In our age, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a corner of the globe that has not been touched by civilization. Of course, in some places the so-called national color is still the main attraction for tourists. But all this is for the most part exotic feigned, artificial. Take, for example, the formidable Masai - Kenya's calling card. Hearing the sound of an approaching bus, the representatives of this tribe hide away TVs, phones and jeans and urgently give themselves a primitive look. Quite a different thing himba- small tribe in northern Namibia. They have preserved the traditions of the Stone Age in their life, not for the sake of tourists, but because they do not want to live differently.
The climate of the province of Kunene, where the himba roam, cannot be called mild. During the day, the thermometer inexorably tends to + 60 °, sometimes frost falls at night. The breath of the oldest desert on the planet - Namiba affects.
The Himba migrated to northern Namibia about a few hundred years ago from East Africa. Once it was a large tribe, but in the middle of the XIX century it was divided. Most of it migrated south, to an area richer in water. The people who broke away from the Himba became known as the Herero. They made contact with the Europeans, which ultimately killed them.
A few decades ago in Namibia they realized: there were few indigenous people who had preserved the way of life and beliefs of their ancestors. In general, the Himba decided to leave alone and let them live the way they want. Any laws of Namibia in their territory come into force only after the approval of the tribal leader, who is called the king.
Like hundreds of years ago, the tribe leads a semi-nomadic life. The main occupation is the breeding of cows, goats and sheep. The number of cows determines the social status, cows also serve as a means of payment. Himba is practically not interested in money, because they do not use any manufactured goods in everyday life. The exception is plastic canisters for storing and carrying water and various little things that accidentally fall into your hands.
Himba live in kraals with a circular layout. In the middle is a barnyard surrounded by a wicker fence. Around - round or square huts. They are built from poles dug into the ground and fastened with leather straps. The frame is coated with clay, and the roof is covered with straw or reed. The floor in the huts is earthen, there is no furniture. Himba sleep on mattresses stuffed with straw. At the entrance to the hut there is a hearth, which is heated in black.
As the pastures are depleted, they dismantle the huts and migrate. Himba water used to be mined by digging deep holes in the sand, and suitable places for this were found in one way they knew. They never put the kraal close to the source, so that outsiders could not peep where the water comes from. Not so long ago, by order of the government, artesian wells were dug on nomadic routes. But the aborigines do not drink this water, except that they feed herds with it.
In the old-fashioned way, life-giving moisture can be obtained only for one's own use, and even then just barely enough. Washing is out of the question. Helps magic ointment, which Himba owes a red skin tone. This is a mixture of butter whipped from cow's milk, various vegetable elixirs and bright red volcanic pumice ground into the finest powder. It is mined in one single place - on a mountain on the border of the plateau, which is occupied by himba. The mountain, of course, is considered sacred, and they do not disclose the recipe for the ointment to anyone.
With this composition, Himba women smear the whole body and hair several times a day. The ointment protects against sunburn and insect bites. In addition, when the ointment is scraped off in the evening, the dirt comes off with it, which is a strange, but effective means of personal hygiene. Surprisingly, the skin of Himba women is perfect. With the help of the same ointment, a traditional hairstyle is made: other people's hair - usually men's, most often from the father of the family - is woven into their own, creating "dreadlocks" on the head.
As a rule, one family occupies one kraal, but there are larger settlements. Almost all Himba can read, count, write their name and know a few phrases in English. This is the merit of mobile schools, which are attended by almost all the children of the tribe. But only a few complete more than two or three classes - in order to continue education, you need to go to the city.
Only women work in the kraals. They carry water, look after cattle, churn butter, sew and mend simple clothes. In addition, the weaker sex is engaged in gathering, so that the diet of the tribe does not consist only of dairy products. Of course, women also take care of the upbringing of children. By the way, kids are not divided into friends and foes.
Cattle are grazed by old people and teenagers. Himba men do not overwork. Assembling and disassembling the kraal - that, by and large, is all their work. Hunting is not among the permanent occupations of the tribe, it is rather a hobby of Himba men. The constant duty of the representatives of the stronger sex is the extraction of the very reddish breed that is used to prepare body paint. However, the composition is also made by women.
