Орталық Африканың Азанде халқы

Ethnic group of North Central Africa

The Azande are an ethnic group in Central Africa speaking the Zande languages (whose classification is uncertain). They live in the south eastern part of the Central African Republic, the north eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the south central and south western parts of South Sudan. The Congolese Azande live in Orientale Province along the Uele River; Isiro, Dungu, Kisangani and Duruma. The Central African Azande live in the districts of Rafaï, Bangasu and Obo. The Azande of South Sudan live in Central, Western Equatoria and Western Bahr al Ghazal States, Yei, Maridi, Yambio, Tombura, Deim Zubeir, Wau Town and Momoi.

The Azande were believed to be formed by a military conquest during the first half of the 18th century. They were led by two dynasties that differed in origin and political strategy. The Vungara clan created most of the political, linguistic, and cultural parts. A non Zande dynasty, the Bandia, expanded into northern Zaire and adopted some of the Zande customs. In the early 19th century, the Bandia people ruled over the Vungara and the two groups became the Azande people. They lived in the savannas of what is now the southeastern part of Central African Republic. After the death of a king, the king's sons would fight for succession. The losing son would often establish kingdoms in neighboring regions, making the Azande Kingdom spread eastward and northward. Sudanese raids halted some of northward expansion later in the 19th century. As a consequence of European colonialism in the 19th century, the territory inhabited by the Azande was divided by Belgium, France, and Anglo Egyptian Sudan. During his travels in the late 1870s, the Austrian photographer Richard Buchta took photographs of Azande that were used in European publications about Central Africa and constitute an important source of historical documentation. The Azande are considered to be one of the last ethnic groups to move into the region and were the only group that did not engage in an agro pastoral lifestyle. The Azande were considered skilled metalworkers in pre colonial Sudan. Although the Azande did not originate in South Sudan, many other ethnic groups in the region also migrated into the region though the Azande's late arrival has made them the target of some cross ethnic animosity. In 2015, conflict between the Azande and the Dinka ethnic group in the city of Yambio, Western Equatoria state led SPLA chief Paul Malong Awan to instruct soldiers to open fire on anyone insubordinate to his directives. Awan implemented plans to soothe the situation in the region as ethnic tensions flared. Amnesty International documented evidence of war crimes in 2021 as warring factions from the larger Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups attacked the Azande and Balanda Bviri ethnic groups from the Western Equatoria region. Additional conflict broke out between Azande and Balanda factions as well.

In 1938, the Governor of Sudan ordered a survey of areas of modern day South Sudan by Dr. J. D. Tothill, who previously oversaw agriculture in British Uganda, to evaluate the region's potential for agricultural production. The Azande region was selected for agricultural experimentation because it was designated as food secure. The British got tribal and Indigenous leaders to support the plan and attempted to run a propaganda campaign to urge the local community to abide by the Azande Scheme. The Scheme was organized to reduce reliance on imports and promote self sufficiency. It emphasized growth and processing of valuable commodities for local use and export. The exports were supposed to pay for necessary imports. Originally hailed as a success by many scholars, the program largely failed, partly because of the Azande's relative isolation to trading ports and lack of sufficient infrastructure to bring in the machinery required to build a finishing and manufacturing sector in such a rural area. Additionally, the roads were not of adequate quality for exports and the British government deemed the prices too steep to justify. The project required extensive human and monetary capital investment which the British government realized was too substantial. Because of this isolation, many Azande have moved to towns closer to major roads. Though the plan emphasized cotton, crops that maintained soil health were promoted and land was allocated specifically for palm oil production to assure substantial yield and quality. An immediate retrospective of the plan's failure pointed to lack of bureaucratic oversight in enforcing the tenets of the plan, leading to homestead mismanagement. When entrenched methods of farming proved increasingly difficult to dissuade, experimental farming techniques required additional investment to compensate for inefficiencies. These additional costs played a role in leading the British to abandon the project.

The word Azande means "the people who possess much land", and refers to their history as conquering warriors. Variant spellings include Zande, Azande, Azandeh, Azende, Bazende, It was possibly circulated intentionally to create fear among ethnic groups in the Azande's period of regional conquest.

