Wild tribes of Africa. Amazing Tribes of Africa

Africa is divided into several historical and ethnographic provinces that differ significantly from each other.

North African province inhabited by peoples belonging primarily to the Indo-Mediterranean race. In areas of contact with Caucasians North Africa and Arabia (Mediterranean, or southern European small race), two transitional anthropological types were formed - the Fulban and Ethiopian small races. The North African historical and ethnographic province includes Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, almost all of Mauritania and Sudan. Here live mainly Arabic and Berber peoples who speak Afroasiatic languages ​​of the Hamitic-Semitic language family. The vast majority of the population professes Sunni Islam, with the exception of the Copts, descendants of the ancient Egyptians, who are Monophysite Christians. The main occupation is arable farming (in the oases and the Nilapolivnoe valley), gardening and viticulture, cultivation date palm voasis. The Bedouin Arabs and Berbers in the mountainous and semi-desert regions have nomadic and semi-nomadic cattle breeding (camels, large and small cattle, horses, donkeys). Clothing - a long wide shirt (galabaya) with a round collar, tapering pants, sleeveless vests, jackets, caftans, open raincoats without sleeves. The traditions of nomads are preserved in the custom of sitting, eating and even sleeping on the floor. The main food is porridge, flatbread, sour milk, couscous (small wheat pasta), skewered and minced meat, fish, pies, legume sauces, hot sauces, olive oil, dried fruits and dishes based on them, tea, coffee . The traditional dwelling of nomads is a tent, a tent, the dwelling of farmers is adobe or adobe buildings with a flat roof, often with terraces and a courtyard with windows. In the Maghreb countries, the Moorish style of urban architecture is widespread, which is characterized by the use of a large number of arches, a bizarre interweaving of arched structures supported by slender, graceful columns made of marble, granite and other materials. The original composition is enhanced by stucco decoration and patterned panels. Over time, Moorish architecture lost its lightness, and the buildings acquired a more massive appearance.

Arabs (endoethnonym - al-Arab) - a group of peoples of Semitic origin, speaking a variety of dialects of the Arabic language and inhabiting the states of Western Asia and North Africa. The writing is based on the Arabic round script. The ancient Semitic tribes, from which the ancient Arab people subsequently emerged, already in the 2nd millennium BC. occupied the territory of the Arabian Peninsula. The first Arab state formations arose in the north and center of Arabia (the Kingdom of Kindit). By the V-VI centuries. Arab tribes made up the majority of the population of the Arabian Peninsula. In the first half of the 7th century. with the emergence of Islam, the Arab conquests began, as a result of which the Caliphate was created, which occupied vast territories from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean and from Central Asia to the central Sahara. The Arabs were famous as excellent doctors and mathematicians. In North Africa, the population who spoke Semitic-Hamitic languages ​​close to Arabic relatively quickly became Arabized, adopting the language, religion (Islam) and many elements of the culture of the conquerors. At the same time, a reverse process of assimilation by the Arabs of some elements of the culture of the conquered peoples took place. The unique Arab culture that emerged as a result of these processes had a great influence on world culture. Arab Caliphate by the 10th century. As a result of the resistance of the conquered peoples and the growth of feudal separatism, it fell into separate parts. In the 16th century The Arab countries of Western Asia (except for a significant part of the Arabian Peninsula) and North Africa (with the exception of Morocco) became part of the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century Arab lands were subjected to colonial conquests and became colonies and protectorates of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Spain. To date, they are all independent states.

Berbers (endoethnonym Amazigh, amahag - “man”) - the general name of those who adopted in the 7th century. Islam (Sunni direction) of the indigenous inhabitants of northern Africa from Egypt in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west and from Sudan in the south to the Mediterranean Sea in the north. They speak Berber-Libyan languages. Mostly Sunni Muslims. The name Berbers, given by Europeans by analogy with barbarians due to the incomprehensibility of their language, is unknown to most of the Berber peoples themselves.

North East African Province includes most of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, northeast and eastern Kenya. The peoples of this area speak mainly Ethio-Semitic (Amhara, Tigre, Tigrai, Gurag, Harari, etc.), Cushitic (Oromo, Somali, Sidamo, Agaw, Afar, Konso, etc.) and Yomote (Ometo, Gimirra, etc.) languages. Afroasiatic language macrofamily. In Ethiopia, plow-terrace farming is common, combined with grazing. The land is cultivated with a special primitive plow (maresha) drawn by oxen. Here, for the first time, they began to cultivate cereal crops that are not found outside of Ethiopia: fine-grained teff, durra (a type of millet similar to corn), dagussa, as well as legumes - nutichina. The Ethiopian Highlands are home to some types of ikofe wheat. Settlements of scattered and street types, traditional home- a round log hut with walls coated with clay or dung and a cone-shaped roof (tukul), a stone rectangular building with a flat roof (khidmo). Clothing - tunic-like embroidered shirt with a wide belt, cloak (shamma), pants (suri). Ethiopia was for a long time the only Christian state in Tropical Africa. From the 1st millennium BC e.Ethiopian script is used here.

Oromos, Somalis, Tigre, Afars and others are Sunni Muslims engaged in nomadic and semi-nomadic cattle breeding (camels, horses, small cattle). The Oromo widely use number symbolism. Already in ancient times, they classified the world around them and assigned each type of phenomena its own number, which became a symbol of this type of phenomena and connected it through a system of numbers-symbols with other phenomena into a single picture of the world. The starting point of their numerology was the structure of the human body. Oromo society is divided into age classes (gada). The generation interval is 40 years and includes five age classes. All age classes perform a number of specific functions (economic, military, ritual).

Judaism is widespread among some peoples. Ethiopian (“black”) Jews - Falasha - are traditionally engaged in agriculture and crafts, but not trade. The Falasha eat biscuits made from tiefa and dagussa, and eat durra, onions and garlic; never use raw meat, which is in great use among their neighbors. Polygamy is not common; marry at an adult age. Education is carried out by priests and dabtara; it consists of reading and memorizing psalms, and interpreting the Bible. The position of women is honorable: there are no veils, no harems, spouses go to work together. Cemeteries are outside villages, gravestones are without inscriptions; A funeral feast is held in honor of the dead.

West African Province the largest and includes Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Cape Verde, Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon and most territories of Nigeria and Chad. Almost all the peoples of the Atlantic coast speak Atlantic languages, a minority speak Creole languages ​​based on English and Portuguese. The territory of Sudan, Niger and parts of neighboring countries is included in the zone of Niger-Congo languages, in addition, the largest people speaking the language of the Atlantic family (Fulani), and speakers of Naadamawa-Ubangi and Chadian languages ​​live here. In the southern part of the province, Niger-Congo, Ijoid and Benu-Congo languages ​​are spoken. West Africa is the center of the birth of civilizations: sufficient rainfall here is good for farming (mostly manual, in the south - fallow and slash-and-burn). In Sudan they cultivate grains (millet belt), in the tropical forest zone of the Guinea coast - roots and tubers (yam belt) and oil palm, in the northern part of the coast - both grains and root crops. Large and small cattle are raised in Sudan. Vegetable food - porridge, stews, palm wine, millet beer. Fish dishes are common on the Atlantic coast. Many Fulani retain nomadic semi-nomadic cattle breeding. Of greatest importance were the gold deposits and the lack of salt, which encouraged the Sudanese peoples to trade with the salt-rich Sahara. The cities of West Africa arose as trade and craft centers, residences of rulers, sacred centers, and often combined these functions. Rural settlements are of a scattered type, in the savannah - farmsteads, in the south - street ones. The dwelling is single-chamber, round, square or rectangular in plan. The building materials used are clay, stone, shrubs, grass, in the savannah - wood, branches, straw, in forests - palm wood, bamboo, banana and ficus leaves; Skins, skins, fabrics, mats, manure, and silt are used everywhere in the construction of dwellings. Banko (“raw clay”) is a Sudanese style of architecture made of mud bricks often lined with slate, or stones with clay mortar; characterized by the dissection of facades by pilasters, blank massive conical or pyramidal towers and minarets, pierced by floor beams protruding outward. In Sudan, a single type of men's costume has developed, dating back to the clothing of Islamic marabout teachers: bubu (a long wide shirt, usually blue, often with embroidery at the collar and on the pocket), wide harem pants with cuffs at the bottom, a cap, sandals. The south of the province is characterized by unstitched clothing, both shoulder and waist type skirts. In general, secret alliances and castes are widespread among the population of the province. The Akan (5 million population of part of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire) have matrilineal kinship accounts and specific naming, when one of the names corresponds to the day of the week on which the person was born. A number of peoples have syllabic writing.

Equatorial (Western Tropical) Province - this territory of Cameroon, southern Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Angola, Zambia. It is populated mainly by Bantu-speaking peoples and peoples close to them in language. The Pygmies also speak Bantu languages. The Santomians are Iannobonian Creoles with languages ​​based on Portuguese and Bantu languages, Fernandino Creoles with a language based on English and Yoruba. The material culture is characteristic of the tropical forest zone and is very close to the culture of the south of the West African province.