The weaker sex is also a kind of engine of progress. If tourists want to buy some souvenir from the tribe, then they have to bargain only with women. In recent years, bright plastic bags have become extremely popular among the people of the tribe. Himba are ready to give the last for them. Indeed, in these bags it is so convenient to store your poor belongings, jewelry and, of course, scallops. With the help of the latter, it is very convenient to construct fantastic hairstyles that Himba women are famous for. They, among other things, are considered the standard of beauty on the African continent.
By the age of 12-14, each Himba is missing four lower teeth. This is a consequence of the rite of initiation. Teeth are knocked out with a stone. If you want to be an adult - be patient. By the age of 14, Himba are allowed to marry, but weddings do not happen often, since a large ransom must be paid for the bride.
The wedding ceremony is very original. The newlyweds spend the night in the hut of the bride's family. In the morning, they, accompanied by the friends of the future wife, leave the parental home, getting out into the street without fail on all fours. Then everyone rises to their feet and, taking each other by the loincloths, head towards the “sacred fire”, where the leader is already waiting for the ceremony for the young. If someone from the procession stumbles, the rite will have to be repeated, but not earlier than in a few weeks.
The participants in the ceremony sit around the fire, and three vessels of milk are brought to the leader - one each from the huts of the groom, the bride and the leader himself. He takes a sample, after which the remaining members of the tribe are applied to the vessels in turn. After that, all those present go to the leader's hut, where the newlyweds will spend three days. In order for the first wedding night to be successful, in front of the hut the bride and groom again fall on all fours and thus go around the house counterclockwise.
Even if a Himba man and woman are married, they are not required to be faithful. Each Himba can have as many wives as he can support. You can change wives, and if a man goes on a long journey, he puts his wife to live with someone he knows.
Such freedom of morals worries the local authorities. More than 20% of the Namibian population has AIDS, so the Himba is a kind of risk group. However, in the tribe, medical problems are treated philosophically. The gods give life, they can take it away, say the Himba. In general, they are long-livers: almost all live up to 70 years, and some even up to a hundred.
The Himba justice system is also interesting. If, for example, a husband kills his wife or one of her relatives, he must pay compensation of 45 cows. If a wife or one of her relatives kills her husband, then no ransom is provided. The authorities of Namibia do not punish himba in any way, considering all this to be their internal affair.
Himba believe that their tribe descended from the progenitor Mukuru, who, along with his wife, came out of the sacred tree Omumborombongo. Mukuru created all things and endowed the souls of the dead Himba ancestors with supernatural powers. But then the enemies drove the tribe from its ancestral lands and captured the tree. Someday the Himba will return there. By the way, having no idea of geography, any head of the clan will show with his hand the direction where to look for Omumborombongo.
In the middle of the 19th century, the himba almost disappeared from the face of the earth. They were attacked by the largest and most powerful tribe in Namibia - the Nama. As a result of cruel raids, the Himba lost all their herds and fled to the mountains. There they had to hunt, but such a life was not to their liking, and they went north to Angola.
For some time it was believed that the Himba died out or mixed with other tribes, when they suddenly reappeared in the old place. It happened in 1903, when the Nama rebelled against the German colonialists. European troops quickly defeated the Nama and their allied Herero, after which they staged a real genocide. As a result, both tribes practically ceased to exist. The Germans and Himba did not bypass "attention". Almost all Himba were killed or captured and sent to black camps. Fortunately, after the First World War, the colonies were taken away from Germany. And if the Herero and the Nama did not recover from the blow, then the Himba "rose" like a phoenix bird from the ashes.
The third time they were considered extinct was in the mid-1980s. A terrible multi-year drought destroyed 90% of the livestock, and in 1988 the last hearth in the last Himba kraal went out. The remaining people of the tribe were resettled in the city of Opuwo as refugees. But in the early 1990s, the Himba returned. Now they number just under 50,000, and the population is growing. At the same time, they live exactly the same as their ancestors hundreds of years ago.
