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Bantu
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Bantu

Term applied to over 60 million African people who speak Bantu languages. Comprising many hundreds of groups in eastern, central, and southern Africa, they have little in common apart from their related languages, being socially, culturally, and politically very heterogeneous. Almost all of the peoples practise ancestor worship, but in conjunction with other cults. They are usually divided into the southern Bantu (Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, Tswana, Basuto, Venda, Ndebele or Matabele, Pondo, Pedi), the central Bantu (Shono, Bemba, Lozi); the western Bantu of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and Angola; and the northeastern Bantu of East Africa (Kikuyu, Kamba, Chagga, Ganda).

It is possible that they originate from the equatorial rain forests of the Cameroon-Nigeria border; alternatively it has been suggested that they spread from the area that is now the southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).



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? Mentioned in ? References in periodicals archive
 
Similarly, the Bantu people of West Africa began, as early as 5,000 years ago, to fan out south and east, largely displacing the
Seeds of civilization: thousands of years ago, some of the earth's ... by Hamlin, Bryan / For A Change
Among the Bapede, a Bantu people, men greet each other with their totemic names, "Good day, Crocodile.
African art inspires animal images by Heintz, June Rutledge / School Arts
I have today gathered information to the effect that these three men [alleged leaders of Makhulu Span] have told the Pondomisis that all the bantu people, instead of having all these different Chiefs, should strive to be under one chief and that chief must be ALBERT LUTILI [then president of the ANC].
Of men, magic, and the law: popular justice and the political ... by Crais, Clifton / Journal of Social History
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