South African province occupies the territories of southern Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, southern and central Mozambique. Inhabited by Bantu-speaking peoples, as well as peoples speaking Nakoisan languages: Bushmen (Sam) and Hottentots (Khoi-Koin). The name Hottentots comes from the Netherlands. Hottentot - “stutterer” (pronouncing clicking sounds). Africans and “coloreds” in South Africa speak Naafrikaans (a language that arose on the basis of the southern Dutch dialects), South Africans speak the local version of English. In the second half of the 1st millennium AD. Bantu-speaking tribes moved here from East Africa, pushing the Khoisan peoples into less favorable areas (the deserts of the Kalahari-Namib). The last major migration was the “Great Trek” - the resettlement of Afrikaners in the mid-19th century. from the Cape Colony, captured by the British, to the northeast, beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers (the creation of the Boer republics - the Orange Free State and Transvaal). The traditional occupations of the Bantu-speaking peoples are manual farming of the slash-and-burn type with fallow land (sorghum, millet, corn, legumes, vegetables) and semi-nomadic cattle breeding (cattle and small cattle). The Hottentots are engaged in transhumance, with the exception of the Topnar-Nama group in Whale Bay (Namibia), which until recently was engaged in marine hunting. The traditional food of farmers and cattle breeders is stews and porridges made from sorghum and corn, seasoned with vegetables, milk; The main drink is millet beer. The traditional clothing of the province is unstitched: a loincloth and apron, a leather kaross cloak. A traditional settlement with a circular layout of hemispherical huts is a kraal. Unlike most African peoples, who have an open hearth outside the home, in the yard, among the mountain inhabitants of the Tswana and Suto, adobe stoves are common.

Bushmen - one of the oldest inhabitants of South Africa, they appeared here about 20,000 years ago. They are mainly engaged in hunting, which is ineffective in semi-desert and desert conditions. They often have to suffer from hunger and thirst. Dehydration of the skin leads to the formation of wrinkles. With frequent fasting, the female body stores fatty tissue, which manifests itself in the form of steatopygia - the deposition of fatty tissue on the hips and buttocks with a dry physique. Walking on two legs saves energy, which makes a person very resilient. Bushmen practice hunting to exhaust the prey. The ability of the Bushmen to find water in the desert is amazing. They suck water from springs under the sand using reeds. A special feature of the national cuisine is the consumption of “Bushman rice” (ant larvae). Wind barriers made of branches tied at the top and covered with grass or skins are used as housing. The laws of inheritance of the epicanthus (fold of the upper eyelid) are different among the Mongoloids and the Bushmen. Among the Mongoloids this is a dominant trait, and among the Bushmen it is a recessive trait, so we can assume that epicanthus developed among the Bushmen in parallel with its development among the Mongoloids. The living conditions of the Bushmen are close to the living conditions of the Mongoloids (deserts and steppe zones with strong winds)

East African Province is divided into two subregions: Coastal (the Indian Ocean coast from Somalia to eastern Mozambique) and Interlake(Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, western and southern Uganda, northwestern Tanzania). The main part is inhabited by Bantu-speaking peoples and Nilotes, as well as peoples speaking Nanilo-Saharan languages. Cushitic-speaking Ethiopians and All Capoids are the remnants of an ancient substratum population, displaced by speakers of Bantu languages ​​to the north and south at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. The inter-lake region is inhabited by Bantu-speaking tribes, as well as pygmies (Twa), while the coastal subregion is inhabited by Swahili-speaking peoples.

The culture of the East African coast and nearby islands was formed as a result of contacts between Muslims from Asia and Bantu-speaking aborigines. The Swahili civilization, which arose in the 7th-10th centuries on the basis of intermediary transoceanic trade with the Middle East, reached its peak in the 14th century. The Swahili people were engaged in fishing and sea animals, pearling, navigation and shipbuilding. They had significant knowledge of astronomy and navigation, and mastered the construction of houses made of stone and coral slabs. Caravan trade with the interior of East Africa contributed to the spread of Islam and Swahili, which became the main intermediary language in interethnic contacts. Currently, it is the official language of many countries, as well as the working language of the UN.

Mezhozerye is a center of distinctive African statehood, formed in conditions of almost complete isolation and not experienced until mid-19th V. no influence from developed civilizations. The predominance in the economy of Mezhozerye of the long-term and high-yielding banana crop, which did not require a large amount of land clearing work, contributed to the relatively easy production of excess product and the settled population, and also minimized the participation of men in agricultural work. Therefore, agriculture became a purely female occupation, and men were engaged in hunting, fishing and crafts, but above all - war and intermediary trade. The majority of the ethnopolitical communities of Mezhozerye consisted of three endogamous communities that spoke the same language, but differed from each other in anthropological appearance and mainly in the sphere of activity, and each of them had a different social status. The Tutsi had the highest status - a pastoral aristocracy who owned large herds and the best lands and had an Ethiopian appearance and very high growth: these are the tallest and skinny people on the ground. At the next level stood the Hutu farmers - typical Negroids, who were dependent on the Tutsi and rented livestock and land from them. The lowest level of the hierarchy was occupied by the Pygmeitva - hunters, potters and servants (both Ututsi and Uhutu). This ethnocaste system arose in the 15th century, when the Bantu-speaking Negroids (ancestors of the Hutus) were invaded by pastoralists - Nilotes and (or) Cushites. Having adopted the language and culture of Bantu farmers, they retained a number of pastoralist cultural features common to the pastoralists of the Horn of Africa. The sacred kings were always Tutsi, and the ruling elite consisted exclusively of the pastoral aristocracy.

Madagascar island province(Madagascar, Seychelles, Mauritius, Reunion) is inhabited by Malagasy (Madagascar) and Creoles (Mauritians, Reunion, Seychellois), as well as people from South Asia who speak Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages. There are small groups of Chinese, Malays and Arabs. A special mixed racial type, combining the features of Negroids and Mongoloids, as well as southern Caucasians, includes the indigenous population of Madagascar - the descendants of Austronesians who migrated from the islands of the Indonesian archipelago. The material culture of the Malagasy has preserved many elements of South Asian origin (arrow-throwing tube, sailing dugout boat with a balance beam, rice sowing technology, sericulture, unstitched silk clothing - lamba type sarongai, etc.). Arable (plough) farming in combination with pasture and transhumance cattle breeding predominates.

Many scientists consider Africa to be the place where man appeared. Archaeologists, having carried out excavations in East Africa, in the second half of the 20th century discovered the remains of “homo habilis,” whose age is about 2.7 million years. Even more ancient human remains, about 4 million years old, were found in Ethiopia.

In terms of population, as well as area, Africa ranks third (after Eurasia) among the continents. The population of the mainland consists of indigenous and newcomers, the total number is about 600 million people. There are representatives of all major races here.

North Africa is inhabited by representatives of the southern branch of the Caucasian race (distinctive features are dark skin, narrow nose, dark eyes). These are the indigenous peoples - Berbers and Arabs. To the south of the Sahara live Negroids belonging to the equatorial race, which includes subraces and numerous groups of peoples. The most diverse black population lives in sub-Saharan Africa and on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. Hundreds of tribes and peoples, differing in skin color, height, facial features, language, and way of life, occupy these territories.

The Congo Basin, East and Southern Africa are inhabited by peoples who belong to the Bantu group. Pygmies live in the equatorial forests, standing out among the Negroids by their small stature (up to 150 cm), lighter skin color, and thin lips. The deserts and semi-deserts of South Africa are inhabited by Hottentots and Bushmen, who have characteristics of both Mongoloids and Negroids.

Part of the mainland's population is of mixed origin, as it was formed from the mixing of two or more races; these are the inhabitants of the Nile Delta, the Ethiopian Highlands, and the island of Madagascar. A significant part of the population consists of newcomers. Europeans live in almost all countries - former colonies: on the Mediterranean coast - the French, and in the south of the continent - the Boers (descendants of Dutch settlers), the British, French, Germans, etc. The population is distributed extremely unevenly across the continent.

Political map. Many peoples of Africa have an ancient civilization: Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia, Benin, Dahomey, etc. European colonization The slave trade had a detrimental effect on the development of the economy and culture of the peoples of Africa. By the beginning of the 20th century, almost the entire territory of the mainland was divided between capitalist countries. Before the Second World War, there were only four independent states on the continent - Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and South Africa. In the early 60s of the 20th century, an active liberation struggle of peoples for independence unfolded in Africa. In 1990, the last colony, Namibia, gained independence.

In total there are 55 states on the continent. With the exception of South Africa, an economically developed country, the rest of the countries are developing. North African countries. The territory of North Africa includes the region of the Atlas Mountains, the sandy and rocky expanses of the hot Sahara and the savannah of Sudan. Sudan is a natural region stretching from the Sahara Desert (in the north) to the Congo Basin (in the south), from the Atlantic (in the west) to the foothills of the Ethiopian Highlands (in the east). Geographers often consider this area to be part of Central Africa. North African countries include Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, etc. All countries have convenient geographical position, overlook the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The population of these countries has long-standing economic and cultural ties with the countries of Europe and South-West Asia. The northern territories of many North African countries are located in the subtropics, and most of- in the tropical desert zone. The most densely populated areas are the Mediterranean coast, the northern slopes of the Atlas Mountains and the Nile Valley.

In the Sahara, life is concentrated mainly in oases, of which there are quite a lot. Most of them were created by man in places where groundwater is close, on the outskirts of sandy deserts and along dry riverbeds. The population of the countries is quite homogeneous. In the past, this part of the continent was inhabited by Berbers; in the 8th century AD. The Arabs came and a mixture of peoples occurred. The Berbers adopted Islam and the Arabic script. In the countries of North Africa (compared to other countries of the mainland) there are many large and small cities in which a significant part of the population lives. One of the largest cities in Africa, Cairo is the capital of Egypt.

The subsoil of the countries of North Africa is rich mineral resources. Iron, manganese and polymetallic ores and phosphorites are mined in the Atlas Mountains; there are deposits of the latter in Egypt. There are large oil reserves near the Mediterranean coast and in the Sahara. natural gas. Pipelines stretched from the fields to port cities.

Countries of Sudan and Central Africa. Zaire is located in this part of the continent. Angola, Sudan, Chad. Nigeria and many small countries. The landscapes are very diverse - from dry short-grass to wet tall-grass savannas and equatorial forests. Some of the forests have been cleared and in their place plantations of tropical crops have been created.

