polygyny. A typical household consisted of a man, his wives, unmarried children, his married sons and their families. Members of the household lived in a cluster of small cone-shaped houses with thatched roofs. During the 1900's, this traditional way of life has mostly disappeared among the Xhosa.

Large numbers of British and Dutch settlers migrated to southern Africa during the 1800's, and the Xhosa were defeated in war by the British in the late 1800's. Their defeat, loss of grazing land, and poverty forced many Xhosa to migrate to towns or farms where they worked for white people.Today, large numbers of Xhosa live in urban areas. Many others work on white-owned farms. The Xhosa and other nonwhite groups in South Africa have suffered severe discrimination at the hands of South African whites.

THE BANTU

Bantu are a large group of African black peoples. The word Bantu also refers to the related languages spoken by these peoples.

More than 180 million Africans speak Bantu languages. These people make up a major part of the population of nearly all African coutries south of 5 north latitude. They belong to about 300 groups, each with its own language or dialect. Every Bantu group considers itself a separate cultural and political unit, and each has its own name and history. Groups vary in size from a few hundred members to several millions. The best-known ones include the Zulu (once feared as warriors in South Africa), the Swahili (language is spoken throughout eastern Africa, in Tanzania and Kenya official language, live along the eastern African coast between Somalia and Mozambique) and the Kikuyu (is the largest group in Kenya, live in the uplands of Nairobi).

The first Bantu probably lived in what is now Cameroon. But about the time of Christ, the Bantu began one of the greatest migrations in history. Their growing population caused them to move to new lands. These people were farmers who knew how to make iron tools and weapons. They brought the knowledge of ironworking to much of Africa. The migration occurred gradually, with small groups continually splitting off and moving to new regions. These groups slowly developed into the cultural units of today.

By 1500, Bantu peoples had moved into most of central, eastern and southern Africa. Such groups as the Ganda, Kongo, Luba, Lunda, Nyoro and Rwanda established great kingdoms in central Africa. Their power was greatly reduced under colonial rule.

The government of South Africa formerly used the term Bantu to refer to that country's black population. But black South Africans considered the term offensive and preferred to be called blacks. In 1978, the government dropped Bantu from official use.

THE TUAREG

The Tuareg are nomadic stock farmers and are akin to the Berber. They live in the south of the Sahara (only few thousands) and in the Sahel (500 000). There are light-skinned and dark-skinned Tuaregs. Former a hierarchy with aristocrats, vassals, dependent people and slaves existed, but nowadays it is not important. Earlier the Inads", e.g. smiths, were dispised, but today they repair cars and have money in contrast of the Imoshar". This group is not allowed to do something because of their social status and so they ask former slaves for money. The Tuareg focus day-to-day survival, stock farming, cattle deal and transport with caravans become more. The last years tourism brought money, too. They live in Niger, Mali, Algeria, Lybia and Burkina Faso.

The language of the Berber, the Tamahak in the north and Tamashek in the south is typical for the culture of them. The writing of the Tuareg is called Tifinar. In Air, in north of Niger, where areas for the Tuareg exist, children learn French, Tamashek and Tifinar. Marking of the Tuareg is the so-called Tagelmust" (Arabian: Chech). It is a scarf to wear in the face which has only holes for the eyes, but only men wear it. The Tuareg build a cultural and speech community: Everybody who accepts the Imoshar" (culture of the Tuareg), lives with the Tuareg, speaks their language and wears suitable clothes is seen as Tuareg. They are not a nation, but in the Sixties they had the possibility to get their own state.

Among the Tuareg are many rival groups and this made a union against the governments of Niger and Mali difficult. Niger kept international aid after dryness from the Tuareg away and they were forced to move in other areas without knowing how to live there. Thus they fled to Algeria and Lybia. In April 1990 many young Tuareg were imprisoned after a protest against misappropriation of aid supplies. They were set free by Tchin-Tabarads who killed a prison officer. Hence the army of Niger imprisoned Tuareg, made public executions, raped women, robbed and poisoned springs of the Tuareg and in this way more than thousand Tuareg were killed. In Mali the organization FLAA (Front Liberation Air and Azawagh) was founded in 1991 and demanded the autonomy of the northern areas of Niger. In April 1992 the government of Mali made a peace treaty. It contains e.g. more right to say, integration of the Tuareg-fighter in the army, measures for economic development. Only one year later the armistice was often broken by the army of Mali. In Niger three armistices in three months were made. On April 15^th, 1995 was the final peace treaty signed.

