Encyclopedia of world cultures 10 volume set 9 africa and the middle east (1995)

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD CULTURESDavid Levinson Editor in Chief North America Oceania South Asia Europe Central, Western, and Southeastern Europe East and Southeast Asia Russia and Eurasia

Encyclopedia of World Cultures

Volume IX

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD CULTURES

David Levinson

Editor in Chief

North America Oceania

South Asia

Europe (Central, Western, and Southeastern Europe)

East and Southeast Asia Russia and Eurasia / China

South America

Middle America and the Caribbean

Africa and the Middle East

Index

The Encyclopedia of World Cultures was prepared under the auspices and with the support of the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University HRAF, the foremost international research organization in the field of cultural an- thropology, is a not-for-profit consortium of twenty-three sponsoring mem- bers and 300 participating member institutions in twenty-five countries The HRAF archive, established in 1949, contains nearly one million pages of in- formation on the cultures of the world.

Encyclopedia of World Cultures

Volume Editors

G.K Hall & Company

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan

NEW YORK

Prentice Hall International

LONDON * MEXICO CITY * NEW DELHI * SINGAPORE * SYDNEY * TORONTO

/ 1995 by theHumanRelationsAreaFiles,Inc.

Nopartofthis bookmaybereproducedinanyform orbyanymeans,electronicor

mechanical, including photocopying, recording,orbyanyinformationstorageor

retrieval systemwithoutpermission inwriting from thepublisher

LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData

(Revisedfor volume9)

Encyclopedia of worldcultures

Includesbibliographical references, filmographies,andindexes

Contents: v 1.NorthAmerica/TimothyJ.O'Leary,DavidLevinson,volume

editors-[etc]-v.9Africa and the MiddleEast/JohnMiddleton and Amal Rassam,

volumeeditors

1.Ethnology-Encyclopedias I.Levinson,David,

ISBN0-8161-1840-X(set: alk.paper)

ISBN0-8161-1808-6 (v 1: alk paper)

Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN0-8161-1815-9 (v 9: alk paper)

The paper used in thispublicationmeetstheminimum requirements of American

NationalStandard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITEDSTATES OF AMERICA

Project Staff vi

Contributors vii

Preface xvii

Introduction toAfrica xxiii

Introduction to the Middle East xxxv Maps

1 Africa xli

2 Cultures of Africa xlii

3 The Middle East xliii

4 Cultures of the Middle East xliv

Cultures of Africa and the Middle East 1

Appendix: Additional African Cultures 413 Ethnonym Index to Appendix 425

Project Staff Editorial Board

Femnado Cdmara Barbachano Instituto Nacional de Antropolograe Historia,

Mexico City

Middle America and the Caribbean

Editorial and Production

China Paul Friedrich University of Chicago

Russia and Eurasia

University of Illinois atChicago

South, East and Southeast Asia Robert V Kemper

Southern Methodist University Middle America and the Caribbean

John H Middleton

Yale University

Africa Timothy J O'Leary

Human Relations Area Files North America

Amal Rassam Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Middle East

Johannes Wilbert University of CaliforniaatLos Angeles

South America

Vi

DepartmentofCriminal Justice

KentStateUniversity

Kent,Ohio

United States

RonaldR.Atkinson

Department of History

University of SouthCarolina

Columbia, SouthCarolina

UnitedStates

KevinAvruch

Department ofSociology and Anthropology

George MasonUniversity

viii Contniurs

AlanA.Bartholomew Turks

Library

Albertus MagnusCollege

New Haven,Connecticut

United States

DepartmentofAnthropology

HunterCollegeof the City University of New York

NewYork, New York

United States

Department of Anthropology and Sociology

Human RelationsArea Files

NewHaven,Connecticut

Social Science Research Council

NewYork, NewYork

United States

Three Rivers,California

United States

Department ofSocial Anthropology

University of CapeTown

Contrbutors ix

SanRafael, California

The Sultanate of Oman

Department ofSociology,Anthropology,andSocial Work

NorthAdams State College

NorthAdams, Massachusetts

MichaelM.Donovan Kipsigs

Brooklyn, NewYork

SusanDrucker-Brown Moaprusi

Departmentof Social Anthropology

Cambridge University

Cambridge

United Kingdom

Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work

PamelaFeldman-Savelsberg Bamiekki

DepartmentofSociology and Anthropology

Carleton College

Northfield, Minnesota

United States

Departmentof CulturalAnthropology

HumanRelations AreaFiles

NewHaven, Connecticut

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

SimonFraserUniversity

Burnaby, British Columbia

James Anthony Pritchett

AfricanStudyCenter

Ghorbat; PeripateticsofAfghanistan, Iran,andTurkey;

Peripatetics ofIraq,Syria, Lebanon,Jordan, Israel,Egypt,Sudan,andYemen; PeripateticsoftheMqghreb;Sleb

Tuareg

S.P Reyna

Department ofAnthropology

Universityof New Hampshire

Durham, New Hampshire

Near EasternLanguages and Cultures

University of California, Los Angeles

LosAngeles, California

KatherineA.Snyder Iraqw

Tryon,NorthCarolina

Schoolof Oriental and AfricanStudies

Universityof London

London

United Kingdom

Departmentof Anthropology and Sociology

West ChesterUniversity

WestChester, Pennsylvania

UnitedStates

Ghada Hashem Talhami Palesthnans

DepartmentofPolitics

LakeForestCollege

Lake Forest, Illinois

UnitedStates

School of Oriental and African Studies

Wharton CountyJuniorCollege

Wharton,Texas

UnitedStates

DepartmentofAnthropology and Sociology

Lake ForestCollege

LakeForest,Illinois

State University of New YorkatAlbany

Albany, New York

This projectbeganin1987 with thegoalofassemblingabasic

reference source that provides accurate,clear,and concise

de-scriptions ofthe cultures of the world We wanted to beas

comprehensive and authoritative as possible: comprehensive,

by providing descriptions of all the cultures of each region of

theworld or by describing a representative sample of cultures

for regionswhere full coverage is impossible, and

authorita-tiveby providing accurate descriptions of the cultures for both

the past andthe present

The publication of the Encyclopedia of WorldCultures in

thelast decade of the twentieth century is especially timely

The political, economic, and social changes of the past fifty

yearshave produced a world more complex and fluid than at

any time inhuman history Three sweeping transformations of

the worldwidecultural landscape are especially significant

First iswhat some social scientists are calling the"New

Diaspora"-thedispersal of cultural groups to new locations

across the world This dispersal affects all nations and takes a

wide variety of forms: in East African nations, the formation

of new towns inhabited by people from dozens of different

ethnic groups; in Micronesiaand Polynesia, the movement of

islanders to cities in New Zealand and the United States; in

North America, the replacement by Asians and Latin

Ameri-cansof Europeans as the most numerous immigrants; in

Eu-rope, theincreased reliance on workers from the Middle East

andNorth Africa; and so on

Second, and related to this dispersal, is the internal

divi-sionofwhat were once single, unified cultural groups into two

ormorerelatively distinct groups This pattern of internal

di-vision is most dramatic among indigenous or third or fourth

world cultures whose traditional ways of life have been altered

by contact with the outside world Underlying this division

are both the population dispersion mentioned above and

sus-tained contact with the economically developed world The

result is that groups who at one time saw themselves and were

seenby others as single cultural groups have been transformed

into two or more distinct groups Thus, in many cultural

groups, we find deep and probably permanent divisions

be-tween those who live in the country and those who live in

cities, those who follow the traditional religion and those who

have converted to Christianity, those who live inland and

those who live on the seacoast, and those who live by means

of a subsistence economy and those now enmeshed in a cash

economy

The third important transformation of the worldwide

cul-turallandscapeisthe revival of ethnicnationalism,with manypeoplesclaimingandfightingforpoliticalfreedom and territo-rial integrity on the basisof ethnicsolidarityandethnic-basedclaims to theirtraditional homeland.Althoughmost attentionhasfocused recentlyonethnic nationalisminEastern Europe

and theformer SovietUnion,the trendisnonethelessawide phenomenon involving,forexample, American Indiancultures inNorth and SouthAmerica, the BasquesinSpainand France, the Tamil and Sinhalese inSri Lanka,and theTutsiandHutu inBurundi, amongothers

world-Tobe informedcitizensofourrapidly changing tural worldwe mustunderstand the ways of life ofpeople fromcultures different from ourown. "We" is used here in thebroadest sense, toincludenotjustscholars whostudythe cul-turesof the world andbusinesspeople and government offi-cialswho work in the world community but also the averagecitizenwho reads orhears about multiculturalevents inthenewseveryday and youngpeoplewhoaregrowing upinthiscomplexcultural world.Forall of thesepeople-whichmeans

multicul-all of us-there isapressingneed for informationonthe turesof theworld Thisencyclopedia provides this informa-tion in twoways.First, itsdescriptions of the traditional ways

cul-of lifeof the world's culturescan serve as abaseline againstwhich cultural change canbe measured andunderstood Sec-ond, it acquaints the reader with the contemporary ways oflifethroughout the world

Weareabletoprovide this informationlargely through

the efforts of the volumeeditorsand thenearlyonethousandcontributors who wrote the cultural summaries that are theheart of the book.Thecontributors are social scientists (an-

thropologists, sociologists, historians,andgeographers) as well

aseducators, governmentofficials, andmissionarieswho ally have firsthandresearch-based knowledgeof the culturesthey write about Inmany casestheyarethe major expert orone ofthe leading experts on the culture, and some are them-selves members of the cultures As experts, theyare able toprovide accurate, up-to-date information This iscrucial formany parts of the world where indigenous cultures may beoverlooked by official information seekers suchasgovernmentcensus takers These expertshave often lived among the peo-ple they write about, conducting participant-observationswith them and speaking their language Thus they are able toprovide integrated, holistic descriptions ofthe cultures, not

usu-just a list offacts Theirportraits ofthe cultures leave thereader with a real sense of what itmeans to be a"Taos"or a

"Rom" or a "Sicilian."

Thosesummariesnot writtenbyanexpertontheculture

have usually been written by a researcherattheHuman

Rela-tions Area Files, Inc., working from primary sourcematerials

xvii

xviii Preface

The Human Relations Area Files, an international

educa-tionalandresearch institute, isrecognizedby professionalsin

the social and behavioral sciences, humanities, and medical

sciences as amajorsourceofinformation on the cultures of

the world

Uses of the Encyclopedia

This encyclopediais meant tobeused byavarietyofpeople for

avarietyofpurposes Itcan be used both to gain a general

un-derstandingofacultureand tofinda specific piece of

informa-tion by looking it up under the relevant subheading in a

summary.Itcan also beusedtolearnaboutaparticular region

orsubregion of the world andthe social, economic, and

politi-cal forces that haveshapedthe culturesinthat region.The

en-cyclopedia isalsoa resourceguide thatleads readers who want

a deeper understanding ofparticular cultures to additional

sourcesofinformation Resource guides in the encyclopedia

includeethnonyms listedineachsummary, which can be used

asentry pointsintothe social scienceliterature where the

cul-turemaysometimesbe identified byadifferent name; a

bibli-ography atthe end of each summary, which lists books and

articles about the culture; andafilmography at the end of each

volume, which lists films and videos on many of the cultures

Beyond being a basic reference resource, the

encyclope-dia also serves readers with more focused needs For

re-searchers interestedincomparingcultures, the encyclopedia

serves as the mostcomplete and up-to-date sampling frame

from which toselectcultures for further study For those

inter-ested in international studies, the encyclopedia leads one

quicklyinto therelevant social science literature as well as

providing a state-of-the-art assessment of our knowledge of

the culturesofaparticular region For curriculum developers

and teachers seeking to internationalize their curriculum, the

encyclopedia is itselfa basic reference and educational

re-source as wellas adirectory toother materials For

govern-mentofficials, it is a repository of information not likely to be

availableinany othersingle publication or, in some cases, not

availableatall.Forstudents, from high school through

gradu-ateschool,itprovidesbackground and bibliographic

informa-tionforterm papers and class projects.And for travelers, it

provides an introduction into the ways of life of the

indige-nouspeoples in the area of the world they will be visiting

Format of the Encyclopedia

The encyclopedia comprises ten volumes, ordered by

geo-graphical regions of the world The order of publication is not

meant to represent anysort of priority Volumes 1 through 9

containatotal of aboutfifteen hundred summaries along with

maps,glossaries, andindexes of alternate names for the

cul-turalgroups The tenth and final volume contains cumulative

lists ofthe cultures of the world, their alternate names, and a

bibliography of selected publications pertaining to those

groups

NorthAmerica covers the cultures of Canada, Greenland, and

the UnitedStatesofAmerica

Oceania covers the cultures of Australia, New Zealand,

Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia

South Asia covers thecultures of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan,

Sri Lanka and otherSouth Asian islands and the Himalayan

states

Europe covers thecultures of Europe

Eastand SoutheastAsia covers the cultures ofJapan, Korea,

mainland and insular SoutheastAsia, and Taiwan

Russiaand Eurasia/ Chinacoversthecultures ofMongolia,thePeople'sRepublic of China, and the former Union of SovietSocialistRepublics

SouthAmericacoversthe cultures of South America

MiddleAmericaand the Caribbeancoversthe cultures of tralAmerica, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands

Cen-Africa and the MiddleEast coversthe cultures ofMadagascar

and sub-SaharanAfrica, North Africa, the Middle East, andsouth-central Asia

Format of the Volurnes

Each volumecontainsthispreface, anintroductory essay bythe volumeeditor, the cultural summaries ranging from a fewlinestoseveralpageseach,mapspinpointing the location ofthecultures, afilmography,anethnonym index of alternatenames for thecultures, andaglossary of scientific and techni-cal terms Allentries arelistedinalphabeticalorder andare

extensively cross-referenced

Cultures Covered

Acentralissue inselecting cultures for coverage inthe clopedia has been howtodefine whatwe meanbyaculturalgroup The questions of whatacultureisand whatcriteriacan

ency-be usedtoclassifyaparticular social group (suchasareligiousgroup, ethnic group, nationality,orterritorialgroup) as acul-tural group havelongperplexed socialscientistsand have yet

tobe answered to everyone's satisfaction Two realities

ac-countforwhythe questionscannotbeanswereddefinitively.First, a wide varietyofdifferent typesofcultures existsaroundthe world Among common types arenational cultures, re-gional cultures, ethnic groups, indigenous societies, religiousgroups,and unassimilated immigrant groups.Nosingle crite-rion ormarker of cultural uniqueness can consistently distin-guish among the hundreds of cultures that fit into thesegeneral types Second, asnotedabove, single culturesorwhatwere at one timeidentified as single cultures can and do varyinternally over time andplace Thus a marker that mayiden-tify aspecific group as a cultureinonelocationorat one timemay notwork for that cultureinanother place or at anothertime Forexample, use ofthe Yiddishlanguage would havebeen a marker ofJewishcultural identityin EasternEuropein

the nineteenth century, but it would notserve as a marker forJews in twentieth-century United States, where most speakEnglish Similarly, residence onone ofthe Cook Islands inPolynesiawould have been amarkerofCook Islander iden-tity ineighteenth century, butnot in thetwentieth centurywhen two-thirds of CookIslanders live inNewZealand andelsewhere

