Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Azerbaijani Turks
Learn about the culture of the Azerbaijani Turks. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Avars
Learn about the culture of the Avar people of Russia. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Asiatic Eskimos
Learn about the culture of the Asiatic Eskimos of Russia. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Ashkenazim
Learn about the culture of the Ashkenazim of Russia. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Armenians
Learn about the culture of the Armenians. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Andis
Learn about the culture of the Andis people of Russia. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Altaians
Learn about the culture of the Altaian people of Russia. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Aleuts
Learn about the culture of the Aleut people. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Sara
"Sara" is the term employed by outsiders to refer to a group of non-Muslim tribes in southern Chad, all of whom speak mutually intelligible dialects. Each tribe is a distinct geographic, political, and endogamous entity. Major tribes are...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: San Speaking Peoples
San-speaking peoples do not constitute an ethnic group in the usual sense. The most widely known are those who call themselves "Zhu I oasi" (!Kung or Juwasi in most ethnographies), although the other peoples mentioned above have also...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Samaritans
The Samaritans are a sect numbering about 500 who currently reside in Nablus, on the west bank of the Jordan River in Israeli-occupied Jordan, and in Holon, south of Tel Aviv, on the Mediterranean coast of Israel. The Samaritans call...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Sakalava
The Sakalava inhabit an expansive region of Madagascar; their territory today encompasses nearly all of the west coast of this large Indian Ocean island. "Sakalava" is a compound term meaning "the long valleys" or "rivers." A noun as...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Pokot
During the colonial period, the Pokot were called "Suk" by Europeans. To some Pokot, the older designation is a reminder of an era in which Africans lacked the power to name themselves; to others, it represents the clever ruse of a...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Persians
Persians are an ethnic group defined primarily by language and location. The Persian language, also known as Farsi, which linguists classify in the Indo-Iranian Branch of the Indo-European Language Family, had about 23 million speakers...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Peripatetics of the Maghreb
Very little is known of peripatetic communities in the Maghreb. It is known, however, that in Morocco the Bez Carne were known to others as Beni Bacchar and consisted of four subgroups. The community that called itself Romani was known...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Rukuba
The Rukuba live in central Nigeria, on the High Plateau at some 30 kilometers west of the town of Jos, capital of Plateau State. They are one among the numerous small groups inhabiting the region. These groups are, by African standards,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Qizilbash
The Qizilbash were formed out of several Turkish Shia groups that were living in northwest Persia (Azerbaijan) in the fifteenth century. These groups were oppressed by the Osmanli Turks in the early years of the Ottoman Empire. Shaykh...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Qashqa'i
The Qashqa'i are tribally organized, Turkic-speaking, nomadic pastoralists and agriculturists who live in southwestern Iran. They are Shia Muslims, unlike most of Iran's other minorities, who are either Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Shilluk
The Shilluk are the most northern Nilotic-speaking people in modern Africa. Shilluk country covers approximately 320 kilometers on the west bank of the White Nile. Most of Shilluk country is open savanna and free from the annual floods...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Shahsevan
In various parts of Iran live the remnants of several tribal groups called "Shahsevan," numbering perhaps 300,000 people. Most are now settled villagers or town dwellers who preserve little of their former tribal organization or pastoral...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Peripatetics of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, and Yemen
Most of these groups are now sedentary or semi-sedentary, and only a few are still nomadic. There is no overall system of political organization within any of these communities, but cohesion within each community is strong. In Egypt,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Peripatetics of Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey
The data concerning Afghanistan and Iran refer to the period prior to the Saur and Islamic revolutions, respectively. It is not known whether such communities still exist in these two countries. Each existing community is primarily...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Pende
The Pende occupy a territory that extends from the banks of the Lutshima, a tributary of the Kwilu, to the Kasai. The last colonial census (1959) indicated that there were 200,000 western Pende and another 40,000 Pende in Kasai, the...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Pedi
"Pedi," in its broadest sense, has been a cultural/linguistic term. It was previously used to describe the entire set of people speaking various dialects of the Sotho language who live in the northern Transvaal of South Africa. More...