Kidnapping your bride
In the Sudanese Latuka tribe, when a man wants to marry a woman, he kidnaps her. Elderly members of his family go and ask the girl’s father for her hand in marriage, and if dad agrees, he beats the suitor as a sign of his acceptance of the union. If the father disagrees, however, the man might forcefully marry the woman anyway.
Khweta Ceremony
This Southern African ceremony is practiced by several tribes and is how a young boy proves his manhood. When they are of age, boys are sent to spend several days or weeks in a circumcision lodge during winter, where they’re put through rigorous and often dangerous tests and rituals such as continuous dancing until exhaustion, and circumcision.
Putting a price on the bride
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. All negotiations must be done in writing — never by phone or in person. The two families cannot even speak until negotiations are complete.
Spitting your blessings
Members of the Maasai tribe in Kenya and Tanzania spit as a way of blessing. Men spit on newborns and say they are bad in the belief that if they praise a baby, it will be cursed. Maasai warriors will also spit in their hands before shaking the hand of an elder.
Bull jumping
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. They do this multiple times, and usually in the nude.
The groom wears a veil
The Ahaggaren Tuaregs of Algeria are part of a larger group of Berber-speaking Tuaregs. In their culture, the men wear veils almost all the time. However, they can take their veils off when inside family camps or while traveling.
Women have their own houses
In the Gio tribe in Ivory Coast, each wife has her own small house that she lives in with her children until they are old enough to move out. The children never live with their fathers.
Women can’t grieve elders
In the Southwestern Congo, the Suku tribe honors ancestors and elders, when they die, with a ceremony held in the clearing of a forest. Here, gifts and offerings are brought, but outsiders and all women are forbidden to attend.
Sons are raised by their uncles
When male children reach age 5 or 6 in the Northern Angolan Songo tribe, they are sent to live with their uncles on their mother’s side. This is because chiefs inherit their position through matrilineal lines.
Wealth is measured by cows
In the Pokot tribe in Kenya, wealth is measured by how many cows a family has. Most Pokot people are either “corn people” or “cow people”— meaning that’s what they cultivate on their land — but all Pokot people measure their wealth by cows. The number of women a man can marry is determined by how many cows he has.
Living with animals
The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania have strict policies against killing wild animals. They keep cattle and livestock, but leave wild animals untouched. In fact, each clan is associated with a specific wild species, which they often keep close to them and treat as a clan member.
Red sun block
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. For that reason, the Himba people often appear to have a red skin tone.
Hunter-gatherers
The San People of Botswana, also called Bushmen, are hunter gatherers who were evicted from their ancestral land in the 1950s. They were forbidden to hunt and forced to apply for permits to enter reserves. The San switched to farming but they continued to gather herbs for medication and plants for food. Deprived of the ability to hunt, San numbers dwindled.
Beating the suitor
The Fulani tribe live in many countries in West Africa and follow a tradition called Sharo. Sharo happens when two young men want to marry the same woman. To compete for her hand, they beat one another up. The men must suppress signs of pain and the one who takes the beating without showing signs of pain can take the wife.
A thorough cleansing
The Chewa people are one of the largest indigenous groups of Malawi but live throughout Central and Southern Africa. 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. They do this by squeezing the corpse’s stomach until what comes out the rear end runs clear.
Lip stretching
When a girl becomes a teenager in the Surma tribe of Southern Sudan, she begins the process of lip stretching. The girl has her bottom teeth removed to make space for a lip plate, which is increased in size annually.
I feel really bad for those girls that have to go through lip stretching that has to hurt #sorry for those girls # saddddddddddddddddddddddddd
ya i agree
I agree with u.
i agree
its really a bad tradition of latuka tribe that when a man want to marry with a women he kiddnap first without her desire . it should be stop . if its not possible to stop it then it should also be a tradition that when a women want to marry with man then she also has right to kidnap a man without his desire .
believe, culture, ethics, social norms are the systems that runs the society in a proper and smooth ways…. i found most traditions in africa is quite interesting, but i feel bad when i read about the lip stretching…it is painful and bad believe of that society………african should eradicate such believe…
Mutilating a child/teens ears and lips should be stopped, even in third world countries. There are too many people in the world that know this is wrong to allow the pain and injustice.
