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The Bantu refer to over 400 different ethnic groups in Africa, from Cameroon to South Africa, united by a common language family, the Bantu language, and in many cases common customs.
Black South Africans were at times officially called "Bantus" by the apartheid regime.
Dr. Wilhelm Bleek was the first person to define the term "Bantu" in his 1862 book A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages. He proposed the hypothesis that a vast number of languages spread across central, southern, eastern, and even western Africa shared so many characteristics that they must be part of a single language group. This basic thesis is still accepted today, although there have been many modifications to the details of the theory since 1862.
The Bantu languages are very closely related considering the vast territory they cover, leading historians to believe the Bantu came to dominate sub-Saharan Africa relatively recently and quickly. This is born out by early North African and Middle Eastern sources that do not report Bantu's north of Mozambique before the year 1000.
Before the Bantu the southern half of Africa is believed to have been populated by Khoisan speaking people, today relegated largely to the arid regions around the Kalahari and a few isolated pockets in Tanzania. Other language groups such as Cushitic, and Afro-Asiatic, were also supplanted in other areas.
There are two basic theories of Bantu origins. The first was advanced by Joseph H. Greenberg in 1963. He had analyzed and compared several hundred African languages and found that a group of languages spoken in Western Africa, around Nigeria were the most closely related. He theorized that Bantu was one of these languages that spread south and east over hundreds of years.
This was quickly challenged by Malcolm Guthrie he analyzed each Bantu language and found that the most stereotypical were those spoken in Zambia and southern Zaire. This provided the alternate theory that Bantu speakers had spread from this location in all directions.
Today the accepted truth is a synthesis of these theories. The Bantu first originated around the Benue-Cross rivers area in southeastern Nigeria and spread over Africa to the Zambia area. Sometime in the second millennium BC, perhaps triggered by the drying of the Sahara they began to expand into the rainforests of central Africa. About 1000 years later they began a more rapid second phase of expansion beyond the forests into southern and eastern Africa. Then sometime in the first millenium new agricultural techniques and plants were developed in Zambia, likely imported from South East Asia via Malay speaking Madagascar. With these techniques a second Bantu expansion occurred centered on this new location.
When Jan van Riebeeck went around the coast of South Africa in 1652, very few Bantu were found there, and the predominant indegenous population around the Cape of Good Hope was made up of Khoisan people. European settlers following Van Riebeeck, mostly from Holland, French Huguenots and German settlers, known today as Boers moved in over a period of 100 years, from the middle of the 1700s. Only around 1770 did the Boers discover the Bantu, although in 1700s they were the main inhabitants of Southern Africa. During the 1800s many battles were fought between these ethnic peoples and the white settlers, now including the British.
The Bantu were divided into different clans, not around national federations, but independent groups from some hundreds to thousands of individuals.
The smallest unit of the Bantu organisational structure formed the household, or Kraal consisting of a man, woman or women, their children as well as other relatives living in the same household. The man was the head of the household and often had many wives, and had the complete authority over the family. The household and close relations generally played an important role in the life of the Bantu. Households which were resident in the same valley or on the same hill, were also an organisational unit, managed by a sub-chief.
The chief was not elected, but hereditary. With most clans the eldest son inherited the office of his father. With some clans the office was left to the oldest brother of the deceased chief, and after his death again the next oldest brother. This repeated until the last brother had deceased. Next was the eldest son original chieftain, then the oldest one of the brothers as the leader. The chief was surrounded with a number of trusted friends or advisors, usually relatives like uncles and brothers, rather than influential Headmen or personal friends. The degree of the democracy depended on the strength of the chieftain. The more powerful and more influential a chieftain was, the lesser the influence of people. Although the leader had much power, he was not above the law. He could be criticized both by advisors as well as by his people, and compensation could be demanded.
The Bantu is divided into four main groups: Nguni, Sotho, Venda and Nguni
In common between the two powerful groups of the Nguni and the Sotho are patrilinear societies, with which the leaders formed the socio political units. Similarly food acquisition was by cultivation and hunting. The most important differences were the strongly deviating languages, although both are dialects of Bantu language, and the different settlement and relationships. With the Nguni settlements were villages widely scattered, whereas with the Sotho settled in towns.
The Bantu were not territorially minded like the Europeans, but rather group-related. As long as sufficient land was available, they had actually only very vague conceptions of borders. Borders were naturally in the form of rivers or mountains, which were not by any means fixed.
The food acquisition of the Bantu was limited in the main to agriculture and hunt, whereby usually the women responsible for the agriculture and the men drew for the hunt. Except with the Tsonga and partially with the Mpondo fishing was surprisingly of no importance. The diet was thus corn, meat, vegetables, beef and milk, water and grain beer, which contained only very little alcohol compared with European beer. The Bantu had a number of taboos regarding the consumption of meat. No meat of dogs, apes, crocodiles and snakes could be eaten. Likewise taboo was the meat of some birds, like owls, crows and vultures.
All Bantu tribes commonly had clear separation between the tasks of the women and those of the men.
The Bantu lived in two different types of huts. The Nguni used the Beehive hut, a circular structure out of long poles, which was covered with grass. The huts of the Sotho, Venda and Shangana Tsonga used the Cone and Cylinder hut. A cylindrical wall was formed out of vertical posts, which was sealed with mud and cow dung. The roof was built from tied together poles. The floor of both types of compressed earth.
Magic takes a major central role in Bantu belief, with good and bad influence. They often saw a manifestation of the souls of deceased ancestors in ceremonies. The Bantu believed the separation from body and spirit after death.
Bantu language Bantu expansion
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