Given theseconsiderations, no attempt has been made todevelop and use a singledefinition of a cultural unit or to de-velop and use afixed listofcriteria foridentifying culturalunits.Instead, the task of selecting cultures was left to the vol-umeeditors, and the criteriaandprocedures they used are dis-cussed in theirintroductory essays In general, however, sixcriteria were used, sometimes alone and sometimes in combi-nation to classify social groups as cultural groups: (1) geo-graphicallocalization, (2) identification in thesocialscienceliterature as a distinctgroup, (3) distinct language, (4) sharedtraditions, religion, folklore, or values, (5) maintenance of

Preface xix

groupidentityinthe face of strong assimilative pressures, and

(6) previous listing in an inventory ofthe world'scultures

suchasEthnographicAtlas (Murdock1967) orthe Outlineof

WorldCultures (Murdock 1983)

In general, wehave been bumperss" rather than

"split-ters" inwritingthesummaries.That is, ifthere issome

ques-tionabout whetheraparticular groupisreally one cultureor

tworelatedcultures,wehavemoreoften thannottreateditas

asingle culture, with internal differences notedin the

sum-mary.Similarly,wehavesometimeschosentodescribea

num-ber of very similarculturesin asinglesummaryrather thanin

a seriesof summaries that would be mostly redundant.There

is,however,some variationfromoneregion toanotherinthis

approach,and therationale for each regionisdiscussed inthe

volumeeditor's essay

Twocategories ofcultures are usually notcoveredinthe

encyclopedia First, extinct cultures, especially those that

have not existed as distinctcultural units for some time, are

usually not described Cultural extinction is often, though

certainlynot always,indicated by the disappearance of the

culture's language So, forexample, the Aztec are not

cov-ered, althoughlivingdescendantsofthe Aztec, the

Nahuatl-speakers of central Mexico,aredescribed

Second, the ways of life of immigrant groups are usually

notdescribed inmuchdetail, unless there is a longhistory of

resistance toassimilation and the group hasmaintained its

distinct identity, as have the Amish in North America

These cultures are, however,described in the locationwhere

they traditionally lived and, for themost part, continue to

live, and migration patterns are noted For example, the

HmonginLaos aredescribed in the Southeast Asiavolume,

but the refugee communities in the United States and

Canadaarecoveredonlyinthegeneralsummarieson

South-east Asians in those two countries inthe North America

vol-ume.Although it would be ideal to provide descriptions of all

the immigrant cultures or communities ofthe world,that is

anundertaking well beyond the scope of this encyclopedia,

forthere areprobably more than fivethousand such

commu-nities in the world

Finally, it should benoted that not allnationalities are

covered, only those that are also distinct cultures aswell as

political entities Forexample, the Vietnamese and Burmese

areincluded but Indians(citizensof theRepublic ofIndia) are

not, because the latter is a political entity made up of a great

mixof cultural groups In the case of nations whose

popula-tions include a number of different, relativelyunassimilated

groups or cultural regions,each of the groups is described

sep-arately For example, there is no summary for Italians as such

inthe Europe volume, but there are summaries for the

re-gional cultures of Italy, such as the Tuscans, Sicilians, and

Tirolians, and other cultures such as theSintiPiemontese

Cultural Summaries

The heartofthisencyclopediaisthedescriptive summaries of

thecultures, which range from afewlines to five orsix pages

inlength They provide a mix of demographic, historical,

so-cial, economic, political, and religious information on the

cul-tures.Theiremphasis or flavor is cultural; that is, they focus

on the ways of life of thepeople-bothpast andpresent-and

the factors that have caused the culture to change over time

and place

Akey issue has been howtodecidewhich culturesshould

be describedby longersummariesand whichby shorter ones.Thisdecision wasmade by the volumeeditors, whohadto

balanceanumber of intellectual andpractical considerations.Again, the rationale for these decisions isdiscussedintheiressays Butamong the factors thatwereconsideredby all theeditorswerethe total number of culturesintheir region, theavailabilityof expertsto writesummaries, theavailabilityofinformationonthe cultures,the degree ofsimilaritybetweencultures, and the importance ofaculturein ascientificorpo-litical sense

The summaryauthors followed astandardized outline sothateach summary provides informationon a corelist of top-

ics.Theauthors, however,had someleeway indecidinghowmuchattention was tobe given each topic and whether addi-tional information should be included Summaries usuallyprovide information on the following topics:

CULTURE NAME:Thenameusedmostofteninthesocialscienceliteraturetorefertothe cultureorthenamethe groupusesforitself

ETHNONYMS: Alternatenamesforthe culture includingnames used by outsiders, the self-name, and alternatespellings, within reasonable limits

ORIENTATIONIdentification Locationof theculture and the derivation ofits nameandethnonyms

Location Where the cultureislocatedandadescription ofthephysical environment

Demography Population historyand themost recentreliablepopulation figuresorestimates

Linguistic Affiliation The name of the language spokenand/or writtenby the culture, its place in an internationallanguageclassification system, andinternal variation in lan-guageuse

HISTORY AND CULTURALRELATIONS:Atracing ofthe origins andhistoryofthe cultureand the past andcurrent

natureofrelationshipswithother groups

SETTLEMENTS: The locationofsettlements, typesof

set-tlements,typesofstructures,housingdesign,and materials.ECONOMY

Subsistence and Commercial Activities The primaryods ofobtaining, consuming, anddistributing money, food,andother necessities

meth-Industrial Arts Implementsandobjectsproducedby the tureeither for its own use or for sale ortrade

cul-Trade Products traded and patterns of trade with othergroups

Division of Labor.Howbasic economictasks are assigned byage, sex,ability, occupational specialization,orstatus.Land Tenure Rules and practices concerning the allocation

of land andland-use rights to members of the culture and tooutsiders

KINSHIPKin Groups and Descent Rules and practices concerningkin-basedfeatures ofsocial organizationsuchaslineagesandclans and alliances between these groups

KinshipTerminology Classification of thekinship logical systemonthe basisofeither cousinterms orgenera-

termino-xx Preface

tion, and informationabout any unique aspects ofkinship

terminology

MARRIAGEANDFAMILY

Marriage Rules and practices concerning reasonsfor

mar-riage, typesof marriage, economicaspectsof marriage,

post-maritalresidence,divorce,and remarriage

Domestic Unit.Description of the basic householdunit

in-cludingtype, size, andcomposition

Inheritance Rules and practices concerning the inheritance

of property

Socialization Rules and practices concerning child rearing

including caretakers, valuesinculcated, child-rearing

meth-ods,initiationrites,and education

SOCIOPOLITICAL ORGANIZATION

SocialOrganization.Rules and practices concerning the

in-ternal organizationof theculture,including social status,

pri-maryandsecondary groups, and social stratification

PoliticalOrganization.Rulesand practices concerning

lead-ership, politics, governmental organizations, and decision

making

Social Control The sources ofconflict within the culture and

informal and formal social control mechanisms

Conflict The sources of conflict with other groups and

infor-mal and forinfor-mal means of resolving conflicts

RELIGION AND EXPRESSIVE CULTURE

Religious Beliefs The nature of religious beliefs including

be-liefs in supernatural entities, traditional bebe-liefs, and the

ef-fectsofmajorreligions

ReligiousPractitioners The types, sources of power, and

ac-tivitiesofreligious specialists such as shamans and priests

Ceremonies.The nature, type, andfrequencyofreligious and

otherceremonies and rites

Arts.Thenature, types, andcharacteristics of artistic

activi-tiesincludingliterature, music, dance, carving, and so on

Medicine The nature oftraditional medical beliefs and

prac-ticesandthe influence of scientific medicine

Death and Afterlife The nature of beliefs and practices

con-cerningdeath,thedeceased, funerals, and theafterlife

BIBLIOGRAPHY:Aselected list ofpublications about the

culture The list usually includes publications that describe

both the traditional and the contemporary culture

AUTHOR'S NAME: The name of the summary author

Maps

Each regional volume contains maps pinpointing the current

location of the cultures described in that volume The first

map in each volume is usually an overview, showing the

countries in that region The other maps provide more detail

by marking the locations of the cultures in four or five

subregions

Filmography

Eachvolumecontains alistoffilms and videos aboutcultures

coveredinthatvolume.Thislistisprovidedas a serviceand

in no wayindicatesanendorsementbythe editor,the volume

editor,orthesummaryauthors Addressesofdistributorsare

providedso thatinformationabout availability and prices can

Glossary

Each volume contains a glossary of technical and scientific

terms found in the summaries Both general social science

termsandregion-specificterms areincluded

Wehave tried tobeasup-to-date andasaccurateaspossible

inreportingpopulation figures This is no easytask, assome

groupsare notcounted inofficial government censuses,some

groups areverylikely undercounted, and in some cases thedefinition ofacultural group usedby thecensustakersdiffersfrom the definition we have used Ingeneral,wehave relied

onpopulationfigures supplied by the summary authors Whenother population data sources have been used in avolume,theyare sonotedby the volume editor If the reported figureis

fromanearlierdate-say, the 1970s-it is usually because itis

themost accuratefigurethatcould be found

Units of Measure

Inaninternationalencyclopedia, editors encounter the lem of how to reportdistances, units of space, and tempera-ture In much ofthe world, the metric system is used, butscientists prefertheInternational System of Units (similar tothemetric system), and in Great Britain and North AmericatheEnglish system is usually used We decided to use Englishmeasures in the North America volume and metric measures

prob-in the other volumes Each volume contains a conversiontable

Acknowledgrients

In a projectofthis size,there are many people toacknowledgeand thank for their contributions In its planning stages,members of the research staff oftheHuman Relations AreaFiles provided many useful ideas These included Timothy J.O'Leary, Marlene Martin, JohnBeierle, Gerald Reid, DeloresWalters, Richard Wagner, and Christopher Latham The ad-visory editors, of course, also played a major role in planningtheproject, and not just for their own volumes but also for the

Preface xxi

project as awhole Timothy O'Leary,Terence Hays,and Paul

Hockings deserve special thanks for their comments on this

preface and theglossary, as does Melvin Ember, president of

the HumanRelations Area Files Members of the office and

technical staff also must be thanked for so quickly and

care-fully attending to the many tasks a project of this size

in-evitably generates They are Erlinda Maramba, Abraham

Maramba, Victoria Crocco, Nancy Gratton, and Douglas

Black At Macmillan and G.K Hall, the encyclopedia has

benefited fromthe wise and careful editorial management of

Elly Dickason, Elizabeth Kubik, and Elizabeth Holthaus, and

theeditorial and production management of Ara Salibian

Finally, I would like to thank Melvin Ember and theboard of directors of the Human Relations Area Files fortheiradministrative andintellectual support for this project

DAVID LEVINSON

References

Murdock, George Peter (1967) Ethnographic Atlas

Pitts-burgh: University ofPittsburghPress

Murdock, GeorgePeter(1983) Outline of World Cultures 6th

rev.ed.New Haven: HumanRelationsAreaFiles

Introduction to Africa

This introduction providessome basic information as

back-ground for the detailed accounts of the particular cultures that

follow.The cultures have beenselectedtorepresent Africa,in

thesensethat they include thelargerand better-known

cul-tures orclusters of culturesoutofthemorethantwothousand

cultures that compose the complex entity that we call

"Africancivilization."

The Peoples and Their Classification

Thepeoples ofAfrica may be classified according to several

criteria,probably the oldestofwhichis race.Africa isoccupied

bymembers of the Negroid race, themostnumerous;thenby

members of theCaucasoidrace,mainlyinnorthernand

south-ernAfrica; theMongoloid race(in Madagascar); and by the

so-calledBushmanoid andPygmoidraces orsubraces Previous

workinthisfieldhas shown the difficulties and contradictions

thatresult from using the concept of "race," and it is clear that

thiscriteriondoesnotcontributetoanunderstanding of the

cultures and identities of Africansocieties

Most attempts at physical or racial classification refer

backtoearlier effortstounderstand the origins and

develop-mentofhumans in various parts of Africa Paleontological

searchfor the origins ofhumankind inAfricahas along

his-tory,overthe course of whichithas become virtually certain

that the first humans originated in Africa Paleontologists

havediscovered skeletal remains(oftenthe merestfragments)

ofever-earlier apes and hominids Remains of various types of

apes date back toabout25million years ago, mainly in

south-emrandeasternAfrica,wherethelimestone deposits are ideal

sitesforpreservation ofthis material A primate in the

ho-minid line of descent, known as Ramapithecus, has been

foundineasternAfricadating back perhaps 14 million years,

andevenearlier types are being discovered in Ethiopia

Tool-making species of hominids have been found in South Africa

andatOlduvaiGorgeinTanzaniathat date back about5

mil-lionyears Oneofthese, a slenderform, has been named

Aus-tralopithecus africanus; the other, a larger and laterform, is

calledAustralopithecus robustus (a variant species from

Oldu-vai is known as Zinjanthropus) The more modem types,

Homohabilis and Homo erectus, developed in East Africa by

about a million years ago, by which time theAustralopithecus

typeshadbecomeextinct Neanderthal forms in northeastern

Africa evolvedabout 60,000 years ago Many other modem

forms that developed since then have been found, merging

intomodemhominids About35,000 years ago, the African

Middle Stone Age marked the spread of modem humansthroughout Africa

Despite efforts to portray the hunting and gathering

Bushmen ofsouthwestern Africaastheliving representatives

of earlier types, little direct evidence has been derivedfromtracing ofBushmanoid ancestors It had been assumed thatthe contemporary Bushman economy is the sameas that ofprehistory, but these rathersimplistic andat timesracist evo-

lutionistviews havelittlefoundation It isreasonable to

sup-pose that there must have been some kind of ancestrallinkages,both in physicaldevelopmentovercountless genera-tions and also incultural development However, the im-

mensely long periods of slow humandevelopment-during

which variations inclimate and the availabilityof resources

occurred, resultingincontinual migrations ofpeople

through-outthecontinent-implysomanychangesthat any direct scendance canhardly beproved

de-A moremeaningful classification is based on language.Duringtheeighteenth and nineteenth centuries,it was sur-

misedthat African languages, of which some knowledge hadbeenpercolatingtoEuropesince at leastthe sixteenthcen-

tury, wereamong the most"primitive," anexpectation thatwas neversupported byevidence Philologists were the firstEuropeanstotrytoclassify African peoplesby "tribe" (orsim-

ilarterms), which they defined asa"territorially limited guagegroup."

