In Africa, culture and tradition go a long way in influencing peoples’ lives. Different tribes from African countries have a particular culture or tradition that makes them unique. The cultures of African countries have been there for decades until they were colonised and most of them were lost and now have become history.
It is just a few traditions and cultures that lived through colonialism and people still practice. Those traditions are now regarded as primitive and old fashioned; some even regarded as fetish.
Even though most of these traditions and cultures are nearly extinct and are practiced by few people, it is still very interesting to know about different cultures from different tribes.
Example, among the Sudanese Lutuka tribe, when a man desires to marry, he kidnaps her and elderly members of his family go and ask the girl’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, if the father agrees, he beats the suitor as a sign of acceptance. If the father disagrees, the man may forcefully marry the woman anyway.
Khweta Ceremony, this ceremony is practiced by several tribes in Southern Africa; it is for young boys to prove their manhood. When these boys are of age, they are sent to spend several days or weeks in a circumcision lodge in winter where they go through vigorous and often dangerous tests and rituals such as continuous dancing until the circumcision proper.
Spitting blessing: Members of the Maasai tribe in Kenya and Tanzania spit as a way of blessing newborns. According to their belief, if they praise a baby, it will be cursed. Maasai warriors also spit in their hands before shaking elders.
Bull jumping: In the Ethiopian tribes, young boys, in order to prove their manhood, must run, jump and land on the back of a bull before attempting to run across the back of several bulls. This is usually done nude.
Women have their own houses in the Gio tribe in Cote d’Ivoire. Every woman has her own house in which she lives with her children until they are old enough to move out. The children never live with their fathers.
Red sun block: The Himba people of Northern Namibia cover their skin with a mixture of butter fat and ochre, natural earth pigment containing iron oxide to protect themselves from the sun.
Cleansing: The Chewa people are one of the largest indigenous groups of Malawi but live throughout Central and Southern Africa. When a person dies, it involves taking the body into the woods, slitting the throat and forcing water through the body to cleanse it. They do this by squeezing the corpse’s stomach until what comes out runs clear.
Lip stretching: When a girl becomes a teenager in the Surma tribe of South Sudan, she begins the process of lip stretching. The girl has her bottom teeth removed to make space for a lip plate, which is increased in size annually. For example, some elders in Black Panther wore a lip plate.
