Peoples living in Africa. Peoples of South Africa: Bushmen, Bantu, Hottentots

Soil improvement by humans. For a long time, humanity has existed thanks to agriculture. People plow the soil and grow on them the cultural plants necessary for life: food (cereals, vegetables, etc.), fodder (clover, alfalfa, etc.), technical (cotton, flax, etc.). A person is interested in obtaining high yields, therefore he strives to maintain and increase fertility. The famous soil scientist Vasily Robertovich Williams (1863-1939) wrote that the farmer must fully and constantly provide cultivated plants with the water and food they need. This means that if there is little rain, the plants need to be watered. And the food necessary for plants is mineral salts. If there are few of them in the soil, fertilizers must be applied. You know organic and mineral fertilizers. But there is also the so-called green fertilizer. 12/31/2014. 14.

Biology 6th grade

"Botany"- Life forms. Plants. Cells. Cytology. Plant Science. Wild plants. Introduce the rules of behavior in the office. Biology. Plants that a person plants himself. Structure of the science of botany. Kingdoms. Ancient Greek scientist Theophrastus. Properties of living organisms.

"Natural Communities"- Artificial community. Scheme of food connections of the inhabitants of fresh water bodies. What are the differences between natural and artificial communities? Make words from the given letters. Aquarium. Natural and artificial communities. Example of pond animals. Natural communities. Choose the correct answer. Biocenosis. Eagle. Animals. Plants.

"Animal Nutrition"- The main signs of living things. Digestive system of vertebrates. Animal nutrition process. Organ. Digestive system of planaria. Enzymes. Food. Animal nutrition. Plant nutrition. The dog's digestive system. What did we do today? Living organisms. Digestive system of planaria and earthworm. Amoeba nutrition diagram. Digestion. Digestive system of an earthworm. Mouth. Mouth opening.

"Dicotyledonous families"- Beans. Cherry. Sweet pea. Sunflower. Family Cruciferous. Family Rosaceae. Family Asteraceae. Lupine. Raspberry. Sow peas. Meaning for a person. Coltsfoot. Family of the class Dicotyledons. Rose. Apple. Field tramp. Moth family. Dicotyledons are a group of flowering plants. Common chicory.

"Movement"- Associated with changes in water content in the colloids that make up the cell membrane. Passive (hygroscopic). Evolution. Close to seismic events are autonomous movements. Movement. Weak irritation causes an increase, strong irritation causes inhibition of physiological processes in the plant. Fast (contractile). Movements in plants. During evolution, the types of animal movements became more complex. Along the paths of movement (movement).

"Plant Photosynthesis"- Knowledge control. Plant kept in the dark. Photosynthesis. Description of the experience. Formation of the concept of plant nutrition. Characteristics of photosynthesis. Conditions for photosynthesis. Knowledge about photosynthesis. Cross section of a leaf. The role of light. Education process organic matter. Harvest.

Looking at the modern map of the settlement of the peoples of Africa and the spread of various languages, you notice an amazing feature. If all of West Africa (sub-Saharan Africa), a significant portion Central Africa(southern regions of Eastern Sudan and adjacent areas of its neighboring states) are inhabited by peoples speaking languages ​​belonging to different language families, then all of Western Equatorial Africa, almost all of Eastern Tropical Africa and almost all of South Africa is inhabited by peoples speaking the languages ​​of one family of Bantu peoples - very similar in root basis and grammatical structure. Some of them are mutually intelligible.

The grammar of Bantu languages ​​is based on root changes using various consoles. Thus, from the root “ntu” - “man” - comes the word “Bantu” - “people who speak similar languages”. Here are a few examples related to the languages ​​of the peoples of the area we are studying: “m”, “mu” - prefix singular; “ba”, “va”, “banya” - prefix plural; “ki”, “kishi”, “chi” is a prefix indicating the name of the language. Thus, mukongo is one Kongo person; Bakongo - all the Kongo people (self-name of the people); Kikongo (Kishikongo) is the language spoken by the Bakongo. Derivatives from the root “luba” - muluba - one person; baluba - all the people; Chiluba is the language spoken by the Baluba, etc. The Bantu peoples are related not only by linguistic affinity, but also by material and spiritual culture, which irrefutably testifies to the unity of their origin.