lan-Mostofthe linguistic hypotheses were based not only onlanguagebutalsoonthekind of diffusionisthypotheses that

confused language affiliation, economy, and forms of ment.The most influentialwasthe so-called Hamitic Theory,accordingtowhich therewas alink between pastoralism, di-vine or sacred kingship, and the Hamitic languages The

govem-"tribes" that had all threewerethoughttotobe of commonancient-Egyptian ancestry Similar diffusionist theories are

continuallybeingpresented, the most influential today beingthatassociated withaSenegalesescholar, Cheikh Anta Diop,who claims that ancient-Egyptian civilization was "Black"

African and that it was the source of Mediterranean andGreekcivilization There is nosupporting evidence for thesesuggestions

After manyincreasingly sophisticated attempts to classifyAfrican languages had been made, Joseph H Greenberg(1963) offered a classificationthat, witha fewminorrevisions,hasgenerally been accepted.Thisclassification isbased solely

onlinguisticcriteriaandcomprises the following groups:Niger-Kordofanian, which is divided into Niger-Congoand Kordofanian The Niger-Congo languages (comprisingthelargest African languagecluster) are spokenfromSenegal

to the Congo region and throughout central, eastern, and

xxiii

xxiv IntroductiontoAfrica

southernAfrica,dispersedthrough theBantulanguages They

include, fromwesttoeast, thesubgroups knownas West

At-lantic, Mande,Voltaic, Kwa, Benue-Congo, and

Adamawa-Eastern Kordofanian comprises fifteen languages that are

spoken onlyin asmallareaofsouthwestern Sudan

Nilo-Saharan, stretching along the savannas from the

Middle Niger to the Nile These languages include several

thatarespokeninthe UpperNiger-Lake Chad region

Hamito-Semitc, orAfro-Asiatic, includingAncient

Egyp-tian, Berber,Chadic, theHamiticlanguagesofnorthern and

Saharan Africa, andtheSemitic and Cushitic languagesof

northeasternAfrica

Khoisan, orClick, spoken bythe Bushmen and Khoiof

southwestern Africa and by a few peoples in East Africa

proper.They areknown as"Click" languagesbecauseof their

extensiveuseofclicksasgutturals

Malayo-Polynesian, represented by the languages of

Madagascar

Some 2,500languages and dialects have been recorded

throughoutAfrica Ithas been customaryto usethem as

indi-catorsof distinct cultures and social systems, and, ingeneral,

thiscriterionhasbeenauseful one Caremustbetaken,

how-ever, not torigidify any such correlation: languages and

di-alects, like other elements of culture, can be learned, adopted,

andthen forgotten Today the persistence of many of the less

widelyspokenlanguages is threatened by governmental

edu-cational policies aswell as by the near-extinction of many

groups and their cultures

Various pidgin and creole languages are spoken in the

areasthathavehad longhistories of trade with European

colo-nial enterprises Most are found along the western African

coast,especially in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea-Bissau

(known as Krio); in the Niger Delta (known aspidgin);andon

outlyingislandssuch as Cape Verde, Mauritius, and the

Sey-chelles Many languages, in particular Hausa in Nigeria and

Swahili ineasternAfrica, have become both trade languages

andmodem linguafrancasoverwide areas:theyremain,

how-ever, distinctlanguagesintheir ownrights, with their own

na-tive speakers In addition, the former colonial languages

(especiallyEnglish,French, and Portuguese) are spoken widely

by peopleingovernment, commerce,education, and popular

culture InSouthAfrica, a minority of the population has for

centuries spoken a form of Dutch(Afrikaans)

Almost all African languages have been committed to

writing within the past hundred years, usually through

Chris-tianmissionaryendeavors, using Roman script The Semitic

and some of the Hamitic languages, however, have for

cen-turiesbeenwritten:examples include Ancient Egyptian,

Ara-bic, Amharic (Ge'ez), and other related languages Still

others-languages of Muslim peoples, such as Hausa and

Swahili-have long been written in Arabic script, although

in recentyears Roman script has proved to be moreuseful A

few African languages have been written in their own

indige-nousscripts, such as Berber and Tuareg of the Sahara, Vai of

SierraLeone, and Bamum of Cameroon The latter two (and

some others) were invented by local nineteenth-century

scholars

Itshould beemphasized that the fact that a language

be-longs to a particular language group does not necessarily mean

that it and its fellows in that group are mutually intelligible,

although they will usually share certain characteristics, such

as the use (or nonuse) ofsemantic tones, grammatical rules,

and wordroots All African languages include regional alects, and these may often bemutually intelligibleoversmalllocalities The pattern of historicaldispersal ofasetofrelatedlanguages-such as the Bantulanguages that are today spokenovermost of eastern,central, and southernAfrica-may beascertained throughglottochronology,thestudy of the differ-

di-ences invariationfromasurmised originallanguage form

Social Groups and Culture Areas

Languages and their dialects are crucial elements iningidentity The boundaries between languages and dialectsshould not be drawn too rigidly: each shades into otherswithin a local area, andprobably most Africanscan speakthoseof theirneighborsaswellastheirown.Nonetheless,lin-guistic boundariesarerecognizedand have meanings for thosewholive within them They are essential between the socialand cultural groups that have conventionally been called

determin-"tribes,"aword thatistoday often considered derogatory The

existence of"tribes" is therefore often denied, andat times

theconcept claimed to have been "invented"by Europeans.The problem is not whether or not tribes exist-for in facttheydo They have names, and Africans use those names, andthey hold greatsignificance for theirmembers,towhom theygive afirm identity The problem concernsexactly how theymay be defined and howthey came intoexistence A tribeis

nowoften referred to by a term such as "ethnic group," ery," or"culture." Thefirst two terms are almost meaningless

"soci-in this context, andthe third refers not to a group oflivingpeople buttotheir conventional patterns of behavior Perhapsthe term that bestconveysboth theirdistinctivenessand theabsenceof rigidboundaries between them is simply"people."

How maya people be defined? The obvious criteria clude occupyingacommon territory; speaking asingle lan-guage ordialect; havingasingle social organization;having a

in-senseofidentity, cohesion,andhistory;sharinga common

re-ligion; andhavingasingle set of customs and behavioral rules(asinmarriage,clothing, diet, taboos,andsoon).Oneprob-lem is that any or all of these criteria can change at any time,

sothatamapof thepeopleswho liveinAfricacan soongrow

outofdate

Twocommonlyused words deserve comment These are

"indigenous" and"traditional." Both are often used with theimplication ofbeingunchanging or static, but properly they

do not have thisconnotation

"Indigenous"isconventionally used not as meaning tochthonous or primordial, but rather in the sense of havingpriority ofsettlement; it isalso used todistinguishAfricansfrom non-African incomers The word "native," althoughproperly having that same meaning, is today rarely used

au-"Traditional" refers to the customs, beliefs, and practicesthat the localpeople of any area consider to have been theirs

in thepast and not to have changed today from what theywere in that past It is a notion that is held by the peoplethemselves, and not by outsideobservers In this sense, atra-ditional society is onewhose members see their lives and thefuture lives oftheir children as beingessentially the same asthose of theirforebears, in spite of whatever changes may infacthave been made in the underlying structure of their soci-ety AllAfrican societies change continually, but the peoplethemselves maybe unaware of this fact or may choose to ig-nore itas unimportant

IntroductiontoAfrica xxv

In addition to the classifications that are based upon

race andlanguage, variousattemptshavebeen madeto

clas-sify thepeoplesofAfricaby"culturearea,"aconceptbased

on earlyAmerican Indian ethnology. The most widely

ac-cepted classifications for Africaare those madeby Melville

Herskovits (1924) andGeorgePeterMurdock(1959).These

twoclassifications areuseful becausetheygivea

comprehen-sive viewofAfricansocietiesand cultures andbringadegree

oforder into anoftenconfusingoverallsituation.The

sim-plersystemis that ofHerskovits, whodeveloped the

follow-ing seven categories: Khoisan, in southwestern Africa,

comprising theBushmen and Khoionly;EastAfrican Cattle

Complex, stretching northward from southeastern Africa(a

categoryis toomuch ofaragbagtobe ofmuch use, given that

it isbasedoncloserelationshipsbetweenhumans and their

cattle but ignores other important differences); Eastern

Sudan, from the Nile westward to Lake Chad (acategory

basedongeographicalregion ratherthanon moresignificant

criteria); Congo,comprising theCongo (or Zaire) Basin and

surrounding areas, all of whom speak Bantu languages;

GuineaCoast, stretchingfrom theBightof BiafratoSenegal,

adensely populated region, the inhabitants ofwhichspeak

Niger-Congo languages and occupy mainly forested areas;

Western Sudan, which is occupied by many peoples who

share the occupationofthe sub-Saharansavannas; and East

African Horn (northern Ethiopia and Somalia), another

clusterthatisdefinedgeographically.

This classification scheme, which excludes northern

Africa,isbasedessentiallyongeographyand basiceconomies.

Murdock's classification is far more sophisticated and

com-plete, and it includes northern Africa and Madagascar.

Al-thoughalsobasically geographical,it rests to agreaterextent

uponcriteriaof social organization, language,andhistory. It

consistsofforty-fivemainclusters,eachsubdividedinto

con-stituentgroups Itlistsatotalofsome2,700peoples,ofwhom

about 2,300 live in sub-Saharan Africa (about 700 main

groups and 1,600 subgroups), with about 360 in northern

Africa, and40 inMadagascar andonthe smaller islands

Al-thoughquestionscanbe raisedabout the identitiesofmanyof

thesubgroups,thegeneralpictureis oneofanimmense

num-ber ofdistinct peoples,each withits own identity, language,

andculture Thecomplexityisoverwhelming.

Itmay be useful heretopresentsomeoftheprincipal

fea-turesofthemaingeographical regions of the continent,so as

togive an ideaof theirgeneral social, cultural,and historical

places within the complexity of African cultures Each of

these wide regions includes a great variety of traditional

economies, forms of government, familial organizations, and

religious systems, all of which are discussed in moredetail

laterinthis introduction

Western Africa stretches from Senegal in the west to

Cameroon intheeast Itincludes the twomain zones ofthe

Saharan borderland savannas-known generally as the

Sahel-andthat of theforestedbeltalongthecoast. Itholdsa

third ofthe totalpopulationofthecontinent.Whereas

com-munication isdifficultandslow from east to west in the forest

zone,it isrelativelyeasyalongthesavannabelt.Located in the

savanna zones areSenegal, Gambia,Mauritania,Mali,Burkina

Faso,andNiger,aswellasthenorthernpartsoftheforest-zone

countries of Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea,

Ivory Coast,Ghana,Togo,Benin, Nigeria, andCameroon

Themain crops ofthesavanna zone are grains: millets,

sorghums, maize, and, in the west, rice Savanna trees, oilplants (mainly sesame), andspices arealsogrown in mostof

this zone The forestbeltgrows mainlyroot and tree crops:

yams; cocoyams; oil, raffia,and otherpalms;spices;kola;and

cocoa-allcropsthat areimportant both for domestic useand

forexport.Livestock arekept throughout thesavanna:cattle

of severalvarieties,horses, sheep,goats,fowl, andpigs areallvaluable Cattleand horses cannot survive in the forests to

thesouth, however, because of thetsetsefly.Minerals-gold,bauxite,diamonds-areimportantproductsof the forest zone

Housesaremainlyofmudinthe savannazone(includingmenseandlong-lastingadobe structures suchaspalaces andmosques), but are of less durable materials in the forests,where precipitationisheavy.Theregionisworld famousfor

im-itswoodcarvings, pottery,metalcasting,and textileweaving

Trade, bothat local markets andthrough long-distance

mer-chants,hasalwaysbeenand remains of centraleconomicandsocialimportance,from both west and eastand also fromtheforest zone to northern Africa, across theSahara Desert Inthe savannazone,Islam isperhapstheprincipal religion;mostsocieties inthe forestzone havetraditionally had their ownlocal religionsandtoday have added Christianity

Western Africa contains both large, permanent towns

andcitiesand large,powerful kingdoms,someofwhich haveenduredsincethe MiddleAges The latterinclude the forest

states of Benin (in Nigeria, notinthemodem statethat hastakenthe samename); theclusterof Yoruba states insouth-westernNigeria; Dahomey, in the modem Benin; Asante andthe other Akankingdomsof Ghana andIvory Coast Inthe

savanna zone arethe Muslimemirates oftheHausa in

north-em Nigeria and Niger (Sokoto, Zaria, Kano, and others),whichwereestablishedby conquest bythe Fulani inthe earlynineteenth century; the kingdom of Nupe incentral Nigeria;and the Mossi kingdoms of Burkina Faso, among others

There are alsoseveral noncentralized societies in both thevannaand the forestzones,whichvarypolitically andorgani-

sa-zationallybut whichrecognizeeither clansorlineagesasthebasis for governing manykinds of associations: age groups; vil-lage associations (as among the IgboofsoutheasternNigeria);

and,inthewest,the so-calledsecretsocieties ofthe Mende

andTemne,in SierraLeone

Central Africa may alsobe divided into two main parts

One istheeasterlyextension ofwestern Africa, with the Nile

as its easternboundary, that includesthesavanna-zone

coun-triesofCameroon,Chad, the Central African Republic, andthe southwestern part ofSudan The other part stretchessouthward through the present-day countries of Congo,Gabon, Zaire, Angola, and Equatorial Africa, much of whichterritoryisforested andisoccupiedby peopleswithdiffering

economies and cultures The central region is ethnicallymixed, withBaggara and other Arabs in the north, Bantu-speaking farmers throughout most ofboth the savanna and

forest, and the Pygmies in parts of the forest Kingdoms arefound throughout the region: in the north, that of theBamil&k6and those of several others inCameroon, and, fur-ther east, those of the Mangbetu and the Azande The forest

areas include thekingdomsof theKongo, Kuba, Luba, Lunda,and manyothers

Eastern Africa stretches fromEthiopia southward to theZambezi,and from the Indian Ocean westward to the Great

