Transcript - Google Sites

Cultures & Lifestyle
Religion
Religions
• Traditional
• Numerous & diverse
• Christian
• Introduced in 300 ADs
• Ethiopian Coptic Church
• Coastal
• Muslim
• Spread into North Africa in 630s AD
• Spread along trade routes
Traditional
• Varies from place to place
• Common elements
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Supreme being
Nature spirits
Honor ancestors
Can include animism and voodoo
Diviners
Christianity
Early Christian kingdoms:
• Axum
• King Ezana converted in 300s
• Christianity spread
• Strengthened ties between Axum & Mediterranean world
• Ethiopia
• King Lalileba had churches carved into the mountains
• Over time absorbed traditions into the faith.
• Coptic Christians today live mainly in Ethiopia & Egypt
slam
• 600s Islam replaced
Christianity as the dominant
religion in North Africa.
• Arabic replaced Latin as its
language.
• North Africa benefited from
trade and technology that
followed
• Kingdom of Ghana influenced
by religion
• Mali is the first Islamic,
African empire
Ethnic group vs.
Religious Group
• Ethnic groups share many
common characteristics:
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Language
physical features
customs
traditions
• Religious groups share a
common belief system but are
not necessarily composed of a
single ethnic group.
For example:
Arabs may be Muslims or
Christians.
Four Ethnic Groups found in Africa
 Arabs
 Ashanti
 Bantu
 Swahili
Bedouin
Changing ways of life
• Starting in the 1950's as well as the 1960s, many Bedouins
started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the
cities of the Middle East.
• Example: Syria 1958 to 1961, following a severe drought,
many Bedouin gave up herding
• Similarly, government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil
production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, and a desire for
improved standards of living have led many Bedouin to
settle in cities.
Bedouin
• Bedouin, are a desert-dwelling nomads
• Located throughout most of the desert belt extending from
the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai,
and Negev to the Arabian Desert.
Arabs
• Arab: Someone who can trace his or her ancestry to the tribes of
Arabia - the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula - and the
Syrian Desert.
• Traveled into North Africa via trade routes
• Majority live in North Africa & the Middle East
• Helped spread the Islamic faith
• Consists of Sunni or Shi’a Muslims
• Muslims speak and read Arabic
Ashanti
• Ashanti, or Asante, are a major ethnic group in Ghana.
• Prior to European colonization, the Ashanti people developed a
large and influential empire in West Africa.
• Kumasi, is the historic capital of the Ashanti Kingdom.
Ashanti
• Practice a hybrid faith of traditional polytheistic faith and Christianity
• Speak Twi(dialect of the Akan Language)
• The Ashanti are a matrilineal societies:
• where line of descent is traced through the female.
• Historically, this mother relationship determined land rights, inheritance of
property, offices and titles.
Bantu• The name of a large category of African languages.
• Label for over 400 ethnic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa, from
Cameroon across Central Africa and Eastern Africa to Southern
Africa.
• Majority practice traditional faith
• The ancestral Bantu homeland was near the southwestern
modern boundary of Nigeria and Cameroon (3000 BC).
Swahili
• Swahili is the first language of
the Swahili people
• East coast of Africa.
• The language evolved through
centuries of contact between
Arabic-speaking traders and
many different Bantu-speaking
peoples inhabiting Africa's Indian
Ocean coast.
• Majority practice Islam (Sunni)