Do you dream of visiting the national parks of Africa, seeing wild animals in their natural habitat and enjoying the last untouched corners of our planet? Safari in Tanzania - an unforgettable journey through the African savannah!
The main part of the peoples of Africa includes groups consisting of several thousand, and sometimes hundreds of people, but at the same time - does not exceed 10% of the total population of this continent. As a rule, such small ethnic groups are the wildest tribes.
It is to this group that, for example, the Mursi tribe belongs.
Ethiopian tribe Mursi - the most aggressive ethnic group
Ethiopia is the oldest country in the world. It is Ethiopia that is considered the progenitor of mankind, it is here that the remains of our ancestor, modestly named Lucy, were found.
More than 80 ethnic groups live in the country.
Living in southwestern Ethiopia, on the border with Kenya and Sudan, settled in the Mago Park, the Mursi tribe is distinguished by unusually tough customs. They, by right, can be nominated for the title of the most aggressive ethnic group.
Prone to frequent alcohol consumption and uncontrolled use of weapons. In everyday life, the main weapon of the men of the tribe is the Kalashnikov assault rifle, which they buy in Sudan.
In fights, they can often beat each other almost to death, trying to prove their dominance in the tribe.
Scientists attribute this tribe to a mutated Negroid race, with distinctive features in the form of short stature, wide bones and crooked legs, low and strongly compressed foreheads, flattened noses and pumped up short necks.
Mursi female bodies often look flabby and sickly, bellies and breasts drooping, and backs stooped. There is practically no hair, which was often hidden under intricate headdresses of a very fantasy appearance, using as a material everything that can be picked up or caught nearby: rough skins, branches, dried fruits, marsh clams, someone's tails, dead insects, and even an incomprehensible smelly fall.
The most famous feature of the Mursi tribe is the tradition of inserting plates into the lips of girls.
In the more public, in contact with civilization, Mursi, you can not always see all these characteristic attributes, but the exotic look of their lower lip is the calling card of the tribe.
Plates are made of wood or clay in different sizes, the shape can be round or trapezoidal, sometimes with a hole in the middle. For beauty, the plates are covered with a pattern.
The lower lip is cut in childhood, pieces of wood are inserted there, gradually increasing their diameter.
Mursi girls start wearing plates at the age of 20, six months before marriage. The lower lip is pierced and a small disk is inserted into it, after the lip is stretched, the disk is replaced with a larger one and so on until the desired diameter is reached (up to 30 centimeters !!).
The size of the plate matters: the larger the diameter, the more the girl is valued and the more cattle the groom will pay for her. Girls must wear these plates at all times except during bedtime and meals, and they can also take them out if there are no males of the tribe nearby.
When the plate is pulled out, the lip droops like a long round cord. Almost all Mursi have no front teeth, the tongue is cracked to the point of blood.
The second strange and frightening adornment of Mursi women is the monista, which are recruited from human finger phalanges (nek). One person has only 28 of these bones in their hands. Each necklace usually consists of phalanxes of five or six tassels, some lovers of "jewelry" monist wrap their neck in several rows
It glistens with fat and emits a sweetish rotting smell of melted human fat, every bone is rubbed daily. The source for the beads never runs out: the priestess of the tribe is ready to deprive the hands of a man who has violated the laws for almost every offense.
It is customary for this tribe to do scarification (scarring).
Men can afford to be scarred only after the first murder of one of their enemies or ill-wishers. If they kill a man, they adorn the right hand, if a woman, then the left.
Their religion, animism, deserves a longer and more shocking story.
Short: women are priestesses of death so they daily give their husbands drugs and poisons.
Antidotes are distributed by the High Priestess, but sometimes salvation does not come to everyone. In such cases, a white cross is drawn on the widow's plate, and she becomes a very respected member of the tribe, who is not eaten after death, but buried in the trunks of special ritual trees. Honor is given to such priestesses because of the fulfillment of the main mission - the will of the God of Death Yamda, which they were able to fulfill by destroying the physical body and freeing the highest spiritual Essence from their man.