Lakes It covers thepresent-day nationsofSudan, Ethiopia,Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi

xxvi IntroductiontoAfrica

Various forms of savanna economies of mixed farming are

found throughout this region, with basic dependence on

pas-toralisminthesouthern Sudan (by the Nuer and the Dinka),

inthe Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania (by theMaasai), and

in Somalia (by the Somalis) The Ethiopian, Kenyan, and

Great Lakeshighlands support large and dense populations,

including those of the great kingdom of the Amhara in

Ethiopia, the Nile state of Shilluk in the Sudan, and the

In-terlacustrine Bantu kingdoms of Ganda, Nyoro, Rwanda,

Bu-rundi, Toro, and others Noncentralized peoples include the

Nuer andthe Dinka ofsouthern Sudan; the Somalis of

Soma-lia; the Kikuyu, Luyia, and Luo of Kenya; the numerous small

societiesinTanzaniaand Zambia; and the Shona and Ndebele

ofZimbabwe

Southern Africa-which includes the present-day

na-tions of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique,

An-gola,Malawi, Zambia,Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Swaziland-is

characterized by savannas, occasional coastal forests, and the

aridareas of the Kalahari Desert Bushmen and Khoi live in

the Kalahari region; the remainder of the region is occupied

by Bantu-speaking peoples, the better known of whom

in-cludethekingdoms of Zulu, Swazi, Suto, Xhosa, Lozi, Bemba,

and Ndebele In the southwestern tip live the Cape

Coloureds, as well as the Afrikaners Except for the Bushmen

and theKhoi, theirtraditional economies have been those of

mixed farming and livestock keeping Today this region-in

which the large modem cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town,

and Durban are located-is the most highly industrialized in

all of Africa

Northern Africa comprises the narrow coastal strip from

Egypt to Morocco, together with the Sahara Desert to its

south This strip was at one time inhabited mainly by Berber

peoples but today has been taken over by Arab immigrants

from Arabia, who have subjugated the Berbers and driven

many of them into theSahara itself

Off theeastern coast of Africa lies Madagascar, inhabited

by immigrants from what is now Indonesia, who arrived on

the island probably in the first half of the first millennium

Despite some admixture from the mainland, Madagascar's

economies, societies, and cultures are noticeably different

from those of the rest of Africa

History

There is quite a gap between the paleontological history of

the early physicaldevelopment of humans in Africa and the

morerecent history of African societies and civilizations The

former deals with humanbodies; the latter is concerned with

thesocial and imaginative constructs that have been made by

peoples of many different appearances and periods We can

dig up traces of the former, but traces of the latter are far

harder to find and to interpret Until very recently, "African

history"was mainly the study ofcolonial history from colonial

records and wasimbued with many of theunderlying

assump-tionsabout the "DarkContinent" that had been held by some

ofthe earliestwriters Thedevelopment of social

anthropol-ogy led to thecontextual study of local tradition and myth

Manyhistorians naively continued to accept mythical

tradi-tion ashistorical record, but others sided with anthropologists

inrecognizing that, although traditions revealed much about

thepast, they alsoportrayed African views of the past only as

theyareinterpreted today.Archaeologists, too, have for many

years offeredvaluable information on past societies, and

mod-em archaeology-devoidof theimplicit racism of some earlierwork-is uncovering new and reliable data about both thematerial and the nonmaterial conditionsofprevious periods

of history

We may divide the history ofmodem Africa into threemain phases: that of the precolonial past, that of the colonialperiod, and that of thepostcolonial present These are merelythe convenient phases that have beenconstructedbyhistori-ans: the chronologies for one part of the continent varygreatly from those that apply to others; and the length, thenature, and thedepth of consequences ofcolonial rule havevaried from one region and country to another Evaluative

historiographytends to simplify complex historicaltrends anddevelopmentsand oftentosubstitutemythfor"objective"his-tory, however problematic the latter may in fact be

The earliest African civilization of which we have able knowledge is that of Egypt, which linked Africa andwestern Asia By about 5000 B.C., settled Neolithic communi-ties had come into existence, based on the domestication ofplants and animals, the making of pottery, and the smelting ofmetals Lower and Upper Egypt were united into a singlekingdom, which had knowledge of writing, by 3000 B.C., and,

reli-by 2700 B.C., Egypt's civilization was at its height Its

mercan-tile and cultural influence went as far south as Nubia andEthiopia By about 2000 B.C., Egypt's power was in decline,and the center moved southward to the Nubian state of Kush.Still later, the rise and spread of ironworking (to replacebronze) led to the growing importance ofMeroe,which flour-ished for some 600 years and was probably the main center forthe knowledge of ironworking that spread out through there-

mainder of Africa, with far-reaching social and cultural

conse-quences Meroe was eclipsed by the Ethiopian state of Aksum

in the fourth century A.D., and by several Christian successorstates in present-daysouthwestern Sudan

Although archaeologists are providingmoreand more

in-formation about the internal organizations and cultures ofthese various places and their peoples, the earliest historicallyknown post-Egyptian societies of which we possess consider-able knowledge are the "medieval" empires of the southernSaharan borderland: Ghana (not to be confused with modemGhana), Mali, Songhay, Kanem, and others that flourished atvarious times after the eighth century They were tradingstates, based on the exchange of gold from the south, salt fromthe north, and many other items between the forest region ofwestern Africa and the northern Sahara and Mediterraneanregions The height of mercantile power in the area was fromthe twelfth until the sixteenth centuries These early stateswere militarily powerful empires, the rulers of which acceptedIslam and, therefore, literacy, as part of their mercantile roles

Asmiddlemen in the Saharan trade, they ensured the safety

ofcaravan routes across the desert and ofmarketsin the

west-emAfrican savanna and forest zones, in return for taxes andtribute from Saharan and Mediterranean merchants GhanaandMali were eventually subdued by attacks from the Berbersfrom northwestern Africa, but the Hausa and Kanem states tothe east have continued to exist until the present day, eventhough weakened by the raids and "holy wars" of Muslim Fu-lani and other groups The"medieval"empires have otherwiselongvanished, but their old traditions and myths persist andstill playimportant parts in the construction and retention ofethnicideologies throughout much of western Africa

IntroductiontoAfrica xxvii

Elsewhere in Africa, most ofthe early "medieval"

soci-eties ofwhich we have knowledge became prominent

some-what later All were based upon trade, both long-distance

trade withinAfricaand, increasingly, trade with Asia and

Eu-rope Aksum and, later, the Swahili towns of the eastern

African coastwere, from the first part of the firstmillennium,

engaged in trade with Arabia and countries to the east across

theIndian Ocean, a commerce that in the Swahili case lasted

untilthe twentieth century Slaves, ivory, and gold were the

mostimportant items exported, in immense quantities, over

almost 2,000 years Insouthern Africalay the gold-producing

empire ofMonomatapa, with itscitadel of Zimbabwe, which

exported its goldthroughthe southern Swahili ports In the

region ofthe great lakes were the powerful states of Nyoro,

Ganda,and Rwanda, amongothers; farther south, the several

trading states of the Angola-Congo region, as well as the

kingdom of Kongo, which was early Christianized by the

Por-tuguese In western Africa, the domination of the Saharan

borderland states was supplanted by the rise of successor states

along the forest belt: Asante, Benin, the Yoruba states of

Nigeria and Dahomey, and others Although these states

flourished during the colonial period as providers of ivory,

slaves,gold,palm oil, and other commodities toEuropeans,

they had been established much earlier They were not mere

pettyand short-lived kingdoms, but large, powerful, and

long-lasting trading states whose commerce linked most of the

lesser societies of the continent into a single mercantile

net-work,one that was destroyed only by the advent of European

colonial powers

Every part of Africa has at one time or another come

under the imperialistand colonialist overrule of Asia and the

West (even Liberia waslong a defacto colony of the United

States) Todayevery part ofthe continent except for one or

twosmall and remote islands has become politically, even if

not inall caseseconomically, independent The brutality of

colonial rule may have been exaggerated and mythologized,

butthere is no doubt that the colonial period had deep-seated

consequences for the development of the African peoples

Even if inthe long run it may be seen as merely an interlude

in"latonguedur6e" of African history, thecolonial rule of

Eu-rope and Asia served to"underdevelop" Africa, leading to the

continent's relatively long economic and political stagnation

Apartfrom the early colonial incursions by Rome along

thecoast ofnorthern Africa and those by Arabian states in

the Hom and along the eastern African coast, the first

colo-nialrulerswere thePortuguese, who, from the twelfth century

onward, set up small colonial trading settlements southward

downthe western African coastline frompresent-day Senegal,

theCape Verde Islands, and Guinea-Bissau (which had 500

years ofPortuguesepresence), to Benin, Kongo, and Angola

At the end of thefifteenth century, they rounded the Cape

and reached eastern Africa Other countries-Holland,

France,Britain, Brandenberg, Denmark, Sweden, Oman,

Bel-gium,Germany-sent colonial expeditions to Africa in the

wake of thePortuguese All established trading outposts and

then moved inland to take over theremainder of the

conti-nent TFIey could rarely take over internal kingdoms and

othersocieties without force, however, and during the

eigh-teenth andnineteenth centuries Africa was the scene of

con-tinual warfare andeconomic exploitation The most obvious

series of events wasthat involving the trade in slaves to the

Americas from western and south-central Africa (figures vary

from 30 million to 100 million) and from eastern Africa toArabia, Persia,andIndia (figures certainlyrunintomanymil-

lions) Slaves were captured by indigenous African rulersthemselves andsold to Europeansand Arabs That tradewasconducted alongside commerce in ivory, gold, and otheritems, the collection of which required people to be divertedfrom farming andtheir settled peasant livelihoods

The third phase of African history isthe contemporaryera-aperiodofsomethirty years inthe middle of thetwenti-

eth century during whichpolitical independence was taken

by,and insome casesrather grudgingly given to, the presentAfrican nation-states It isstill too earlytoevaluate thepost-

colonial historyofAfrica, which has beencharacterizedbya

series of attemptstoconstruct newdemocraciesthat havein

most casesfailed(or atleast beenuncertain), combined with

a fewexamples ofdestructive dictatorship In addition, this

periodhas been markedby the process of neocolonialism and

"development," of the continued exploitation of Africa by theoutside world-not in the form of the taking of human beingsbut ofthetakingofmaterial resources inreturnformanufac-tures.TheAfrican elites haveflourished,butthe lot ofmost

of theordinary peoplehas beenimpoverishment

Ecology, Economies, and Technologies

Awide rangeofeconomic systems can beidentified in Africa,all of whicharedependentonecological aswellas ondemo-graphic,political, andcultural factors The indigenous prein-dustrial economieshave conventionally been classified intothreemain types: hunter-gatherer, pastoral, andagricultural.Few if anyeconomies can bedefined as being totally of one oranother of thesethree types, which are remnants oflong-out-

modedevolutionisttheories Nonetheless, theymake ausefulstarting point for description

In the traditional past, most arid areas have supportedvarious forms of hunting and gathering, as have parts of thedenser forest areas ofthe Congo region: the Bushmen of theKalahariand the foragers ofthe rain forests are the primeex-

amples Hunting-and-gathering societies necessarily have a

lowpopulation density, but it must be remembered that none

ofthese societies is basedsolely on this type of economy Theyhave alsooccasionally practiced agriculture and always sometrade; they have not been isolated communities, but havebeenincontactwith andusually exploitedby their neighborswho live in morefertile areas

Pastoralism (livestockkeeping) iswidespread throughoutthe continent Domesticated animals include cattle (both thelong-homed Mediterranean type and the Indian humped zebucattle), sheep, goats, camels, donkeys, pigs, fowl, and theubiquitous dogs and cats Strict dependence on pastoralism,however, is limited to a few regions, chiefly the northern andsouthernSaharan fringes,theupperNileValley,andthe East

African plains and semideserts None of these areas supportpeoples who depend solely on livestock There has alwaysbeen some complementary farming and, wherever possible,fishing Complete dependence on pastoralism is found onlyamong certain portionsofthepopulation, such as the warriors

ofthe Maasai, and then for only limited periods of time (e.g.,theysubsistsolely on milk and blooddrawn from the cattle'snecks,andthey do notkillthe beastsformeat) Tradein live-

stockincludes long-distance exchanges of the animals selvesaswellas of theirhides and skins The societies that are

them-xxviii Introduction to Africa

largely dependent on livestock use them also for sacrificial

and other ritual purposes, and thecattle aregiven great

sym-bolicandemotivevalue

The benefitsofpastoralismareunfortunately overlooked

byAfrican governments, members of which oftendespise

pas-toralistsas"primitive." Raising livestockremainstheonly form

of production that flourishes in semiarid lands, which are

quicklyeroded by farming Pastoralists require large areas of

land for grazingand transhumance (there areno"nomads" in

Africa) Theymust thereforemaintainlowpopulationdensity

Widespread expropriation of grazinglands for use by

agricul-turists,ontheotherhand, has ledinvariablytodesertification,

especially alongthe southern Saharan borderline

The traditional economy of some 90 percent of the

African populationshas beenone oranother form of

agricul-ture. Thenumberofspecies and varietiesof cultivated plants

is enormous. Foodplants grown inAfricatoday include not

onlythose thathavecomefrom within the continent but also

some that have been introduced into it at various times

throughout history IndigenousAfrican cropshave also been

takentoother world regions The principalcultivated plants

that originate inAfrica itselfinclude millers and sorghums,

severallegumes,cotton, the oilpalm, falseplantains, sesame,

castor,okra, gourds,tamarind, coffee, kola,and khat (Arabic:

qat). From Asia have come wheat and barley, additional

legumes,onions,datepalms,rice,yams,taro(cocoyams),

egg-plants,bananas,coconutpalms,sugarcane, mangoes, flax, and

variousfruits and spices From the Americas have come maize,

manioc (cassava), groundnuts, sweet potatoes, tomatoes,

cacao,pepper,tobacco,and stillmorefruits and spices

Veryfewof theseplantscanbe grown in every part of the

continent. Inthesavannaregions,thestaples are grains,

in-cluding millets, sorghums, and maize; in the more densely

forestedregions, theyaremainlyrootcrops, such as yams,

co-coyams, andsweetpotatoes.In someareas, manioc, rice,

plan-tains, and false plantains (Ensete) provide the staples

Groundnutsand many kinds ofbean, pea,andcucurbitare

al-most universal The chief oilplants include sesame,castors,

and oilpalm;andcoconutand otherpalmsaregrown on

suit-able soils Spices and condiments include peppers, coffee,

cocoa, tea,tobacco,sugarcane,qit,andkola, all widely grown

wherever theclimatepermits.Wildplants,palms, and treesof

many kindsaregrownwhereverpossible.Acertainamount of

livestockkeeping, hunting, andfishing istypically foundas

part ofthe total local economy

African farming techniques are small in scale but are

highly productive within the ecological limitations of the

continent. The traditionaltechnologies are, however, limited

in efficiency. Seedisgenerallyof lowyield, and methods of

storage, transport,and weed and pest control are simple,

al-thougheverywhereasefficientascanbemanaged in stringent

climatic conditions Ingeneral, Africansoils arenotcapable

of continual cropping, and various forms offallowing and

shifting agriculture are practiced Manuring is widely

prac-ticed, as are various forms of irrigation wherever feasible;

many elaborateirrigation-terracingworkshavelasted for

cen-turies, mainlyin easternAfrica.Fertilityisalmosteverywhere

enhancedbyburningtreesand grass while clearing fields, thus

adding nitrogen as well as destroying pests Traditionally,

mixedcropping has beenwidespread, in an effort to control

soilerosiontherebybeingcontrolled However,withthe

uni-versalgrowingofcashcrops, manyof which aregrown in pure

stands and cannotbe fitted into the traditional mixed

plant-ings and crop rotations, and with the widespread land

short-age and subsequent lengthening of crop cycles, soil erosion

has become everywhere a serious problem The overcuttingof

timber for export, charcoal, and fuel has also caused

widespreaddeforestation andsoilerosion

Manyculturally determined forms of division of laborare

recognized-between men and women, between old andyoung, and between people of different occupations andranks The general principle has been that men are responsi-ble for the heavier tasks of farming and production, and alsoforwarfare, ritual,and government; women are responsible forlighter farm work, for domestic tasks related to householdmaintenance and child rearing, and for giving personal andinformal advice in everyday family and political matters

