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The Kingdom of Bahrain is an archipelago nation located in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Most Bahraini live on the main island. The town people usually live in apartments or houses made of cement and lime brick. The villagers live in thatched huts. The arid climate allows some dairy and vegetable farming, but most of their food […]
There are forty-four subgroups of the Jula, a sub-Saharan people, one of which is the Odienne Jula. The majority of the 183,000 Odienne Jula live in the northwest town of Odienne, Côte d’Ivoire which is an historic trading center. Odienne lies within the savanna region of Côte d’Ivoire where the soil is fertile. People make their living as merchants, craftsmen, and farmers. Rice is grown in the […]
Among the mountains and valleys of the Shan state of Myanmar live the Golden Palaung. Over 200,000 Golden Palaung speak the Shwe dialect of Palaung, which comes from the Mon-Khmer language family.
The Palaung are able to grow a number of crops in their area and they trade for additional foods with their pickled tea (also called laphet). This exclusive novelty is made by fermenting tea leaves over […]
Centuries ago, the most feared pirates in the Bay of Bengal terrorized com-munities in what is now Bangladesh. These pirates were called Maghs. Having left the seas long ago, the Magh are now valley farmers and dislike the term Magh because they do not want to be associated with pirates. They prefer the name Marma, which means “Burmese.” There are 182,000 Marma living in the Chittagong Hills […]
The 2000 census lists 45,000 ethnic Phunoi living in north-central Laos. Phunoi is one of eighty-four languages spoken in Laos. It is a Tibeto-Burman language which reflects the Burmese rule in Phunoi history. Phunoi is classified as a Loloish language which reflects a Chinese origin.
Experts believe there are 240 ethnic groups in Laos. In 1981, they were officially divided into five groups according to language. However, the […]
Located in the heart of the second largest island of the Philippines is a tribal people who cling tenaciously to their ancient customs and traditions. The Bagobos are a people steeped in ethnoreligion. They combine spirit worship, ancestral worship, and nature worship into a religion that is strict in ritual and full of fear. They are fiercely territorial, suspicious of outsiders, and very resistant […]
Imagine a dark place where superstition and fear rule peoples’ lives. It is a place where daily activities must be done in a prescribed manner or risk the ire of demons and the spirits of ancestors. There are no Christians, no Scriptures, and no hope. This is reality for the 123,000 Luobohe Miao (a group of the Hmong people cluster) who live […]
Tourists gather yearly to see the Yörük caravans depart their winter coastal homes for their summer pastureland in the Taurus Mountains. Excitement abounds. Sheep and goats walk single file, bells ringing. The huge loads of tents and equipment carried by camels are covered by colorful Turkish rugs. Women in their long, flowered skirts and young people dressed in their colorful best lend an air of festivity.
This 1,000 […]
The Brunei Malay people are a native Malay ethnic group that live in Brunei, a little-known nation on the island of Borneo. The country is tiny (a little larger than Delaware), but enjoys the wealth from oil resources. The Brunei also live in Malaysia, Canada, and the United States. The in-country population is 184,000; the worldwide population is 556,000.
Their language, also called Brunei Malay, is different in […]
The Tama people live in eastern Chad and western Sudan. Statistics vary according to source; reports include a population of anywhere from 170,000 to 300,000. The Kimr tribe, numbering 169,000, belongs to the Tama people group and speaks the same language.
Tama (also known as Tamok, Tamot, or Tamongobo) is a language in which tone, stress, and length can all change the meaning of words. It is the […]