African culture?

African traditional cultural customsIt is unlucky to wear clothes

It is human nature to love beauty and pay attention to clothing, but there are exceptions in Africa. The Karamoja people in the mountains of northeastern Uganda believe that wearing clothes is unlucky and will bring disaster. During the past colonial rule, Karamoja was regarded as a "forbidden zone", and the Karamoja people were also regarded as "savages" and were not allowed to have contact with people from the mainland. Due to their long-term isolation from the outside world, the Karamoja people have increasingly formed their own unique customs. Regardless of whether they are men, women, old or young, they all wear no clothes. Men and children are usually naked, and women sometimes only carry a piece of animal skin on their lower bodies. The Ugandan government also implemented a mandatory clothing campaign there, but it was strongly opposed by locals. Some people who were wearing clothes had their clothes torn to pieces by the angry people, and they were forced to swallow the pieces of clothes on the spot under the coercion of the crowd.

african hairstyle

In Africa, hair styles are very particular, as they can indicate a person's national attributes, social status and religious beliefs. It can be said that the different forms and styles of African hair are the crystallization of their wisdom and represent their aesthetic taste.

Men's hairstyle

In the Tuareg region of Mali, you will occasionally see a man wearing a blue scarf with a copper hoop engraved with beautiful patterns on his head. This is the local leader, and you must show respect and respect to him. Adult Masai men in Kenya wear a hat made of lion hair to show that they are a warrior and have killed a lion with their own hands. The lion hair was taken from that lion, but this hat only He can wear it for seven years. After seven years, he must hunt a new lion to prove that he is still a warrior. An elderly man in Turkana takes special care of his hair that is carefully combed by his juniors. Therefore, he wears a wooden hood when sleeping at night to prevent his hair from getting messy, because the juniors cannot comb it for him every day. The Hausa men in the Wodaabe region of Niger have an ancient and peculiar expression of beauty, but they are also gradually adopting a modern trend. They wear traditional colorful feather turbans on their heads and a pair of fashionable sunglasses. , to show that he is a handsome man. Men of the Konyak tribe in Guinea have very complicated hairstyles. On the top of their shaved heads, they wear a high rooster comb hairstyle, which is a sign of strength and beauty. According to superstition, the rooster is the embodiment of precious qualities. There is a saying in the western part of the African continent: "The hairstyle dresses the person." The styling of adults' hair is not inferior to that of young people. The Malians and Bambara people try to make their hair as high as possible, like sheep's horns. The Berber hairstyle resembles a hump. In some cases, one must imitate the camel. For nomadic peoples such as Berbers and Tuareg, they need the hard-working, hard-working and simple qualities of camels just like they need air. The Zulu soldiers in South Africa gathered their hair into a long braid on the back of their heads, trailing like pointed snakes on their backs, and used styling products made of grease, mud and other adhesives to fix the hairstyle. . Uganda's practical Didi men comb their hair into a mushroom-shaped umbrella to protect their eyes from the dazzling sun.

Women's hairstyle

African women have unique ways of expressing their emotional characteristics, beauty or status in their hairstyles. If you meet a woman with a shaved head, she is almost certainly a widow. In Niger, a child with one, two or three locks of hair left on his head indicates that the child has lost his father, mother or both parents. The Galbe women of Guinea pull their hair into a hairstyle that highlights their forehead. This is a sign of respect for someone, such as Allah, doctors, etc., because they were the ones who saved their parents from disasters. Whether it is a man or a woman, if their hair is unkempt, it often indicates that they are in mourning. Married women in the Toposa region of Sudan braid their hair into many braids and apply oil on them, their cheeks are tattooed with patterns, and they wear more than a dozen iron rings around their necks. Some barbers are clever and know that African women always forget to dress up. Therefore, according to their national characteristics, they first part their hair horizontally and then vertically, comb a triangular bun on the forehead, and then use that Nimble fingers grab a lock of hair from one side of the head, braid it on the back of the head, fix it somewhere on the head with a branch hairpin, and trim the forehead hair on the temples to make it fluffy and orderly or curl it into a chic and rich shape. charm. To keep this hairstyle from falling apart, apply hair oil, sprinkle with a thin layer of clay, and spray perfume to make it smell fragrant. In rural areas, beautiful women's hair is coated with lavender, sandalwood, dianthus and other plant aromatic oils, exuding a rich fragrance.

In short, African hair styles, whether for men or women, come in many forms, but they all have unique ways of expressing their own styles. Some people say that the Afro hairstyle "remains a mystery to this day."