The question of the origins of the Bantu is still controversial among African historians. At present, three main theories of the origin of the Bantu peoples are most worthy of attention. One of them connects the slow movement of Negroid peoples to the south with the drying out of the Sahara region, which, according to all data, began by the 3rd millennium BC.
According to this theory, from the areas West Africa, approximately from central Cameroon, where peoples live who speak languages ​​of the Bantu group, close to the Bantu languages, the settlement of the equatorial regions of the continent by Bantu peoples began in the first centuries of our era.
The settlers' route ran along the northern border of the equatorial forest and in the region of the Great African Lakes reached East Africa. Here the flow of immigrants divided into three branches. One group headed north, another to the south, and the third, rounding Lake Tanganyika, turned west and settled Shabu from the east, and then all of Western Equatorial Africa. The great migration of the peoples of the continent lasted many centuries.

This theory dominated science from the first decades of the 20th century until the early 60s, when very interesting works Africanist linguist Ghasri, who forced him to reconsider it. Through careful analysis and comparison of the close roots of two hundred Bantu languages, Ghasri came to the conclusion that the area of ​​​​the greatest concentration of the “main roots” of these languages ​​is the Shaba Plateau - the area of ​​​​settlement modern peoples Babemba and Baluba. Based on this, he concluded that this particular area was the ancestral home of the Bantu and it was from here that they moved north, south, west and east, populating vast areas of Africa.
Then works appeared whose authors try to reconcile the contradictions between these two theories.
Based on the study of archaeological, anthropological and linguistic materials, a new theory of the successive stages of migration of the ancestors of the Bantu peoples has been created. These views are most substantiated in the articles of Jerno, Oliver and Poznansky.

According to the new theory of the origin of the Bantu, the initial reason that set the peoples of Africa in motion was the drying out of the Sahara and a sharp increase in population due to the emergence of productive forms of economy: agriculture, cattle breeding, as well as the development of the technology of making iron tools. The initial area of ​​migration of the Bantu ancestors was the plateau of central Cameroon (as in the first theory), but the movement early group the migrants were not bypassed tropical forest, and either through it or along the ocean coast - to the south, into the Congo River basin. The abundance of tributaries made it easier to move deeper into the country - to the northern Shaba plateau. Here the settlers encountered favorable living conditions: a wooded savannah, abundant in game and convenient for farming, fishing grounds, and easily accessible deposits of copper and iron ores. All this, together with other factors, led to the fact that migrants - the ancient Bantus - stopped for a long time in this area. It was here that the core of the Bantu peoples formed, the center from where their further settlement began throughout Equatorial Africa, or, as experts say, “secondary migration.”
As we see, the latter theory takes into account the linguistic materials of Ghasri and explains how Shaba became the center of consolidation of the peoples of the Bantu group. New dating methods archaeological sites allow us to determine approximate time early migrations - last quarter of the second millennium BC.

Secondary migrations to the Zambezi Valley date back to the 1st-2nd centuries. AD; to Interlake Region and East Africa - by the end of the 1st millennium AD. According to Arab sources, already in the 9th-10th centuries. on the east coast of Africa there were vast and powerful political associations - the Bantu “kingdoms”, which were under the rule of King Zenja (“King of the Blacks”). Scientists usually associate the stories of Arab chroniclers and sailors with the kingdom of Monomotapa (on the territory of modern Rhodesia), which left behind the ruins of giant stone fortresses (Zimbabwe, Dhlo-Dhlo, etc.). These materials indicate that in South East Africa The Bantu stood on the verge of transition from a classless society to an early class one, and perhaps by the 9th century. We've already crossed it. In other words, the Bantu have gone through a long path of development, and the foundations of property and class stratification were laid during the stay of their ancestors in Shaba. Scientists estimate the duration of the “secondary” Bantu migration, including the settlement of all of Western Equatorial Africa by these peoples, at five to six centuries. However, already in the XIII-XVI centuries. the ancestors of all the most significant peoples now living in the vast savannah of Western Equatorial Africa inhabited approximately the same areas.

Thus, the ancestors of the Bakongo, the Bavili close to them, and others inhabited the Atlantic coast north and south of the mouth of the Congo River and the vast provinces along its lower course. To the south of them (south of the Dande River) lived the Ambundu (Bambundu) - the future founders of the state of Angola. The ancestors of the Bakuba came to the Kasai-Sankuru interfluve. The ancestors of the Balunda occupied the vast plateaus of northeastern Angola and neighboring areas of Zaire. The Baluba constituted the main population of Shaba.