The rest of the dead are waiting for the collective eating of the whole tribe. Soft fabrics are boiled in a cauldron, bones are used for jewelry-amulets and thrown on swamps to mark dangerous places.
What seems very wild for a European, for Mursi is commonplace and tradition.
Bushmen tribe
The African Bushmen are the most ancient representatives of the human race. And this is not an assumption at all, but a scientifically proven fact. Who are these ancient people?
The Bushmen are a group of hunting tribes in South Africa. Now these are the remains of a large ancient African population. Bushmen are notable for their short stature, wide cheekbones, narrow slit eyes and much swollen eyelids. It is difficult to determine the true color of their skin, because in the Kalahari they are not allowed to waste water on washing. But you can see that they are much lighter than their neighbors. Their skin tone is slightly yellowish, which is more typical for South Asians.
Young bushwomen are considered the most beautiful among the female population of Africa.
But as soon as they reach puberty and become mothers, these beauties are simply unrecognizable. Bushmen women have overdeveloped hips and buttocks, and their belly is constantly swollen. This is a consequence of malnutrition.
To distinguish a pregnant Bushwoman from other women of the tribe, she is coated with ash or ocher, since this is very difficult to do in appearance. Bushmen men already by the age of 35 become like octogenarians, due to the fact that their skin sags and the body is covered with deep wrinkles.
Life in the Kalahari is very harsh, but even here there are laws and regulations. The most important wealth in the desert is water. There are old people in the tribe who know how to find water. In the place that they indicate, the representatives of the tribe either dig wells or bring water out with the help of plant stems.
Each Bushman tribe has a secret well, which is carefully filled with stones or covered with sand. During the dry season, the Bushmen dig a hole at the bottom of a dried-up well, take a stem of a plant, suck water through it, taking it into their mouths, and then spit it out into the shell of an ostrich egg.
The South African Bushmen tribe is the only people on Earth whose men have permanent erections. This phenomenon does not cause any discomfort or inconvenience, except for the fact that during foot hunting men have to attach the penis to the belt so as not to cling to it. branches.
Bushmen don't know what private property is. All animals and plants growing on their territory are considered common. Therefore, they hunt both wild animals and farm cows. For this they were very often punished and destroyed by entire tribes. Nobody wants such neighbors.
Among the Bushmen tribes, shamanism is very popular. They do not have leaders, but there are elders and healers who not only cure diseases, but also communicate with spirits. Bushmen are very afraid of the dead, and firmly believe in the afterlife. They pray to the sun, moon, stars. But they do not ask for health or happiness, but for success in hunting.
Bushman tribes speak Khoisan languages which are very difficult for Europeans to pronounce. A characteristic feature of these languages is clicking consonants. The representatives of the tribe speak among themselves very quietly. This is a long-standing habit of hunters - so as not to scare the game.
There is confirmed evidence that even a hundred years ago they were engaged in drawing. Rock paintings depicting people and various animals are still found in the caves: buffaloes, gazelles, birds, ostriches, antelopes, crocodiles.
In their drawings there are also unusual fairy-tale characters: monkey people, eared snakes, people with a crocodile face. There is an entire open-air gallery in the desert that presents these amazing drawings by unknown artists.
But now the Bushmen do not paint, they are great in dance, music, pantomime and legends.
VIDEO: Shamanic ritual rite of healing of the Bushmen tribe. Part 1
Shamanic ritual rite of healing of the Bushmen tribe. Part 2
Photographer Jimmy Nelson travels the world capturing wild and semi-wild tribes who manage to maintain a traditional way of life in the modern world. Every year it becomes more and more difficult for these peoples, but they do not give up and do not leave the territories of their ancestors, continuing to live the same way as they lived.
Asaro tribe
Location: Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Taken in 2010. Asaro mudmen ("People from the river Asaro, covered in mud") first encountered the Western world in the mid-20th century. Since time immemorial, these people have smeared themselves with mud and put on masks to instill fear in other villages.
