Azande

:Niam-Niam redirects here. Niam-Niam can also refer to a Mancala game with a 2×8 and stores.

The Azande (plural, "Zande" in singular) are a people of north central Africa. Their number is estimated by various sources at between 1 and 4 million.

They live primarily in the northern part of Democratic Republic of the Congo, in southwestern Sudan, and in the southeastern Central African Republic. The Congolese Azande live in the province of Upper Zaïre; the Sudanese Azande live along the shores of the Uele River, and the Central African Azande live in the districts of Rafaï, Zémio, and Obo.

They speak an Adamawa-Ubangi language, and most practice a traditional animist religion. Their beliefs revolve mostly around magic, oracles and witchcraft. Witchcraft is believed to be an inherited substance in the belly which lives a fairly autonomous life performing bad magic on the person's enemies. A witch can sometimes be unaware of his/her powers and can accidentally strike people to whom the witch wishes no evil. Because it's always present there are several rituals connected to protection and cancelling of witchcraft, performed almost daily.

Oracles are a way of determining from where the suspected witchcraft is coming and they were for a long time the ultimate legal authority, the one setting the action as how to respond to the threats.

The name

The word Azande means the people who possess much land, and refers to their history as conquering warriors.

There are many variant spellings of Azande, including: Zande, Zandeh, A-Zandeh, Sandeh, etc.

The name Niam-Niam (or Nyam-Nyam) was frequently used by foreigners to refer to the Azande in the 19th and early 20th century. This name is probably of Dinka origin, and means great eaters in that language (as well as being an onomatopoeia), supposedly referring to cannibalistic propensities. This name for the Azande was in use by other tribes in Sudan, and later adopted by westerners. Naturally, today the name Niam-Niam is considered pejorative, and should not be used.

Another tribe called the Niam-Naims were a tribe from ancient legend, said to have short tails.

External links

[Niam-Niam] A public domain article from a 1911 encyclopedia.
[Ethnologue entry] on Zande language (ZND).

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.