Countries of East Africa. The largest countries by area are Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Somalia. They are located within the highest and most mobile part of the continent, which is characterized by deep faults in the earth's crust, faults, volcanoes, and large lakes.

The Nile River originates on the East African plateau. The nature of the countries of East Africa, despite the fact that almost the entire territory is located in one subequatorial zone, is extremely diverse: tropical deserts, various types of savannas and humid equatorial forests. In the highlands, on the slopes of high volcanoes, altitudinal zonation is clearly expressed.

The modern population of East Africa is the result of a mixture of different races. Representatives of the Ethiopian small race profess mainly Christianity. The other part of the population belongs to the Negroids - Bantu peoples who speak Swahili. There are also newcomers here - Europeans, Arabs and Indians.

Southern African countries. On the territory of this narrowest, southernmost part of the continent there are 10 countries, both large (South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, etc.) and very small in area (Lesotho, etc.). Nature is rich and varied - from deserts to tropical rainforests. The relief is dominated by high plains, raised at the edges. The climate varies from north to south and from east to west.

On the territory of South Africa there are the largest deposits of diamonds, uranium ores, gold, and non-ferrous metal ores not only on the continent, but also in the world. The indigenous population consists of the Bantu, Bushmen and Hottentot peoples; the Malagasy live in Madagascar. The first Europeans to move to South Africa were the Dutch, later the British arrived. From the mixed marriages of Europeans with Africans, a group of people called colored people was formed. The modern population of the countries of South Africa, in addition to the indigenous population, consists of Europeans, mainly descendants of Dutch settlers (Boers) and the British, colored people, as well as immigrants from Asia.

PEOPLES OF AFRICA

Africa is a continent, almost all of whose countries until recently were completely colonially dependent on European states. For several centuries, colonialists exploited the indigenous population and plundered the natural resources of African countries. In the 15th-17th centuries, during the era of the initial accumulation of capital, Africa became the main territory from which slaves were exported for the American colonies of European states. As K. Marx put it, it turned into a “reserved hunting ground for blacks.” The slave trade led to a long delay in the development of productive forces and degradation of the economy, reducing the population of Africa. The total loss of Africa's population from the slave trade, including those killed during slave hunts and those killed en route, amounted to tens of millions of people.

The colonial division of Africa was completed at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, during the period when the development of capitalism entered its highest and final stage. At this time, according to V.I. Lenin, “a huge “rise” of colonial conquests begins, the struggle for the territorial division of the world intensifies to an extreme degree.” Almost all of Africa was divided between European powers. On the eve of the Second World War, only Egypt, Liberia and the Union of South Africa were considered independent states. These three states accounted for 7.7% of the African continent's area and 17% of the population.

After the Second World War, the collapse of the world colonial system and the collapse of imperialist domination in the countries of Asia and Africa began. The colonialists are trying to maintain their dominance by using new methods and forms of colonial enslavement, increasing their economic influence on African countries.

The decline and disintegration of the world system of capitalism, the growth of power and strengthening of the influence of the world socialist system, the liberation of the peoples of Asia from colonial rule - all of this served as the most important factors contributing to the sharp rise of the national liberation movement in Africa. In many African countries, a struggle unfolded against the colonial regime and for national liberation. The national liberation struggle has already brought political independence to most African peoples. In 1951 she achieved independence Libya, in 1955 - Eritrea, in 1956 - Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan. The Gold Coast and British Togo formed the independent state of Ghana in 1957. Guinea became independent in 1958. In 1960, which is rightly called the “year of Africa,” the French trust territories of Cameroon and Togo, the French colonies of Senegal, Sudan (Mali), Madagascar (Malagasy Republic), Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Niger, Dahomey were freed from colonial oppression , Chad, Oubangui-Chari (Central African Republic), Congo (with its capital Brazzaville), Gabon and Mauritania 3 . The Belgian colony of Congo, the British protectorate of Somaliland and the Italian trust territory of Somalia (the latter two united into a single republic of Somalia), as well as the largest country in Africa, Nigeria, also gained independence. In April 1961, the independence of another British colony and protectorate, Sierra Leone, was declared. At the end of 1961, trusteeship of the British Trust Territory of Cameroon ended. As a result of the referendum, the southern part of this territory was reunited with the Republic of Cameroon, and the northern part was annexed to Nigeria. Tanganyika gained independence. Thus, by the end of 1962, independent states in Africa already occupied 81% of the territory, and their population amounted to almost 88% of the total population of the continent.

New, independent African states, as a rule, were created within the boundaries of the old colonial possessions, established at one time by the imperialists and not corresponding to ethnic boundaries. Therefore, the vast majority of African states are multinational. Some peoples of Africa are settled in several states. Thus, the Mandingo, numbering 3.2 million people, live in Senegal, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Portuguese Guinea, Liberia and the Republic of Guinea. The Fulbe are settled in Nigeria, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Cameroon, Niger, Upper Volta, Dahomey, Mauritania, Gambia and other countries. The Akan people, who form the majority in Ghana, also live in the Ivory Coast. My peoples are divided by state borders between Upper Volta and Ghana; Hausa - between Nigeria and Niger, Banya-Rwanda - between Rwanda and Congo, etc. The discrepancy between political and ethnic borders is a serious obstacle to the national development of many peoples in Africa; it complicates relations between new states.

Population of the African continent together with the surroundings islands surrounding it reaches 250 million peoplecatcher In the countries of North and North-East76.3 million live in Africa, in Western Sudan -69.2 million, in Central and Eastern Sudan - 19.3 million, in Tropical Africa -52.1 million, in South Africa - 26.6 million, on the islands (Madagascar, etc.) - 6.4 million people For most countries in Africa, especially in last years, characterized by relatively rapid population growth. On the continent as a whole, from 1920 to 1959 it increased by 77%. The influx of immigrants to African countries from Europe and Asia is insignificant - no more than 100-150 thousand people per year. According to the UN demographic directory, in Africa (from 1950 to 1959), on average, 46 people were born per 1000 people each year, and 27 people died, i.e., natural population growth was 1.9%, which is higher than the average population growth rate for around the world as a whole (1.7%).

The structure of natural population growth in most African countries is characterized by high fertility and high mortality. Until recently, unusually heavy economic conditions the lives of the population of African countries that were under colonial rule and the lack of basic medical care were the cause of high mortality. A comparison of data on fertility and mortality for individual population groups is very revealing in this regard. In Algeria in 1949-1954. the birth rate among Arabs fluctuated between 3.3-4.4% per year, mortality - 1.3-1.5%, while among Europeans the birth rate was 1.9 - 2.1%, mortality - 0.8 -1.0%.

In African countries, until very recently, there was a very high infant mortality rate. In a number of African regions of the Republic of South Africa, until recently, out of 1,000 children born, 295 people died in the first year. Among the European population, infant mortality was many times lower. In recent years, there has been a slight decrease in mortality while the birth rate remains high. First of all, does this apply to countries that have gained independence and are rapidly developing their economies, caring about the growth of the material and cultural level of the population (Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Ghana, etc.)? which caused a sharp increase in natural population growth in these countries. In Tunisia it increased from 1.5% (1940) to 3.7 (1958), in Ghana from 1.0 (1931-1944). to 3.2% (1958). In Sudan, natural population growth reached 3.3% in 1956. On the contrary, where colonialism has persisted in its most severe forms, mortality is still very high and natural increase is negligible. In Portuguese Guinea, natural population growth in 1957 was only 0.5%. In the Congo (a former Belgian colony), the average annual increase for 1949-1953. equaled 1.0%, in Mozambique from 1950-1954 - 1.2%, etc.

Low natural population growth is also typical for countries where the population still remains nomadic image life. In Libya, where nomads make up 1/3 of the population, there is a very high mortality rate (4.2% in 1954). From 1921 to 1958, that is, in 37 years, Libya's population increased by only 26% (almost three times less than the continental average).

The African population consists of many nations, with modern nationalities and tribes. Their modern placement ethnic composition on the African continent - the result of complexethnic history, about which very little is still known. Its main stages are associated, firstly, with multiple movements in Tropical Africa of indigenous, predominantly Negroid peoples (the most significant of these movements was the gradual penetration of the Bantu peoples into East and Southern Africa in the first millennium AD); secondly, with the resettlement in the 7th-11th centuries. to North Africa by Arabs from Asia and the process of Arabization of local Berber-speaking peoples; thirdly, with European colonization and colonial conquests.

Modern African peoples are at different stages of socio-economic development and at different stages of the formation of ethnic communities. Most of them have not yet formed into a nation, and the colonial system is primarily to blame for this, which in every possible way hampered the economic, cultural and national development African peoples. Defenders of colonialism spent a lot of effort to prove that African peoples are not yet “ready” for independent life, that “ethnic chaos” and extraordinary ethnic fragmentation reign in Africa, and that the backwardness of the African population is connected with this. Indeed, the ethnic composition of Africa's population is complex. However, behind the apparent diversity of ethnic names they often hide large ethnic communities. There is an intensive process of merging and mixing small ethnic groups. The penetration of capitalism into the colonial village and the development of capitalist forms of economy, the widespread spread of highly commercial plantation crops, the growth of the mining industry and the increase in the urban population, the seasonal movements of large masses of workers in search of work - all this is accompanied by the destruction of the natural economy and the associated primitive communal and patriarchal-feudal orders . Tribal differences are being erased, common literary languages ​​are being formed, and national self-awareness is growing. In a powerful liberation movement against the shameful colonial system, previously disparate tribes and nationalities are merging into a single whole. The process of formation of large nationalities and nations is underway.