The types of houses that the Azande built were made from mud and grass, which they framed around wooden poles and thatched with grass. Each household was built around a courtyard so that they can gather and converse with each other. Adjacent to these courtyards were kitchen gardens that were for plants that did not require large scale farming such as pineapples and mangos. In order to implement the Zande Scheme, the British sought to establish new settlements in the region, centered around cotton ginneries.

As in other African societies, applied arts, artifacts, music and oral literature are key elements of Zande culture. They are most famously known for their throwing knives, called the "shongo". These show the skill of Zande metal workers with their curved and multi bladed features. Their visual art includes sculptures made from wood or clay. Many of these represent important animals or ancestors. Zande also have created drums and thumb pianos, called sansa, that sometimes looked like people, animals, and abstract figures. These instruments were used at celebrations like marriages and community dances.

Most Azande formerly practiced a traditional African religion, but this has been supplanted to a large extent by Christianity. Their traditional religion involves belief in Mbori, an omnipotent god. However, the late nineteenth century marked the beginning of many Zande converting to Christianity. 85 percent of Azande consider themselves Christian, while 15 percent follow their traditional religion. More than half of Azande identify as Roman Catholic. Folk stories of "tricksters" have helped establish a basis for social conduct and the consequences of violating social expectations. The Azande trickster, Ture, is representative of poor decisions and rash actions and serves as a deterrent against similar actions in the community. The Azande use oracles in their religious traditions, with many different oracles serving unique purposes and carrying varying levels of repute within the larger community. Witches can sometimes be unaware of their powers, and can accidentally strike people to whom the witch wishes no evil. In terms of death, the prince determined the vengeance placed on the witch or the killer. This could be done through physical killing of the witch, compensation, or lethal magic. Because witchcraft is believed always to be present, there are several rituals connected to protection from and canceling of witchcraft that are performed almost daily. When something out of the ordinary occurs, usually something unfortunate, to an individual, the Azande may blame witchcraft, just as non Zande people might blame "bad luck". Although witchcraft is contained within the physical body, its action is psychic. The psychic aspect of mangu is the soul of witchcraft. It usually, but not always, leaves the physical body of the witch at night, when the victim is asleep, and is directed by the witch into the body of the victim. As it moves, it shines with a bright light that can be seen by anyone during the nighttime. However, during the day it can be seen only by religious specialists.

There was also a social institution similar to pederasty in Ancient Greece. As the anthropologist E. E. Evans Pritchard recorded in the northern Congo, due to the shortage of women in the region, male Zande warriors between 20 and 30 years of age routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who participated in intercrural and anal sex with their older partners while also performing household duties. Once the younger partner was considered old enough to become a warrior himself, he received weapons and the relationship ended, with the older partner taking a female wife instead of the "boy wife". The practice largely died out by the mid 19th century due to increasing European colonial influence in the region, but the elders Evans Pritchard spoke to were still sufficiently aware of it to give a fairly detailed description.

During the 1930s Evans Pritchard recorded information about sexual relationships between women, based on reports from male Azande. According to male Azande, women would take female lovers in order to seek out pleasure and that partners would penetrate each other using bananas or a food item carved into the shape of a phallus. published a book about their former cannibalism. He too notes that only some Azande clans had eaten people, especially in war or in order to punish criminals. His informers told him that the flesh of enemies had been eaten not only to celebrate one's victory over them, but also because other provisions were often hard to secure during war campaigns and because letting the human flesh behind to rot was considered needless waste. Captives were either eaten immediately or kept as slaves, but the latter could still be butchered and consumed as punishment, or when provisions got scarce during famines. Among some clans it was also usual to kill and consume lonely individuals from unrelated neighboring groups (including other Azande clans) if an opportunity to do so arose. Most of the victims were women and children, because they were easier to subdue and because their flesh was considered tastier than that of men. According to Gero, though the Avongara did not practise cannibalism and disapproved of the custom among other Azande clans, they punished criminals by selling them to neighboring cannibal peoples who then killed and ate them.