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African
Tribe Culture
Traditional
Tribes
When one thinks of the word "Africa," for many the word congers images of
tribes and their traditional cultures. African tribe culture is
distinguished by its great diversity of social patterns. For example, you
can still find what the anthropologists refer to as hunter-gatherer tribes,
as well as more technologically advanced pastoralist and horticulturalist
tribes. In addition, African tribe culture is characterized by a great
diversity of religions, ranging from animism to monotheistic religions such
as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Furthermore, African tribe culture has a
great diversity of visual arts and music as well. For example, African masks
are famous for their beauty and use in traditional African dances and
ceremonies. African masks are known for their innovative use of form,
texture and color to create works of art with cultural significance. With
respect to African music, this is perhaps the most highly evolved form of
music in the world, exhibiting complex patterns unknown to classical
European music which is simplistic in comparison to the music patterns of
African tribe culture. Moreover, African music is the source of many
varieties of music worldwide, including samba, reggae, merengue, and
American rock and roll. Another feature that characterizes African tribe
culture is the great diversity of languages on the African continent. In
comparison to European languages where essentially only one language family
has survived (Indo-European), African has four major language families and
over 2000 existing languages. The largest language family in Africa is
Niger-Congo, with over 1400 languages which illustrate the great diversity
of African tribe culture.
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