The name "pygmies" literally means "people the size of a fist." Equatorial Africa is home to many peoples whose height could be described as “one meter in a cap” if these people wore traditional headdresses. The record holders among the “forest midgets” are Mbuti, their height usually does not exceed 135 cm!
Having visited the Mbuti tribe, any Slav will feel like a giant. Getting to know the short nomads will be interesting, since the Mbuti culture is distinctive, and the structure of society is fundamentally different from the models we are used to. The total number of this ethnic group reaches about 100 thousand people. All Mbuti live in harmony with nature, hunting and gathering, but taking from the forest only as much as they need to survive. The basis of their worldview is a thrifty attitude towards resources.
The Mbuti have no social hierarchy and live in large groups of at least 7 families. There is no leader in the group; everyone has their own responsibilities depending on gender and age. All members of the tribe take part in the hunt: men set up nets, women and teenagers drive the beast, children and elders remain in the camp to light the sacred fire.
The Mbuti constantly change their locations; they build houses very quickly, using tree shoots and leaves for this. They traditionally made clothes from tree bark, kneading it with an elephant tusk. Loincloths were especially popular among the tribesmen. Modern Mbuti do not refuse ordinary clothes, which they exchange for game from residents of nearby settlements.
The Mbuti consider themselves an integral part of the forest and react painfully to tree cutting and poaching. All their amulets and charms are made of natural materials, at birth the baby is bathed in forest water, special magical rituals Men go hunting using amulets woven from vines and tree bark.
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Perhaps few of us know who Negrillis are. But everyone has heard about pygmies. Strictly speaking, these are one and the same people. Translated from Greek, pygmies mean “people the size of a fist.” Although a height of 124 to 150 cm for adult men (for comparison, this is the height of schoolchildren) is hardly associated with such a size as a fist, they are still really small!
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Pygmies are not a single people, but different tribes: Akka, Tikitiki, Obongo, Bambuti, Batwa and others. The approximate number of pygmies ranges from 40 to 280 thousand people. The pygmies do not have their own language; they borrowed the language from their neighbors, in particular from the Bantu. Based on their language and hunting methods, they are divided into three groups: Efe, Sua, and Aka. Efe hunt with bows; sua, and aka - with networks.
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Pygmies hunt deer, antelope and monkeys. They collect fruits and honey. They mainly exchange their catch for vegetables, metal, fabrics or tobacco. The main hunting weapon is a bow with arrows with metal tips, which are often poisoned. Fish are caught by poisoning water bodies for a short time with plant poisons.
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The life expectancy of pygmies is from 16 to 24 years. 40-year-old men and women are real centenarians. They reach sexual maturity at the age of 12 and begin producing their own kind at the age of fifteen. If there are several wives, they live in separate huts. The neighbors of the Bantu pygmies willingly take pygmies as wives and do not even pay a ransom. The pygmies are unhappy with this, since the Bantu do not pass off their girls as pygmies.
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Some anthropologists classify dwarf peoples as pygmies, where the height of an adult man does not exceed 155 centimeters. In their opinion, pygmies live not only in Africa, but also in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Bolivia and Brazil. Regarding the Dark Continent, not all pygmies have forests as their habitat. For example, the Twa pygmies live in deserts and swamps.
The smallest pygmies in the world are Efe and Zaire. The height of women does not exceed 132 cm, and that of men - 143 cm.
This is the third chapter about the entertaining toponymy of the world. I traditionally hid some of it under the cutouts, and left some of it open. So, Africa! America is coming next. By the way, I love African countries because their self-names most often do not differ from our names, and they use the European alphabet... This is due to the fact that writing as such was brought to most African countries by Europeans in the 15th-17th centuries, when the conquered Africa.
Algeria(الجزائر, al-Jazā’ir) is the Arabic word “الجزائر” (al-ǧazāʼir) distorted by Europeans, which translates as “islands”. The point is that ancient city Algeria previously stood part of the islands, which XVI century merged with the land - and the country was named after the city.
Angola comes from the word “ngola” - this title was borne by the monarch of the state of Ndonga, located on the territory of present-day Angola in the 16th-17th centuries. The Portuguese captured the country and gave it its name after a local word.
