Bantu-speaking peoples — Zulu (umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu), Xhosa, Ndebele, Shona (hunhu), Sotho (botho), Tswana, Swazi, Venda, Tsonga — Southern Africa · Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Eswatini — the southern Bantu-speaking zone
Inganekwane — Zulu/Xhosa folktales told by women (specifically grandmothers) to children at night. The storyteller sits in the center of a circle of children. Stories are interactive — children respond, ask questions, sometimes participate in the telling. Proverbs (izaga) are…
The universe is relational — everything exists in and through relationship. The individual person is not a pre-existing unit who then enters into relationships; the person is constituted by their relationships. "I am because we are" (the Nguni formulation of…
Varies by specific Bantu group. Unkulunkulu (Zulu), Mwari (Shona), Modimo (Sotho/Tswana), Nzambi (Kongo). In the Ubuntu tradition specifically, the supreme being is less important than the web of relationships — it is the community that mediates the sacred.
The community circle (the physical formation of the indaba). Isangoma's divination bones (izinhlola). White clay (used in ceremonies connecting to ancestors). The communal meal (food shared in community is sacred). Cattle (the medium of sacred exchange, lobola — bride price…
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