Africa is a place where people live, adhering to the rules of life, traditions and culture that developed several centuries ago and have reached today practically unchanged and are a clear guide to the everyday life of the population. The inhabitants of Africa still successfully exist through fishing, hunting and gathering, without feeling any need or urgent need for items modern civilization. This does not mean that they are not familiar with all the innovations of civilization, they simply know how to do without them, leading a secluded lifestyle, without making contact with the outside world.

Peoples inhabiting Africa

The African continent has sheltered many different tribes with different levels development, traditions, rituals and outlook on life. The largest tribes are Mbuti, Nuba, Oromo, Hamer, Bambara, Fulbe, Dinka, Bongo and others. Over the past two decades, tribal residents have been gradually adapting to a commodity-money system, but their priority is to provide themselves and their families with the necessary food products in order to prevent prolonged famine. We can say that the tribal population has practically no economic relations, which is why various conflicts and contradictions often arise, which can even end in bloodshed.

Despite this, there are also tribes that are more loyal to modern development entered into economic relations with others large nations and work for development public culture and industry.

The population of Africa is quite large, so on the continent, from 35 to 3000 people live on one square kilometer, and in some places even more, since due to the lack of water and the unfavorable climate of the deserts, the population here is unevenly distributed.

In northern Africa live Berbers and Arabs, who, over ten centuries of living in this territory, have conveyed local residents your language, culture and traditions. Arab ancient buildings still delight the eye, revealing all the subtleties of their culture and beliefs.

There are practically no inhabitants in desert areas, but you can meet large number nomads who lead entire caravans of camels, which is their main source of life and an indicator of wealth.

Culture and life of the peoples of Africa

Since the population of Africa is quite diverse and consists of more than several dozen tribes, it is very obvious that the traditional way has long lost its primitiveness and in some aspects borrowed culture from neighboring residents. Thus, the culture of one tribe reflects the traditions of another and it is difficult to determine who was the founder of certain rituals. Most important value In the life of a tribal people, the family is important; it is with it that most beliefs, traditions and rituals are associated.

In order to marry one of the girls of the tribe, the guy must compensate his parents for the damage. Often these are domestic animals, but recently ransom is also accepted in monetary equivalent. It is believed that this tradition helps families unite, and also in the case of a good ransom amount, the bride’s father is convinced of the wealth of his son-in-law and that he will be able to properly provide for his daughter.

The wedding should only take place on the night of full moon. It is the moon that will indicate what the marriage will be like - if it is bright and clear, then the marriage will be good, prosperous and fertile, if the moon is dim - this is very bad sign. The family in the tribes of Africa is characterized by polygamy - as soon as a man becomes financially wealthy, he can afford several wives, which does not bother the girls at all, since they equally share the responsibilities of housework and childcare. Such families are surprisingly friendly and direct all their efforts for the benefit of the tribe.

Upon reaching a certain age (it is different for each tribe), young people must undergo an initiation rite. Boys and sometimes girls are circumcised. It is very important that the guy does not scream or cry during the ceremony, otherwise he will forever be considered a coward.

Traditions and customs of the peoples of Africa

Africans spend a lot of time trying to protect themselves from evil spirits and get closer to good gods. To do this they carry out ritual dances(causing rain, fighting pests, receiving blessings before hunting, etc.), getting tattoos, carving masks that should protect them from evil spirits.

Sorcerers and shamans play a special role in the life of the tribe. They are considered servants of spirits, it is to them that tribal leaders listen and common people come to them for advice. Shamans have the right to bless, heal, they conduct weddings and bury the deceased.

Residents of Africa are especially enthusiastic about honoring their ancestors, performing a whole series rituals of their worship. Often this is the worship of deceased ancestors, after whose death more than a year has passed; with the help of certain ritual actions, they are invited back to the house, allocating them a separate place in the room.

Before marriage, girls are taught a special language for married women that only they know and understand. The bride must come to the groom's house on foot and bring her dowry. Marriage can be concluded from the age of 13.

Another feature of tribal culture is the application of scars to the body. It is believed that the more there are, the best man warrior and hunter. Each tribe has its own drawing techniques.