As a Nigerian, it is tempting to think that your country is bigger and more wonderful than all other African countries, or that Africa ends up in West Africa. However, if you are open-minded, you can be more informed about other African countries, their economy, their politics, their peoples and cultures, as well as the beauty and uniqueness of this wonderful continent. And for all of our non-Africans, Africa is not a country.
Published
In
By
For many Nigerians, Africa begins and ends in West Africa. When you ask an average Nigerian to mention African countries, it is not uncommon for him to mention Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, the Republic of Benin, Ivory Coast and other neighbouring countries.
A non-unusual misconception that many Nigerians have about Africa is that it is a continent reserved for blacks and that a white user (oyinbo) must be equally African. There is also the misconception that all other black people come from Africa. The biggest mistake is that Nigeria is the giant of Africa and that not all other African countries are as strong economically or as healthy as Nigeria. It’s not uncommon to hear a middle Nigerian say things like “little Ghana is fighting with us,” “ordinary Rwanda speaks too.”
That’s why BellaNaija The 54, a series that will explore Africa and African peoples.
In this series, we will see other cultures, tribes, African peoples, food, arts and music, economy, politics, regions, all Africa and Africa.
But for now, let us give you a look at what this series is like, The 54, and how we intend to take you on this adventure with us.
Africa is the largest continent in the world at the moment with 54 countries and a population of 1.216 billion (in 2016).
In Africa, there are some 3,000 tribes that speak more than 2,000 other languages. Arabic and Suhili are the most widely spoken languages in Africa. But with about 35 million people in total, Yoruba are Africa’s largest ethnic organization.
Photo credit: Banky W and Adesua Wedding Ceremony
Photo Credit: Toyosi Philips and Etim-Effiong Commitment.
Zulu, with an estimated population of 11 million more, is known as South Africa’s largest ethnic organization. The other Zulu people were a harsh state in 1818, ruled by an army leader known as Shaka. Zulu ideals are formed around the presence of ancestral spirits, called amadlozi and abaphansi.
Photo Credit: Pinterest / HadithiAfrica
The Ovahimba and Ovazimba tribes in the northern Namibia Array, according to fossil remains archives in Africa, appears to be the first continent where humans were found. Fossil remains have reported that humans inhabited the African continent about 7 million years ago. The first settlements of other people in Himba date back to the early 16th century, when they crossed the Angolan border and chose Kaokoland (now called the Kunene region of Namibia) as their new homeland. The other Himba are known for their red ochre cream.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
The Bedouins of Sinai are an organization of tribes descendants of immigrants who arrived from the Arabian Peninsula between the 14th and 18th centuries. In Africa, the Bedouins of Sinai are in Egypt.
Because they are usually nomadic, they have never relied on classical doctors and get their medications from nature: herbs, plants. Basically, they prepare their food at home or in the desert, grow their own vegetables, eat the meat they have raised and cook the fish they have fished.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
If you’re looking for a position where women make a decision who they should marry and what handsome husbands they need, then the Wodaabe tribe is for you. Beautiful and very attractive, wodaabé men have sublime faces like women and it is very important that men are fair to their wives. In some cases, a boy who isn’t so fair will have to share his wife’s percentage with another more charming boy, so the likelihood of a charming child being born is higher. The Wodaabe tribe is one of the Fulani who were originally nomads and shepherds.
We’ll explore the Wodaabe tribe in our series.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
The other Hadza of northern Tanzania are one of the “oldest” lineages of mankind. The small tribe is made up of some 1,300 hunter-gatherers: one of the last in Africa.