“Individually, they are all very sweet, but with their culture under threat, they are forced to stand up for themselves.” - Jimmy Nelson.
Tribe of Chinese fishermen
Location: Guangxi, China. Taken in 2010. Cormorant fishing is one of the oldest methods of fishing with the help of waterfowl. To prevent them from swallowing their catch, the fishermen tie their necks. Cormorants easily swallow small fish, and bring large ones to their owners.
Masai
Location: Kenya and Tanzania. Taken in 2010. This is one of the most famous African tribes. Young Maasai go through a series of rituals to develop responsibility, become men and warriors, learn how to protect livestock from predators, and keep their families safe. Thanks to the rituals, ceremonies and instructions of the elders, they grow up to be real brave men.
Livestock is central to Maasai culture.
Nenets
Location: Siberia - Yamal. Taken in 2011. The traditional occupation of the Nenets is reindeer herding. They lead a nomadic life, crossing the Yamal Peninsula. For more than a millennium, they survive at temperatures down to minus 50°C. The 1000 km long annual migration route lies across the frozen river Ob.
“If you don’t drink warm blood and don’t eat fresh meat, then you are doomed to die in the tundra.”
Korowai
Location: Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Taken in 2010. The Korowai are one of the few Papuan tribes that do not wear koteki, a kind of penis sheath. The men of the tribe hide their penises by tightly tying them with leaves along with the scrotum. Korowai are hunter-gatherers who live in tree houses. This nation has strictly distributed rights and duties between men and women. Their number is estimated at about 3,000 people. Until the 1970s, the Korowai were convinced that there were no other peoples in the world.
Yali tribe
Location: Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Taken in 2010. Yali live in the virgin forests of the highlands and are officially recognized as pygmies, since the height of men is only 150 centimeters. The koteka (penis gourd case) serves as part of the traditional dress. It can be used to determine the belonging of a person to a tribe. Yalis prefer long thin kotekas.
Karo tribe
Location: Ethiopia. Taken in 2011. The Omo Valley, located in Africa's Great Rift Valley, is said to be home to some 200,000 indigenous peoples who have inhabited it for millennia.
Here the tribes from ancient times traded among themselves, offering each other beads, food, cattle and fabrics. Not so long ago, guns and ammunition came into circulation.
Dasanech tribe
Location: Ethiopia. Taken in 2011. This tribe is characterized by the absence of a strictly defined ethnicity. A person of almost any origin can be admitted to dasanech.
Guarani
Location: Argentina and Ecuador. Taken in 2011. For thousands of years, the Amazonian rainforests of Ecuador have been home to the Guarani people. They consider themselves the bravest indigenous group in the Amazon.
Vanuatu tribe
Location: Ra Lava Island (Banks Island Group), Torba Province. Taken in 2011. Many Vanuatu people believe that wealth can be achieved through ceremonies. Dancing is an important part of their culture, which is why many villages have dance floors called nasara.
Ladakhi tribe
Location: India. Taken in 2012. The Ladakhs share the beliefs of their Tibetan neighbours. Tibetan Buddhism, mixed with images of ferocious demons from the pre-Buddhist Bon religion, has been at the heart of Ladakhi beliefs for over a thousand years. The people live in the Indus Valley, are mainly engaged in agriculture, and practice polyandry.
Mursi tribe
Location: Ethiopia. Taken in 2011. "Better to die than to live without killing." Mursi are pastoralists-farmers and successful warriors. Men are distinguished by horseshoe-shaped scars on the body. Women also practice scarification, and also insert a plate into their lower lip.
Rabari tribe
Location: India. Taken in 2012. 1000 years ago, the Rabari tribe was already roaming the deserts and plains that today belong to Western India. The women of this nation devote long hours to embroidery. They also manage the farms and deal with all financial matters, while the men look after the flocks.