The classification of African peoples is usually based on the principle of linguistic proximity. African languages ​​are grouped into families, divided into groups, and into groups equivalent to families. A language family includes languages ​​related by origin with a similar grammatical structure and basic vocabulary that goes back to common roots. There are several such language families in Africa: Semitic-Hamitic, Bantu, Mande (Mandingo) and Nilotic. There are many languages ​​in Africa that, due to their insufficient study, cannot be assigned to specific language families and their relationship is not fully proven. Such languages ​​are grouped into groups: Hausa, Eastern Bantoid, Gur (Central Bantoid), Atlantic (Western Bantoid), Songhai, Guinean, Kanuri, Khoisan.

In Central and Eastern Sudan there are languages ​​that are almost unstudied (Azande, Banda, Bagirmi, etc.). The peoples who speak these languages ​​are conditionally united into one group - the peoples of Central and Eastern Sudan.

Three main linguistic regions can be distinguished on the African continent: in the northern and northeastern parts, the languages ​​of the Semitic-Hamitic family are spoken almost exclusively; in the tropical and southern - the languages ​​of the Bantu family predominate; in Sudan (Western, Central and Eastern), the population speaks languages ​​united in various language families and groups (Hausa, Eastern Bantoid, Gur, Atlantic, etc.).

In Northern and North-Eastern Africa (Maghreb, Sahara, United Arab Republic, Ethiopia, Somalia and Eastern Sudan) people speaking in languages Semitic-Hamitic family. This family combines the Semitic, Cushitic and Berber groups. The total number of peoples speaking these languages ​​is 82.5 million people, which is about a third of the total population of Africa. Semitic languages ​​are spoken by 66.2 million people, Cushitic languages ​​by about 11 million people, and Berber languages ​​by 5.3 million people. Of the Semitic languages, Arabic is the most widely spoken. It is used by over 52 million people. Literary Arabic is very different from spoken Arabic, which in Africa is divided into three main dialects: Maghreb, Egyptian and Sudanese.

Arabs appeared in North Africa in the 7th-11th centuries. The ancient peoples of North Africa (Maghreb and Sahara), whom ancient authors called Libyans, spoke Berber languages ​​before the Arab conquest. Mass migration of Arab tribes (Hilal and Sulaym) in the 11th century. had a significant influence on the Berbers. The Berbers adopted the Muslim religion, and most of them gradually Arabized. There is no difference between Arabs and Berbers in the nature of their economy: on the coast of North Africa and in the oases of the desert zone, these peoples are engaged in irrigated agriculture, in the mountainous regions of the Maghreb and in the Sahara they are engaged in cattle breeding and lead a nomadic lifestyle.

Currently, it is difficult to draw a clear line between the Arab and Berber populations. Over the past 30-50 years, in most Maghreb countries, the process of mixing Arabs and Berbers has noticeably intensified. Back in the 1930s, Berber dialects were spoken by 40% of the population in Morocco, about 30% in Algeria, and 2% in Tunisia. Currently, in Morocco the Berber-speaking population is 30, in Algeria - 15, in Tunisia - 1.4%. The majority of the Berber-speaking population of the Maghreb speaks Arabic outside the home, professes Islam and considers themselves Arabs. The process of formation of large nations is being completed: Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian.

In the United Arab Republic, the population consists almost exclusively of Arabs (Egyptians). The UAR is a country of ancient African culture. Back in the IV-III millennium BC. here, on the basis of plow irrigation agriculture, a powerful slaveholding state emerged. Beginning in the mid-7th century, after the Arab conquest, Egypt was repeatedly part of a number of Muslim feudal states, and the local Egyptian population of the country gradually adopted the Arabic language and the Muslim religion.

Moving from Arabia and Syria, Arab tribes gradually penetrated south into the interior of Sudan, partly mixing with the local Negroid population. Most of these peoples learned Arabic and converted to Islam. In the middle reaches of the Nile, the Arab population is geographically mixed with the Nubians and is engaged in agriculture. In the desert regions of Eastern Sudan, nomadic tribes of Arab pastoralists still survive: Bakkara, Kababish, Hawavir, Hassanie, etc.

Of the other peoples of the Semitic group, the largest is the Amhara (over 10.6 million), which represents the core of the emerging Ethiopian nation, as well as the Tigrayans (over 2 million) and Tigre (about 0.5 million) living in the mountainous regions of northern Ethiopia and Eritrea . Human).

The Cushitic peoples, the Galla (culturally close to the Amhara) and Sidamo, predominate in southern Ethiopia. The Somali inhabit the plains of the Somali Peninsula and lead a predominantly nomadic lifestyle. In the desert regions of the Red Sea coast (United Arab Republic, Sudan and Ethiopia) live the tribes of Beja pastoralists, whose language - Bedauye - also belongs to the Cushitic group.

The Berber group unites peoples living in the mountainous regions of North Africa (Kabiles, Rifs, Shlohs, etc.) and in the Sahara (Tuaregs); many of them are bilingual and speak Arabic.

The regions south of the Sahara - Sudan (translated from Arabic "Bilad es-Sudan" means "Country of Blacks"), Tropical and South Africa are inhabited by Negroid peoples. The ethnic composition of the population of Sudan (Western, Central and Eastern) is especially complex, which differs both from North Africa, where the peoples of the same Semitic-Hamitic family live, and from Tropical and Southern Africa, where closely related Bantu peoples predominate. Sudan is inhabited by peoples who unite in a number of separate groups, differing both in material and spiritual culture, and in language. However, no matter how complex the ethnic composition and different culture of the population, there are many similarities historical and cultural features that unite the peoples of Sudan. Ancient African slave and feudal states invested in this area, within which they formed on the basis of economic, cultural and linguistic communities large nationalities. The most ancient state known to us - Ghana - was apparently created back in the 4th century. n. e. One of the Mandingo people is the Soninke. At the beginning of the 13th century. Mali separated from Ghana, the ethnic basis of which was the Malinke. The borders of Mali (which reached its peak in the 13th-14th centuries) covered the upper reaches of Senegal, the upper and middle reaches of the Niger. It was the largest state of medieval Sudan. In addition to Mali, other states were formed in Sudan at this time: Moi (XI-XVIII centuries), Kanem (X-XIV centuries), Hausa (XII-XVIII centuries), etc. By the end of the 15th century. the largest territory was occupied by the Songhai state. On the coast of the Gulf of Guinea in the 18th-19th centuries. there were the states of Ashanti, Benin, Dahomey and others, which were barbarically destroyed by the English and French colonialists. The imperialist division of Western Sudan created an extraordinary patchwork of colonial possessions. The domination of imperialism, the dismemberment of peoples by colonial borders, the artificial preservation and imposition of feudal orders complicated and delayed the process of national consolidation of the peoples of Sudan, which began to develop rapidly only in recent years due to the strengthening of the national liberation movement and the emergence of new independent states.

The languages ​​spoken by the peoples of Sudan are grouped into the following groups: Hausa, Eastern, Central (Tur) and Western (Atlantic) Bantoid, Songhai, Mande (Maidingo), Guinean, languages ​​of the peoples of Central and Eastern Sudan, Kanuri and Nilotic. Despite the ethnic diversity of the Sudanese countries, in almost each of them two or three largest peoples or a group of closely related peoples can be identified, which make up the majority of the population and play the role of the ethnic core in the processes of national consolidation. For example, in Guinea there are Fulbe, Mandingo and Susu, in Mali - Mandingo and Fulbe, in Senegal - Wolof, Fulbe and Serer, in Ghana - Akan and Moi, in Nigeria - Hausa, Yoruba, Ibo, Fulbe, etc.

The Hausa group includes the peoples of Northern Nigeria and neighboring countries: Hausa, Bade, Bura, Kotoko, etc. The languages ​​of the Hausa peoples are close to the languages ​​of the Semitic-Hamitic family and at the same time have a number of common features with banthoid tongues. The number of peoples belonging to the Hausa group is 10.7 million people. During the period of colonial division, the single territory of the largest people of this group - the Hausa - was divided between Nigeria, where the bulk of the people now live (7.4 million people), and Niger (1.1 million people). The Hausa language is widely spoken as a second language among many neighboring peoples, and total number There are at least 12-15 million speakers of it.

The Eastern Bantoid group unites the peoples of Nigeria (Tiv, Ibibio, Birom, Kambari, etc.) and Cameroon (Bamileke, Tikar, etc.). The languages ​​of these peoples are very close to the Bantu languages ​​and, apparently, have in common with them root system. The grammatical structure of these languages ​​is also related to the Bantu languages. The total number of peoples of the eastern Bantoid group is over 6.2 million people.

The Gur group (central Bantoid), sometimes called the Mosi-Grusi group, unites the peoples of the interior regions of Western Sudan (Upper Volta, Ghana, etc.). The languages ​​of these peoples are characterized by a common core vocabulary and similar grammatical structure. The languages ​​of this group are spoken by the following peoples: Moi, Lobi, Bobo, Dogon, Senufo, Gurma, Grusi, etc. The total number of these peoples is over 7.4 million people (including the largest of them, Moi - 3.2 million . Human).

The Atlantic (Western Bantoid) group unites the Fulbe, Wolof, Serer, Balante and other peoples. The Fulbe (7.1 million people) are found in many areas of Western and Central Sudan. A small part of them still leads a nomadic lifestyle and is engaged in cattle breeding, others are semi-nomads and combine dairy farming with farming, but the majority of Fulani settled (especially in Nigeria) and began to engage in farming. In Nigeria, some Fulani live among the Hausa and have adopted their language. The total number of peoples of the Atlantic group is about 11 million people.

Song troupe and. Songhai speak a language that shows no similarities with other languages ​​and is therefore singled out in special group. The Songhai and their related Jerma and Dandi, occupying the valley along the middle reaches of the Niger River, combine agriculture with fishing. The number of Songhai is over 0.8. million people

The Mande (Mandingo) family unites the peoples of a vast territory in the upper reaches of the Senegal and Niger rivers. The Mandingo peoples are characterized by the closeness of their languages ​​and culture, which is explained by their long-term communication within the medieval states of Sudan (Ghana, Mali, etc.). Based on a number of linguistic features, the languages ​​of the peoples of this group are divided into northern and southern. The northern ones include the Mandinto proper (Malinke, Bambara and Diula), Soninke and Vai; to the south - Susu, Mende, Kpelle, etc. The total number of Mandingo peoples is over 7.1 million people.