Benin until 1975 it was called Dahomey. The name “Benin” was chosen for two reasons: it was and is the name of the coastal bay, and in 1440-1897 the Benin Empire was one of the strongest countries in Africa. This word comes from a word from the Yoruba language - Ile-ibinu, which means “land of quarrels”, “land of wars”. This name came from the fact that the Yoruba people in those days constantly fought with other tribes and among themselves for this territory. The word “Dahomey” is even more ancient, it was the name of the kingdom that existed before the founding of the city of Benin, and its exact etymology is unknown.
Botswana: “Tswana” is a people representing the ethnic majority of the country, and “ba” (“bo” is already a distorted version) means “people”, “people”. By the way, the clans of the Tswana people (there are 8 of them) all begin with “ba”: Bakwene, Ballet, Bamangwato, etc. I don’t know the origin of the word “Tswana”.
Burkina Faso: translated from the Sea language, “Burkina” means an honest person, and translated from the Dioula language, “Faso” means home, homeland. Thus, Burkina Faso is translated from two national languages as “the country of honest people.” The country bore the old name, “Upper Volta”, because of three large rivers – the White, Black and Red Voltas – that flowed through its territory (and merged into one Volta). The word volta itself is Portuguese and means “turn, bend”: it was the Portuguese who gave the name to the river.
Burundi(Burundi) literally means “land of the rundi”. And, for example, Kirundi is a language spoken by 6 million Burundians. The very word “rundi”, the root of all this, has a common origin with the name “Rwanda”: this was the name of the people who lived in southern Africa. The exact etymology is unknown.
Gabon. This name has a technically simple but ornate origin. The name of the country was given by the Portuguese (Gabão) after the Como River Delta. The river delta was named so because its outline resembled a jacket with a hood (gabão in Portuguese). This word came to Portuguese from Arabic: قباء (qabā’), also meaning outerwear.
Gambia got its name from the river of the same name, and it was again named by the Portuguese. The word comes from a corruption of the Portuguese câmbio - trade, exchange. It’s easy to guess that the Portuguese used the Gambia River as a sea route and named it that way.
Ghana gained independence from Great Britain in 1957, and before that it was called the Gold Coast. The name "Ghana" was adopted in 1960 as a sign of independence and ancient history countries, because in 790-1076. On approximately this territory there existed an independent ancient kingdom of Ghana. The word "gana" was the royal title of the monarch of the Empire of Ghana. The self-name was “Uagadou”, “Wagadou” (literally translated from the Mande language as “land of fat herds”). But in Europe they heard about the kingdom specifically as “Ghana”, and gave it that name.
Guinea translated from the Susu language means “woman”. The name was given by the Portuguese (Guiné) after one of the first words heard in the local language. According to another version, the name comes from the Berber akal n-iguinawen, which means “land of the blacks.” However, this is unlikely.
Guinea-Bissau. The Portuguese gave the name “Guinea” to the whole region, and therefore the second part of the region, which gained independence 15 years later than Guinea (that one from France, this one from Portugal) came up with an addition to the name in order to be different. An addition was the name of the country's capital - Bissau. By the way, the city was founded by the Portuguese in 1687. But, damn it, I couldn’t find the origin of the word “Bissau”.
Djibouti(Arabic: جيبوتي) got its name in honor of the lowest point of the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean. This name comes from the Afar word gabouti (something like a rug at the entrance to a house, made of palm leaves). There is another version that “Djibouti” is a distorted “Tehuti”, that is, in fact, the land of Thoth, the Egyptian lunar god. But the first version is more common. By the way, in some languages it sounds like Yiwuti.