Samburu tribe
Location: Kenya and Tanzania. Taken in 2010. The Samburu are a semi-nomadic people who move from place to place every 5-6 weeks to provide pasture for their livestock. They are independent and much more traditional than the Maasai. Equality reigns in samburu society.
mustang tribe
Location: Nepal. Taken in 2011. Most Mustang people still believe that the world is flat. They are very religious. Prayers and holidays are an integral part of their lives. The tribe stands apart as one of the last strongholds of the Tibetan culture that has survived to this day. Until 1991, they did not let any outsiders into their environment.
Maori tribe
Location: New Zealand. Taken in 2011. Maori - adherents of polytheism, worship many gods, goddesses and spirits. They believe that ancestral spirits and supernatural beings are omnipresent and help the tribe through hard times. The Maori myths and legends that originated in ancient times reflected their ideas about the creation of the Universe, the origin of gods and people.
"My tongue is my awakening, my tongue is the window of my soul."
Goroka tribe
Location: Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Taken in 2011. Life in the highland villages is simple. The residents have plenty of food, friendly families, people honor the wonders of nature. They live by hunting, gathering and growing crops. Internecine clashes are not uncommon here. To intimidate the enemy, the warriors of the Goroka tribe use war paint and decorations.
"Knowledge is just hearsay as long as it's in the muscles."
Huli tribe
Location: Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Taken in 2010. This indigenous people fight for land, pigs and women. They also put a lot of effort into impressing the enemy. Huli paint their faces with yellow, red and white paint, and are also famous for the tradition of making elegant wigs from their own hair.
Himba tribe
Location: Namibia. Taken in 2011. Each member of the tribe belongs to two clans, one by one's father and one by one's mother. Marriages are arranged for the purpose of expanding wealth. Here, appearance is vital. He talks about the place of a person within the group and about his phase of life. The leader is responsible for the rules of the group.
Kazakh tribe
Location: Mongolia. Taken in 2011. Kazakh nomads are the descendants of the Turkic, Mongolian, Indo-Iranian groups and the Huns, who inhabited the territory of Eurasia from Siberia to the Black Sea.
The ancient art of eagle hunting is one of the traditions that the Kazakhs have managed to preserve to this day. They trust their clan, count on their herds, believe in the pre-Islamic cult of the sky, ancestors, fire, and the supernatural powers of good and evil spirits.
When it comes to the birth of a child, first of all, an ordinary clinic comes to mind, then a maternity hospital, and so on. But in remote corners of the planet, where life still differs little from what it was a hundred or two hundred years ago, rituals have been preserved that accompany childbirth in natural conditions. The founder of the scientific and creative project Wild Born travels the world and captures the beauty of this purely feminine thing - the sacraments of bearing and giving birth to a child.
(Total 11 photos + 1 video)
“Native American women have a wide traditional knowledge of nature, which contributes to healthy pregnancy and childbirth. The women of the Kosua tribe prepare a hollow with boiled water heated by stones and throw in a collection of cinchona, roots and herbs. Then they sit on top of this recess, allowing the steam to wrap around their body and relieve pain, help them relax and recover from childbirth.
The project participants set themselves the goal of studying the socio-cultural, ecological and economic aspects of the traditions and rituals of natural childbearing among women from various aboriginal tribes that were on the verge of extinction due to the influence of civilization.
The project was founded by photographer Alegra Elli in 2011. She wanted to study and capture the traditional ways and sacred practices associated with pregnancy and childbirth and how they change over time. The photographs taken during the expeditions study the role of ancient knowledge in childbearing, midwives, ecology, local flora and fauna for rituals, pain relief and nutrition.
A girl from the Taut Batu tribe, Palawan (Philippines).
Every seven years, this tribe performs a ritual to purify the world and restore cosmic balance.
In 2011 and 2012, an expedition traveled to Papua New Guinea to find out what it's like to give birth in the jungle. The following year, the activists traveled to Palawan, Philippines. In 2014, they went from pregnancy to childbirth with the Himba tribe in Namibia, and this year they will observe how women in Yamal cope with the birth of children.
These vivid pictures remind us to take care of customs and traditions, try to preserve the richness and diversity of cultures, and that the birth of children is perhaps the most natural and at the same time the most mysterious process that can be observe.