The Guinean group is characterized by heterogeneity in composition and includes three subgroups: Kru, Kwa and Ijo. Kru unites Bakwe, Grebo, Crane, Bete, Gere, Bassa, Sicon, etc.; They live in Liberia and the Ivory Coast. They speak very close languages, which are essentially dialects of the Kru language, and gradually merge into a single Kru people. The Kwa subgroup unites large peoples: Akan (4.5 million), Yoruba (6.3 million), Ibo (6.2 million), Ewe (2.7 million), and others, occupying the eastern part of the Guinea coast. The Akan peoples are settled in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. In the life of the population, especially in everyday life, the division of the Akan into a number of ethnic groups and tribes has retained its significance: Ashanti, Fanti, Baule-Anya, Gonja, etc. The Akan language has four literary forms: Twi, or Ashanti, Fanti, Akwapim and Akim. The Ashanti and Fanti can be seen as the ethnic core of the emerging Ghanaian nation.

The Ewe are divided between Ghana (over 0.9 million), Togo (about 0.6 million), Dahomey (1.1 million) and Nigeria (0.1 million). The Ewe, who live in Dahomey and Nigeria and are also called the Fon, differ quite significantly from the rest of the Ewe in language and in a number of elements of material and spiritual culture and are distinguished by some authors as a separate people. The Yoruba, Ibo, Bini and Nupe are settled in the plains of the lower Niger River in southern Nigeria. The Ijaw, whose language is conventionally classified as Guinean, live in the Niger Delta.

The total number of peoples of the Guinean group is 24.3 million people.

A group of peoples of Central and Eastern Sudan - Azande, Banda, Bagirmi, Moru-Mangbetu, Fora and others - inhabit Chad, the Central African Republic, partly the Congo and the southwestern outskirts of Sudan. These peoples speak little-studied languages. Their combination into one group is arbitrary. The total number is 6.7 million people.

The K aya u r group unites the Kanuri people and related inhabitants of Tibesti - the Tubu (or Tibba), as well as the Zaghawa; peoples saying speakers of these languages ​​live in the desert regions of the Central Sahara and differ sharply in language from the neighboring Sudanese peoples. The total number of peoples of the Kanuri group is 2.2 million people.

The Nilotic family includes the peoples living in the Upper Nile basin. According to linguistic and ethnographic characteristics, they are divided into three groups: the northwestern, or Nilotic, proper, which is characterized by a significant unity of languages ​​that have a common basic vocabulary and grammatical structure (the largest peoples are the Dinka, Nuer, Luo, etc.); southeastern, also called Nilo-Hamitic and characterized by a wide variety of composition (Bari, Lotuko, Tezo, Turkana, Karamojo, Masai, etc.), and the Nuba group. In the past, the Nilotic peoples were dispersed much more widely. Their settlement area extended from Ethiopia to Lake Chad, reaching in the south to Kenya and Tanganyika. During the colonial division of Africa, the single territory of the Nilotes was divided between Eastern Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. The Nuba group includes the Nubians living along the middle Nile; a significant part of them speak Arabic. The total number of Nilotic peoples is 7.9 million people.

The entire remaining territory of the African continent - Tropical and Southern Africa - is inhabited predominantly by peoples of the Bantu family, characterized by extreme similarity of languages, similarity of occupations and cultural traditions. The Bantu people number 67.6 million people, representing over 27% of Africa's population. Bantu are divided by linguists (mainly on geographical grounds) into seven main groups: northwestern (Fang, Duala, Maka, etc.); northern (Banyarwanda, Barundi, Kikuyu, etc.); Congo (Bakongo, Mongo, Bobangi, etc.); central (baluba, bemba, etc.); eastern (Swahili, Vanyam-vezi, Wagogo, etc.); southeastern (Mashona, Xhosa, Zulus, etc.); Western (Ovimbundu, Ovambo, Herero, etc.). The history of the origin of the Bantu and their settlement of Tropical and Southern Africa is still largely unclear, however, linguistic and ethnographic data give reason to consider their homeland to be the northern outskirts of the tropical forests of Congo and Cameroon, where the peoples of the eastern Bantu group close to them live (Tiv, Ibibio, Bamileke, etc. ). The Bantu advance south began in the Neolithic; they moved around the rainforest through the savannas of East Africa. The Bantu were pushed back and partly assimilated by the Nilotic peoples and peoples who spoke Cushitic languages ​​living in the eastern part of the mainland. The aboriginal Khoisan population was also largely assimilated, from which only the Hadzapi and Sandawe tribes now survive in East Africa (in Tanganyika). The Bantu peoples, who occupied the fertile plateaus and plains of Interozerye, achieved a high degree of social development and created in the XIV-XVIII centuries. the states of Unyoro, Buganda, Ankole, etc. The Bantu penetrated into the tropical forests of the Congo from the east and north. They pushed back and partly assimilated the hunting tribes of pygmies who lived there. In their southward advance, the Bantu reached the southern tip of the African continent (Natal) a thousand years ago. By the time Europeans arrived, the eastern part of South Africa was occupied by the southeastern Bantu - Mashona, Xhosa, Zulu, Basotho, etc.; the eastern Bantu were settled on the east coast - Makua, Malawi, etc.; in the northwest - the Western Bantu - Ovambo and Herero.

The historical destinies of the Bantu of the eastern coast of Africa in the Middle Ages were significantly influenced by the penetration of the Arabs. The latter created the trading settlements of Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, etc., where a mixed group of Swahili population (“coast dwellers”) gradually formed. Its ethnic basis was made up of local Bantu tribes and descendants of slaves captured in the interior regions Tropical Africa. Swahili also included descendants of Arabs, Persians and Indians tsev. The Swahili language has spread widely throughout East Africa. At the beginning of the 20th century. Almost 2 million people spoke Swahili.

Most of the Bantu peoples at the time of the colonial division of Tropical Africa were at various stages of decomposition of the primitive communal system. Some of them already had their own state entities. European colonization destroyed these states. Currently, the Bantu still have many tribes, but there is an active process of merging them into nationalities and nations. In the struggle for national liberation from the colonial yoke, various Bantu tribes of Congo, Angola and other countries are uniting, and an intensive process of forming large nations is underway. This is also facilitated by the proximity of the languages ​​of individual tribes and Bantu peoples.

The Swahili language, which the British authorities at one time recognized as the official language of their colonies in East Africa, is becoming increasingly widespread. Currently, the majority of the population of this area speaks Swahili - two to three tens of millions of people. In East Africa, the contours of a large ethnic community - the East African nation - appear to be emerging. A serious obstacle to its development is the colonial regime.

The Bantu of Angola consist of two closely related groups of tribes: the Congo Bantu (Bakongo and Bambundu) and the Western Bantu - Ovimbundu, Wapianeka, Ovambo, etc. Despite the brutal regime of racial, political and economic oppression of the African population established in Angola by the colonial authorities, in Lately The national liberation movement there is gaining ever wider scope.

The Bantus of the Republic of South Africa, who live on reservations, on European farms, in cities (in suburban locations) under conditions of a heavy police regime and the so-called “color barrier,” are especially cruelly exploited. The racist policy of apartheid (separation of races) is being pursued against them. The Bantu of the Republic of South Africa have already formed into large nationalities: the Kasa (over 3.3 million), Zulus (2.9 million), Basotho (1.9 million), etc. The languages ​​of these peoples are so close that they can be considered dialects of a single language. These peoples have a common culture, morals and customs. They are also united by a stubborn struggle against racial discrimination, for democratic freedoms and political rights.

In South Africa, in addition to the Bantu, there are also peoples belonging to the Khoisan language group. These include the Bushmen, Hottentots and mountain Damara. In the distant past, the peoples of the Khoisan group occupied the entire South and partly East Africa. During the era of the Baytu peoples' advance to the south, they were pushed back to the southwestern regions and partly assimilated. In the 17th century, when the first Dutch colonists appeared in South Africa, Hottentots and Bushmen inhabited the entire southern tip of the African continent, but in the 18th-19th centuries. these peoples were largely exterminated by European colonists. The remnants of the Khoisan population are driven into the waterless areas of the Kalahari Desert. Their total number now does not exceed 170 thousand people.

The island of Madagascar is inhabited by the Malagasy, whose language, anthropological type and culture differ sharply from other peoples of the African continent. The Malgashi speak the language of the Indonesian group of Malayo-Polynesian Semyi. Earliest population The islands, apparently, were Negroid. The ancestors of the Malgash people moved from Indonesia in the 1st millennium AD. e. With the subsequent mixing of Indonesian settlers with the African population (Bantu) and partly with Arabs, several ethnographic groups were formed on the island of Madagascar, differing in some cultural features and speaking dialects of the Malagasy language. These include merina, betzileo, sakalava, betzimizaraka, etc.

Due to the development of capitalist relations and frequent population movements, the boundaries of settlement of these groups are gradually erased, and differences in culture and language are significantly reduced. The struggle for national independence against French colonial rule accelerated the process of the formation of a single Malagasy nation.

The population of European origin in Africa (the British, Boers, French, etc.), despite its relative small number (about 8.5 million people), still occupies a dominant position in economic, and in a number of countries, political life. Among Europeans there is a significant layer of workers and small farmers who are in a privileged position compared to Africans. A significant group is the bourgeoisie - owners of plantations, farms, mines, various enterprises, etc.

