16 Fascinating African Tribal Traditions

Some African tribal traditions are a
mystery and a fascination for
most of the modern world. Tribal
communities sometimes live
without many modern comforts
the rest of us have. Here are 16
fascinating traditions from several
African tribes.

1) 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.

2) 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.

3) 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

4) 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.

5) 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 Unclad.

6) 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

7) 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.

8. 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.

9) 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.

10) 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.

11) 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.

12) 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.

3) 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.

14) 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.


14) 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.
15) 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.
16) 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.