The Bantu World History/Napp “Early Africans Made Some Of

the bantu world history/napp “early africans made some of the greatest migrations in history. when the migrations were over they or their de

The Bantu World History/Napp
“Early Africans made some of the greatest migrations in history. When
the migrations were over they or their descendants populated the
southern third of the continent. Starting in the first few centuries
A.D. and continuing over 1,500 years, small groups moved southward
throughout Africa, spreading their language and culture. Historians
refer to these people as the Bantu-speaking peoples. (The word Bantu
itself means ‘the people.’) The Bantu-speaking peoples originally
lived in the savanna south of the Sahara, in the area that is now
southeastern Nigeria.
Bantu speakers were not one people, but rather a group of peoples who
shared certain cultural characteristics. They were farmers and nomadic
herders who developed and passed along the skill of ironworking. Many
experts believe they were related to the Nok peoples.
Beginning at least 2,000 years ago or earlier, small groups of Bantu
speakers began moving to the south and east. The farming techniques
used by these people forced them to move every few years. The
technique is called slash and burn. A patch of the forest is cut down
and burned. The ashes are mixed into the soil creating a fertile
garden area. However, the land loses its fertility quickly and is
abandoned for another plot in a new location. When they moved, the
Bantu speakers shared their skills with the people they met, adapted
their methods to suit each new environment, and learned new customs.
They followed the Congo River through the rain forests. There they
farmed the riverbanks – the only place that received enough sunlight
to support agriculture.
As they moved eastward into the savannas, they adapted their
techniques for herding goats and sheep to raising cattle. Passing
through what is now Kenya and Tanzania, they learned to cultivate new
crops. One such crop was the banana, which came from Southeast Asia
via Indonesian travelers.” ~ World History
Identify and explain the following terms:
Migration
Bantu
Nok
Slash and Burn Farming
Bantu Migration
Savanna
Banana

Causes of Migration
Effects of Migration
Swahili
- Experts suggest that once the Bantu developed agriculture, they were
able to produce more food than by hunting and gathering
- As a result, the population of West Africa increased
- Because this enlarged population required more food, the earliest
Bantu speakers planted more land
- Soon there wasn’t enough land to go around
- The areas that once had been savanna were becoming more desert-like.
- The Sahara was slowly advancing toward them; so the people moved
southward
- The Bantu people probably brought with them the technology of iron
smelting
- As they moved southward, they were searching for locations with iron
ore resources and hardwood forests
- Eventually, the Bantu speakers worked their way around the
geographical barriers of the Kalahari and Namib deserts
- Within 1,500 years or so, they reached the southern tip of Africa
- As the Bantu speakers spread south into hunter-gatherers’ lands,
territorial wars often broke out
- Fighting with iron-tipped spears, the newcomers easily drove off
- Yet the Bantu speakers also exchanged ideas and intermarried the
people they joined
- This intermingling created new cultures with unique customs and
traditions
- The Bantu speakers brought new techniques of agriculture to the
lands they occupied
- They passed on the technology of ironworking to forge tools and
weapons from copper, bronze, and iron
- Although the Bantu migrations produced a great diversity of
cultures, language had a unifying
influence on the continent
- Yes, the Bantu spread agriculture, iron-making and language to the
peoples of sub-Saharan Africa
- The people they encountered were either assimilated, killed, or
driven off their lands
- An estimated 240 million people in Africa speak one of the Bantu
languages as their first language
- Of that number, about 50
million people in central and east Africa speak Swahili (also known as
Kiswahili)
- The word swahili means “the coast”
- Swahili is widely used on the east coast of Africa, but is found
elsewhere, too
- It is the official language of
Kenya and Tanzania
- In fact, after Arabic, Swahili is the most commonly spoken language
in Africa
- Swahili uses Bantu basics along with Arabic and
Persian words
- It probably developed as
people of East Africa interacted with traders
from the Indian Ocean trade networks and with Arabic traders
Identify and explain the following terms:
Causes of Bantu Migration
Geographical Barriers that the Bantu Worked Their Way Around
Advantages of the Bantu
What the Bantu Spread
How the People the Bantu Encountered Responded
Assimilation
Swahili
The Cultural Syncretism (or cultural blending) that is Swahili
How Swahili Probably Developed
- Which effects of the Bantu-speaking migrations do you think had the
most long-term impact? Explain.
- What are push-pull factors in migration?
- Into which regions of Africa did the Bantu-speaking migration move?
- How can the effects of one migration become a cause of another
migration?
- How does migration shape the modern world?
- How might the population of Africa be different today if the
Bantu-speaking migrations had not taken place?
- Write a compare-and-contrast paragraph addressing how migrating
Bantu speakers and the peoples they encountered may have reacted to
each other?

- What geographic features did the Bantu speakers encounter in the
course of their migrations?
- Why didn’t the Bantu speakers migrate northward?
All of the following are causes of migration EXCEPT
A) the spread of languages
B) shift in climate
C) population
D) repression
The native languages of most African peoples fall into which
linguistic group?
A) Niger-Congo
B) Bantu
C) Afro-Asiatic
D) Nilo-Saharan
Which of the following best describes the Bantu migration?
A) a long, complex process in which two different waves of
Bantu-speaking peoples eventually linked up
B) a single, overwhelming force of Bantu-speaking people who absorbed
all other speakers they encountered
C) a fairly quick (at least historically) development in which
non-Bantu speakers migrated into Bantu areas and were absorbed
D) None of these answers is correct