The major colonial powers - England and France, now forced to grant independence to many of their colonies, stubbornly sought to maintain under colonial subordination the territories where there was a migrant European population. These include primarily Kenya, Southern and Northern Rhodesia.

In South Africa, the European (“white”) population numbers over 4 million people. It consists of Afrikaners, or Boers, Anglo-Africans, as well as Portuguese, Germans, French, Italians, etc. The Europeans in language, national identity and culture are joined by a mestizo population of mixed origin (about 1.5 million people), which in the Republic of South Africa is classified as a separate ethnic group - “colored”. Most "coloreds" speak Afrikaans and are descended from mixed marriages between Europeans and the indigenous inhabitants of South Africa - Hottentots and Bushmen, partly Bantu. "Coloureds", along with the Bantu and Indian peoples, are subject to severe racial discrimination.

In North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, etc.) Europeans make up 2.2 million people. They live mainly in large cities and their environs. The French predominate numerically (about 1.5 million), Spaniards (0.3 million) and Italians (0.2 million).

In the countries of Western Sudan, the population of European origin (mainly French and English) does not exceed 0.3 million; in Tropical Africa there are about 0.4 million Europeans. On Madagascar and other African islands in the Indian Ocean (Reunion, Mauritius, etc.), the population of European origin (mainly descendants of French settlers and mestizos who speak French) numbers 0.6 million people.

The population of Asian origin consists mainly of people from India and Pakistan (1.3 million people) and Chinese (38 thousand people). Indians live mainly in the coastal cities of the south-east of the Republic of South Africa, as well as in Kenya and on the island of Mauritius, and on the latter they constitute up to 65% of the total population.

Most af Rican states and colonial possessions do not have correctly established demographic statistics; in 25 of them, demographic censuses were never conducted among the African population, and the population was taken into account by the administration only based on indirect data (number of taxpayers, etc.).

In the vast majority of African countries, statistics on the size of the indigenous African population by administrative region and even for the country as a whole are presented in official publications without taking into account nationality and tribal affiliation. Only for very few countries are there statistical data characterizing the ethnic composition of the population. In various reference books, statistical publications and ethnic maps published until recently by official colonial institutions, the African population is depicted as a conglomerate of unrelated tribes. For example, the South African Directory of African Peoples and Tribes, published in 1956 in Johannesburg, lists several thousand ethnic names in alphabetical order without any attempt to group them. Linguistic maps highlight many hundreds and even thousands of independent languages.

The German ethnographer and linguist Tessman identified areas of two hundred and twenty-five languages ​​in Cameroon alone. The Belgian linguist Bulck counted several thousand different ones in the former Belgian Congo. dialects of Bantu languages. The classification of peoples according to their ethnic and linguistic kinship is not carried out on the French ethnic map “Peoples of Black Africa”, which covers a vast territory from the Atlantic coast to the Congo River basin. The comparatively poor ethnostatistical material that is available for very few countries is characterized by great fragmentation.

Due to the lack of reliable data on the numbers of many African peoples, Africanists are forced to turn to linguistic statistics. Data on the distribution of languages ​​and language groups and the number of peoples speaking them are of paramount importance. There are very few generalizing works devoted to these issues. Until recently, the most famous was the American reference book on the languages ​​and press of Africa by McDougald. However, it was published in 1944, and therefore its information is largely out of date. In addition, the reference book does not contain generalizing data on the number of peoples by linguistic groups as a whole. The number of speakers of the main African languages ​​often includes the population that uses them along with their native languages.

In the post-war years, Africa's role in world politics and economics increased; interest in the African population increased and the number of regional linguistic and ethnographic works increased sharply. Particularly valuable ethnostatistical and cartographic materials are contained in the linguistic and ethnographic series of the International African Institute, as well as in the publications of the French Institute of Black Africa. The publication of demographic yearbooks with updated demographic data on countries of the world, including African states and possessions, is carried out by the United Nations. Comparison of various linguistic and ethnostatistical information with official data on the population but made it easier for individual states and small administrative units to compile a summary of the number of African peoples for 1958 and 1959

To characterize the countries of North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, the United Arab Republic), where the Muslim Arab population predominates, the main sources were statistical yearbooks. Population censuses in these countries were carried out repeatedly, but the population was counted only by religious affiliation and nationality. These data were used to determine the number of national minorities European origin and Jews of the Maghreb. The number of Berbers has been determined from linguistic and other works.

Since there are no census data for Ethiopia and Somalia, the number of peoples of these countries was determined solely from linguistic publications, which provide far from complete information for 1940-1945.

The number of peoples in 1959 was determined taking into account natural population growth.

For the Republic of Sudan, in addition to preliminary data from the 1956 census, linguistic works characterizing the languages ​​of the Nilotic peoples and some peoples of Eastern Sudan (Fora, Azande, etc.) were used.

For the most ethnically complex territory - Western Sudan, where there are now 21 states, when compiling tables of the ethnic composition of the population, the linguistic works of D. Westerman and M. A. Bryan, de Tressan and the ethnostatistical tables of the ethnographic atlas of French West Africa, published in 1927. In addition, the census of the Gold Coast and Togo, conducted in 1948, and the census of Nigeria were also used. Amendments were made to the published data of these censuses, in particular, the list of peoples included in the category of others when the census was published was clarified. Their numbers were calculated based on detailed list tribes and peoples of Nigeria from the 1921 census materials.

Determining the number individual peoples Western Sudan, we used a number of works and monographs from the ethnographic series of the International African Institute.

The countries of Western Tropical Africa - Gabon, Congo (with its capital Brazzaville), Congo (with its capital Leopoldville), Rwanda and Burundi, etc., where exclusively Bantu people live, are less provided with ethno-demographic materials than other parts of the African continent. The ethnic composition of the population of these countries and the number of peoples living in them can so far be judged only from a few linguistic studies, which provide some data on languages. Among these works, the linguistic works of M. A. Bryan, M. Ghasri and others should be noted.

The ethnic composition of the population of most countries of Eastern Tropical Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika) is known from publications 1948 census resultsIn addition, a partial census was again carried out in Tanganyika in 1952. In 1957 and 1959 the census covered the entire population of Tanganyika and Uganda, but these materials have not yet been published.

In this work, statistical data from the 1948 census are recalculated for 1959, taking into account the latest ethnographic and linguistic materials. In particular, with the help of the latter, a large group of other peoples of Tanganyika (about 2 million people) was dismembered. By analyzing this group, the researchers established the number of Swahili, the most important East African people, who were absent from the list of peoples of Tanganyika given in the official materials of the 1948 census.

The size of the population of European and Asian (Indian) origin is given for 1959 according to the latest reference materials. The ethnic composition of the population of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia is illuminated in the ethnographic works of M. Tew, W. Whiteley , W. M. Haley , as well as in articles by L. D. Yablochkov, which were taken as the basis for compiling tables of the number of peoples.

For the countries of Southern Africa (Southern Rhodesia, Mozambique, the Republic of South Africa, etc.), characterized by a very complex ethnic composition of the population, the main sources of tables were the publication of the 1946 population census, the atlas of settlement of the southern Bantu tribes compiled by Van Warmelo, and the monograph by I . I. Potekhin on the formation of the national community of the South African Bantu, where modern ethnic processes in the Republic of South Africa. In compiling the tables for South Africa, in addition to the works mentioned above, the results of the 1946 census for South West Africa, published in 1947, were used, as well as great literature according to the Bushmen and Hottentots. The number and settlement of the Bushmen are given according to the work of van Tobias, published in 1955.

The population of Madagascar and neighboring islands in the Indian Ocean is covered in UN publications and other reference publications, as well as in the work of A. S. Orlova.

The ancient history of South Africa is quite well known. In South Africa, archaeologists have found tools from the Paleolithic era.

Findings of bone remains of ancient humans, studied by paleanthropologists, prove that the entire southern tip of the continent was inhabited by people already in the most ancient era. Stone tools found in abundance almost everywhere provide clear picture the gradual development and improvement of stone tools up to the Upper Paleolithic, and in some places the Neolithic.

Bushmen

By the time the first European settlers arrived in South Africa, the entire western part of what is now the Cape Province of South Africa was occupied by Hottentot tribes, to the east of which lived Bushmen tribes. Both of them, by their anthropological type, constitute one race, called Khoisan. However, the life and culture of these peoples were different. The Hottentots are warlike tribes of pastoralists. Culturally they were far superior to their neighbors the Bushmen. The Bushmen were hunters and led a very primitive life. They did not have permanent huts; hiding in the bushes for the night, they built temporary huts from branches. That's why the first Dutch settlers called them Bushmen (“bush people”). The Bushmen themselves call themselves only by belonging to the tribe, without a common self-name.

The material culture of the Bushmen was exceptionally poor. Their main hunting weapon was a small bow and arrows with stone tips. The study of the technology for making these tips showed that they do not differ from the stone tools found by archaeologists and identified by them as tools of the Upper Paleolithic Wiltonian culture. With the advent of Europeans, the Bushmen began to make arrowheads from bottle glass, which they beat in the same way as stone. They sometimes used iron tips, which they traded with their neighbors - the Hottentots and Bantu tribes. All the weapons of a Bushman hunter consisted of a bow and arrows, a small leather bag for killed game and a strong stick. The only clothing was a leather loincloth. The Bushmen had almost no household utensils. They kept water, so necessary in the dry steppes of South Africa, in vessels made from ostrich eggs. From the shells of these eggs they made unique beads, which were very highly valued among them. The Bushmen knew how to weave small bags, baskets, etc. from plant fibers.

The men spent all their time hunting game. The only domestic animal companion of the Bushman hunter was a dog. In hunting, the Bushmen were very skillful and unusually hardy; There are cases when a bushman chased an antelope for two or three days and, having overtaken it, killed it with the first stone that came to hand. Hunters used a wide variety of traps and also organized hunts for large game. At the same time, women and children with branches and palm leaves in their hands lined up in two rows, cordoned off the hunting area and drove the game towards the hunters.

