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East African pole sculptures, carved in elongated human shapes and decorated with geometric forms, while the tops may also be carved with figures of animals, represent abstract human figures or other objects. In traditional ways, such poles of the Bongo people were placed next to graves and associated with death and the ancestral world. [9]
Sample of the Egyptian Book of the Dead of the scribe Nebqed, c. 1300 BC. Africa is divided into a great number of ethnic cultures. [17] [18] [19] The continent's cultural regeneration has also been an integral aspect of post-independence nation-building on the continent, with a recognition of the need to harness the cultural resources of Africa to enrich the process of education, requiring ...
The history of the indigenous African peoples spans thousands of years and includes a complex variety of cultures, languages, and political systems. Indigenous African cultures have existed since ancient times, with some of the earliest evidence of human life on the continent coming from stone tools and rock art dating back hundreds of thousands of years.
Map of modern distribution of "Khoisan" languages. The territories shaded blue and green, and those to their east, are those of San peoples. The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. [2]
The Xhosa culture has a traditional dress code informed by the individuals social standing portraying different stages of life. The 'red blanket people' (Xhosa people) have a custom of wearing red blankets dyed with red ochre, the intensity of the colour varying from tribe to tribe.
The study of African art until recently focused on the traditional art of certain well-known groups on the continent, with a particular emphasis on traditional sculpture, masks and other visual culture from non-Islamic West Africa, Central Africa, [15] and Southern Africa with a particular emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. Recently ...
Traditional African religions also have elements of totemism, shamanism and veneration of relics. [21] Traditional Vodun dancer enchanting gods and spirits, in Ganvie, Benin. Traditional African religion, like most other ancient traditions around the world, were based on oral traditions. These traditions are not religious principles, but a ...
Much African folk art consists of metal objects due in part to the cultural status of forging as a "process that is likened to the creation of life itself." [ 1 ] While in the past ceremonial pieces were exchanged as part of social rituals (i.e. marriage), today in Senegal , metal objects are recycled as utilitarian African folk art.