There are great variations in the apportionment ofsuch work

ascattle milking and care, divination, craft production, andlocal trade Women are traditionally disadvantaged legally(forexample, theymayrarely initiate divorce) But much ofthe description of African gender roles has been based on

non-African viewpoints and requires more ethnographic

re-search and understanding With modem changes ineverydaylife, these traditionally complementary roles are frequentlybeing redefined and resanctioned In many areas, labor has al-ways been scarce, and traditional forms ofslavery, peonage,and other forms of nonpaid labor have been imposed Non-

paid labor has beenanessential aspect of most of therate and powerful kingdoms, the rulers of which have beenable tocommand alarge labor supply for both productive andmilitary purposes Until the late twentiethcentury,wagelaborseems tohave beenunknown I

elabo-Until about the mid-twentieth century, production hadbeen largelyfor subsistence, with little surplus Exchange ofkin and gifts has been practiced Exchange by redistribution

offoodstuffs and other items was also widespread, in the forms

oftribute to local rulers and in thematters'reciprocal ity and protection The items that were given to rulers in-cluded both subsistence items and also those with symbolicvalue (such as elephant tusks and eagle feathers, both ofwhich symbolize royal power), as well as labor and militaryservice Local exchange by barter has been almost universal,owing largely to lack of traditional forms of money, except inplaces-mainly in coastal areas-where there had been earlytrade with Europeans and Asians

hospital-Where there was exchange by money, it was of variouskinds The most typical involved forms of money that were oflimited use and rather than being intended for universal ex-change, such as metal bars called "manillas." Markets arefound in most areas of the continent, and aretypicallyheldperiodically In most of them, even today, some items are ex-changed without money Long-distance trade has always beenfar more widespread than was reported by early European trav-elers Items traded have been animal products, such as ivory,hides, and skins; slaves; salt; gold, copper, and iron; and craftgoods of many kinds Most of thelong-distance trade routeswere ultimately linked to the extra-African ocean trade atports along the coasts

The present economy of Africa is one of rapid changeand considerable variation in types of production and distri-bution The continent is, to a greater extent than ever before,part of a single world economy, but its role in that economyremains essentially that of a region that is being exploited

IntroductiontoAfrica xxix

Sincethe late nineteenth century, in particular, the impact of

colonialruleby European powers has greatly affected the

tra-ditional economies,inaddition to the consequences of several

centuries of slave trading by European and Asian slavers

Whereaspreviously the exploitation of metals had been in

most areas amarginal form of production, the extraction of

gold, copper, bauxite, and diamonds has become paramount

Other factors that have deeply marked twentieth-century

African life include the establishment of large-scale

planta-tionenterprises(for such products as cocoa, coffee, tea, palm

oil, cotton, hemp, rubber, and sugar); the introduction of

modem consumergoods and the establishment of forms of

taxationby cash that can be obtained only by ever-increasing

labor migration frompoorer regions to magnet areas; the

in-creasinginequality between the elite and the poor; the growth

of industrial centers and the construction of long-distance

road and rail transport facilities; the introduction of widely

available formsof money and the lessening of interpersonal

forms of exchange; and the appearance of more populous

urban centers, that attract impoverished proletariats The

pace of thesechanges has been more and more rapid: greater

and deeper changes have occurred in the years since World

WarIIthan had occurred throughout the nineteenth century

Patterns of Settlement

Africa has always been and remains even now a region of

small rural settlements, with urban centers of several kinds

in-terspersed among them Settlement patterns vary regionally,

depending on differences in ecology, economy, and routes of

communication and onthe distribution of natural resources

and oftrading centers With the general poverty of

produc-tionin most parts ofAfrica, the most efficient pattern of

set-tlement has been that of many small villages, each generally

self-sufficient and not dependent on transport or trade, except

for specialty items In most of Africa,short-lasting materials

have generally been used for building houses, which,

there-fore, have only rarely been permanent The dwellings built of

adobe or stone last longer than those of mud and wood, and,

in many areas-especially the western African savanna-they

have beenarchitecturally quite elaborate But with a general

pattern ofshifting farming and pastoralism, coupled with a

lack of means for theaccumulation of wealth by inheritance,

thealmost universal pattern of settlements that last for only a

few years, certainly for less than a generation, has been highly

efficient

Nonetheless, Africa has also been, and is increasingly, a

continent on which urbanism and urbanization have

flour-ished We may distinguish three main types of urban centers

One isthat of the traditional precolonial town, built of

long-lasting materials andtypically occupied by people who are

en-gaged in craft production and commerce The greatest of

these centers are innorthern Africa-in Egypt, Morocco,

Al-geria, and Tunisia.Others are in western Africa, in particular

in both northern andsouthern Nigeria-cities such as Ibadan

and Kano, each of which numbered many thousands in

popu-lation even before the advent of colonial rule There are also

the ancient townsofEthiopia and the Sudan and the

stone-built trading townsalong the eastern African coast that have

been on the same sites for many centuries (e.g.,Mombasa, in

Kenya) Ancient (often ruined) towns also exist elsewhere

along the southernSaharan fringes (e.g., the medieval town

of Djenn6,inMali) andinotherplaces (e.g., theruinsofthe

stone fortresses ofancientZimbabwe) Mostofthese

tradi-tional towns and cities have had ethnically homogeneouspopulations, ruled by indigenous kings,and their residents'

mainoccupations have beeen both trade andfarming,withfarmerslivinginthetownsand commutingouttotheir farms

Asecond type oftowncomprisesthose builtby the nial powers,usuallyas new industrialcentersassociated withextractive industries(gold, diamonds, copper) Thesetowns

colo-were often sited inareasoflowpopulation density, and theyhaveneededacontinuous influx oflabor,aswasthecase in

Johannesburg and the towns of the Zambian and Zairean

Copperbelt Othercolonial towns, suchasNairobi,inKenya,were established as communication centers Most ofthesemodemcitieshavealso become administrative and businesscenters They have heterogeneous populations, drawing as

they doon immigrants from wide areas, and typically they

haveasexualimbalance,giventhatmostimmigrantsaremen

whosewivesstaybehindtofarminthe ruralareas.

Inthe third category oftown arethe many smallships" thatwereestablishedduringthe colonialperiodaslocaladministrative and tradingcenters Theyremainimportant

"town-everywhere asmarkets, and they provide links between therural areasand themoremodemcities

Onefactor of crucial importancetoAfricanurbanization

is that oflabor migration, especiallyinthe newlyestablishedcitiesthat need large numbers of unskilled laborers Because

the African continentisgenerally impoverished,thecities act

asmagnet areas,asplaceswheremen(andsomewomen)can

make the money thatisunobtainable intheruralareas.Thegeneral process (since around themid-twentiethcentury)hasbeen that the cities attract men fromthe country, who work

inthemuntil they grow old and returntotheir ruralhomes

Meanwhile, the ruralareashave a surplus of women,onwhoseshoulders fall all the tasks of farming In some areas, especially

in southern Africa, this imbalance has led to serious land

crowding, underproduction, and social collapse in the trysideand to a violent and predatory life in the large cities,where the men are never more than temporary sojourners.Furthermore, such cities are the seats of modem elites, at-tractedby the money and power that are available there, whoareskilled enoughtobenefit from thenewopportunitiesof-fered by modem industry and commerce During the twenti-eth century, anewclass structure has been emerging, whichcloselyresembles those found in the countries ofthemodemindustrializedworld outside Africa Within this upper elite arebothwealthy merchants and modem political leaders, whoseinterests are more likely to coincide with those of fellowmembers ofthe elite elsewhere than with members of thelocalcommunities fromwhich they have come

coun-Family, Kinship,andDomestic GroupingsThe family is a universal group throughoutAfrica, with manydifferentformsand functions Everywherethebasic family unit

is the elementary or nuclear family, a smalldomestic groupmade upof ahusband, his wife, andtheirchildren; frequently,attached kin are included as well This group is formed by amarriageandendseitherwith the deathof oneofthe spouses

or withdivorce.Where polygyny ispermitted,a husbandandhis wives form a compoundfamily.Elementary andcompoundfamiliesinmost parts of thecontinenttraditionallyhavealso

xxx IntroductiontoAfrica

beenunitsof wider andlonger-lastingfamilies,known asjoint

orextended families In these families, there aretypically two

or more generations, either agroup ofbrothers and sons and

their wives and children (a patrilineal joint family) or, insome

places, agroup ofsisters and their husbands and children (a

matrilineal joint family) Thiskind of family is long-lasting,

and indeed self-perpetuating;a death makes nodifference to

itsoverall structure, and thus it can last over several

genera-tions,withamembership of up to a hundred people and more

As a general rule, joint and extended families are found in

ruralrather than inurbansettlements, the latter more usually

being occupied bymanyelementary families, eachinisolation

from the others But here are many exceptions (e.g., the

Yoruba of the traditional southern Nigerian cities, who

main-tainextendedfamilies even today)

The basis ofkinship, in Africa as elsewhere, is descent

from an ancestor The most widespread descent group is

known as the clan, which can be either patrilineal or

matri-lineal The members of the former type of clan comprise all

those who are born from a singlefounding ancestor through

themale line only; those of the latter comprise all those born

from asingle founding ancestor or ancestress through the

fe-male line only Patriliny is far more common in Africa than

matriliny, which is limited mainly to parts of Zambia and

Malawi, incentral Africa, and to Ghana and Ivory Coast, in

westernAfrica Regardless of the meansof descent, authority

inthe family and elsewhere is always formally held by men;

therefore, men have domestic authority in both patrilineal

and matrilineal families (formal matriarchy is unknown in

Africa) Clans, which are rarely corporate units in Africa, are

clusters of kinwho claim a single common ancestry but can

rarely, if ever, trace the actual links of descent Usually clans

areexogamous units andmay recognize various ritual

prohibi-tions, such as taboos oncertain foods, that give them a sense

ofunityand ofdistinctiveness from others

Clans are typically segmented into constituent groups,

with eachgroup recognizing a founding ancestor more recent

than the clan founder; these are known in the literature as

lineages, one of the criteria for a lineage being that its

mem-bers-patrilineal or matrilineal-can trace actual kinship

links between themselves Lineages may themselves be

seg-mented into smaller units, the smallest typically being the

group around which adomestic family is established Such a

family (if patrilineal) includes the husband and his children,

all membersof the small lineage, and his wife, who by the rule

ofexogamy must come from another clan

Other forms of descent are recognized, the most common

ofwhich is cognatic descent, whereby local kin groups are

composed of members who recognize their common descent

throughboth men andwomen A few societies recognize both

patrilinealand matrilineal descentsimultaneously Some

soci-eties inAfrica do not formally recognize these forms of

de-scent atall, but they are not typical and usually consist of

long-settled urban dwellers

Almostevery African society has someform of descent

group, however transitory, as the basis of itssocial

organiza-tion.The recognition of these variations of ancestral descent

is aneffective way ofconstructing local groups that can last

for several-often formany-generations and in which the

close-knit tiesofkinship providepowerful links through the

notion ofcommon"blood." By claiming exclusive ancestry,

such a group can claim exclusive rights to clan and lineage

property Marriagesbetweentheir members, by the rule of ogamy,cementthem intolarger communities and societies,each possessing itsownsenseof common ethnic andcultural

ex-"belonging." Although these traditional forms offamily andkinshiparelesseninginimportance, with the continuing needfor urban and industrialized labor and the consequentincrease

inlabormigration,thestrength of kin groups remains great.They arewell suited totraditional forms of production andexchange where thesearefound(whichisstill thecaseamongthe majority of Africanpeoples), and they provide asenseofpersonal identity and security thatisofhighemotivevalue

Marriage

InmostofAfrica, marriage is more aofunion between twolineages or families than it is a union between theindividualhusband and wife Marriageisundertaken for many reasons,but theprimaryonesaretoprovide legitimate successors tostatus and inheritors ofpropertyrights andtoform alliancesand ties between clans and other units, in order to knit themintoasinglesociety

Incest within certain degrees of kinship is everywhere

forbidden Exogamy, theprohibition of marriage within taindescent groups, istypically practiced with regard to clanand other basic social units, such as those of the tribe and set-tlement.Endogamy is found in some societies,those in whichthere arepolitical or mercantile elites that prefer to retainpower andwealthwithin theirownhandsthrough marriagesamongthemselves

cer-Acrucial factor in any marriagearrangement is whether

patrilineal,matrilineal,orcognaticgroups form thebasicsocialstructure.Inpatrilinealsystems, marriage istypicallysealed bythetransfer of property, known as bride-wealth, usually in theform ofcattle Thehusband's group transfers property to that ofthe wife,inreturn forthe transfertothemof rights of procre-ation andsexuality on the part of the wife from those who havebeenher guardians (e.g., her father or her brothers) Usually, ifdivorce later occurs, the bride-wealth must be returned, less aproportion for each child who remains with the husband'sgroup.There are many variations, but this simple principle gen-erally holds true Inmatrilineal societies,bride-wealth is nottransferred because the children belong to the wife's clan or lin-eage and will inherit from that group; the husband's heirs arehis sisters'children, and his own children inherit from his wife'sbrothers, their maternal uncles There is no need for bride-wealth, as rights in a woman's children are not transferred, al-

thoughsmallgiftsarealways presented, and the husband mayhavetowork for his wife's parents forsome time

