AfrinkongBeninWest Africa
Fon, Yoruba, Bariba, Somba
The Fon of Dahomey in the south, the Somba in the Atakora with their fortified houses.
Africa is not a backdrop.
Every country here was written up through the same twenty-seven headings, and twelve of them are about people. So the same question can be put to all 54 at once — and it comes back 54 different ways, which is the part a photograph of a sunset cannot tell you. 7 questions, 378 answers, none of them about “African culture” in general.
Who lives here?
Africa is not one people. It is roughly two thousand languages, and the answer changes at every border and often inside one.
Burkina FasoWest Africa
Mossi, Bobo, Lobi, Fulani
The Mossi kingdoms in the centre, the Bobo and Lobi in the west, the Fulani across the north.
CameroonCentral & West Africa
Fulani, Mafa and Bamileke
Two hundred and fifty ethnic groups and as many languages, from the Mafa terraces of the Mandara to the Fulani of the Sahel.
Central African RepublicCentral & West Africa
BaAka and Sangha-Sangha
The BaAka in the forest, and the Sangha-Sangha along the river.
ChadCentral & West Africa
The Toubou
A desert people of the Tibesti and Ennedi, and among the most self-sufficient anywhere.
CongoCentral & West Africa
Kongo, Teke, Mbochi and the Aka
Bantu peoples along the river, and Aka forest hunter-gatherers in the north.
Côte d'IvoireWest Africa
Baoulé, Senufo and Dan
Baoulé weaving, Senufo sculpture, and Dan masks from the western hills.
DR CongoCentral & West Africa
The Mbuti
Forest hunter-gatherers of the Ituri, with a relationship to that forest going back millennia.
Equatorial GuineaCentral & West Africa
The Bubi
Bioko's first people, with their own language, and a history separate from the mainland.
GabonCentral & West Africa
Fang, Punu, Myene and the Baka
Fang across the north, Punu in the south, and Baka forest people in the interior.
GhanaWest Africa
The Ewe and the Dagomba
Kente weaving in Volta and Ashanti, and the Dagbon drumming traditions of the north.
GuineaWest Africa
Fulani, Malinke, Susu
Fulani in the Fouta, Malinke in the upper Niger country, Susu on the coast.
Guinea-BissauWest Africa
The Bijagos
Age grades govern life, and the vaca-bruto initiation is danced in a bull mask.
LiberiaWest Africa
Kpelle, Bassa, Grebo, Vai
The Vai invented their own script in the 1830s, one of very few in Africa.
MaliWest Africa
Dogon, Bambara, Tuareg, Fulani
Dogon on the escarpment, Bambara on the river, Tuareg and Fulani on the plains north of it.
MauritaniaWest Africa
The Imraguen
A coastal people who fish with lanchas and, by tradition, with the help of dolphins.
NigerWest Africa
The Wodaabe
The Gerewol, where the men dress and dance and the women choose.
NigeriaWest Africa
Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani
Four large cultures and hundreds of smaller ones, each with its own courts and calendars.
SenegalWest Africa
Wolof, Serer and Diola
Wolof across the country, Serer in the delta, and the Diola of Casamance.
Sierra LeoneWest Africa
Mende, Temne and Krio
Mende in the south, Temne in the north, and the Krio of the peninsula.
The GambiaWest Africa
The Griots
The Jali families hold the histories, and the kora is how they are told.
TogoWest Africa
The Batammariba
Their name means 'those who shape the earth', and the houses are the argument.
BurundiEast Africa
Hutu, Tutsi and Twa
One language, Kirundi, spoken by everybody, and a history the country is still working through.
DjiboutiEast Africa
The Afar
Salt caravans still come up from Assal, and the Afar have worked that trade for centuries.
EritreaEast Africa
The Afar and the Rashaida
The Afar on the southern coast, and the Rashaida who came across from Arabia in the 1840s.