In contrast to the Arabians who lived not originial in North Africa (they settled there in 6^thand 11^thcentury) women have a high position at the Tuareg. The woman is responsible for the tent, the hut, feeding and the growing up of children. Figure of authority is the oldest woman in the family. Women do not have to hide of their men, do not have to be always in the house", to wear a veil, and they take the initiative to court a man. It is very hard to live in the desert and semi-desert, but the Tuareg are well-adjusted and one woman doesn't get more than four children. Men and women get to know at the traditional Tindi", a ceremony where singing and riding games take place. There a woman chooses her partner.

THE BERBER

The Berber or Amazigh people live in northern Africa throughout the Mediterranian coast, the Sahara and Sahel. Before the arrival of Arabs, this was a Berber world. The Amazigh territory, this broad homeland, is also referred as Tamazgha. Nowadays, there are important communities in Mali, Niger and Lybia, and smaller groups in Tunis, Mauritania, Burkina-Faso and Egypt. The Tuareg or Imajaghen of the desert are one branch of the Amazigh. There may be around 20 million speakers of Tamazight or Berber, a broad group of dialects or languages, that can be considered in an unitary way. But no country does recognize this indigenous language. Islamic states north of the Sahara are considered Arab and only Arab. This idea is extended among many Amazigh as well, who consider themselves to be Arabs", although ethnic consciousness is also high among many.

Amazigh in Algeria:

Amazigh population is around 20 - 25 % of the total (around 6 - 7 million). Kabylians are the most important group, west of Argel, in the northern part of the country (Kabyle). There are also Shawi (from 500 000 to 1 million) in the Aures mountains and Mozabites (100 000) in Mzab, and other smaller groups, including some 20 000 Tuareg in Ahaggar and Ajjer regions. In Algeria Islam equals Arabity and any other suggestion is against the unity of the nation". Curiously, in the present civil war this idea is shared by both the secular government and the radical islamic armed opposition.

Amazigh in Morocco:

Morocco can be considered a truly Amazigh country, as around 40 or 60 % of the population are Amazighs (12 or 18 million people). There are three main groups: Tarifit speaking people in the northern Rif coastal region, Tamazight proper in the Medium Atlas and part of High Atlas, and in the south and southeast (High Atlas, Antiatlas, Souss), Shelha or Chleuh.

Ceuta and Melilla:

Ceuta and Melilla are two Spanish colonies on the northern coast of Morocco. Both cities are mainly inhabited by Spanish colonisers, but the muslim native Berbers are still numerous, mainly in Melilla. These are Berbers of the Rif, that speak Tarifit and also use Arab as a language of culture and religion.

THE MASAI

The Masai are one of the last stock farmers in East Africa. They settle from the Serengeti to the Bantu-region in Tanzania, one part belongs to Kenya, the other to Tanzania. In Kenya are many (95) different tribes and it became independent from Great Britain in 1963. Tanzania became 1964 independent (since that year it is a confederation of Tanganjika and Sansibar). In the area of Masai are Serengeti, Masai Mara, Amboseli and Lake Manyara. The Masai are estimated at 300 000 and they become more. The language doesn't have a f".

Ancestors of the Masai lived in Southern Sudan (today) as hunter-gatherers. It is probably that they knew about agriculture 3000 BC. 900 - 600 BC they began to breed cattle. During their migration southwards they met the Bantu and so they swerved to eastern. There is no political organization in the tribe and usually they remove their under cutting teeth.

1884 the German arrived in eastern Africa and they founded Schutzgebiet Deutsch-Ostafrika". 1885 Kenya became dependent on Great Britain. 1890 became Tanzania a German colony, 1895 Kenya a British colony. 1946 Tanganjika (today Tanzania) became a region of UNO, administered by Great Britain. 1961 Tanganjika became independent, 1963 Kenya. In the end of the last century many Masai died because of war of succession between Mbatians sons' and many diseases. Most Masai went to the British for help. Thus the first white settlers came to Africa and 1904 the Masai got a north and south reaservation. Later the whites claimed the north reservation and the Masai had to move. The south reservation was divided in Narok, Ngong and Kajiado (these are administrative districts). They exist still nowadays.

Real Masai are Masai who live only from stock farming. Maa-speaking tribes which have agriculture are dispised. There is no tribe of Masai and no political order. Every Maa-speaking group is called Iloschon. This is a independent unit. The Iloschons differ because of dialects and there are many of them. On account of fights between Iloschons often take place.