Egypt. The historical name of the country is Kemet (written in two hieroglyphs - km and t). The first hieroglyph meant “black”, the second – “earth”. The Egyptians called their homeland “black earth” because of the fertile black earth soils in the areas where the Nile flooded. They really were frankly black. This name migrated to different languages. For example, in ancient Greek it looked like Χημία. Today the whole world is divided into two parts, which are called Egypt differently. The first part is, in fact, Egypt, Egypt, Ägypten, Egitto and so on. The path of this word is as follows: French (Egypte) – Latin (Aegyptus) – Ancient Greek (Αἴγυπτος) – Arabic (qubṭī) – and it means “Coptic”. The word “Copt” itself in this form was borrowed from the Egyptians themselves, from the form Hwt-ka-Ptah (house-soul-Ptah) - this is the name of the temple of the god Ptah in Memphis. The second part of the world calls the country Mısır (Turkish, for example), Mysir (Kazakh), Mesir and so on. This name comes from the Semitic Mitzráyim (“two streams”), which goes back to the division of the territory into Lower and Upper Egypt. Subsequently, this word was seriously modified: the root “metro” (“metropolis” in Greece, for example) came from it.
Zambia got its name from the Zambezi River. I couldn’t find where this name came from, sorry. But earlier this territory was called Northern Rhodesia. And she received it on behalf of Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), famous politician, businessman and diamond tycoon. He founded not only Rhodesia, but also a number of universities in Africa, a bunch of foundations to help the African people and raised South Africa to the level of the richest country in Africa, and at this level it still remains.
Zimbabwe bears a native African name. In the Shona language, Dzimba dza mabwe means "big stone houses". The bottom line is that in the 15th-18th centuries, a very developed Zimbabwean empire existed in this territory, the capital of which, Great Zimbabwe, was characterized by stone urban planning. The stone towers of Great Zimbabwe are still preserved and are not inferior to the best examples of European castle building of that time. And the village people marveled at the capital - and called it that.
Cape Verde belongs to that unique group of countries that require that they be called one way and nothing else in all languages. Actually, I call this country “Cape Verde Islands,” as was customary in normal Soviet geography. The fact is that the Portuguese, who were sailing along the yellow and dry Sahara, suddenly saw a green coast. That's how the islands were named - Cabo Verde, Cape Verde. However, the whole world does not pay attention to conventions and translates this name into its own language. For example, Πράσινο Ακρωτήριο (Greek) or Grønhøvdaoyggjarnar (Faroese).
Cameroon. The word "Cameroon" comes from the Portuguese "Rio de Camarões" (river of shrimp). The name was given to the river Vuri by Portuguese sailors back in the 15th century, because the river was indeed full of shrimp.
Kenya named after the mountain of the same name, and the mountain gets its name from the local language, where it is called Kere-Nyaga, “mountain of whiteness.” Well, there's snow on the top, that's all.
Comoros(الاتّحاد القمريّ, al-Ittiḥād al-Qumuriyy) are called so by the Arabs. Djazair al Qamar means "Islands of the Moon". Probably, the Arab sailors sailed to them at night.
Democratic Republic of the Congo is well known to us under its former name “Zaire”. The name "Zaire" was given to the country by the Portuguese. They corrupted the local word "nzere" or "nzadi", which means "main river", "river of all rivers". The word “Congo” comes from the name of the local people – “Bakongo” (let’s go back and look at the etymology of the word “Botswana”, the principle is the same). The word "Kongo" in the local language means "hunter", that is, "Bakongo" - "people of hunters". The country received a new name in 1997. Probably in order to get as confused as possible with its neighbor, the Republic of the Congo.
Republic of the Congo- there is nothing to explain here, look one point above. Only this country has been called “Congo” from time immemorial, unlike the former Zaire.
Ivory Coast- another country that requires that their place names not be translated. In French, Côte d'Ivoire means “Ivory Coast.” However, in Russian I say “Coast...”, not “Cat...” The reason is clear: the French mined ivory here during colonization. Most languages are translated this toponym: Elevandiluurannik, Boli Kosta, Marphil Chala and so on.
Lesotho was named after the dominant tribe “Sotho”, which means “black people”. The article "le" originated from European colonization.
Liberia- this is a strange country. Because the descendants of fugitive and freed American slaves who returned to their historical homeland live there. And the name Liberia comes from the Latin liber, “free.” The word itself was coined in 1822, when the American colonies in Africa united (and in 1847 they were finally freed from US domination).
Libya- this is a very ancient name. This was the name of the Berber tribes in ancient times, and this word is found in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is not possible to trace its etymology.
Mauritius(Mauritius) was named in honor of the Duke of Orange, Maurice of Nassau (1567-1625). The point is that in 1598, after storms and storms, a Dutch expedition landed on the island - out of eight ships, 5 died, and three sailed to the island. And they named the saving land in honor of their ruler.