According to Survival International, Hadza is located on the shores of the Serengeti plains, in the shadow of Ngorongoro Crater. It is also close to Olduvai Gorge, one of the most vital prehistoric sites in the world, where homo habilis, one of the first members of the genus Homo, lived 1.9 million years ago.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
Estimated at about 900,000 people, the Maasai, located in Kenya and Tanzania, are among the first African ethnic teams in Africa. “According to the tribe’s own oral history, the Masai originated in the northern part of Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) in the Nile Valley. They began to migrate south in the 15th century and reached the long earthen trunk that stretched through central Tanzania and northern Kenya in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
Tuareg village
The Tuareg are an organization of Berber clans of difficult to understand in North Africa. Legend has it that under its first queen, Tin Hinan, they moved to the Sahara around 400 A.D. In medieval times, the Tuareg dominated lucrative industrial routes through the desert. Timbuktu, famous in the Muslim world as an intellectual center, founded through a circle of Tuareg relatives in the 12th century. They live in the Sahara, in a vast region stretching from the excessive southwest of Liviaa to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. In the Tuareg tribe, it is men who cover their hair with canopy.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
If you’ve seen extracts from Beyonce’s Black Is King and you like hairstyles, it’s vital that you be aware of its origin: Africa.
The Mangbetu were known for their elongated heads. The skull enlargement procedure began at birth. The bathroom head is wrapped tightly in a cloth until the desired shape is obtained. Known as lipombo, culture is a symbol of wealth among the ruling class. This hairstyle used through Mangbetu womenArray in a very fashionable moment. This practice can also be attributed to the Maya and Egyptians.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
Photo Credit: Instagram / Nealfarinah
The Bantu are the speakers of the Bantu languages, comprising several hundred indigenous ethnic teams in sub-Saharan Africa, spread across vast dominance from Central Africa across the Great Lakes of Africa to southern Africa. Bantu as a primary language organization in Africa whose lifestyle has been known about 5000 years ago. The language organization contains between three hundred and six hundred other ethnic teams totaling more than one hundred million Americans across the African continent. Bantu knots originate in Africa. They’ve been a classic African hairstyle for over a hundred years. Bantu means other people and Ubuntu means no one.
Photo Credit: Face2faceafrica / Instagram-nealfarinah
In ancient Africa, Ethiopia’s mursi were known for their horned heads and huge lip plates. Namibia’s prepubescent hymen women also wore two thick braids in front of their faces that looked like ram horns. Surrounded by mountains between the Omo and Mago rivers, The Mursi House is one of the most remote regions of Ethiopia.
Photo Credit: Pinterest / Instagram-nealfarinah
Morocco has been celebrating the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music for 25 years. Created in 1994 and 2001 respectively, this festival is part of the academic, artistic and non-secular culture of the city of Fes.
Photo credit: fesfestival
The Calabar Festival is arguably the largest festival in Africa. Attracting more than 2 million people from more than 25 countries a year, this month-long festival takes place in Cross River. The Calabar festival, which takes place one or both years, takes place on the street and other people can show off their classic colorful outfits, dances and masquerades.
Photo credit: bbcpidgin / folio
The Lake of Stars Festival is a world-famous music and art festival that takes place on the palm-lined shore of Lake Malawi. Lake Malawi, the ninth largest lake in the world and Malawi’s third largest and largest lake, is located between Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique. Located in the Western Rift Valley, Lake Malawi is also one of the innermost lakes in the world. For more than a decade, Lake of Stars has attracted musicians and visitors from around the world to the coast of Malawi.
Photo credit: Flickr
Due to the diversity of Africa, there are many foods for many ethnic groups and tribes. Let’s explore delicious African dishes.
This meal is an original Moroccan soup made with tomatoes, lentils and chickpeas. It also includes meat, making it a hearty and satisfying dish. There are many diversifications of this classic soup and those diversifications have been passed down from generation to generation.
Photo credit: toast host
Skoudehkaris is a food from Djibouti, East Africa. Skoudehkaris is a tasty rice dish seasoned with cardamom and cooked with lamb, chicken or fish.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
This South African dish is ready outdoors. Potjiekos is a classic dish that is slowly cooked in an iron skillet placed on hot charcoal. Translated as “food in a small saucepan”, Potjiekos never shakes the cooking process.
