The term “AFrica” evokes certain images; lions, elephants and cheetahs, the Masai Mara, the Cape, the dry, hot African sun and a lot more. Africa as a continent has a very interesting history but at the same time it is very different. For one there are no lions roaming the desert of Sahel in Botswana nor elephants trampling your crops in Kigali. Africa culture on the other hand evokes different types of people from a wide variety of ethnic groups. The following is a brief description of the main article about Africa culture by an ordinary tourist to Africa, who happened to be present here for the third time.
My introduction to Africa culture starts with the word nilo-saharan. nilo-saharan means ‘new world’. It was an indigenous term used for the southern most areas including the new world and the east African coast. It referred to the ancient cultures and the way of life as well as the way of farming that had been developed in those areas over the years. There is a big part of African art and music that comes from the new world or the nilo-saharan area including batik, patria, wage and many others.
My next main article will focus on the way of life and cuisine of the sub-saharan music and art. There is a big part of Africa culture that depends on the cuisine and food habits of the people belonging to an ethnic group. This group could be black, white or yellow. For example, the Nilotic speakers, who are an ethnic group living in north Botswana, are famous for their spicy and tangy cuisine. The major contributor to this spicy cuisine is beef.
Over the years the Nilotic culture has changed a lot. They are now mainly producing wine and tea as well as cereals, beans and fruit products. While the Portuguese brought the meat products to Africa, the later groups like the Bantus, who were from what is now Namibia, brought with them the understanding of cooking meat products that made it possible for African cuisine to grow. This led to the development of many new spices that are popular in African cuisines today.
The Nilotic people are located in the central parts of Africa, where they use mainly sorghum and khichuri as their main staples of cuisine. Sorghum is a maize grown abundantly in the areas of South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Khichuri is an underground tuber, which grows on trees in Southern Africa. It is used to make both sweet and savory dishes and it is one of the main ingredients of the cuisine of Nilotic and Southern African people.
The people who live in the regions of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland, are considered as the Ngan (Tribes) of Africa. They have developed their own unique culture based on their interaction with the other ethnic groups of the continent and also on hunting and gathering of wild animals. The Ngan cuisine comprises of traditional foodstuffs, such as sorghum cakes, injiroth, honors and other meat products cooked on the ground. Unlike other African cultures that are mostly vegetarian, these people have an abundance of meat products and are thus able to produce a wide range of ethnic dishes.
