Bambara people

The Bambara (or Bamana ) are an ethnic group in Southeast Mali on the middle Niger River and the adjacent areas of Burkina Faso.

Dissemination and residential

The Bambara are about four million people. In Mali, they have a share in the total population of 38 percent in Burkina Faso around two percent.

Language

The language, Bambara, one of the Mande languages ​​within the Niger - Congo languages ​​. It is related to the Malinke language ( dialect of Mandinka ).

Way of life and religion

The Bambara are traditionally farmers. Agriculture is still the main economic base of living in the country Bambara.

The traditional cults of the Bambara were and are still closely connected with agriculture. In particular, the initiation cults, the entry of a person into a new culture-based stages of life, played and play an important role in the society of the Bambara. The individual initiation steps or frets are: N'domo, Komo, Tyi Wara, Nama and Kore. Outside of the Niger bend these rites are mainly known through the masks that are worn during ceremonies.

An essential part of the Bambara are now followers of Islam. Nevertheless, the Bambara occurred much later than other people in this room to Islam. The Islamierungswellen in the 19th century were relatively unscathed by the Bambara. Only with the spread of French colonization and their ideologies put the crossing to Islam or to a lesser degree to Christianity. These developments are the result of a conscious approach to the definition and proclaimed by the French colonial power civilization claims that should meet the Africans from the Western perspective. This process was by no means limited to the Bambara, but was amplified in the Sub-Saharan room instead, where Islam and Christian colonizers in the 20th century met each other.