These guys ;Fulani tribe where by the suitors fight to know the strongest man to marry the bride its so interesting but am worried about the cowards in that community how do they make it to marriege or they don’t give birth to cowards?
most of the African cultural practices have to be checked on in peace otherwise they hold their tradition and identity
All these judgemental comments about another culture is what is sad and needs to be stopped. That is the way of the colonizer. Respect traditions that have been passed on for thousands of years by grandmothers and grandfather’s one generation at a time. Celebrate that these traditions have survived INNUMERABLE attempts to end whole tribes of people through killing their culture (language, ceremonies, family structure, langue, food, etc). Ancestors have died to protect, preserve and pass on their traditions. And not just on the continent of Africa, this slow and unending type of genocide has happened and continues to happen all over the world to all indigenous cultures.
FACTS!
Some traditions are harmless but others are really cruel and lip-stretching, along with female genital mutilation (not listed here) are the worst and most condemnable. It’s not a matter of “perspective”, it’s a matter of respect for human dignity. Moral is cultural, ethics is universal.
Agree with your common sense response to these various cultural traditions. Most traditions when colonizers fight against it, it causes others to learn about some of these traditions; like fighting for a wife. In America, it’s called “gang initiation” and it’s not for a wife yet it poses similarities to the tradition. There are many traditions of the old countries way that came with immigration but has been transformed into a negative behavior because they/we forgot ourselves may have come from these regions that are being judged without knowledge or understanding of the “why” its done their way.
Shame they have to be strong to go through such
african culture is interesting but some traditions are scary
We follow every step of culture like others.Why must we forget ourselves.
Makes me glad I live in a civilized country. Those “traditions” are senseless and cruel.
I ts very sad that we want to tell people how to be. but do we want people to tell us how to be? BIG NO. We alone must tell ourselves how to be. Africans have and continue to suffer worldwide wherever they are because someone said they were cruel pagan. But all of us with such civilized manners and habits have a propensity to kill, and we kill by many different means. We kill physically, mentally and economically as a tradition.
African Traditional culture is interesting, and should be respected by all. The attempt to end it is bad beyond measure, because once it is ended,how then do we recognize ourselves? The psychology behind our culture is what makes us be today. We as Africans should raise our flags. Our cultures are suppressed today as such we have a numerous headless Africans because of confusion. Identity is important. African Traditional culture should be valued as much as the Western value theirs to the extent of forcing it down our throats.
I have seen good images and happy in my country Ethiopia has huge potentials….
fantastic cultural activities has been experienced in Ethiopia please observe it
this is really bad culture
wtf is this
I am sorry but I think some data is incorrect for example measuring of wealth in Kenya using cows is by the maasai and not the pokot. The data is also shallow trust me there are other far more interesting cultures here in Africa. For those who are judging on how cruel some of these cultures are, remember those people are content living like that and if they were at all to stop then they would loose their identity also.
Before you all start judging and commenting such crap, learn and understand why most of our traditional practices were like that? Don`t just run your mouth please. Infect most of those practices evolved into safe practices…
Bruv!! thats bullshit from yous. We fulani don’t fight each other for a wife. No fulani tribe in entire africa does that! You should have at least some self respect and not put such lies on your page!!! #fuming
I am not running over bulls with no clothes on it’ll be a cold day in hell
This is one of the best comments that I have read, Michael! Well said! I couldn’t stop giggling!
Honestly if I was raised in this part of Africa I would not think it’s cruel or wrong to do traditions I’m ment to do, most of these comments are driving me nuts, some people are saying the traditions should be erased, while others are saying it’s cruel or they feel bad for them, this is just life it’s what they’ve been doing for generations, and it’s their culture. You can’t force somebody to stop doing their culture, and tradition just because you feel bad for them, that’s just how they were raised, and just like some things that we can’t stop doing, it’s the same for them. Their culture is what they it it defines who they are, so please stop saying this culture needs to be erased, cause what if they did the same thing to you, and tried to take away what makes you you.
honestly, I thank God for civilization. I cannot imagine the pains and agony that ladies experience all in the name of culture.