In this video, an experienced midwife from the Himba tribe in Namibia massages the belly of a pregnant woman a few hours before giving birth.
Before the birth of a child.
Himba newborn.
“On the path to becoming a woman. I witnessed several social rites while living among the Himba tribe, including the initiation of a girl. Having reached puberty, the girl leaves the village until, during the ceremony, she is brought to a new social status. With the support of women from the community, the girl is brought to a special room where she is spiritually protected during her first menstruation. At this time, she receives many gifts, and as soon as she is introduced to the spirit, the change of status becomes official and a traditional leather crown is put on her head as a sign that she can be married. In the photo, the girls are gathered in a small temporary tent, which was built for an initiation ceremony to give them the status of women with the onset of their menstrual cycle. As part of the ceremony and on a regular basis, women burn various roots to obtain a fragrant smoke that is used as a body perfume.
Ethnic diversity on Earth is striking in its abundance. People living in different parts of the world are at the same time similar to each other, but at the same time they differ greatly in their way of life, customs, language. In this article, we will talk about some unusual tribes that you will be interested to know about.
Piraha Indians - a wild tribe inhabiting the Amazon jungle
The Pirahã Indian tribe lives in the Amazonian rainforest, mostly on the banks of the Maici River, in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.
This people of South America is known for their language, pirahão. In fact, Pirahão is one of the rarest languages among the 6,000 spoken languages around the world. The number of native speakers ranges from 250 to 380 people. The language is amazing because:
- does not have numbers, for them there are only two concepts "several" (from 1 to 4 pieces) and "many" (more than 5 pieces),
- verbs do not change either in numbers or in persons,
- it does not have names for colors,
- consists of 8 consonants and 3 vowels! Isn't it amazing?
According to linguists, Piraha men understand basic Portuguese and even speak very limited topics. True, not all males can express their thoughts. Women, on the other hand, have little understanding of the Portuguese language and do not use it at all for communication. However, the Pirahão language has several loanwords from other languages, predominantly from Portuguese, such as "cup" and "business".
Speaking of business, the Piraha Indians sell Brazil nuts and provide sexual services in order to buy supplies and tools, such as machetes, milk powder, sugar, whiskey. Chastity is not a cultural value for them.
There are several other interesting points associated with this nationality:
- Piraha have no coercion. They don't tell other people what to do. It seems that there is no social hierarchy at all, no formal leader.
- This Indian tribe has no concept of deities and God. However, they believe in spirits that sometimes take the form of jaguars, trees, people.
- it seems that the Piraha tribe are people who do not sleep. They can take a nap for 15 minutes or at most two hours throughout the day and night. They rarely sleep through the night.
The Wadoma tribe is an African tribe of people with two toes.
The Wadoma tribe lives in the Zambezi Valley in northern Zimbabwe. They are known for being ectrodactyly by some members of the tribe, missing the three middle toes and turning the outermost two inwards. As a result, members of the tribe are called "two-toed" and "ostrich-footed." Their huge two-toed feet are the result of a single mutation on chromosome number seven. However, in the tribe, such people are not considered inferior. The reason for the frequent occurrence of ectrodactyly in the Wadoma tribe is isolation and a ban on marriage outside the tribe.
Life and life of the Korowai tribe in Indonesia
The Korowai tribe, also called the Kolufo, lives in the southeast of the autonomous Indonesian province of Papua and consists of about 3,000 people. Perhaps until 1970 they were unaware of the existence of other people besides themselves.
Most clans of the Korowai tribe live in their isolated territory in tree houses, which are located at a height of 35-40 meters. In this way, they protect themselves from floods, predators, and arson by rival clans who enslave people, especially women and children. In 1980, some of the Korowai moved to settlements in open areas.
Korowai have excellent hunting and fishing skills, gardening and gathering. They practice slash-and-burn agriculture, when the forest is first burned, and then cultivated plants are planted in this place.
As far as religion is concerned, the Korowai universe is filled with spirits. The most honorable place is given to the spirits of ancestors. In difficult times, they sacrifice domestic pigs to them.
