African Cultures

African Cultures

Words to Know • Arab • Ashanti • Bedouin • San • Swahili • Bantu

Graphic Organizer Religion Life Style Culture Location Language

Ethnic group vsReligious Group • Ethnic groups share many common characteristics such as language, physical features, customs, and traditions • Religious groups share a common belief system but are not necessarily composted of a single ethnic group.

African Ethnic Groups

Africa Religious Groups • In Africa the three major religions are Traditional Beliefs, Christianity, and Islam. • Traditional beliefs may include worship of ancestors, spirits, gods, animals, land, inanimate objects, and/or natural phenomena.

Arab • Arabic culture was first spread in the Middle East beginning in the 2nd century as ethnically Arab Christians such as the Ghassanids, Lakhmids and BanuJudham began migrating into the Northern Arabian desert and the Levant. The Arabic language gained greater prominence with the rise of Islam in the 7th century AD as the language of the Qur'an.

Arab • Genealogical: someone who can trace his or her ancestry to the tribes of Arabia - the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula - and the Syrian Desert. • Language is Arabic, including any of its varieties. • Location-throughout the world however mostly in North Africa and the Middle East.

Interactive Notebook Question (Left Side) • Think-Pair-Share • Did you know Arabs were found all over North Africa? • Do you think most Americans know that? • Why do you think many Americans are not aware North Africans are Arabs?

Graphic Organizer Sunni Islam-90% Modern-Tribal….Varies between wealthy to poverty Arab Middle East and North Africa Arabic

Ashanti • Ashanti, or Asante, are a major ethnic group in Ghana. • Prior to European colonization, the Ashanti people developed a large and influential empire in West Africa. • Today Ashanti number close to 7 million people (roughly 30% of the Ghanaian population. Their political power has fluctuated since Ghana's independence, but they remain largely influential. The current president of Ghana, John AgyekumKufuor is Ashanti. The majority of the Ashanti reside in the Ashanti region, one of the administrative regions of the country. Kumasi, the capital of the current Ashanti region, has also been the historic capital of the Ashanti Kingdom.

The Ashanti are one of Africa's matrilineal societies where line of descent is traced through the female. Historically, this mother relationship determined land rights, inheritance of property, offices and titles. • The Ashanti require a bride price - various goods given by the boy's family to that of the girl. Sometimes nuptial arrangements were arranged before the birth of the couple. Parents allowed boys some initiative, but he must receive the consent of the households, the only formalities required.

Where are the Ashanti? Arab Ashanti Bantu/Swahili

Graphic Organizer Traditional(Spiritual and supernatural powers)/Christianity Modern lives, many are poor Ashanti West Africa, Ghana TWI

Interactive Notebook Question (Left Side) • Think-Pair-Share • Why do the Ashanti practice Christianity?

Bedouin • Bedouin, are a desert-dwelling Arab nomads, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and Negev to the Arabian Desert. Non-Arab groups as well, notably the Beja of the African coast of the Red Sea are sometimes called Bedouin.

Bedouin Changing ways of life • Starting in the 1950's as well as the 1960s, many Bedouins started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of the Middle East. In Syria, for example, the Bedouin way of life effectively ended during a severe drought from 1958 to 1961, which forced many Bedouin to give up herding for standard jobs. Similarly, government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, and a desire for improved standards of living have had the effect that most Bedouin are now settled citizens of various nations, rather than nomadic herders.

Graphic Organizer Sunni Islam Modern/ Nomadic Bedouin Sahara Desert to the Arabian Peninsula Arab

Bantu • Bantu is the name of a large category of African languages. It also is used as a general label for over 400 ethnic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa, from Cameroon across Central Africa and Eastern Africa to Southern Africa. These peoples share a common language family sub-group, the Bantu languages, and broad ancestral culture, but Bantu languages as a whole are as diverse as Indo-European languages. • The ancestral Bantu homeland was near the southwestern modern boundary of Nigeria and Cameroon (3000 BC). • Before the expansion of farming and herding peoples Africa south of the equator was populated by neolithic hunting and foraging peoples.

Bantu expansion • The Bantu expansion was a millennia-long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighboring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas. Bantu-speakers developed novel methods of agriculture and metalworking which allowed people to colonize new areas with widely varying ecologies in greater densities than hunting and foraging permitted. Meanwhile in Eastern and Southern Africa Bantu-speakers adopted livestock husbandry from other peoples they encountered, and in turn passed it to hunter-foragers, so that herding reached the far south several centuries before Bantu-speaking migrants did. Archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence all support the idea that the Bantu expansion was one of the most significant human migrations and cultural transformations within the past few thousand years.

Graphic Organizer Traditional (Ancestors) Modern (Poverty) Bantu Sub-Sahara Africa Bantu

Interactive Notebook Question (Left Side) • Think-Pair-Share • What would have been a cause(s) for the Bantu to move into different parts of Africa?

San • The Bushmen, San, Basarwa, Kung or Khweare indigenous people of southern Africa which spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe , Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Angola. They were traditionally hunter-gatherers. • Genetic evidence suggests they are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, peoples in the world — a "genetic Adam" according to Spencer Wells, from which all humans can ultimately trace their genetic heritage.

Where are the San? Arab Ashanti Bantu/Swahili

Graphic Organizer Traditional Nomadic San Southern Africa Khoisan languages

Swahili • Swahili is the first language of the Swahili people, who inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands. Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language, Swahili is the official working language of the African Union. • The language evolved through centuries of contact between Arabic-speaking traders and many different Bantu-speaking peoples inhabiting Africa's Indian Ocean coast.

Where are the Swahili? Arab Ashanti Bantu/Swahili

Graphic Organizer Sunni Islam (traditional minority) Modern Swahili East Africa Swahili (Arab+Bantu)

Learning Log • On the left side of your paper, answer these questions: • 1. Today I learned… • 2. Which culture did you struggle with?

Summarizing Activity 1(Left hand side) • Draw the following: • How people live in The Sahara: Types of Housing, Types of Food, enough water? • How people work in The Sahara: Types of Industry? Cities? Towns? • How people travel in The Sahara: Cars? Paved Roads? Water?

Summarizing Activity 2(Left hand side) • Draw the following: • How people live in The Sahel: Types of Housing, Types of Food, enough water? • How people work in The Sahel: Types of Industry? Cities? Towns? • How people travel in The Sahel: Cars? Paved Roads? Water?

Summarizing Activity 3(Left hand side) • Draw the following: • How people live in the Tropical Rain Forest: Types of Housing, Types of Food, enough water? • How people work in the Tropical Rain Forest : Types of Industry? Cities? Towns? • How people travel in the Tropical Rain Forest: Cars? Paved Roads? Water?

African Cultures