The Distribution of Certain Culture Elements in East Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID4169461
AuthorsG W B Huntingford (corresponding author)
Year1961
Volume91
Issue2
Pages251
Publication date1961-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0307-3114 • E-ISSN: 2397-2556
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2844416
OpenAlexW2223459524
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited6

THE PEOPLES OF EASTERN AFRICA are divided among five main ethnic and cultural groups: Bush, Hunting, Negro, Hamitic, and Nile Valley, with a sixth, linguistic, grouping which comprises peoples of mixed stocks speaking Bantu languages. These terms need defining. By Bush Peoples is meant those whose level of cultural achievement has not progressed beyond that of the Bushmen of Southern Africa, and in East Africa, specifically, the term refers to the Hadza or Hadzapi of Tanganyika. The term Hunting Peoples is used to denote those scattered and elusive groups, somewhat less primitive than the Bushmen, who when first seen by Europeans lived entirely or mainly by hunting and who, though speaking the languages and to some extent sharing the cultures of their more advanced neighbours, are considered by those neighbours to be distinct. Two major differences between Bushmen and Hunters are (i) the Bushmen are entirely unacquisitive and basically self-supporting, while the Hunters have acquired a good deal of the culture of their neighbours and tend to live in symbiosis with therm, and (2) the Bushmen are people of the open country, the Hunters usually of the forest. The term Negro refers to those peoples who anthropologically may be taken to represent the early negro inhabitants of Eastern Africa; such people occur to-day in East Africa only in the south-eastern Sudan and western Ethiopia. The term Hamitic is used here to designate the non-negro peoples of north-east Africa, that is, the Beja, Agaw, Sidama, Somali'Afar, and Galla groups in Ethiopia and Somaliland. The Nile Valley peoples comprise the two groups usually classed separately under the names Nilotic and Nilo-Hamitic; these two names are still valid for cultural purposes, though for the latter group the term Paranilotic has lately been suggested as a linguistic designation. The sixth grouping, the Bantu comprises a number of people of diverse ethnic and cultural stocks linked together only by a common type of speech; within the East African field there are certainly several recognizable ethnotypes. Three main types of basic culture are found in East Africa: (i) collecting and hunting, (2) pastoral, and (3) agricultural. While there are even now a few people left who subsist by hunting and collecting, and there are still some (like the Masai) who are purely pastoral, there is in general no rigid distinction to-day between these modes of life. The hunters have begun to keep a few live stock; the pastoral peoples mostly grow some food in addition to keeping stock; and there is a tendency for basic cultural practices to overlap, though the outlook engendered by a particular type of culture may persist. Pastoral peoples include those who keep cattle and those who keep camels, both of whom may also keep goats and sheep. They range from pure pastoralists like the Masai and some of the Somali to the pastoral and agricultural peoples who are common in East Africa. A feature which distinguishes the true pastoralist, even if he does practise agriculture, from others is his attitude to cattle, milk, and everything connected 25I

Ancient history · Archaeology · Distribution (mathematics · Geography · African history and culture analysis · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Mathematics

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