African food style:

People who thrive on African soil have developed unique dietary characteristics due to factors such as climate and culture. In Africa, there are many spices, vegetables, and fruits native to Africa, and there are many varieties. Therefore, since ancient times, there has been a custom of mixing many kinds of food into one. The method of cooking together is to grill meat and then mix it with curry, milkshake, tomato juice, etc. For pasta, it is mixed with other fruits and lightly fried in oil.

Due to historical factors, African cuisine not only retains traditional cooking methods, but also absorbs many French cuisine practices. In addition, it is also influenced by many influences from Italy and Middle Eastern Arab countries, thus forming a unique food structure. From North Africa to South Africa, due to the influence of race, religion and culture, the main style of their diet is a "chowder" of various foods in the form of roasting, boiling, stewing, etc.

African food has always been famous for the art of seasoning, making full use of various spices and seasonings, such as chili, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, etc.

African residential buildings are diverse and unique due to different national cultures, regions, and climates. They are like stars scattered across the African continent, creating a spectacle.

Pillar House of Allah: The Fulani people of West Africa still maintain their isolation and mystery in their architectural style. Their pillar house is made of 28 wooden poles built into a frame shaped like a half-open umbrella, and bark is used as the roof all year round. It thickens during the rainy season and thins out during the dry season. There are beds on three sides of the room and a door on one side. The door faces the direction of the holy land of Mecca, intending to pray for God's blessing.

Half-side building: The houses of the Dukawa people in Nigeria are built on sloping terrain, close to mountains and rivers. The front half was built into a building due to the low terrain, and the back half was built into a bungalow due to the high terrain, commonly known as "half-sided building". Legend has it that this kind of building can pray for good weather.

Four rivers unite one house: Because the house is connected on all sides, its roof joints form four troughs. When it rains, rainwater flows down the four troughs and into the seepage well in the courtyard, or is discharged from the ditch under the eaves, so it is called "four water flows into one house" among the people. This type of housing is suitable for the warm and humid climate of the Bay of Benin.

Kelp thatched house: This kind of house is the most distinctive thatched house on the coast of Togo. The local area is rich in slender kelp grass, which has a tough texture after drying. Fishermen build houses with very steep roofs and rolled-up ridges. The roofs are covered with kelp grass, which is round and thick and looks like the backbone of a big fish from a distance. It is commonly known as "kelp thatched house". It has a unique shape, is anti-corrosion, heat-proof, wind-proof, and is not easy to collapse.

Snake House: A group of arc-shaped or square buildings built by people in eastern Ghana that surround the main body like a castle. Because it is built against a hillside and is in the shape of a staircase with layers upon layers, resembling a coiled snake, it is called the "Snake House". The snake-enclosed house has a beautiful shape, carved beams and painted roofs, and a built-in kitchen, patio, water well, etc. It is fully equipped and can meet the requirements of preventing foreign theft and living and working in peace and contentment.

Complex African wedding customs

The marriage system in Africa is very complex. Islam practices polygamy, and other religions also practice polygamy. In Africa, especially in the vast rural areas, there is still a large family system, and women shoulder a heavy workload. Most of the family's land is publicly owned. Parents have supreme power both spiritually and economically, directing the work of family members and handling the distribution of the family's labor products and property. Of course, with the development of social economy, this extended family system is gradually disintegrating and is increasingly replaced by small families.

In recent years, the phenomenon of marriage only among people of this tribe has gradually decreased, but it is still popular in rural areas. Congolese tribes prohibit men and women from the same family from marrying. The Shona people of Zimbabwe stipulate that people who worship the same totem cannot intermarry. The Maasai people in Tanzania, who have relied on herding for many years to make a living, strictly adhere to the marriage system within the tribe, and any man who marries a woman from outside the tribe will be punished. For the Melina people of Madagascar, in order to safeguard the economic interests of the tribe, men can only marry women of the same tribe. The Tambel people of Togo have both. They not only advocate intermarriage between two families within the same tribe, but also allow 21 baskets of millet or 4 cows to "buy" wives back from other tribes. The marriage customs of the ancient Pygmies are different from other tribes in Africa. They strictly practice monogamy, and marriages are often between brothers and sisters of the same generation. They also practiced exchange marriage, that is, if a man marries a woman as his wife, he must marry his sister (or cousin) to the woman's brother (or cousin) in exchange.

There are generally three ways for young men and women in Africa to get married: one is the order of parents or the words of a matchmaker. The parents of both men and women either negotiate in person or ask a matchmaker to make lifelong arrangements for their children; the other is free love between men and women; The third is the fingertip marriage of a few tribes.