#Interesting facts about namibia africa skin#

Here are five interesting facts about the Himba: However, the one that intrigues me the most is the Himba tribe in north-western Namibia. Other examples include the Maasai tribe in Kenya, the Pygmies in Congo or the many tribes that call the Dogon Valley in Mali their home. The girl has her bottom teeth removed to make space for a lip plate, which is increased in size annually.All over Africa, some tribes like the Himba still respect and live according to the traditions of their ancestors. When a girl becomes a teenager in the Surma tribe of Southern Sudan, she begins the process of lip stretching. They do this by squeezing the corpseвЂ™s stomach until what comes out the rear end runs clear. When a person dies, one family tradition involves taking the body into the woods, slitting the throat, and forcing water through the body to cleanse it. The Chewa people are one of the largest indigenous groups of Malawi but live throughout Central and Southern Africa. The men must suppress signs of pain and the one who takes the beating without showing signs of pain can take the wife. To compete for her hand, they beat one another up. Sharo happens when two young men want to marry the same woman. The Fulani tribe live in many countries in West Africa and follow a tradition called Sharo. Deprived of the ability to hunt, San numbers dwindled. The San switched to farming but they continued to gather herbs for medication and plants for food. They were forbidden to hunt and forced to apply for permits to enter reserves. The San People of Botswana, also called Bushmen, are hunter gatherers who were evicted from their ancestral land in the 1950s.

#Interesting facts about namibia africa skin#

For that reason, the Himba people often appear to have a red skin tone. The Himba people of Northern Namibia cover their skin with a mixture of butter fat and ochre - a natural earth pigment containing iron oxide - to protect themselves from the sun. In fact, each clan is associated with a specific wild species, which they often keep close to them and treat as a clan member. They keep cattle and livestock, but leave wild animals untouched. The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania have strict policies against killing wild animals. The number of women a man can marry is determined by how many cows he has. Most Pokot people are either вЂњcorn peopleвЂќ or вЂњcow peopleвЂќ- meaning thatвЂ™s what they cultivate on their land - but all Pokot people measure their wealth by cows. In the Pokot tribe in Kenya, wealth is measured by how many cows a family has. This is because chiefs inherit their position through matrilineal lines. When male children reach age 5 or 6 in the Northern Angolan Songo tribe, they are sent to live with their uncles on their motherвЂ™s side. They do this multiple times, and usually in the nude. In order to prove their manhood in the Ethiopian Hamer tribe, young boys must run, jump and land on the back of a bull before then attempting to run across the backs of several bulls.

Maasai warriors will also spit in their hands before shaking the hand of an elder. Men spit on newborns and say they are bad in the belief that if they praise a baby, it will be cursed. Members of the Maasai tribe in Kenya and Tanzania spit as a way of blessing. The two families cannot even speak until negotiations are complete. All negotiations must be done in writing - never by phone or in person. Lobola is an ancient and controversial Southern African tradition in which the families of a bride and groom negotiate how much the groom must pay for the bride.

When they are of age, boys are sent to spend several days or weeks in a circumcision lodge during winter, where theyвЂ™re put through rigorous and often dangerous tests and rituals such as continuous dancing until exhaustion, and circumcision. This Southern African ceremony is practiced by several tribes and is how a young boy proves his manhood. If the father disagrees, however, the man might forcefully marry the woman anyway. Elderly members of his family go and ask the girlвЂ™s father for her hand in marriage, and if dad agrees, he beats the suitor as a sign of his acceptance of the union. In the Sudanese Latuka tribe, when a man wants to marry a woman, he kidnaps her.