Residence after marriage is linked to several factors In

patrilinealsystems, it isnearly always virilocal, with the wifeliving in herhusband's natal settlement and being regarded as

a"stranger" until she has borne children to his group In rilineal systems, residence may be virilocal, or it may be uxo-rilocal, in which case the husband goes to live with his wife'srelatives and remains a "stranger" in that settlement Withuxorilocal residence inparticular, the husband's position isoften ambivalent, and divorce is more frequent In manyplaces, however, especially in urban centers, residence aftermarriage isincreasingly becoming neolocal: the husband andwifeestablish their own home, awayfrom those of either set ofparents

mat-Polygyny hastraditionally been the ideal It is rare,

how-IntroductiontoAfrica xxxi

ever, formorethan aquarter ofthemen in acommunity to

have more than one wife, and a man's later wives are

fre-quentlythose inherited froma seniordeceased kinsman(by

the institution ofthe levirate orbywidow inheritance) In

many societies, women marry atpuberty, but menmarryin

their thirtiesorevenlater Thismakes polygyny possible

be-causeby then therearefewermarriageablemen,asmany will

have diedfromnaturalcauses orfromwarfare

Government and Politics

Africansocietiestodayhavetwolevels of government: the

in-digenousorganization,which pertainstolocal groups, and the

national government of the independentnation-states The

relationship between thetwolevelsiscomplexand has ledto

seriousincompatibilitiesand conflicts

Ithas become usualtoclassify the multitudeofindigenous

forms of African government into three main categories,

con-ventionallyknownasbands, tribes, and kingdoms Bandsare

relatively fewandarelimitedtothesocietieswitheconomies

basedonhunting andgathering, especiallythoseofthe

Bush-men ofthe Kalahari and theforagersof the central African

forests Their economies require a low density of population

and, therefore, itswidedistributionoverlargeareas,which

in-hibits permanent or large settlements These bands are not

foundintotal isolation but are interspersed with culturally

dif-ferent groups withdistinct andcomplementaryeconomies

Es-sentially, the bands are large kinship groups under the

authorityoffamilyelders and shamanic ritual leaders

"Tribes,"awordlessoften used today thanit wasformerly

because it isheldtoimply"primitiveness," form the

numeri-cally largest politicalcategory Tribesare largerandmore

set-tled than bands, but they still lack any overall form of

centralizedpolitical authority Theyhavenokings and,inthe

past,usuallyhadnoformally appointed chiefs, althoughthere

havealwaysbeen ritual leaders withsomedegree ofpolitical

authority.Mostofthesesocieties arebased uponastructureof

clans,whicharesegmented intosubclansand lineages, often

with threeorfour levelsofsegmentation.Aclanorlineageis

thebasicunitof suchatribal organization, inwhichthetribe

resembles a series of small, equal, and quasi-autonomous

groups The traditionalsanctions for social orderareritual,

feud, and warfare Other tribal systems place emphasis on age

rather than ondescent, and everyday government is in the

hands of councils based on the recruitment ofmen (and

women) ofsimilar age Initiation atpuberty isextremely

im-portant, inorder that ties between age-mates (whether young

warriors orlegislative elders)overcomethoseofbirthand

de-scent Thesesocieties arefound especially in easternAfrica

amongpastoralists, such as the Maasai In yet other tribal

so-cieties,mostlyinwesternAfrica, governmentisby some form

of association (including the so-called "secret societies") of

menandwomen ofequal age and standing

Inthethird type of indigenous political structure-that

of thekingdomorstate-political authority is centered onthe

office ofaking (sometimes a queen), who is chosen from a

royal clan and given sacred attributes by his or her subjects

Kingdoms rangeinpopulationfrom afewthousandpeopleto

several million, and their rulers vary from being little more

thanritualfigureheads (as among the Shillukof thesouthern

Sudan, the prototype ofJames 0 Frazer's "divine" king) to

military despots with powers of life and death These

king-doms may have arisen byconquest (asthose of the Zulu orSwazi ofsouthernAfrica)orby combininginto afederation of

culturallyrelated states (asthose of the Asante orGhana).

Therulermay beregardedas a seniorkinsmantohissubjects,

asamemberofasociallyseniorroyal clan,or as amember of

anethnicallydistinct autocracy(asinthe formerRwanda andBurundikingdoms) Inall of thekingdoms,howeverpowerful

theirrulers,there havealwaysbeeninstitutionalizedmeansby

which the people controlledroyalpower Suchaxiomsas"the

kingis aslave"areacceptedinmany Africankingdoms.In

ad-dition, ithas been almost universal for theretobeperiodic

rituals ofpurification of both thekingas an individual andthekingshipas anofficeor institution in its ownright,inde-

pendentofthe temporary incumbent(well-known examples

arethose heldinthekingdomsof theSwazi,Zulu,andAkan).

Allof these different kinds ofpoliticalunitsexisttoday,

althoughthe traditional powersofkingswereinvariablyited andweakened during colonial rule.In somecolonial sys-tems, inparticularthatof the British,the indigenous rulers

lim-werepermittedtoreignwithout the power ofinflictingdeath

orwaging war,under thepolicyof "indirectrule";inother tems,especiallyintheFrenchcolonies,it was moreusual for

sys-indigenousrulerstobecome littlemorethanfigureheads-or

estab-settledbytheOrganizationofAfricanUnity

The leaders of thesenew stateshave been faced with the

problem tryingto construct and retain notions ofnational

identity,andtothisaimhavetheytendedtoreduce still ther the powers oftraditional rulers andofthelocal councilsand courts, whicharebasedon associationordescent The

fur-indigenous local political units may retain the loyalties of

theirmembers,but thisloyaltyhastypicallybeencondemned

as"tribalism" and(usually mistakenly)consideredtobe theticalto"nationalism."Theindigenous rulingeliteshavebeen weakened and have been replaced by modem elites,

anti-whose memberships are based on wealth and commerce

rather thanontraditional affiliations The clashes betweenthetwoprinciplesoforganization-class and descent-haveledtogross conflicts ofinterestand oftentoarmedstruggles

withinmilitaryand one-party governments, which have

sup-pressedprotestationsand expressions ofdemocraticdissentas

"tribalism."

Religion

Africantraditionalreligionswereat one time(andstilltoday

to some extent) considered by outsiders to be "primitive,"

filledwith "jujus" andwitchcraft,orelse tobebasedontional display beyond the comprehension ofnon-Africans

emo-Both are racistviews:therealityisquite different

African traditionalreligionsall recognize theexistenceof

a Supreme Divinityor CreatorGod, usually otiose and

be-yond personalcontact byordinary people Each indigenous

society hasits owndivinityinthissense.Betweenthepeople

and thedivinity there are believed to be bothmysticaland

xxxii Introduction to Africa

living intermediaries The former include various spirits and

ancestors, towhom sacrifice and prayer are typically offeredin

responsetoillhealth, lack of success,oruncertainty ofrole

Contact is also made between the living and these mystical

agents through possession Living intermediaries include

priests, diviners, and prophets, all of whom are thought to

have divine knowledge Priests are rarely specialists;they are

moreoften theheads of lineages and families, although some,

such asrainmakers, play more specialized roles Diviners (and

oracle operators) are thought to have the power to explain

the meanings of the past and present andtoforetellthe

fu-ture.Prophetsarethe messengersoremissaries ofthe divinity

They come to communities that experience disasters and

troubles(natural, medical,orpolitical) beyond their

compre-hension and control, bringing advice and messages from the

divinity They exercise charismatic authority over their

fol-lowers, and,if successful, may establish new forms of social

or-ganization that may, in time, take on political and other

functions, in addition to the primarily religious ones

Beliefs in evildoers, especially witches and sorcerers, are

widespread These evildoersbring harm to their rivals by

mys-tical means, an expression of the traditionally small-scale,

personal organization of local societies: harm comes fromkin

and neighbors who are in disagreement orarehavinga

dis-pute, rather than fromdistant impersonalforces

Both Christianity and Islam have long histories in

Africa,Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia as early as the

fourth century, but in most of the continent, it wasspread by

Europeanevangelization, beginning with the Portuguese on

the western African coast and in the kingdom of Kongo in the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and also along the eastern

African coast Missionary enterprise did not reach its peak

until afterthe eighteenth century During the twentieth

cen-tury, most conversion has beenby African Christian prophets

and other local leaders Islam was taken to the northern and

eastern Africancoasts inthe seventhand tenth centuries,

re-spectively, and was carried southward into the Sudan and

throughout the western African savanna zone after the

eleventh century, largely byIslamic traders and brotherhoods

and occasionally through a jihad, or "holy war."

Africatoday has a higher rate of conversion to

Christian-ity than does any other continent; Islam is also widespread

One cause of this high rate of conversion is the steadily

widen-ing gap,throughout the continent, between the most wealthy

and the most impoverished, with a concomitant decline in the

importance of local deities and mystical forces Education is

another important factor, especially where vernacular

transla-tions of the Bible have been made available Anti-European

sentiment has undoubtedly fed Africans' wishes to form purely

African religious congregations, with their own local leaders,

ut it would be a mistake to suggest that local people see the

various religions that are open to them in strictly either-or

terms Most people, in Africa as elsewhere, may assent to more

than one religion and turn to whichever one would appear to

be the more likely to bring good health, success, certainty, and

happiness in any specific situation

Conclusion

African societies, with their strong recognition of cultural

tra-ditions,face the deep problems that characterize a modem

so-ciety, most of which are neither of their making nor even of

theirwishing.Africansocietiesandtheir cultures have gonecontinual changeasfar backashistoryandprehistory

under-canillumine,and their experience of severalcenturiesof theoverwhelming economic, military,social, and cultural power

of colonial overrule has ledtobothchanges and stagnation.Postcolonial "development" strategies, well-intentioned or

not, haveinmany respectscontinued the effects of ism,through economicexploitationandfinancialindebted-ness In addition, Africa has been used by outside powers,especiallyduringthecold war,asasurrogate battlegroundbe-

colonial-tween these powers Mostpostcolonial "economic

develop-ment" hasfailed,owingto itsbeing controlled by "experts"who haveassumed thatAfrican societies arethesame asthose

ofindustrialized nationsandwhoareignorant of theminute

details of Africancultures,social organization, andproblems

of local identity and purpose that lie below the level of thenation-state Sadly, little progress has been madesince theend of colonialism toward any real improvement inthe lives

of theordinarypeople: instead, changehas beenatthe level

of theelites,whohave takenchargeof "modernization"andbenefited fromit.Nevertheless,Africancultural traditionsre-mainstrong,andthey arestillcapableofabsorbingexternalinfluences andtransformingthemintotheirown

Bibliography

GENERAL

Bohannan, Paul, and Philip Curtin (1988) Africa andAfricans 3rd ed ProspectHeights,Ill.: Waveland Press.Davidson, Basil (1969) The African Genius Boston: Little,Brown &Co

Forde, C Daryll, ed (1950-) The Ethnographic Survey ofAfrica London: InternationalAfrican Institute

Gibbs,James (1965).The Peoples ofAfrica NewYork: Holt,

Rinehart & Winston

Martin,Phyllis, and Patrick O'Meara (1977) Africa ington: Indiana University Press

Bloom-Middleton, John (1970) Black Africa: Its People and TheirCultures Today New York: Macmillan

Murdock, George P (1959) Africa: Its People and Their tureHistory New York:McGraw-Hill

Cul-Oliver,Roland, and Michael Crowder, eds (1981) The bridge Encyclopedia of Africa Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press

Cam-Ottenberg, Simon, and Phoebe Ottenberg (n.d.) Cultures andSocietiesof Africa New York: Random House

HISTORY AND PREHISTORY

Clark,J Desmond (1970) The Prehistory of Africa N.p.Coquery-Vidrovich, Catherine (1988) Africa Berkeley andLos Angeles: Universityof California Press

IntroductiontoAfrica xxxiii

Curtin, Philip, Leonard Thompson, Steven Feierman, and

Jan Vansina, eds (1978) African History Boston: Little,

Brown & Co

Davidson, Basil (1986) Africa in History New York:

Macmillan

Davidson, Basil (1992) The BlackMan'sBurden NewYork:

TimesBooks

Hiernaux, Jean (1974) The People of Africa New York:

Charles Scribner's Sons

Newman, James L (1994) The Peopling of Africa New

Haven:YaleUniversity Press

Oliver,RolandA.(1961) TheDawnof AfricanHistory

Lon-don: Oxford University Press

Oliver, RolandA.(1967) The MiddleAgeofAfricanHistory

London: Oxford UniversityPress

Oliver,RowlandA.,andJohnFage(1962).AShortHistoryof

Africa Harmondsworth: Penguin Books

Vansina,Jan (1966).Kingdoms of theSavanna Madison:

Uni-versityof WisconsinPress

Vansina,Jan (1978) The ChildrenofWoot: A History of the

Kuba People Madison: University ofWisconsin Press

Wilks, Ivor (1975) Asante inthe Nineteenth Century

Cam-bridge: Cambridge UniversityPress

SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Balandier, Georges (1970) Political Anthropology

Har-mondsworth:PenguinBooks

Bohannan,Paul, andGeorgeDalton, eds (1962) Markets in

Africa Evanston,Ill.: NorthwesternUniversity Press

Colson,E.,andMaxGluckman,eds (1951) Seven Tribes of

British Central Africa London:Oxford University Press

Deng, Francis (1971) Tradition and Modernization New

Haven:YaleUniversity Press

Evans-Pritchard, E.E (1940) The Nuer Oxford: Clarendon

Press

Falters, L A (1956) A Bantu Bureaucracy Cambridge:Heffer

Fallers,L A (1964) The King's Men London: Oxford

Uni-versityPress

Fortes,Meyer,and E E Evans-Pritchard, eds (1940) African

PoliticalSystems. London:OxfordUniversityPress.

Gluckman, Max (1963) Orderand Rebellion in Tribal Africa

London:Cohen& West

Kuper,Hilda (1947).AnAfrican Aristocracy London:Oxford

UniversityPress(Swazi)

Mair, Lucy (1962) Primitive Government Harmondsworth:

Uni-Radcliffe-Brown, A R., and D Forde, eds (1950) African

SystemsofKinshipand Marriage London: Oxford University

Southall,A.W.(1956) Alur Society Cambridge:Heffer

Winter,EdwardH.(1956) Bwamba.Cambridge:Heffer

RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, AND SYMBOLISM

Arens,W.,and1.Karp, eds.(1989) CreativityofPower:

Cos-mology and Action in African Societies Washington, D.C.:SmithsonianInstitutionPress

Beattie,John, and John Middleton, eds (1969) Spirit umship and SocietyinAfrica.London:Routledge&KeganPaul.Biebuyck, Daniel, andK Mateene (1969).TheMwindoEpic

Medi-Berkeley andLosAngeles: University ofCalifornia Press

Bloch,Maurice(1971) Placing the Dead: Tombs, Ancestral

Vil-lages,and Kinship OrganizationonMadagascar.NewYork: inar Press

Sem-Boddy,Janice (1989) Wombs andAlienSpirits Madison:

Uni-versity of Wisconsin Press

Drewal, Henry, and John Pemberton (1989) Yoruba: NineCenturiesof AfricanArtandThought.NewYork: Abrams

Evans-Pritchard, E E (1937) NuerReligion Oxford: don Press

Claren-Evans-Pritchard, E E (1937) Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magicamongthe Azande.Oxford: Clarendon Press

Forde, Daryll, ed (1954) African Worlds London: OxfordUniversity Press

Fortes, Meyer, andGermaine Dieterlen, eds (1965) AfricanSystemsof Thought London:Oxford University Press

xxxiv IntroductiontoAfrica

Greenberg,Joseph H.(1963) The Languages of Africa

Indi-anaUniversity Research Center inAnthropology, Folklore,

and Linguistics, Publicationno 25 TheHague:Mouton

Horton, Robin (1993) Patterns of ThoughtinAfrica and the

West.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Karp, Ivan, andC.Bird, eds (1980) ExplorationsinAfrican

Thought Bloomington:Indiana UniversityPress

Lan, David(1986).GunsandRain Manchester: Manchester

UniversityPress

Lewis, loan M (1971) Ecstatic Religion Harmondsworth:

PenguinBooks

Lewis, loan M., ed (1966) IslaminTropical Africa London:

OxfordUniversity Press

Lienhardt, R G (1961) Divinity and Experience: The Religion

oftheDinka.Oxford: Clarendon Press

MacGaffey, Wyatt (1986) Religion and Society in Central

Africa: The BaKongo of Lower Zaire Chicago: University of

Mudimbe,V.Y.(1994).The IdeaofAfrica.Bloomington:

Indi-anaUniversityPress

Parrinder, E.G (1954) AfricanTraditionalReligion London:SheldonPress

Peel, J D Y (1968) Aladura London: Oxford University

Claren-Willett, Frank (1971) AfricanArt.London: Thames&Hudson

andSorcery in East Africa London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Introduction to the Middle East

Theterm"MiddleEast" isgenerallyrecognizedtodaytorefer

to aregionthat stretches from the Atlantic Oceaninthewest

toAfghanistanintheeast,adistanceofapproximately5,600

kilometers Ithas a total population of around 300 million

people and encompasses the countries of Morocco, Algeria,

Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi

Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates,

Oman,Yemen, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran The African countries

of Mauritania and Sudanarealso consideredtobe within the

"MiddleEast."

