What are the characteristics, culture, costumes, houses and traditional festivals of Africans?

In many parts of Africa, you don't need tables, chairs, knives and forks, let alone chopsticks, but grab food with your hands. When eating, everyone sits around with a lunch box and a vegetable box in the middle. Everyone grabs the edge of the lunch box or vegetable box with his left hand, and grabs the rice and vegetables in front of him with his right finger and sends them to his mouth. At this point, you will be at a loss and even grab a hand full of food, while Africans grab food by themselves and eat it clean. Guests should pay attention not to spill food on the ground when eating, which is a big taboo for the host. After dinner, the younger generation should sit still and wait while the elders are still there. When the child leaves, he must salute and thank his parents. Guests should leave together after the host has finished eating. In many parts of Africa, there are strict etiquette for eating, and even every part of cattle, sheep, chicken and duck has rules on who should eat. For example, in Mali, men with chicken thighs eat chicken breasts, and older women eat chicken breasts; The person in charge eats chicken neck, stomach and liver; The chicken's head, claws and wings are shared by children. Another example is in Botswana, where guests and men eat beef and married women eat chop suey at large public banquets. Cook and eat the two separately, and don't confuse them. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, you'd better know. Due to different religious beliefs and living habits, the funeral forms of people of all ethnic groups in Africa are various, and some of them are quite strange. The funeral time is long or short, as short as a few days and as long as half a year. In Africa, when someone dies, he must first report his funeral to the relatives and neighbors of the deceased. The methods of funeral treatment have their own characteristics, some are beating gongs and drums, some are blowing trumpets, some are crying, some are shouting, and some are using a specific funeral treatment project. If someone of the Shawna family in Zimbabwe dies unfortunately, it is necessary to convey the news of death to relatives and friends through the rapid and low drums. After hearing the drums, people came to mourn. In Tanzania, if a relative dies, Gu Chi Albanians must take a piece of special bread mixed with cigarette ash to express their condolences to the deceased uncle. In recent years, this special bread has been replaced by ten cents. After the Haya people died, the women wailed and announced that someone had died. Neighbors and people in nearby villages, as long as they have something to do with the deceased, will come to offer their condolences when they hear the news. Asking about the cause of death is the custom of some tribes in Africa. In order to prove that the paternal and maternal relatives of the deceased had nothing to do with his death after his death, the family members of the deceased should put forward the cause of death in public at the funeral, and then the man should carry the body on his shoulder. If you roll to the right when you put it down, it means "yes" and roll to the left, it means "no" Pilar people in the mountainous areas of western and northern Benin, if their relatives suspect that the deceased was murdered, they can ask the grave digger to trace and punish the murderer. In this case, the grave digger called the whole village to hold a meeting, twisted a white cock in public, and gave everyone a small piece after baking. After the grave digger said a spell, he made everyone swallow the chicken on the spot. Because the gravedigger's spell said that the murderer would die immediately if he ate the chicken. The hidden murderer was afraid of death and did not dare to eat, so he exposed himself and was arrested on the spot. The murderer drank the wine brewed by the grave digger and then died. During the funeral, the Shona people in Zimbabwe will send representatives to distant places to find famous fortune tellers they don't know and ask about the cause of death of the deceased. They don't trust fortune tellers who are familiar with local conditions. After getting a satisfactory answer, he returned to his hometown to worship his ancestors. If fortune tellers tell them that the dead were caused by the anger of the gods, people will offer beer, offer sacrifices to their ancestors, appease the gods, express regret and beg them not to hurt others. Gasana people in Sudan blamed the death on the sun god "Ter", so people were buried when they died, regardless of the cause of death. When they were buried, the old people cried to the sun god, "Ah, the deceitful sun god! At the same time, they waved their swords and spears, challenged the sun god, and ordered him to come to the earth to confess his crimes. Crying is an uncontrollable expression of the grief of the relatives of the deceased, but the crying of Africans is different and distinctive. In Congo, if someone dies at home, relatives will cry and dance day and night at the door of the deceased until the deceased is buried. If the husband dies, the wife can't go into the water, jumping while crying or rolling back and forth on the ground sadly to show her farewell to her husband. People died in the village, and almost all the women in the village ran to the road outside the village, crying and dancing to say goodbye to the dead. When the hearse is walking, no other vehicles, except the president's car, may block the hearse, nor may they overtake it to show their condolences. Interestingly, in pilar, Benin, the families of the deceased must restrain their grief at first, and no one can cry. Only when the grave digger wrapped the body, smoked it with herbs and ordered the mourning drum to be sounded, could they burst into tears. It's over without crying. Once you cry, you must cry at the original rhythm and volume until the sun rises the next day. After the death of the Haya people in Tanzania, women took the lead in crying, and then the women in the neighborhood came to cry and howl with them. After four days' wake, all family members have to shave their hair. The day after the burial of the deceased in Zigoua, the mother of the deceased wanted to shave her head in public. That night, the brothers, sisters and close relatives of the deceased gathered in the village to cry. After the mourning ceremony, the friends of the deceased shaved off the hair of their brothers and sisters, leaving none. The memorial service didn't end until you shaved your head. Africans who love singing and dancing not only express their joy by singing and dancing, but also often sing and dance at funerals, praising the dead and expressing their grief for the dead. After bidding farewell to the body of the deceased, the