Vocabulary: Africa

General Terms

• adinkra
• age-set / age-grade rituals
• amber
• amulets
• animists
• boubou (bou-bou / gandoma); the generic word is caftan / kaftan
• burnoose
• calabash
• cicatrix / cicatrization
• cloth: plain, trade, and country
• cowrie shells
• ear plugs
• fetish
• grigri
• haik
• indigo
• ivory
• Khamsa: the number 5 in Arabic
• kente cloth (aka leppi cloth / lappa cloth)
• lip plugs
• Maria Therese Dollar (Austria)
• mendhi (henna)
• millet
• nsaduaso
• ochre
• scarification (aka cicatrization)
• trade cloth
• trade-wind beads / pound beads / trade beads

Asante

• Ananse
• W.E.B. Du Bois
• kente cloth / strip cloth
• Kwame Nkrumah
• lost wax casting
• nsaduaso

Berbers

• aquilous
• champleve
• cloisonné
• fibula
• khamsa

Dinka

• Monyjang
• Djur
• namesake calf

Dogon

• soothsayer
• spindle whorls

Fulani/Wodaabe

• barbar (babbar, baba) riga
• bororo; bororo'en
• Geerewol
• jabo
• kohl
• kwottenai kanye
• plaque
• silkin
• zebu

Horn of Africa

• aruse
• Beja
• burga
• Mursi
• Oromo
• Rashaida

Kirdi and Lobi

• cache-sex jewelry
• ear plugs
• ear sticks
• ham pilu

Maasai

• Age-set:
  • Almal Lengipaata
  • Emorata
  • Eunoto EMPHASIS
  • Olngesherr
• ear flaps
• elderhood
• enkuraru
• engilaa alamal
• errap
• olawaru
• shroud of circumcision
• shuka
• surutia / loosurutia
• warriorhood

Mangbetu

• nembongo
• colobus monkey
• raffia
• elongated cranium

Tuareg

• assrou n'swoul
• ettouben
• gandoma
• khomissar pendants
• liagi
• meharis
• tagelmoust (tagulmust, taglemoust)
• tcherot