The Masai-Iloschon is a male-society, the men practice polygyny, blood relationship and a strong system of classes of age (of men) are very important. These classes are: men without circumcision, men with circumcision, young warriors, older warriors, younger elders, older elders, old men. Automatically they get in the next class, always with great ceremonies. In the age of 15 years boys of an area are circumcised and after various exercises they are young warriors. In the age of 25 years they become older warriors and they build the army of the Iloschon. Now it is allowed to look for a bride. After a few years they are younger elders. The older elders (from 40-65) are political very important and they decide in the council of the elders to which all men belong. Old men have no political responsibility, but they have a prominent place because they are close to Enkai. Today it is different. The British determined a nominal headman, before decisions were made together in council of older elders.

Laibon is a priest who conects between Enkai and the people. He gives advices to the warriors and protects them (amulets). He knows the future, is medicineman and very good in making ceremonies. Most he is very rich with much cattle in the herd, but he is no Masai-headman.

Women are subordinated. There are not in the council of older elders and thus they have no important decisions. But there are special, religious ceremonies only for women and in the household they are respected. Women from other tribes are also married. The most important role of a woman is to give birth to sons. Divorce is possible, if the man treats the woman bad. The children live then with their father. Widows live with relatives of their dead man.

Circumcision takes between 12 and 15 years place (girls and boys) place. These operations are surrounded of great ceremonies.

Women have bald heads and young men, too. Old men are proud of their hair and beard. When Masai get their names the hair is shaved for the first time. After the circumcision it gets longer for a time, but at the marriage it is shaved again. The young warriors are very proud of their hair and they do everything for it. After this time it is shaved. Painting with red, white or yellow colour depends on the ceremony and status of the person.

Masai are not nomads, they move cyclic depending on season from one pasture to the next. They have houses through the whole year and live there. Government says, they should totally live at one place, but it is impossible because of the herds.

In course of the years many changes took place. Thus many products of ivory or horn are replaced by plastic, time of military service (warriors) is shorter, self-made clothes are ceremonial clothing, flour must be bought. Money comes from tourism and stock farming (a few years ago nobody would have sold his cattle).

TRIBES IN SUDAN

In Sudan northern Africa borders on southern Africa. Arabian North Africa and tribal cultures of the south melt together and six ethnic groups emerge. Nuba, Nuer and Dinka are only three of the oldes tribes in Sudan.

Nuba:

They live in the centre of Sudan and go back to a group of pastorates who escaped from the Arabs in the mountains more than five centuries ago. Most time of the year livestock graze in plains, in summer (it is the rainy season) in the mountains. On account of it rains more in these uplands the Nuba can live in their villages the whole year. Many Nuba tribes confess to the Islam, south groups believe in the power of their body. In times of harvest young men, covered with holy ash, make competitions.

Nuer:

They are very tall and live in the area where the White Nil flows with two other rivers together. When the rivers overflow the land they go to higher areas. They live from and with their cattle (milk and products of milk). Respect of a man depends on his cattle and cows are given in the ceremony at beginning of manhood. There are daily quarrels because of the cattle.

Dinka:

Westwards of the Nuer live the Dinka who regard their cattle very high. They grow millet and live from it. Cattle has economic, social and religious meaning and respect of a person depends on his cattle. In the rainy season they go from the land along the rivers to higher savannahs. They have no chief, but there is a figurehead on who the welfare of the tribe depends, but there is no hierarchy.

Soutwards live the Agande who till the soil.

Lifestyle of many groups is endangered because of economic development and long civil war. 1978 were the beginning of building the Jonglin-canal. In the 70ies and 80ies were long dryness and 1988 was a great flooding.

IMPORTANCE OF ELDERS IN AFRICAN TRIBES

Tribe is a social-political system invented by prehistoric man to bring order in chaotic world. Before tribal system, the mankind is nomadic but individual and prehistoric people look out for themselves. They hunt individually or in very small groups of people. They only focus day-to-day survival without long-term plans. Gradually small groups of prehistoric people merge with each other. The groups become bigger and bigger. Eventually a tribe emerges, but some tribes are different.

A status of a male person in tribal society is primarily dependent upon his age. When a male person is young, he does not enough strength and does have real skills to combat anything effectively. After gaining strength and skills, a boy becomes a man after ceremony of initiation. After the initiation, he becomes a Warrior. They are ready to initiate combat at the request of the elders. After becoming to old to do actual combat, a Warrior becomes an elder. The main duties of the elders are promotion and continuance of the personal, economic and spiritual well-being to the entire people under the authority the elders. Primarily the elders promote the well-being of the people through religious rituals.

Two factors make the elders perfect persons for the specific role. First the elders are regarded with respect and dignity by the people under the authority of the elders such that the people respect the elders as much as their fathers. Second the elders are closer to the death than everyone else. Their age and status make the elers as representative of the ancestors. The people regard the actions of the elders as actions of the ancestors.

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