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How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

arstechnica.com

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Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#11

Post by CossieRay »

slice_of_life wrote: post #3

Very interesting read. I am a Bantu from Kenya and I'd like to tack on something to this. First of all, it's incredible how intellectually insatiable the HN community is; I never imagined a post like this would end up on the HN's home page because of how niche it is. I happen to speak up to 4 languages - Eng, Swahili, my native language Kikuyu and very rusty French. It may surprise you to know that when I listen to o…

Mambo vipi @ slice_of_life.

Thank you for your well articulated post. I'm Bantu also from Kenya ( Meru).

> There has been a lot of hatred between the Bantu speaking communities and Nilotes in Kenya.

Since when has this been the case? Have they been traditionally enemies or politics has succeeding in dividing people along ethnic lines? I think politics and not tribes is the culprit here. The latter was just a convenient platform to stratify the populace by early politicians for their political survival and dominance.

Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#12

Post by barking »

buyx wrote: post #7

One of the more pernicious myths that continues to sustain ideological racism in South Africa (and its more vile outposts on the internet) is the terra nullius equivalent: that whites and Bantu-speaking blacks arrived in South Africa at the same time, and therefore large-scale dispossession of the black population didn't take place with the outward expansion of white colonials. The point about intermarriage with the…

You call it intermarriage between the San and the Bantu implying a nice peaceful union between the newcomers and the existing population. Do you know for certain that was how it was, the article didn't use the word intermarriage?

Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#13

Post by _0ffh »

buyx wrote: post #10
NicoJuicy wrote: post #9

Since we also talk about languages here. I once found a post in African ( Afrikaans), I thought it was strangely written Dutch, then saw the tld and looked it up. Then learned that Afrikaans is based on Dutch. It's really funny that you can read the main language of a country so far away, since Dutch isn't that spoken by that many people ( 28 million)

Afrikaans isn't the "main language" of South Africa. It is 1 of 11 official languages, 9 of which are Bantu languages. Until 1994, it was one of two official languages (along with English). I've also never seen it referred to by the name "African". One of the main causes of the 16 June 1976 Soweto riots was an attempt by the apartheid government to change the medium of instruction in black schools from English to Afr…

IIRC "Afrikaans" literally means "African" (in Dutch and, uhm, Afrikaans).

Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#15

Post by slice_of_life »

CossieRay wrote: post #11
slice_of_life wrote: post #3

Very interesting read. I am a Bantu from Kenya and I'd like to tack on something to this. First of all, it's incredible how intellectually insatiable the HN community is; I never imagined a post like this would end up on the HN's home page because of how niche it is. I happen to speak up to 4 languages - Eng, Swahili, my native language Kikuyu and very rusty French. It may surprise you to know that when I listen to o…

Mambo vipi @ slice_of_life. Thank you for your well articulated post. I'm Bantu also from Kenya ( Meru). > There has been a lot of hatred between the Bantu speaking communities and Nilotes in Kenya. Since when has this been the case? Have they been traditionally enemies or politics has succeeding in dividing people along ethnic lines? I think politics and not tribes is the culprit here. The latter was just a convenie…

Hi CossieRay. Nice to meet you!

>I think politics and not tribes is the culprit here.

AFIK there's nothing historically (pre-colonial era) that could shed light on why these two groups can't seem to get along. May be examining a similar setting outside Kenya could provide some much needed clarity.

But coming back to our situation, politics could be to blame. As soon as independence was attained there was a scramble for power and resources that has left many with a bitter taste in their mouths. The communities that 'lost' out, so to speak,feel like they need to eliminate the apparent victors in order to thrive.

This to me speaks to a deeper issue that is the mindset of scarcity. In the minds of many there is a finiteness in the magnitude of resources available and as such they need to be acquired by all means necessary and as quickly as possible. Obviously this isn't the reality but it is perceived as such.

One way neighboring Tanzania solved this issue is through standardization; it came at a cost though. TZ adopted some fiscally irresponsible nation building plans because they adopted communism and this affected their economy adversly to the point that their then president Mwalimu Julius Nyerere(who had initially introduced it) admitted to its failure and opened up the economy by allowing people to own businesses. However, hidden somewhere within these nation building plans was also a certain sense of nationhood and brotherhood. They all spoke the same language(swahili) for instance as opposed to their tribes' languages. Even today, it is the same case and you'll never ever hear of negative ethnicity there. Their economic plan had a calamitous outcome but their social cohesion is incomparable to that in Kenya.

Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#16

Post by caio1982 »

_0ffh wrote: post #13
buyx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afrikaans isn't the "main language" of South Africa. It is 1 of 11 official languages, 9 of which are Bantu languages. Until 1994, it was one of two official languages (along with English). I've also never seen it referred to by the name "African". One of the main causes of the 16 June 1976 Soweto riots was an attempt by the apartheid government to change the medium of instruction in black schools from English to Afr…

IIRC "Afrikaans" literally means "African" (in Dutch and, uhm, Afrikaans).

It does, but it may sound derogatory because African has a much wider and broad meaning than a specific Dutch word (used in a singular colonized area).

Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#17

Post by wavefunction »

caio1982 wrote: post #16
_0ffh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC "Afrikaans" literally means "African" (in Dutch and, uhm, Afrikaans).

It does, but it may sound derogatory because African has a much wider and broad meaning than a specific Dutch word (used in a singular colonized area).

And in any case, it's Afrikaans in English as well as Dutch, so 'African' while perhaps a literal translation into English is not really something with meaning in English.

Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#18

Post by nroets »

buyx wrote: post #7

One of the more pernicious myths that continues to sustain ideological racism in South Africa (and its more vile outposts on the internet) is the terra nullius equivalent: that whites and Bantu-speaking blacks arrived in South Africa at the same time, and therefore large-scale dispossession of the black population didn't take place with the outward expansion of white colonials. The point about intermarriage with the…

The Khoisan have occupied much of Africa for much of human history. [1] I don't know exactly how the Bantus displaced the people that they came across, but I suspect some form of foul play.

1: http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6692

Re: How the Bantu people surged across two-thirds of Africa

#20

Post by Lordarminius »

> analysis and archeological evidence suggest that the Bantu originated near the border of Nigeria and Cameroon....

When Mandela and Winne were in the midst of their divorce, I read an article which reported that Winnie got the matrimonial home as part of the settlement because 'the placenta of her children were buried there....' This practice is widespread in West Africa. It surprised me that it was a thing in South Africa as well and spurred my (amateur) search for other similarities in culture.

Turns out there are many : inheritance laws, burial customs,traditional government organization.

This article does a lot to explain why we are so similar. In particular, the culture and traditions of central plains dwelling Nigerian tribes (Tiv, Berom, Jukun etc) are very similar to that of the Eastern and South African Bantu (Swahili, Xhosa, Zulu)

(I am Nigerian)

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