Africa has more than 3,000 tribes, each with its own distinct cultures and histories.And each of them ought to be acknowledged and valued.
Here are three of Africa’s smallest tribes:
1) Karamojong
According to research, the Karamojong people moved to Uganda around 1600 AD from Ethiopia.They use their own language, Karamojong, for communication.
The Karamojong are traditionalists who take great pleasure in their culture and traditions.They jealously guard their practices, and it takes a lot of sensitization to accept any government’s plans to alter their way of life.
They are a pastoral tribe whose primary occupation is herding animals.Additionally, they cultivate crops in areas where livestock cannot be herded.They are getting fewer in number.
2. Himba
One of the smallest indigenous tribes in Africa, the Himba have approximately 50,000 members.They are located in the Kunene region of northern Namibia and on the Angolan side of the Kunene River.
They are a native Namibian people who have been there for more than 500 years.The majority of them raise livestock.They continue to adhere to their cultural practices and bilateral descent system despite being a small tribe.
Their primary diet consists of sour milk, maize porridge, and occasionally just plain stiff porridge due to a lack of milk and meat.
Their diet now includes honey, wild herbs, cornmeal, and chicken eggs.Cattle are occasionally sold for cash.The Himba speak Otjihimba, a Bantu language.
3. El Molo
The El Molo, Kenya’s smallest tribe, has only 300 people living on Lake Turkana’s beaches.They left Ethiopia a while back, around 1000 BC.When they got to the lake, they stopped farming and started fishing.They use their own language, known as El Molo, for communication.
The El Molo still live in huts on the shore of Lake Turkana, despite the fact that they are gradually being replaced by permanent concrete homes.Numerous El Molo rehearses a conventional religion centered on Waaq/Wakh worship.Waaq is the name of the one God of the Oromo civilization, which is related to the early pre-Abrahamic religion.
Some El Molo have also converted to Christianity.The El Molo bury their deceased under a small stone cairn on the lake’s shore. After the burial, the entire town moves away from the location to avoid offending the dead.