This usage of the term "Middle East" has increasingly

come tosupplant themoreconventional usage,which divided

thearea into tworegions, the Middle Eastand North Africa

The term "North Africa" referred tothe Arab countries of

Morocco,Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya; "the Middle East," on

the otherhand,referred to Egypt(which isgeographically

lo-cated in North Africa) as well as the rest of the Arab

coun-tries tothe east plus Israel, Turkey, and Iran French scholars,

ingeneral, continue to refer to France's former North African

coloniesof Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia by the Arabic term

"Maghreb"and to Egypt andthe rest of the Arab countries as

the "Near East." Theterm'Maghreb"derives fromthe Arabic

designation bilad al-Maghreb, meaning "the countries of the

west" or, more literally, "the land where the sun sets." The

term wastraditionallyusedby Arabs todistinguish this partof

the Arabworld from the more eastern parts, which were

re-ferred to as bilad al-Mashreq, the "countries of the east" or "the

landwherethe sun rises."

Today,however, the terms "Middle Eastern" and "Middle

East"have beenadoptedby thepeople of the entire region to

refer tothemselves and to their part of the world, in much the

same way as such terms as "Europe," "Central Asia," and

"SoutheastAsia" areused to broadly identify highly complex

andculturally diversified regions of the world

The Middle East, as defined above, encompasses four

distinctculture areas: Arab, Turkish, Iranian, and the newly

evolvedIsraeli culture The Arab, Turkish, and Iranian

cul-tures areheirstogreatIslamic empires that had their centers

in the region and represent three distinct variations within

the global Islamic civilization The most recent and most

enduringofthese, theOttoman Empire, ruled over most of

the Middle East, as wellas parts of eastern Europe, for almost

500years,until its demise and dismemberment at the end of

World War 1 Out ofits ashes arose the modern state of

Turkey, as well as the majority of the contemprary Arab

nation-states

From the historical perspective, the Middle East is

knownasthe "cradle of civilizations." Itstwomajorrivertems, the Nile Valley in Egypt, andthe Ttgris-Euphrates inIraq(ancientMesopotamia)werethesitesof the world's earli-

sys-est civilizations (e.g., Egyptian,Sumerian, Babylonian, and

Assyrian) This iswhere urban life and centralized forms of

political organization arose; it is also thebirthplace of theworld's three major monotheistic religions,Judaism, Chris-

tianity,andIslam

These three distinct yetrelatedreligionswereforged inthe contextof the Middle East, and all threecontinue today

tofind expressioninand give meaningtothelives of the ple of the region

peo-Archaeologistsworkingin theareahave uncovered

evi-dence ofthe prehistoric domestication ofplantsand animalsand thebeginningof settledlifeasfarback backin timeasthe

Neolithicor New StoneAge From sitesscatteredalongthehilly flanks of themountainrangesinIraq, Iran, andIsrael,ar-chaeologists are reconstructing the cultural evolution thattransformed our human ancestors fromnomadic hunters andgatherers intosettled villagerswhocultivated domesticatedvarieties ofwheat andbarley and keptdomesticated sheep andgoats This majorepochinhuman history, which can be datedback to 8000 B.C.,has beenreferred to as the "AgriculturalRevolution"tounderscoreitssignificanceinthedevelopment

of ourculturalhistory

The transition fromanadaptationbasedonhunting andgatheringto onebasedonfoodproductionand settled com-munity lifewas theprelude to the next phase in human cul-turalevolution, the beginning of civilization, which in theMiddle East goesbacktoabout 5000B.C The culture complex

werefer toas"civilization" includesurbanism, a writing tem, monumental architecture, long-distance trade, a com-plex socialorder, andacentralized state system, often focused

sys-on adivineking Thistransformationisfully illustrated in thearchaeological records of the different civilizations that suc-ceeded each otherinthe region:Sumer, Egypt,Akkad, Baby-lon, and Assyria Thehistory of dynastic Egypt is perhaps themostcomplete; it has been traced back to 3100 B.C., whenMenes, the king of Upper Egypt, successfully conqueredLower Egypt andruled thenewly united kingdom ofEgyptfrom his capital in Thebes Despite a series of invasions-Roman, Arab, Ottoman, andBritish-Egypt has alwaysre-mained a unitedcountry withaverystrong sense of its uniqueidentity

Iran, or Persia, as it was formerly known, is a countrywith along and illustrious history TheIranians,who speak an

Indo-Europeanlanguage, Farsi, are also heirs to a great lization and an imperial past.Priorto its conquestby theMus-

civi-lim Arabs in the seventh century, Iran was the center of the

Xxav

XXxvi Introduction tothe MiddleEast

SassAnidEmpire,aPersiandynasty that had adopted

Zoroas-trianism asthe state religion Zoroastrianismisconsideredby

some scholars to be one of the first"ethical" religions and a

precursor toearly Judaism The prophet Zoroaster declared

the coexistenceofGood andEvil inthe world andcalled on

humans to uphold the Good by combatting Evil Although

the overwhelming majority ofZoroastrians were converted

following the Muslim invasion, a small community of them

remainstoday in Iran

Physical and Human Geography

Tobest appreciatethe ethnic complexity and cultural history

ofthe Middle East,it isnecessary toknow a little about the

physicaland human geography of the region Population

pat-terns, modes of subsistence, and cultural systems havetheir

basis in theearly adaptation of the humanpopulation to its

natural environment and its constraints In the Middle East,

the natural environment is best described as semiarid In fact,

morethan 80percentofthe regionisdesert that receives less

than25centimeters ofrainfall a year A few areas, such as the

coastal zones of North Africa, Turkey, and the Eastern

Mediterranean, receive adequate rainfall to support

agricul-ture.The rainfall pattern in the interior ofthe region tends to

be highly unpredictable from one year to the nlxt;

conse-quently,rain-dependentagriculture is a risky venture

Peas-antstraditionally combine extensive cultivation with animal

husbandry to minimize risk and ensure their subsistence

Fromantiquity, the people of the Middle East have

devel-oped elaborate meansofwater control andmanagement

Irri-gation systemsdeveloped along the river valleys of Egypt and

Mesopotamia are, inlarge part, credited with providing the

basis for thedevelopment of the ancientcivilizations Today,

massive hydraulic projects likethe Aswan Dam of Egypt and

the Kur River planofsouth-central Iran testify to the

contin-ued need to conserve waterand extend its distribution for

agriculture On a more modestscale, traditional systems of

underwater canalswereconstructed tocarry water from the

seasonally formed underwater mountain streams to the fields

nearby

Topography is anotherdetermining factor in human

set-tlement andadaptation.The Middle East landscape alternates

betweenhigh ruggedmountainsand plateaus anddry lowland

areas, where thelinebetween the desert and even marginally

cultivatable land is sharply drawn Egypt, which has been

called"thegift of the Nile," is essentially a narrow ribbon of

densely settled valley carved out of the desert It is estimated

that over95percentofEgypt'spopulation is concentrated on

5percent ofitsterritory

The mountains in the Middle East include the Atlas

chain inMorocco, theAuras inAlgeria, the Lebanons, the

TaurusandPontic ranges inTurkey, and the Zagros and Elburz

inIran; the highest peak,Damnvandin the ElburzMountains,

has an elevation of 5,738meters The mountains in Turkey

and Iran enclose two high plateaus, punctuated by brackish

lakes (Van inTurkey andUrmia in Iran),that consist of large

tracts of salt flats and deserts

Apart fromoil, the region is generally poor in mineral

re-sources The mountains of North Africa, Turkey, and Iran

contain limited amountsofiron ore, copper, coal, and some

gold Importantphosphate deposits are found in Morocco and

inadjacent Western Sahara;infact Morocco isthe world's

third-largestproducer of phosphates, after the UnitedStates

and Russia

TheMiddleEastisrichinpetroleum The provenoil

re-servesof Saudi Arabia aloneareknown tobe 25 percentof

the world's total; those of Iraq, Iran, and Kuwaitconstituteanother25percent.Overall,it isestimated thatmorethan62

percentofall proven oilreserves arefoundinthe Middle Eastand North Africa Furthermore, Middle Eastern oil is bothcheaptoproduceand ofhighquality

The climateO regime throughout the region isgenerallyMediterranean, characterized by hot dry summers and coolwetwinters AlongtheGulfregion,however,asin some otherpartsof the region, summer temperaturescanpeakat490 C

At the same time, inthe winter, mountainvillagersin

Mo-rocco, Iraq,Turkey, and Iran experience freezing temperaturesand heavysnows

Patterns of Living

Inresponse tothe challenges posed bythe climate, phy, andlimitedwatersupply, thepeopleof the Middle Easthavefromthe beginning of recorded history pursued three dif-ferentbut related living patterns: urban, rural, and nomadic.The juxtaposition of the city, the village, and thenomad'scamp is adistinctive feature of the Middle East as aculturearea

topogra-The region boasts some of the oldestcitiesintheworld,suchas Damascus andIstanbul. Middle Eastern cities havebeenandremainthecenterofpolitical, religious, economic,andintellectual life; they dominate and overshadow the ruralcountryside where, until fairly recently, the majority of thepopulationlived as peasants, working on land owned or con-trolled by absenteeurban landlords In 1900 it was estimatedthatno morethan10percent ofthe region's populationwas

urbandwelling; by 1970, the proportion had grown to 40 cent.Althoughthereis noagreement concerningthe defini-tion ofa"city"or"urbansettlement," scholars agree that,on

per-the whole, slightly overhalf the inhabitantsofthe MiddleEast today live incenters ofmore than 20,000 people Theprojection forthe year 2000 is that more than 70 percent oftheinhabitants willbeurban dwellers The largest city in theregion, Cairo, hasmorethan12millioninhabitants and therearenow thirtycitieswithpopulationsexceeding halfamil-

lion As is thecase withother parts of the thirdworld, this celerated urban growth, which is largely the result ofrural-urban migration, has generatedsevere problems in hous-ing,employment,schooling, and services Given that the ma-jorityofthe region'spopulation is below 20 years of age, it isnot surprising that cities and towns,with their burgeoningshanty towns,arehotbeds ofpoliticaldissent and activism

ac-In contrast with the urban and rural populations, madicpastoralists have always constituted a small minority ofthe totalpopulationofthe region (and in the late twentiethcentury, no more than an estimated I percent) Althoughconditions affecting nomads vary from one country to thenext, overall,nomadic pastoralism has been onthe declinesince the turnofthetwentieth century In Iraq, for example,nomads were estimated to make upabout 35 to 40 percentof

no-the population in 1900; by the 1970s, their proportion haddeclined to2.8percent InSaudi Arabia, nomadsconstituted

approximately 40 percent of thepopulation, a figure that had

Introductiontothe Middle East xxxvii

declinedtoabout 11 percentby 1970.Likewise, Libya's

popu-lationwas25percentnomadicin 1960; inthe mid-1990s

no-mads constituteonly3.5 percentof the total

Thisdecline was vastly acceleratedinthe 1950swiththe

establishment of the modem nation-states and the influx of

oilwealth into the region; nomadic pastoralists have been

in-creasingly brought under the authority of central

govem-ments In Saudi Arabia, the once proudly independent

"noble" camel-herding Bedouin are now members of the

Saudi ReserveNational Guard or laborersinthe oil fields.In

Iraq,Syria, Iran, and Egypt, land-reformmeasures, changing

patternsof land use, andtheavailability of wageshave

com-bined toundermine the nomads' traditional way of lifeby

has-teningtheir integration into thenationalculture

Asaneconomicstrategy,pastoralnomadismis an

adapta-tion to the general semiaridity of the region Where true

desert conditions obtain, such as in the Sudanic belt of

north-em Africa and in the Arabian Peninsula, camel breeding

dominates In other, less arid areas, including the high

plateaus and mountains of the region, nomads concentrate on

sheepand goats

Nomadic pastoralists, who account for a small part of

food production in the region (when compared with

peas-ants),have a historical and cultural significance that far

out-weighs their number and economic contribution This is

generally true for all tribally organized nomadic populations,

be they Arab, Berber, Turkish, Kurdish, or Persian speakers

Historically, armed and mounted tribally organized

Arab-speakingnomads played an important roleinthe early Islamic

conquests ofthe Byzantine and Sissinidempires Likewise,

Berber-speakingnomadic andseminomadictribes were

instru-mental inthe Muslim conquest of Spain On the local level,

nomadic pastoralists have traditionally posed a challenge to

thepoliticalauthorityof their respective statesasthey

strug-gled to maintain their politicalautonomy and their distinct

cultural traditions

Despite certain shared elements of economic and

so-ciopoliticalorganization, itisimportant to keep in mindthat

nomadic pastoralists do not represent a homogeneous segment

ofMiddle Eastern population They differ in language,

sectar-ianaffiliation, and cultural traditions Even within one

coun-try,pastoralists may vary widely In southeastern Turkey, for

example, Turkish-, Arabic-, and Kurdish-speaking groups

share a common territory Likewise, insouthwesternIran,the

powerful Khamseh Confederacy is made up of Arabic, Persian,

andTurkish tribes The large majority of Kurdish pastoralists

are Sunni Muslims, but some groups profess Shia Islam

In Mauritania, Morocco, and Algeria, Arab- and

Berber-speakingtribes commingle

The Ethnic Mosaic

Theethnic and cultural diversity exhibited by nomadic

pas-toralists is of coursereflected in the larger "ethnic mosaic" of

the Middle East It should be noted that Western scholars

have, on the whole, overemphasized the sectarian and

cul-turaldifferentiation in the Middle East, thereby projecting a

picture of a highlyfragmented society torn apart by opposed

primordial loyalties and ancient animosities The fact is that,

whencompared with other parts of the world such as Russia,

Eastern Europe,and Southeast Asia, the Middle East exhibits

remarkable coherence as a culture area

Various factorsaccountforthis coherence.First, Turkey

and Iranaside,theoverwhelmingmajority ofthe inhabitants

ofthe regionareArabicspeakers, who, despitenationaland

regionalvariations indialect,shareasinglestandardwritten

version ofArabic, the language taught inschool and used

overthe radio and in the newspapers Second,theregion is

predominantlyMuslim andhas beensoforover amillennium.FromMoroccotoIraqandintoTurkey,theoverwhelmingma-jority ofthepopulation professSunniIslam; theIranians, by

contrast,are onthe whole Shia Muslims.Third,thetripartite

division of thepopulationintourban, rural,and nomadic

seg-ments is auniversalfeature throughouttheareadefinedhere

asthe MiddleEast

Toclaimarelative cultural coherencetotheregionis not

todeny the culturaldiversitythatexists; infact,each country

inthearea containsgroupsor minoritiesthataredistinct fromthe larger population in termsofsome cultural "marker" that

is recognized by themselves and others as the hallmark oftheiridentity.Theseethnicorcommunal markers includere-ligiousaffiliation, language, tribal membership,racial varia-

tion, and local customs. Of these, the two most importantmarkers ofethnicandculturalidentityinthe MiddleEastarelanguageandreligion.

