The term tribe describes a social group having a common speech, cultural level, and body of customs, occupying a circumscribed food-producing area, and claiming a common ancestry. As thus used in ethnology the term tribe denotes the simplest socio-political unit, based on endogamy, marriage outside the tribe being discouraged, but often comprising two or more exogamous phatries or clans.
Government is effected by means of tribal or customary law, maintained either by public opinion expressed through elders, or by headship, elective or hereditary. Among the Australian aborigines, whose physical environment offered no incentive to the development of warfare, tribal cohesion was maintained by the initiation ceremonies and other periodic gatherings. In aboriginal America the tribal organisation passed through every stage, from the simplest (Fuegians), to such complex unions as the Iroquois confederacy. Negro and BantuAfrica were traditionally essentially tribal, the latter having developed a high level of kingship for the direction of warfare. Similarly nomadism usually leads to tribal autocracy.
The Assa are a native people of the central Masai Steppe in northern Tanzania. They are Hunter-gatherers, some live in settled villages others are nomadic. The Assa are becoming absorbed into the Masai people and other surrounding Bantu groups on whom they are economically dependent. In 1999 there were only about 350 true Assa still in existence. Research Assa
The Bantu are a wide-spread race in south Africa, which includes the Zulu, Matabele, Damaras and Mashonas. They were nicknamed Kaffirs (unbelievers) by Islamic traders to south Africa. Research Bantu
The Hutu are the majority ethnic group of both Burundi and Rwanda, numbering around 9,500,000. The
Hutu tend to live as peasant farmers. Traditionally they have been dominated by the Tutsi minority; there is a long history of violent conflict between the two groups. The Hutu language belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger- Congo family. Research Hutu
The Khoikhoi (formerly Hottentot) are a people living in Namibia and the Cape Province of South Africa, and numbering about 30,000. Their language is related to San (spoken by the Kung) and belongs to the Khoisan family. Like the Kung, the Khoikhoi once inhabited a wider area, but were driven into the Kalahari Desert by invading Bantu peoples and Dutch colonists in the 18th century. They live as nomadic hunter-gatherers, in family groups, and have animist beliefs. Research Khoikhoi
The Kikuyu are a Bantu-speaking people who make up the largest tribal group in Kenya. They live mainly in the highland area in the south central part of the nation. An agricultural people, the
Kikuyu long resided in separate family homesteads raising their crops of millet, beans, peas, and sweet potatoes. Some groups also raised animals to supplement their diet, but little or no hunting or fishing was carried on. The basic social unit is a patrilineal group of males, who are polygamous, their wives, and their children. In the 1950s the Kikuyu, under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, launched a campaign of terrorism against the British colonialists who controlled the country. The resulting warfare was known as the Mau Mau Rebellion. During that time, the Kikuyu were moved by the government into villages, where many have chosen to remain because of the economic advantages of village life. Research Kikuyu
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Amakosa