Mauritania- it’s not hard to guess that this means “land of the Moors.” That is, the tribes of Arabs and Berbers who inhabited that territory in ancient times. Nothing special, overall.
Madagascar in the recent past it was called the “Malagasy Republic”. As a philatelist, I always paid attention to this when looking at stamps. Let's study both names. Actually, in the Malagasy language the island is called: Madagasikara. This word has its roots in the proto-Malay language, in which it meant “end of the world.” The locals simply believed that there was nothing outside their island. The trick is that Madagascar was originally inhabited not by Africans, but by people from the territories where, for example, Malaysia is located today. And their language belongs to the Malay group. And “Malagasi” is the self-name of the people. Where it came from - history is silent about this.
Malawi translated from the local language means “burning water”. Because the Sun at sunset sank into the waters of the lake, which now also bears the name Malawi. So the locals named their territory that way. Before independence in 1964, the colony was called Nyasaland, with Nyasa meaning "lake" in the local language.
Mali got its name in honor of the ancient African kingdom of Mali, which existed from the 8th to the 16th centuries. By the way, rich and powerful (and how they live now is brutal). The word Mali in the local dialect means “hippopotamus” or “hippopotamus”, this symbolized the power of the kingdom.
Morocco. The self-name of the country is المغرب, al-Maġrib. However, in all languages the country is called one way or another “Morocco” in different variations, and only the locals call it Maghreb. Al-Maġrib means "west" in Arabic. That is, this is the western kingdom. The word “Morocco”, which has taken root in the world, goes back to the name of the city of Marrakech, and it, in turn, to the Berber Mur-Akush, which means “Land of God”.
Mozambique. The country was named so by the ubiquitous Portuguese in honor of the island of Mozambique - they landed on it a little earlier than in the country itself. But the island already had the name Moçambique! Where? It's simple. Even before the Portuguese, who landed there only in 1498, Arab merchants were already trading and settling there with all their might. The largest trader and the first “outside” visitor to the island was the Arab merchant Musa Al Big, who named the island by his own name, it was adopted by the locals (distorted), and then by the Portuguese, dragging this name over a much larger territory.
Namibia got its name from the Namib Desert. The word "Namib" in the Nama language means "empty place", "a place where there is nothing."
Niger got its name from the Niger River. The etymology of this word is as follows: the expression gher n gheren translated from the Tuareg language means “river of all rivers.” Over time, the first gher disappeared, leaving “ngher”. In fact, the river is quite large, and all the surrounding peoples call it at random.
Nigeria. Believe it or not, the etymology of the word “Nigeria” is exactly the same as the word “Niger”. Without a single deviation. The feminine ending was artificially attached to the word to distinguish it from the neighboring territory.
Rwanda received its name from the people who originally lived on its territory - Vanyaruanda. The etymology of the name of the people is shrouded in darkness.
Sao Tome and Principe(São Tomé e Príncipe) are, in fact, two islands. The Portuguese named the first one in honor of St. Thomas, it’s not hard to guess. According to legend, they arrived on the island precisely on the day of St. Thomas, December 21, 1471 - so the name was fitting. Tellingly, they reached Principe on St. Anthony's Day, January 17, 1472 - and named it St. Anthony Island. But in 1502, they changed the name of the island in honor of the birthday (June 7, 1502) of the Portuguese Prince John III, the son of King Manuel I. So the Portuguese names remained for the islands.
Swaziland- the land of the Swazi people, this is immediately clear. The word "Swazi" comes from a corruption of the name of King Mswati I, who once ruled this territory. That is, the people of King Mswati - the Swazi people - the land of the Swazis - Swaziland.
Seychelles were taken control by France in 1756. The Minister of Finance of King Louis XV was Jean Moreau de Séchelles (1690-1761), an intelligent and strong man, by the way, the president of the French Academy of Sciences. The French named the islands after him. Before that, they were called Admiral's, because in 1502 the Portuguese admiral Vasco da Gama landed on them and without hesitation named the newly discovered land in his honor.
