7 Weird Cultural Practices in Africa You Should Know About
Wycliffe Opondo
Lead Generation Expert | LinkedIn Coach | Social Media Marketing | Content Creation | Helping Businesses, Freelancers & Job Seekers Optimize their LinkedIn Profiles | 157+ Profiles Optimized
Weird cultural practices in Africa are a common phenomenon. Some are well-known, and others are unknown – but they all shock you.
Let’s look at some aspects that make Africa unique. Check out some of the seven weird cultural practices in Africa below:
Stealing Each Other’s Wives – Niger
Wait! This isn’t the infidelity you’re thinking of but a significant annual festival among Niger’s Wodaabe tribe. Men?steal ?each other’s wives. In the Wodaabe tribe, the parents arrange the first marriage when the children are still young, and it must be between cousins from the same family.
The annual?Gerewol Festival ?follows, during which the men dress to impress, dance, and maybe steal a new wife. If a man can steal a woman without being caught, he becomes socially acknowledged.
Festival of the Dead – Malawi
Malawi’s festival of the dead ranks high among weird cultural practices in Africa. When a tribe member dies in Malawi’s Chewa tribe, it is customary to wash the deceased’s body during the burial ceremony.
Other top stories on Africa
领英推荐
After that, they move the body to a sacred location for a purification ceremony. Slitting the throat and pouring water through the corpse is part of the cleansing process. They passed the water through several times until it was clean. After that, it is collected and used to prepare a meal for the entire community.
The Courtship Dance of the Wodaabe
Another annual ritual and competition held by the Wodaabe tribe of Niger are the Guérewol, in which young men dress up in ornate adornment and traditional face paint and form lines to dance and sing.
What is the goal? A young woman is ready to marry to attract the judges' attention. The male beauty ideal in this tribe is all about bright eyes and teeth; therefore, men will frequently roll their eyes and display their teeth to flaunt their sex appeal.
The Lip Plates of the Mursi
Women in Ethiopia’s Mursi tribe make up weird cultural practices in Africa. They still wear huge pottery or wooden plates on their lower lips, making them one of the last tribes in Africa to do so.
Except for the?Mursi tribe , the practice appears to have faded because of civilisation. Her mother or an elderly woman chops A Mursi girl’s lower lip when she reaches the age of 15. Huge pottery or wooden plates then hold the cut in place for three months until it heals.
They do not force the girls to have their lips pierced since Mursi members are egalitarian. It’s by choice. What do you think about that?
The Bull-jumping of the Hamar
Hamar in Ethiopia is a pastoralist community renowned for its treasure of cattle. Hamar is also popular for its athletic initiation ritual. For a boy to marry, he undergoes a three-day?initiation ceremony , the rite of passage for his dignity and his family. To make them slippery, fifteen castrated they cover bulls with cow dung. A young boy has to strip naked, run, jump and land on the back of the bulls arranged in a straight and closely-knit herd pulled by the tail and horns of older men.