The Bushmen also used various poisons to poison their arrowheads. The most famous are strophanthus and the juice secreted by the larva of one of the beetle species.

On the rocks in the Drakensberg Mountains there are preserved drawings of Bushmen, depicting dances, scenes of hunting life, etc. One of the most famous drawings depicts a hunter sneaking up on a group of ostriches. Drawings

The social structure of the Bushmen has been studied very little. By the time the Europeans arrived, the Bushmen inhabited the areas of Griqualand in the river basin. Orange and areas east of it. From all these areas the Bushmen were ruthlessly expelled. The Dutch settlers actually hunted them, killing men and women like wild animals. The Bushmen are now driven into the waterless regions of the Kalahari Desert, where they are doomed to extinction. Previously numerous tribes now number several dozen people, others have been completely exterminated. The Cape Town library preserves records of the rich folklore of the Kham-ka-kwe Bushmen, who once lived in the lower reaches of the river. Orange and now completely exterminated. From these records one can judge their former tribal organization.

Now the Bushmen live in small groups of 50-150 people, usually paternal relatives. Each of them has a certain territory, the right to hunt in which belongs only to it. In the dry, hungry season, these groups are divided into small cells of 10-12 people. and, led by experienced hunters, roam the scorched steppe in search of food. The Bushmen now do not have any common tribal organization, and only language binds the members of the tribe. There are up to 20 Bushman languages. The total number of Bushmen is now determined to be about 7 thousand.

Hottentots

The Hottentots constitute a special group of tribes, close in some respects to the Bushmen.

The basis for combining them are some anthropological characteristics. In addition, linguists note many common features in the Bushman and Hottentot languages ​​in the field of phonetics, grammatical structure and vocabulary. Uniting the Hottentots and Bushmen into one group, anthropologists speak of the Khoisan race, or racial type, and linguists speak of the Khoisan group of languages. The name is conditional and is made up of the words koi + san. Koi means “man” in the Hottentot language, and the Hottentots call themselves “Khoi-koin” (“people of people”, i.e. real people). The second part of the conventional name is san. The Hottentots call their neighbors the Bushmen San, which is apparently a contemptuous name.

Although the Hottentots and Bushmen belong to the same group, they are nevertheless completely different peoples. In the middle of the 17th century, i.e., by the time the first Dutch colonists appeared in South Africa, the Hottentots inhabited the entire southern tip of Africa - the Cape of Good Hope to the river. Kei. The Tottentots represented at that time a large group of pastoral tribes. Huge herds of cattle constituted their main wealth. In addition, they raised sheep and goats. External life and customs of the Hottentots from the very beginning of the 18th century. beautifully described by the Dutchman Peter Kolb. The Hottentots lived in round huts made of twigs, covered with skins on top. The huts were located in a circle, inside which cattle were driven. The first Dutch colonists called such settlements kraals; 300-400 people lived in each of them. Kraals were temporary; when there was not enough pasture in the surrounding area, the population moved to new places.

Cattle were in the possession of large patriarchal families, some of them had several thousand heads. Caring for livestock was the responsibility of men. Women prepared food and churned butter in leather bags. Dairy food was the basis of nutrition. Caring about preserving the number of livestock, the Hottentots avoided stabbing livestock, and hunting brought them meat food. Animal skins were used for clothing, utensils, etc., huts were covered with skins, and bags and raincoats were made from them.

The weapons were spears with iron tips, bows and arrows, and long throwing clubs - kirri. The Hottentots made all the necessary iron tools themselves. They knew how not only to process iron, but also to smelt it from ore. Kolb describes the iron processing technique as follows:

“The way in which they smelt iron from ore is briefly as follows. They dig a square or circular hole in the ground about 2 feet deep and light a strong fire there to heat the earth. When they then throw the ore there, they light the fire there again so that the intense heat melts the ore and becomes fluid. To collect this molten iron, they make another hole next to the first one, 1 or 1.5 feet deeper; and since a trench leads from the first smelting furnace to another pit, liquid iron flows there along it and cools there. The next day they take out the smelted iron, break it into pieces with stones and again, with the help of fire, make from it whatever they want and need.” A hard stone replaced their anvil, the hammer was made of stone, and on the stone they polished the finished object. “Anyone,” says Kolbe, “who knows their arrows and assegais, will be surprised that they were made without the help of a hammer, tongs and other tools, and will abandon any thought of considering the Hottentots stupid and ignorant, at the sight of these evidences.” their wonderful common sense" 1 .

The Hottentots were divided into many tribes, each of which spoke its own special language. At the head of the tribe was a leader who directed all affairs, with him there was a council of the oldest members of the tribe. There was already significant inequality of property among the Hottentots. Along with the rich people who owned huge herds, there were poor people who had one or two bulls and several sheep or goats. The Hottentots also had slavery; prisoners captured in the war were not killed; slaves, along with the poor, herded the cattle of the rich.

There is every reason to believe that the Bushmen and Hottentots once inhabited the entire southern and significant part of East Africa: tribes whose languages ​​are close to those of the Bushmen and Hottentots still live on the territory of Tanganyika. Apparently these tribes are remnants of the former population of Tanganyika. Later, the whole of Eastern and most of Southern Africa was inhabited by tribes of the Negroid race speaking Bantu languages.

Bantu

The Bantu migration dates back to a very distant time. In any case, more than a thousand years ago the Bantu inhabited the eastern coast of Africa right up to Natal. There is no doubt that throughout East Africa there were constant movements of tribes for a variety of reasons.

Some Bantu tribes moved south from what is now Northern Rhodesia. On this basis, some historians of South Africa are trying to “prove” that the indigenous African Bantu population of South Africa are the same conquerors as the Dutch and the British, who, as is known, appeared in South Africa, some in the 17th century, others in the 19th century. Thus, Professor Brooks, who “represented” the “interests of the native population” in the South African Senate, brazenly declared that “the Bantu are the same conquerors, the same foreigners in South Africa, like the Europeans” 1 . Such statements by the ideologists of South African imperialism cause indignation even among bourgeois scholars studying the history of Africa and the languages ​​and culture of the Bantu peoples. The author of a Basotho grammar, E. Jacote, for example, writes: “The Basotho tribes have inhabited this country for centuries. Now, however, it is common in so-called histories to assert that the Basotho were only a people who invaded their own country. Soon it will probably be argued that the Europeans arrived there before them and that the Basotho, and not the Boers of the Orange Republic, were the aggressors. This is not a history book, and we are not going to discuss wars between whites and blacks. But we want to take this opportunity to protest against the falsification of South African history, which is now in full swing and which can be found even in school textbooks... We well understand what cause is being helped by this” 1 .

By the time Europeans arrived in South Africa (mid-17th century), the Bantu populated all of South Africa, excluding the western part of what is now the Cape Province of South Africa, where the Bushmen and Hottentots lived. Along the entire southeastern coast from the river. Great Fish, before the current Portuguese colony of Mozambique, bounded to the north by the Drakensberg Mountains, lived numerous tribes that had formed by the beginning of the 20th century. into two nationalities - Xhosa and Zulu. In the interior of the country, on the other side of the Drakensberg Mountains, lived groups of Basotho and Bechuana tribes who inhabited the entire country between the Orange and Vaal rivers and further north, to the valley of the river. Limpopo, as well as all of modern Bechuanaland. In the northern part of what is now Transvaal lived the Bavenda tribe, and to the north of it a group of Mashona tribes: Makaranga, Wazezuru, Vandau and many others. They inhabited the plains of what is now Southern Rhodesia and the adjacent part of Mozambique right down to the ocean. In the rainforests of Mozambique lived the Watsonga; they formed three groups, each of which included many separate tribes.

The Kalahari Desert separated this southern group of Bantu tribes from a small group of tribes living to the west of this desert. These included the Herero tribes - Ovagerero, Ovambandieru, etc., and the Ovambo, Oovakuanyama, Ovandonga, etc. tribes close to them in language. Among them lived small groups of mountain dama (or mountain damars); they spoke the languages ​​of the Hottentots, but in their physical type they were close to the Bantu peoples.

By the beginning of European colonization, the Bantu tribes were at a much higher level of development than the Bushmen and even the Hottentots. The main means of subsistence was cattle breeding. Along with cattle breeding, the Bantu tribes knew developed hoe farming. Of all the South African Bantu tribes, only the Herero limited themselves to cattle breeding and did not engage in agriculture.

Like the Bantu tribes living in other areas, collecting wild fruits and hunting served as great help in the economy. The hunter's weapons consisted of a throwing spear, an ax, a club and, in some tribes, a bow and arrows with iron tips. Traps and snares were set to catch small animals and birds. Elephants, buffalos, rhinoceroses, etc. were hunted collectively, rounded up by the entire village, clan, or even an entire tribe. For the raid, two long palisades were built, converging at an angle; an exit was left in the corner, behind which a long deep hole was dug. Wild animals, driven into a narrow passage formed by palisades, rushed into the remaining free exit and fell into a hole. Sometimes trapping pits were set up on animal trails leading to watering holes, covered lightly with brushwood and grass, and sharp poisoned stakes were placed at the bottom.

Domestic industry had reached considerable development before the European conquest, and the first steps towards the separation of handicrafts from agriculture were already being outlined. Bantu made tools and household items from iron and wood, sewed clothes from animal skins, and made shields. They did not know weaving.