EthiopiaEast Africa
Omo Valley
The lower Omo holds sixteen peoples in one valley, and the visits should be arranged carefully.
KenyaEast Africa
Samburu and Maasai
Samburu in the northern drylands, Maasai in the south, both still moving cattle between seasonal grazing.
RwandaEast Africa
Living Memory
Cultural villages near Musanze where former poachers now guide, and the beekeepers and potters of the Virunga foothills.
SomaliaEast Africa
Nomad and Pastoralist
Camel herding is the oldest way of life here and still a large part of the economy.
South SudanEast Africa
The Mundari
Cattle are wealth, name and argument. A camp of them at dusk is unlike anything else.
TanzaniaEast Africa
The Hadzabe of Lake Eyasi
One of the last hunter-gatherer peoples in Africa, speaking a click language unrelated to anything nearby.
UgandaEast Africa
Batwa and Karamojong
The Batwa, forest people of the southwest, and the Karamojong cattle-keepers of the northeast plains.
AngolaSouthern Africa
Ovimbundu, Mbundu, Bakongo, Ovahimba
Ovimbundu in the centre, Bakongo in the north, and Ovahimba along the Cunene.
BotswanaSouthern Africa
The Kalahari San
Tracking with San guides, who will find in an hour what nobody else sees at all.
EswatiniSouthern Africa
The Swazi
One nation, one language, and a set of ceremonies that everyone in the country takes part in.
LesothoSouthern Africa
The Basotho
One people, one language, and a kingdom that kept its independence by going uphill.
MalawiSouthern Africa
Chewa, Yao, Tumbuka, Lomwe
The Chewa Gule Wamkulu masquerade is on the UNESCO list and is danced still.
MozambiqueSouthern Africa
Makonde and Makua
Makonde carving in the north, and the Makua women's mussiro face paint.
NamibiaSouthern Africa
The Himba
The Himba of the Kunene, whose way of life is genuinely intact and should be visited carefully.
South AfricaSouthern Africa
Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele
Ndebele wall painting, Zulu beadwork with its own grammar, and Xhosa initiation still practised in the Eastern Cape.
ZambiaSouthern Africa
The Barotse Floodplain
The Lozi live with the flood — moving cattle, homes and the king himself when the Zambezi rises.
ZimbabweSouthern Africa
The Stone Sculptors
Zimbabwean stone sculpture is the country's clearest contemporary export.
AlgeriaNorth Africa
The Kabyles and the Tuareg
Berber-speaking Kabylie in the north, and the Tuareg of the Hoggar in the far south.
EgyptNorth Africa
Nubians and Bedouin
Nubian villages above Aswan and Bedouin communities in the Sinai and the Western Desert.
LibyaNorth Africa
The Tuareg and the Tebu
The Tuareg in the southwest around Ghat, the Tebu in the Tibesti foothills in the southeast.
MoroccoNorth Africa
The People of the Atlas
Village life at two thousand metres, where the year is still organised around the snow.
SudanNorth Africa
The Nubians
The Nubian villages along the northern Nile paint their houses, and have done for a very long time.
TunisiaNorth Africa
The Berber South
The ksour of Tataouine, and the underground houses of Matmata.
Cabo VerdeIslands
The Badiu and the Sampadjudu
The Santiago interior and the northern islands, with different histories and different music.
ComorosIslands
The Grand Mariage
The anda — a marriage that confers social rank, and can take a decade to afford.
MadagascarIslands
Famadihana and the Ancestors
The ancestors are present here in a way that shapes the calendar and the architecture.
MauritiusIslands
Creole and Bhojpuri
Creole spoken by everyone, Bhojpuri in the villages, and French and English in print.
Sao Tome and PrincipeIslands
The Angolares
Descended from a shipwreck or a maroon community, depending on who tells it, and fishermen either way.
SeychellesIslands
Island Life
A hundred thousand people across a hundred and fifteen islands, most on three of them.
The next step
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