Shona people in Zimbabwe went to the hut to sing and dance. The more they danced, the more cheerful they became, the more passionate they sang, and swept away the sad and depressed atmosphere at the beginning. After the dead were buried, people drank to their heart's content. With the drums, men sounded their horns, women stepped on drums, walked briskly, shook their foot bells, and sang and danced all night. At the memorial service of Tambelma people in Togo, everyone drank and danced. The band used gongs, flutes and horns, and the musicians walked around the house several times. In front of them, it was led by two old men with wild boar fangs. They fought with each other to show that the house was not harmed by evil spirits. The strangest thing is the funeral of the man in Miley, Madagascar. After Miley died, she usually moved her bones from the temporary burial site to the ancestral grave for a second burial. First, open the temporary grave, dig out the body, put on a new colorful shroud, and wrap the body layer by layer with expensive gifts. When everything is ready, relatives will dance with the wrapped body. The man in Miley thinks that this is to sever the relationship between the living and the dead before death, which means that the living has entered the stage of no self since then. Because in Miley's eyes, there is nothing to be afraid of when people die. Death is the continuation of life and the ultimate destination. There are many ways of burial after death. At present, cremation is the most common in the world, but tombs are still the main form in Africa. As for the choice of tomb sites and the construction of tombs, some in Africa are relatively simple, while others are very particular. After Bushman, the hunter-gatherer, died, he lay on his side, bent his knees and put himself in a sleeping position, and all his daily necessities were buried near his hut. Pile some stones on the grave to prevent animals from invading, and then the hunting party will move to another place and will not come back for two years. After the death of the tribal leader and the head of the family, the Tswana people wrapped their bodies in newly slaughtered cowhide and buried them with their belongings in the gate of the livestock pen. Ordinary people are wrapped in mats or cloaks after death, buried in or near the hut where they live after death, and then burned or abandoned. After the death of the Shona people in Zimbabwe, their graves are generally not far from the village. The cemetery is as high as the ground, with stones piled on it or a big stone beside it. Anyanjia people are buried in trees or bushes after their death, and the houses of the deceased will be demolished and the foundations of the houses will be dug up; The leader is sometimes buried in his own house, which is abandoned with him. It is generally simple for Arabs to hold funerals, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, but among many Arab countries, only Egypt is special. Egyptians were influenced by ancient Egyptian culture, and wealthy Muslims built family graves to create a living environment for the deceased as when he was alive. A cemetery on the outskirts of Cairo, the capital, has now become a famous "dead city" and a major scenic spot in Egypt. The "city of death" in Cairo looks like a residential area from a distance, but in fact, all the houses here are built for the dead. Every door frame says "Tomb of XXX". The number of indoor tombstones shows that several or even a dozen dead people have been buried. All the people buried together are family members or relatives, and the cemetery is named after the first person buried together. The tombs are beautifully built, while others are very simple, reflecting the wealth or poverty of the deceased's family. Egyptians call this kind of house "Hirsh", which means courtyard. Between these rows of houses are criss-crossing streets and courtyards with house numbers. Although the cemetery is large, you can successfully find someone's resting place as long as you remember the street name and courtyard number. Every major festival, relatives and friends of the deceased will come to the cemetery for a party. This kind of gathering, from the past, has evolved into festivals and social activities celebrated by people today. Egyptians believe that they can celebrate festivals in cemeteries, so that the dead can enjoy family happiness with them. Madagascar also has funeral customs similar to those in Egypt. The Malina people in Madagascar believe that it is very important to have ancestral graves and places after one's death. If not, he will be regarded as a descendant of a slave, which may indicate that he had illegal and immoral behavior before his death, so he was disqualified from entering the grave. Therefore, the cemetery of Meri people is often several times more valuable than other houses, and many graves are very imposing. On the tombstone of the deceased, the horn is an indispensable decoration. In Madagascar, the "kingdom of cattle", cattle are the embodiment of social wealth and have high economic value, while horns are the symbol of cattle, which can not only show the social status and wealth of the deceased before his death, but also show respect and worship for ancestors and gods. In addition to graves, a few areas in Africa also have a custom similar to India's "celestial burial". After the death of Bakutu people in Zaire, they usually put their bodies in thick cloth bags, carried them on pole by two people, and buried them in termites' nests under the escort of mourning funeral procession, so that termites can decompose the bodies and let the dead "ascend to heaven" as soon as possible. Nandi people exposed the dead in broad daylight and let hyenas and other animals swallow the bodies. Its practice is that people are carried to the west of the house at dusk after death and placed on the ground. The male corpse lies on the right side and the female corpse lies on the left side. At the same time, relatives shouted, "Come and eat!" The next day, if the body is not passive, kill a sheep and put some mutton on or next to the body to attract wild animals. If it still doesn't move, it means that the deceased was killed by witchcraft and other measures will be taken. The Wachaga people who live on the hillside of Kilimanjaro, the body of their leader is not buried with animal skins, but placed in a hollow tree root, and the root end is blocked. If an ordinary person dies, his body is folded, his head and legs are tied together, coated with oil and ochre powder, wrapped in sacrificial cowhide, and then placed in the tomb in a sitting position, facing the Kibo Peak of Kilimanjaro. 18 months later, the bones were dug out and placed in the banana forest, and the skulls were sent to the trees where the ancestors were buried, or stored in an earthen urn.