Spiral-shaped cuisine, Boerewors, is also a popular food from which they feed in South Africa and Namibia. Boerewors is a coil: it comprises at least 90% meat and 10% spices. Boerewors is historically grilled in braai (South African barbecue) and served with porridge and underneath (sauce)
Photo Credit: Pinterest
The Senegalese Yassa bird is a spicy and spicy dish in the West African region. It is a Senegalese dish made with caramelized onion, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and baked poultry in a creamy sauce.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
Can we ever communicate about West African cuisines by mentioning the almighty jollof rice? Jollof rice, also known as Wolof benachin, is a single pot rice dish that is popular in many West African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, Senegal, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Togo and Mali. It is also called a “reddish pan dish” and varies in those countries.
Photo Credit: Pinterest
Considered the bond between gods and humans, masquerades are a component of African culture. See the other masquerades in Africa:
Eyo of the Yoruba tribe, Nigeria. Source: Pinterest
Masked dancer Gouro (Ivory Coast). Source: Androphilia
Egungun – Yoruba, Nigeria. Source: Pinterest
Ijele – Igbo, Nigeria. Source: Pinterest
Considered the “cradle of humanity,” Africa is the fossil-evidenced continent of human beings.
It’s fun to know:
For many Nigerians, they believe that the term “African giant” comes with economic strength and wealth. Well, that’s not the case. Although Nigeria has Africa’s largest economy, it is not the richest country in Africa and nearly a hundred million Nigerians live in extreme poverty.
It’s fun to know:
From the transatlantic slave industry to wars, colonization, military regimes, independence, etc., Africa is a continent with ancestral times and hisses.
Little to know
While these are the fundamental facts we know every day on the African continent, there is much more about Africa and Africans. We’ll explore all this and more when we launch our series, The 54. Take a look at this space.
In the meantime, here’s how you can be more informed about Africa:
Google is your friend
Google loves everyone and adds you. If you’re curious about a facet of Africa, enter it in the search bar and you’re sure to get answers. You can read more than one to get the correct information.
Read books
There are so many books that tell the story of Africa and you can be informed of them. Some are:
Magema Fuze: The creation of an intellectual Kholwa through Hlonipha Mokoena
Saltwater slavery through Stephanie E. Smallwood
Dreams of Africa in Alabama through Sylviane A. Diouf and so many books.
Watch movies
For others who don’t like reading books, watching videos is a wonderful way to be informed about slavery and its ancient roots in Africa. Here are some videos you can watch:
Above all, keep an open mind
As a Nigerian, it is tempting to think that your country is bigger and more wonderful than all other African countries, or that Africa ends up in West Africa. However, if you are open-minded, you can be more informed about other African countries, their economy, their politics, their peoples and cultures, as well as the beauty and uniqueness of this wonderful continent. And for all of our non-Africans, Africa is not a country.
**
Bestbe Models photo by Pexels
Laetitia Mugerwa: schooling and the emancipation of women are a risk to their manhood
#BellaNaijaMCM Kelechi Nwadike creates a photography market with Peexoo Technologies
Pink
August 10, 2020 at 9:23 p.m.
Twelve years SALVE?
Oni
August 11, 2020 at 2:24 a.m.
God bless you for this article. I much more about my continent hahaha. Spread the word
Salma
August 11, 2020 at 6:00 a.m.
Thank you very much Bellanaija for this. We want to know who we are.
Babylisa
August 11, 2020 at 11:03 a.m.
Amazing!!! I like it!!
Osakwe Onyeka
August 11, 2020 at 12:54 p.m.
thank you beautiful naija for such content
Your email will be published. Required fields are displayed
Comment
Name
Website
This uses Akismet to reduce spam. Find out how your feedback is processed.
What does it mean to be a parent of twins/triplets/quadruples? These BN parents tell their stories!
A slow way but at the same time to solve the challenge of bad leadership in Nigeria!
Mfonobong Inyang: Enough of strong individuals, Nigeria desperately wants strong institutions!
© 2019 BellaNaija. All rights are reserved