It is importantto note that the recognition and

accep-tanceofethnic and communal differences have traditionally

been a fundamental principle ofsocial organization in theMiddle East This isespeciallythe caseforcommunities de-fined by religion.Until the demise of the Ottoman Empire

and theriseofmodernnationalisminthe region, social

inter-action wasstructuredin termsoftheindividual'smembership

in a given confessionalor "tribal" grouping This tendency

persists today; nationalistmovementsand secular ideologies

have failed tocompletely erode the morenarrowly definedidentitiesbasedonkinship (i.e.,tribe),religion,orlanguage.

The four majorlanguagefamiliesinthe region areEuropean, Semitic, AltaicorTurkic,and Afro-Asiatic Per-sian (Farsi), Kurdish, Luri, Baluchi, and Armenian are

Indo-Indo-European languages.Arabic and Hebrew belongtotheSemitic Family.Turkic languages include the modem stan-

dard Turkish, Azeri, and Turkmen Hebrew, Persian, andTurkisharethenationallanguagesofIsrael,Iran, andTurkey, respectively.Arabic isthe nationallanguageofall the other

countries intheregion.Persianis written inArabiccharactersanditsvocabulary includesalargenumber of Arabic words.Under the Ottomans, Turkish was also written in Arabic

characters; following the defeat ofthe Ottomans inWorldWar1, and aspart4ofthe efforttomodernizeTurkey,a stateedictin 1928replacedArabic withRomancharacters

In northwestern Africa (especially in the mountainous

regions ofMorocco andAlgeria) and inparts ofthe SaharaDesert, several dialects of Berber are spoken. Berber is an

Afro-Asiaticlanguage spoken bytheindigenousinhabitants

ofNorthAfricaand partsof theSahara

The Kurds, who number an estimated twenty million

people,constitutethelargest linguisticallydifferentiated

"eth-nic"groupinthe MiddleEast.Thelargemajorityof theKurds

are Sunni Muslims, many of whom also subscribe to aSufi

brotherhood,ortariqa; aminority of the Kurdsadhere toan

extreme form of ShiaIslam The Kurdsspeakseveral dialects

ofKurdish,anIndo-European language,andinhabita

moun-tainous areathat straddles the nationalfrontiers ofTurkey,Iran, Iraq, theformer SovietUnion, andSyria Inall of these

xxxviii IntroductiontotheMiddleEast

countries, theKurds constitute a significant"minority." The

dismembermentofthe Kurdish homeland and dispersion of

theKurdish people among anumber of different countries was

alegacyoftheEuropeancolonial powers (England and France

inparticular), the policiesand rivalries of whom were

instru-mentalingiving shapeto thepoliticalmapof the Middle East

as weknow it today

The Kurds have a longand complicated history of

politi-cal activism; going back to the 1920s, secular and religious

leaders have led movements aimedat achievingnational

in-dependence or, in somecases, regional autonomy.The

rela-tivesuccess or failure of these movements, whether in Iran,

Iraq, orTurkey, has varied with the natureof the ruling regime

and the geopolitical interests of theworld powers

The Berber-speaking groups of Morocco and Algeria,

who aremostly rural dwellers livingin mountain villages and

desertencampments, are Sunni Muslims, like their

Arabic-speaking compatriots Berbers have a strong sense of their

own distinct cultural identity, based on their separate

lan-guageand on their claim to be the indigenous inhabitants of

the region,predating the Arab-Muslim invasions of the

sev-enth century This "ethnic consciousness," however, remains

at the cultural level and does not imply political cleavage

Duringthe many years ofFrench-colonial domination of the

region, French policy was to encourage the notion that

'Berber" identity and "culture" were distinct from and

op-posed to that of the urban "Arab" and "Muslim" Moroccan

Thisattempt to "divide and rule" wasnot a success, however;

in fact,Berbers were in theforefront of the movements for

na-tional independence inMorocco and in Algeria

Religion

Religion is perhaps the single most important markerof

com-munal identity in the region Islam, the religion of the

over-whelming majority of thepopulation, originated innorthern

Arabia when the Prophet Mohammed (A.D 570-632)

suc-ceeded in converting the animist and pagantribes of the

Ara-bianPeninsula to the new religion Followingthe death of the

prophet Mohammed, Arab-Muslimarmies swept out of

Ara-bia in aseries of military expeditions that pitched the

Mus-limsagainst the Christian Byzantinesand theSdssinians, who

were Zoroastrians Defeated by the Muslims, the Byzantines

were forced to withdraw their armies from Jerusalem and

Damascus into the heartland of Anatolia,closer to their

capi-tal ofConstantinople TheSmssanianswere routed out of Iraq

and Persia, which became provinces of the newly formed

Arab-Muslim state, based first in Damascusand later in

Bagh-dad Within a hundred years after the Prophet's death, the

borders of theMuslim Empire hadreached the Pyrenees in the

west andAfghanistan in the east The conquest ofthis vast

andheterogenous territory was accompanied by mass

conver-sions toIslam

During hislifetime, the prophet Mohammed had

recog-nized the Jews andChristians as"People of the Book,"

recipi-ents of a valid butincompleterevelation As such and unlike

thepaganArabs, the small Jewish andChristian communities

innorthern Arabia were not forced to convert to Islam; they

were tolerated and given a special status within the larger

Muslimcommunity, or umma, as "protected" people

This policy was followed by all the Muslim successor

states; the Jews and the various Christiansects were allowed

to practice their faith and retain their institutions and toms They were, however, required to pay a specialpoll tax

cus-and were not allowed to serve in the army This policy was

lateradopted by theOttomans and extended to a large

num-ber of non-Muslim communities, including the Armeniansand the Druze Known as the milletsystem, itformeda basicprinciple of Ottoman administration; at the turn ofthe twen-

tieth century, seventeen different communities were

recog-nized Thispractice was, to a large extent, responsible forthe

encapsulation and thesurvival of religious communities as

in-herentcomponents ofMiddle Easternsocialstructure

Con-comitantly, it served to reinforce the social and political

significance of sectarian identity

TheChristians of the Middle East have a long and plex history Besides the GreekOrthodox Church (which was

com-theofficial church of the Byzantine Empire),otherindigenous

Christian churcheshave their origin in one or another of the

manyschismaticmovements of the fifth and sixth centuries

The two largest Christian communities in the Middle East,

those of the Copts of Egypt and the Maronites of Lebanon,

originatedin religious controversies of the fifth century

Another Christian minoritythat dates back to the same

era is the Assyrian Nestorian community of Iraq The

Nesto-rian church was formed as a result of a schism within the

Byzantine church at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D

The Assyrians,who speak an Aramaic dialect, were originally

located in several villages scattered in the mountains that

di-vide northern Iraq fromTurkey Like other minorities in the

region, the Assyrianswere caught in the web of colonial

poli-tics; with Britain's encouragement, a group of Assyrians

sought to secede from the newlyindependent stateof Iraqandestablish their own nation-state in the north This misguided

attempt led to tragedy when, in an attempt to flee Iraq into

French-held Syria in 1933, several thousand of them were

massacred by theIraqiarmy

The Copts constitute the single largest Christian

com-munity in the Middle East, as well as 5 to 7 percent of the

Egyptian population of about 56 million people The Copts

speak Egyptian Arabic and are, generally speaking, hard to

distinguish culturally from the rest of theEgyptians The

Cop-tic church is a national church, limited to Egypt; it has its

own liturgy (in Coptic),ceremonialcalendar, and clerical

hi-erarchy headed by apatriarch

The Maronite church is the largest of the Uniate

churches of the Middle East andis limited mainly to Lebanon

The term "Uniate" refers to a number of Middle Eastern

churches that chose toabandon the Eastern Orthodox rites,

recognize the authority of the pope, and adopt Latin rites

Another Uniate church is that of the Chaldeans, who lived

predominantly in Iraq (with a small group in Syria and Iran)

and were prominent in the hotel and restaurant business

there Following World War11,a largenumber of Chaldeans

emigrated to the United States and Canada

When the Republic of Lebanon wasproclaimed in 1926,

thedifferent sectarian groups, all ofwhom speak Arabic, were

formallyrecognized as corporate political communities, each

ofwhich was allotted anumber of representativesin the

na-tionalparliament Furthermore, it wasalso decreed that the

president of the country had to be aMaronite,the prime

min-ister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the house a Shia

Muslim The systemfailed to work as anticipated, and, bythe

mid-1970s, inherent strains and foreign pressuresexploded in

Introductiontothe Middle East xxxix

acivilwarthat hasplaguedLebanon into the late twentieth

century It is difficult at thisjuncture to predict the future

shape of the Lebanese polity and the rolethat sectarianism

will play in thepolitical domain

Priorto the establishment ofthe state of Israel in1948

and thecollapseof the European colonial regimesinthe

re-gion,largeJewish communities had existedinmost countries

ofthe Middle East and North Africa,with the exception of

Saudi Arabia and theGulf states The Jews generally spoke

the national language of their respective countries (i.e.,

Ara-bic, Persian, or Turkish) and, with a few notable exceptions,

tended to concentrate in urban areas Innorthern Iraq,there

usedtobe a smallJewish community scatteredin anumber of

villages in an area dominated byKurdishtribal chiefs These

so-called'Kurdish Jews" spokeadialect of Hebrew knownas

targum.Similarly, throughout the mountainous areas of

Mo-rocco,Jewish communities were established among the rural

Berber-speaking population As might be expected, Jewish

communitiesof the Middle East variedgreatlyamong

them-selves,asthey tended to reflect the life-style and cultural

tra-ditions ofthespecific country or region that they inhabited

Ranging fromwealthy bankers and merchants to humble

arti-sansand poorshopkeepers, community members were widely

differentiated in terms of wealth, education, and influence

Sincethemassiveemigration of JewstoIsrael, the United

States, Canada,France, and other countries in the 1950s, only

afewthousand Jews remain todayinTurkey, the Arab

coun-tries, and Iran In Israel, immigrants from such countries as

Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Tunisia, and Libya are referred to as

"OrientalJews,"or"Mizrashim." Despite their numerical

ad-vantage (they make up abouthalf of the population of Israel),

they tend tolag behind the European Jews in terms of political

powerand social status

Besides the Christian and Jewish communities, there

exist a number ofdistinctive religiously defined minorities in

the region These minorities had their origin in intra-Muslim

religio-political disputes; most of them represent schismatic

offshoots from Shiism This is the case with the Druze who

in-habit the mountain zones of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel; the

AlawiofSyriaand Turkey; the Zaidi of the Yemen highlands;

andthe Yazidi of northern Iraq These groups share a history

ofpoliticaldissidence, defeat, and persecution, as a result of

which they are found in marginal areas far from the direct

reach of the dynasty in power.Despite the differences in their

religious beliefs and practices andtheir cultural styles, these

communities tend to be tightly organized under the leadership

of anoligarchy of religiouselders; theyalso tendto behighly

endogamous, secretive, and inaccessibletooutsiders

Lastly,acommunity mayhaveitsowndistinctiveculturalidentity whichis notbasedonlanguage,religion,orlife-style.

The Circassians, who are SunniMuslims andspeak Arabic,

form such a group; theyare found inTurkey,Jordan,Syria,

and Iraq Some of theCircassianscame tothe Middle Eastasrefugees afterhavingfled their homelandinthe Caucasus dur-ingthe nineteenth century; otherswerebroughtinbytheOt-tomansand resettled asbuffer groups inhard-to-administer

Arabareasof theOttomanEmpire.Smallinnumber and vided as they are amongseveralnation-states, the Circassianshave preserved their sense of cultural identity through thecollective memory ofashared historical past anda common

di-place of origin

Contemporary Politcal Considerations

The vastoil wealthcfthe region,coupled with the volatileandseemingly intractable Israeli-Palestianianconflict,hasin-

creasingly drawn the MiddleEast intothe forefront ofworldpolitics and economics More recently, the rise ofIslamic-fundamentalist movements in thepolitical arenahas intro-

duced anew dimension topoliticallife intheregion Ithasonceagainopenedthedebateon oneof themostfundamen-talquestionsinthehistory of the Muslimcivilization: whatis

the properrelationship between Islam and thestate?more, what status would non-Muslims have in a 'Muslim

Further-state?"The problemisalsoposedinthe case of Israel, whichwasfounded asanexclusively"Jewish"state

BibliographyBates, D., and A Rassam (1983) Peoples and Cultures of theMiddleEast.EnglewoodCliffs,N.J.:Prentice-Hall

Carelton,Coon(1961).Caravan:The Storyofthe Middle East.NewYork: Holt, Rinehart&Winston

Eickelman,Dale (1981) The Middle East: AnAnthropological

Approach EnglewoodCliffs,N.J.: Prentice-Hall

Richard,A., andJ.Waterbury (1990) A Political Economy oftheMiddleEast: State,Class, and Economic Development Boul-der, Colo.:WestviewPress

AMAL RASSAM

MAP 2 LEGEND: CULTURES OF AFRICA