Iron was smelted in extremely primitive, small-sized smelting pit furnaces, where the ore was placed along with charcoal. Air was supplied by hand bellows. Each fur was a bag; a wooden tube was firmly attached to one end of it, without gaps; the other end, open, ended in two planks, which, when the bag was compressed, tightly closed the hole. A person sat between two bellows and, by opening or closing them alternately, created a constant flow of air. Pure iron cannot be obtained immediately in this way. Usually the smelting was repeated and fairly pure iron was obtained. Hammers and pliers were made of iron. The iron hammer was used only for light work; To forge large krits, they used a stone hammer, and a strong stone served as an anvil. Hoes, axes, knives, spear and arrow tips, jewelry (wrists, etc.) and even needles without eyes were made from iron. Copper was also smelted, which was used mainly for making jewelry (bracelets, necklaces). Not everyone possessed the art of metal smelting, and not everyone could acquire the necessary equipment and tools. Few people practiced metal smelting and blacksmithing, and they were considered noble members of society.

The potter's wheel was not yet known to the southeastern Bantu. Pottery was made starting from the bottom by building up clay rings; then it was burned over a fire, placed in the middle of dry grass. After firing, the surface of the pottery was covered with layers of red ocher and graphite and polished to a shine. Handles for metal tools and instruments, spoons, cups, etc. were made from wood. Wooden products, especially cups and goblets, were decorated with rich geometric patterns. The Bechuanas and some other tribes gave the handles of spoons the appearance of figures of various animals, especially often giraffes.

Mats, mats, granaries, baskets and many other household items were woven from grass and reeds.

The Bantu achieved high skill in processing skins and making clothing from them. Men and women wore kaross - a type of cloak or cape made of skins, which they used to cover themselves at night 1. Nakaross skins of antelopes, gazelles, silvery jackals and other animals, less often bulls. The skin removed from the killed animal was dried, cleaned of the flesh with crushed sandstone and kneaded with hands lubricated with fat until the skin became soft and elastic, like silk. Fresh bull skin was prepared in a slightly different way: it was stretched on the ground, dried and then scraped off fat and meat; she was being warmed up by a group of men to the sounds of a choral song. Sometimes a geometric pattern was applied to the skin. Kaross of the clan and tribal nobility were made from the skins of lions, panthers and jackals; wearing these skins was a privilege for the nobility and distinguished them from ordinary members of the community. Kaross was worn with the fur inside and secured on the shoulder with ties made of leather straps.

In addition to the kaross, they wore gaiters and aprons, usually made of lambskin. A man's legguard was a triangular piece of skin, the long corner of which passed between his legs and was attached to the belt at the back. Women wore an apron - a short rectangular piece of skin. The same piece of skin, only with a long cut in the middle, was attached to the back. Sandals and bags for storing and carrying food were made from animal skins, and in addition, the Bechuanas made capacious vessels for delivering milk from distant pastures.

Decorations included strings of beads, hand, leg and neck rings made of iron or copper, various pendants, bracelets and headbands. They wore fur hats on their heads, and sometimes conical hats woven from grass.

The South African Bantu tribes practiced subsistence farming before the European conquest. The division of labor was still mainly gender and age. Men were engaged in cattle breeding, hunting and the production of iron and wood products. Agriculture was the work of women, but virgin soil was raised by men. Almost all the housework fell on the woman's shoulders. She carried water, prepared fuel, ground millet on grain grinders, cooked food, brewed beer, and maintained order and cleanliness in the hut. She collected wild fruits, made pottery, mats, etc. When building a hut, men erected the frame, and left all other work to women. Teenagers herded cattle, helped their fathers or older brothers, and girls, under the guidance of adult women, did housework.

Economic ties were expressed in mutual assistance, in the organization of collective hunting and in the intra-tribal exchange of household products: blacksmith products, pottery and wooden utensils, jewelry, weapons, grain and livestock. There was no production for the Bantu market; there were no bazaars. The exchange was purely local and random. There was no universal equivalent, but certain proportions were already established: for a clay pot they gave as much grain as it contained; Odinassegai was equivalent to a bull.

Intertribal exchange was more significantly developed. It was led mainly by the tribal nobility, in whose hands a large amount of livestock, skins and various household products accumulated; ivory and the skins of some animals were the monopoly property of the tribal leaders, and only they could exchange them. Ordinary members of the tribe carried out external exchanges only with the permission of the leader and with the payment of a certain share to him.

A lively exchange was maintained between the Bantu tribes, on the one hand, and the Hottentots and Bushmen, on the other. In the area along the middle reaches of the river. In Orange, something similar to the annual fairs arose at which the Bechuanas and Hottentots met. The Bechuanas “during the rainy season crossed the desert that separated them from the Khoikhoin and brought with them tobacco, spoons and ivory wrists, copper rings and bracelets, copper and iron necklaces, axes and spears with iron tips, beautiful leather karosse and exchanged all this for livestock" 1. The Hottentots served as intermediaries between the Bantu tribes and the Bushmen, exchanging ostrich feathers and eggs, wild animal skins and horns from the latter. An equally lively exchange took place between the Zulu and Basotho. The Basotho offered leopard skins, ostrich feathers, crane wings and received cattle, hoes, spearheads, copper rings and necklaces.

A strong impetus to the development of exchange was given by the appearance of the Portuguese in Mozambique, Boer colonists on the Cape Peninsula, English merchants in Natal and the penetration into the interior of hunters and ivory buyers, merchants, missionaries and travelers who delivered the products of European industry. The English missionary R. Moffat reports that although the Matabele had the right to trade with foreigners and whites belonged to the leader, Moselekatse, women secretly brought him milk and other products in order to exchange European wonders; As can be seen, the leader’s monopoly was already proving to be constraining and was gradually being undermined. European goods were just beginning to reach the Matabele. On September 17, 1857, Moffat wrote to his wife that he had seen the first Matabele in European costume - an old jacket and short trousers; it was one of the military leaders close to Moselekatsa who rode out to meet Moffat. Moselekatse showed Moffat two large baskets filled with European goods: tartans, printed chintz, handkerchiefs, window curtains. All this lay unused; Moselekatse's wives were not interested in textile goods, and he himself was primarily concerned with acquiring guns for protection against the Boers, and wagons, since he did not have any vehicles.

The main form of settlement for most tribes was the kraal, in which, as a rule, one large family lived. All kraals had almost the same circular layout: in the center of the kraal there was a cattle yard, fenced with a palisade, wattle fence, stone or adobe fence. Around the barnyard, huts were located in a certain order: closer to the exit from the barnyard - the hut of the first wife or mother, then the hut of the second wife, the third, the children's hut, etc. Near each hut there is an outbuilding for cooking and sometimes another outbuilding - a pantry . Grain was stored in special granaries - in pits, the walls of which were coated with clay, or in huge domed baskets on scaffolds.

The Bechuanas adopted a different form of settlement - large settlements numbering up to a thousand or more huts. In essence, these are the same kraals, but located in a cluster. This was caused by the lack of water sources in the Bechuana country, and the population was grouped around a few bodies of water.

The South African Bantu lived in huts with a round base. They were constructed in the following way: long, thin poles were buried in the ground in a circle, their tops were bent, intertwined and tied; a layer of grass tied in bunches was placed on the resulting hemispherical frame. This frame was supported by one or more pillars; in the center of the hut there was a fireplace, and in the roof above it there was a chimney. Beds, tables, and chairs were replaced by mats and grass mats. The Bantu did not know wooden buildings. Some tribes, like the Bechuanas, had huts made of stone and adobe ovens.

The article contains information about the population of the continent. Forms an idea of ​​the zonal population of the continent. It contains interesting facts from the life and way of life of some of the most ancient African peoples living on the planet today.

Peoples of Africa

Africa is unique and amazing, and so are the people who inhabit the continent. The peoples of Africa are diverse in all parts of it.

The main percentage of people living here is quite small. Typically, they are represented by groups of hundreds or thousands of people. As a rule, they inhabit several nearby villages.

The modern peoples of Africa are related not only to various anthropological types, but also to various racial groups.

North of the Sahara and in the desert itself you can meet individuals of the Indo-Mediterranean race, which belongs to the large Caucasoid race.

In the lands of the southern region, it was the Negro-Australoid race that became widespread. Small races are distinguished from it:

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• Negro;
• Negrillian;
• Bushman

Peoples of North Africa

Now in northern Africa there are many uninhabited areas. This is influenced by the characteristics of the current climate. Once upon a time, the Sahara transformed from savannah to desert. Residents of these places moved closer to water sources. At moments of such forced migrations, such areas formed centers of the emergence of great civilizations and cultures.

During the Middle Ages, inhabitants of European powers often visited the African part of the Mediterranean coast. By the beginning of the twentieth century, foreigners had become full-fledged masters in these territories. This significantly influenced the population of northern Africa and local culture. The process lasted about fifty years.

Due to the regular presence of the inhabitants of the Arab and European powers, carriers of the traits of the Indo-Mediterranean race now live in North Africa:

• Arabs;
• Berbers.

Rice. 1. Berbers.

They have dark skin color, dark hair and eyes. A distinctive feature of representatives of this race is the presence of a nose with a characteristic hump.

Among the Berbers there are people with light colored eyes and hair.

Most of the local residents profess Islam. Only the Copts are an exception. They are direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians and profess Christianity.

As a rule, the peoples living in the northern region of Africa are engaged in agriculture. In these territories, industries such as horticulture and viticulture are actively developing.

Date palms are grown in oases. Cattle breeding is typical for Bedouins and Berbers who live in mountainous or semi-desert areas.

Since ancient times, the southern part of the black continent has been inhabited by peoples who lead a predominantly nomadic lifestyle.

Rice. 2. Nomads of Africa.

As a rule, they do not have a government with characteristic powers. Among the people of this area, the hallmarks are a predisposition to hunt, gather and understand the interaction of all living things in nature.

The African pygmies and the natives of the Andaman Islands are people who have no idea of ​​the existence of fire.

Rice. 3. African pygmies.

The mainland is home to about 590 million people. Report estimate

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