Senegal. A large part of the territory of modern Senegal was inhabited by the Berber tribe Zenaga (or Senhaja, if we take the Arabic pronunciation undistorted by the Portuguese). The Portuguese gave this name to both the large river and the entire territory during the process of colonization. Science does not know where the name Senhaja came from.
Somalia, where there is always war, got its name from the main population group - Somalis. There are several options for the origin of this name. The word may come from the Cushitic "black", from the local expression "soo maal", "come in and drink milk" (a kind of greeting), or from the name of the ancient local mythical patriarch Samaale. Nobody knows for sure.
Sudan. Everything is simple here. In Arabic, "Bilad as-Sudan" means "land of the blacks." Self-name: السودان As Sūdān.
Sierra Leone. Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra became the first European to reach this coast in 1462. The mountains that he saw on the horizon seemed to him like lion heads (or teeth, or manes, you couldn’t tell), and he named the area Serra Leoa, “lion mountains.” Subsequently, the Spaniards took over this area from the Portuguese, changing the name to Sierra Leona. It is extremely rare that this place name is translated in some languages: Mons Leoninus (Vatican Latin), Liyun Urqu (Quechua language), or even Náshdóítsoh Bitsiijįе Daditł’ooígíí Bidził (Navajo language).
Tanzania. From 1961 to 1964, the independent state of Tanganyika existed in Africa (from 1919 to 1961 it was a British colony). But it was unlucky and was unable to maintain its independence. In order to somehow survive, the state of Tanganyika united with the nearby large island of Zanzibar. And the name of the resulting state was merged from two: Tanganyika + Zanzibar = Tanzania. The famous Lake Tanganyika, which gave its name to the first country, was discovered by the great traveler Sir Richard Burton in 1858, he also explained that in the local dialect the word tanganyka means “meeting,” that is, the lake is a meeting place of waters. “Zanzibar” gets its name from the words Zengi (this is the name of the local people, in their language it means “black”) and the Arabic barr (“shore”). That is, “the coast of blacks.”
Togo got its name in honor of the settlement of the same name. In the Ewe language, the word "to" means "water" and "go" means "shore". That is literally “seashore”. They say not “Toga”, but “Togolese” because the French called this territory in the German manner, Togoland, and from there the adjective was formed.
Tunisia received the name in honor of the city of Tunisia, and it goes back to the name of the Phoenician goddess Tanith. Or from somewhere else, I found seven different interpretations.
Uganda. The birthplace of Idi Amin, a great friend of the USSR, was named after the ancient African kingdom of Buganda, which means the land of the Baganda people. In the Baganda language, this word means “brothers and sisters”, or more precisely, in an extended version - Baganda Ba Katonda, “brothers and sisters of God”. There is a rather complex local legend associated with this, I will not tell it in full here. In general, the legend of the creation of the world with the Ugandans at the very center, as you would expect.
Central African Republic so named because it is located in the center of Africa. The toponym is translated, in the local language it sounds like Ködörösêse tî Bêafrîka. Well, in each language – in its own way. The French gave it this name - frankly speaking, they didn’t think long about it. In French: République centrafricaine.
Chad. In the local Bornu language, the word "tsade" means "lake". The French used it, calling Lake Chad and the entire surrounding area.
Equatorial Guinea. We have already talked about Guinea and the origin of this word in the sections on Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. I repeat: “guinea” means “woman” in the Susu language. The name was given by the Portuguese (Guiné) after one of the first words heard in the local language. But why “equatorial”? After all, the equator does not pass through the country! But no. The bottom line is that the main territory of the country lies north of the equator, and the island of Annobon, which belongs to it, lies to the south. Therefore, in order to differ from the other two Guineas, this one received the adjective “equatorial”. It's funny that "equator" is not called that way in all languages, and sometimes it turns out something like Gíní Nahasdzáán Ałníi'gi Si'ánígíí (Navajo language), for example.
Eritrea. The name goes back to the Italian colonizers of the territory. In Latin, the Red Sea was called Mare Erythraeum, which came from the ancient Greek Ἐρυθρά Θάλασσα (Eruthra Thalassa), where Ἐρυθρά means “red”. The root, by the way, is recognizable: in English “red” - red, ruth, E rit rea.
