2/7/2018 African Culture – 16 most interesting traditions | Africa Facts

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Kidnapping your bride refugee camps
In the Sudanese Latuka tribe, when a man wants to marry a
woman, he kidnaps her. Elderly members of his family go and
ask the girl’s father for her hand in marriage, and if dad agrees,
he beats the suitor as a sign of his acceptance of the union. If Facts about
the father disagrees, however, the man might forcefully marry Zimbabwe
the woman anyway.

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Khweta Ceremony
This Southern African ceremony is practiced by several tribes
and is how a young boy proves his manhood. When they are of
age, boys are sent to spend several days or weeks in a Isabel dos
circumcision lodge during winter, where they’re put through Santos only
rigorous and often dangerous tests and rituals such as African on
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continuous dancing until exhaustion, and circumcision. ‘100 most
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Putting a price on the bride 11 Businesses

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Lobola is an ancient and controversial Southern African Asamoah Gyan
tradition in which the families of a bride and groom negotiate You Probably
how much the groom must pay for the bride. All negotiations Didn’t Know
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must be done in writing — never by phone or in person. The
two families cannot even speak until negotiations are
complete.

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Spitting your blessings

Members of the Maasai tribe in Kenya and Tanzania spit as a
way of blessing. Men spit on newborns and say they are bad in These 5
the belief that if they praise a baby, it will be cursed. Maasai African
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warriors will also spit in their hands before shaking the hand Us the Tea on
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Bull jumping
In order to prove their manhood in the Ethiopian Hamer tribe,
young boys must run, jump and land on the back of a bull

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before then attempting to run across the backs of several Visa free
bulls. They do this multiple times, and usually in the nude. countries for
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The groom wears a veil

The Ahaggaren Tuaregs of Algeria are part of a larger group of
Berber-speaking Tuaregs. In their culture, the men wear veils
almost all the time. However, they can take their veils off when
inside family camps or while traveling.

Women have their own

houses
In the Gio tribe in Ivory Coast, each wife has her own small
house that she lives in with her children until they are old

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enough to move out. The children never live with their fathers.

Women can’t grieve elders

In the Southwestern Congo, the Suku tribe honors ancestors
and elders, when they die, with a ceremony held in the clearing
of a forest. Here, gifts and offerings are brought, but outsiders
and all women are forbidden to attend.

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Sons are raised by their

uncles
When male children reach age 5 or 6 in the Northern Angolan
Songo tribe, they are sent to live with their uncles on their
mother’s side. This is because chiefs inherit their position
through matrilineal lines.

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Wealth is measured by cows

In the Pokot tribe in Kenya, wealth is measured by how many
cows a family has. Most Pokot people are either “corn people”
or “cow people”— meaning that’s what they cultivate on their
land — but all Pokot people measure their wealth by cows. The
number of women a man can marry is determined by how
many cows he has.

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Living with animals

The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania have strict policies
against killing wild animals. They keep cattle and livestock, but
leave wild animals untouched. In fact, each clan is associated
with a speci c wild species, which they often keep close to
them and treat as a clan member.

Red sun block

The Himba people of Northern Namibia cover their skin with a
mixture of butter fat and ochre — a natural earth pigment
containing iron oxide — to protect themselves from the sun.
For that reason, the Himba people often appear to have a red
skin tone.

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Hunter-gatherers
The San People of Botswana, also called Bushmen, are hunter
gatherers who were evicted from their ancestral land in the
1950s. They were forbidden to hunt and forced to apply for
permits to enter reserves. The San switched to farming but
they continued to gather herbs for medication and plants for
food. Deprived of the ability to hunt, San numbers dwindled.

Beating the suitor

The Fulani tribe live in many countries in West Africa and
follow a tradition called Sharo. Sharo happens when two
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young men want to marry the same woman. To compete for

her hand, they beat one another up. The men must suppress
signs of pain and the one who takes the beating without
showing signs of pain can take the wife.

A thorough cleansing
The Chewa people are one of the largest indigenous groups of
Malawi but live throughout Central and Southern Africa. When
a person dies, one family tradition involves taking the body
into the woods, slitting the throat, and forcing water through
the body to cleanse it. They do this by squeezing the corpse’s
stomach until what comes out the rear end runs clear.

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Lip stretching
When a girl becomes a teenager in the Surma tribe of
Southern Sudan, she begins the process of lip stretching. The
girl has her bottom teeth removed to make space for a lip
plate, which is increased in size annually.

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4 RESPONSES
ezliza
I feel really bad for those girls that have to go
through lip stretching that has to hurt #sorry for
those girls # saddddddddddddddddddddddddd
Reply

nazakat ALi Shaikh

its really a bad tradition of latuka tribe that when a
man want to marry with a women he kiddnap rst
without her desire . it should be stop . if its not
possible to stop it then it should also be a tradition
that when a women want to marry with man then
she also has right to kidnap a man without his
desire .
Reply

mahendra pariyar
believe, culture, ethics, social norms are the
systems that runs the society in a proper and
smooth ways…. i found most traditions in africa is
quite interesting, but i feel bad when i read about
the lip stretching…it is painful and bad believe of
that society………african should eradicate such
believe…
Reply

Gayle
Mutilating a child/teens ears and lips should be
stopped, even in third world countries. There are

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too many people in the world that know this is

wrong to allow the pain and injustice.
Reply

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