Ethiopia. The word comes from the Greek Αἰθιοπία, distorted Αἰθίοψ (Aithíops), “αἰθ” means “burn”, “ὤψ” - face, that is, “burnt faces”, “black people”. Ethiopian sources claim otherwise: the name comes from "Ityopp"is", Ityoppis was the son of Kash, the grandson of Ham, the founder of the city of Aksum. In some languages, Ethiopia is still called by the old name Abeşistan, "Abyssinia", which goes back to the Arabic name Habesha, which the local tribes were called, this word goes back to the hieroglyphic ḫbstjw, and it is not possible to find out its exact origin. Ethiopia has an absolutely enchanting name - Lätiopän.
South Africa is located in southern Africa, and that says it all. The name was given by the British colonialists.
EXPLANATION. This is not research. These are just fun facts and assumptions. If you can add or correct, add and correct. Thank God, the borders of Africa are quite clear, and there are no questions about why this or that country ended up in the “wrong part of the world.” Yes, Western Sahara is not a country.
The ancient Greeks, including the famous Herodotus himself, called them “pygmaya,” which translated means “people the size of a fist.” Their height is really small, some 136-146 centimeters. But at the same time, they are distinguished by their developed, especially in men, shoulder girdle. They have excellent hearing, an excellent sense of smell, and they are well oriented in the forest, even at night. They don't know their age, speak dozens of different dialects, and sometimes don't understand each other. They believe in different gods and different spirits. The very concept of the future, as well as the past, is unknown to these people. And yet, they came to us, to today’s world, from the deep, ancient past. And today, along with the Bushmen, they are the most ancient inhabitants of our planet.
There are several pygmy populations in Africa. Our story about the Baka pygmies. There are about forty thousand of them. This is the only African people who have preserved their language. Pygmies do not raise livestock or cultivate the land; they eat the meat of animals hunted, caught fish, collected vegetables and fruits, roots and wild honey. The pygmies live near the villages of the largest and most developed African Bantu people - the big black ones, or patrons, as they call them. Bantu farmers, who came to the rainforest several centuries ago, consider the Baka to be primitive creatures. They openly look at them from top to bottom. The pygmies, of course, notice this, but tolerate it, realizing that such proximity only expands the narrow circle of their traditional capabilities. Meat, skins, and honey obtained from hunting are exchanged for spear tips, empty bottles, used clothes, palm oil. The Bantu, although they boast of their superiority, cannot do without a tank. They are often referred to as skilled healers. But the most important thing that Bantu get from the baka is a feeling of protection from the forest, which is fraught with a lot of dangers.
For most of the year, the Baka live in their shacks next to the Bantus, working on their plantations for half a euro a day, where they grow bananas, lemons, coffee, and cocoa. But what’s interesting is that now more and more pygmies are thinking about having their own small plantation, and then moving into a plank house. But for now, the pygmies continue to live in their shacks, collected from branches and leaves. The construction of huts is carried out by women, building material go to the forest. They weave dome-shaped huts from twigs. The technology is the same as for making mats. Overlapping leaves are attached to the finished frame. The main thing is not to leave gaps between the leaves. And press them tightly at the base of the hut. Otherwise, during the rains it will flood the hut. At the end of construction, it is secured with vines, bark and palm branches so that the wind does not tear them apart. All huts face the center. The entrance to the hut is open, this symbolizes that the pygmies have no secrets from each other, they have nothing to hide. Everything that is obtained in the forest, that is obtained by hunting, is divided equally.
Women also make household utensils using the stems of rattan palms. Everything is woven from rattan, including dishes and furniture. Men, meanwhile, are busy with no less important work. They chop wood, cut resin from trees, and make a fire. Women are not allowed to build a fire around which the entire community will gather. Men indulge in this activity with pleasure. They tell different stories, exchange latest news. At this time, women armed with machetes dig the ground in search of yams; not a single meal is complete without this root vegetable, similar to sweet potatoes. Yams are the basis of Pygmy cuisine. It is very nutritious and contains a lot of protein and fiber. Pygmies also use yam as medicine. This plant helps restore strength after illness and strengthens bones. The pygmies carefully dig it out of the ground, then bake it and eat it.