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Cultures

Xhosa

Nguni Peoples

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The Xhosa are a Nguni-language people of South Africa's Eastern Cape, historically organized into a number of chiefdoms and closely related to but linguistically and historically distinct from the Zulu. Traditional Xhosa religion centers on veneration of ancestors (izinyanya) as intermediaries with a distant creator, uThixo or uQamata, alongside a religious specialist tradition of diviners (amagqirha) and a distinctive, still widely practiced male initiation rite, ulwaluko, marking the passage into adulthood.

Facts
Origins
Origin Region
Eastern Cape, South Africa 1
Language Family
isiXhosa, an Nguni Bantu language within Niger-Congo, closely related to but distinct from isiZulu and known among Nguni languages for its extensive click consonants, absorbed through early contact with Khoisan speakers. 2
Traditions
Principal Religious Traditions
Veneration of ancestors (izinyanya) as intermediaries with a distant creator, uThixo or uQamata; diviners (amagqirha) hold a distinct religious specialist role, and the male initiation rite ulwaluko, marking the passage into adulthood, remains widely practiced. 1
Practice
Practice Status
Living, and practised in varied local forms 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

The Xhosa Cattle-Killing Prophecy of 1856-1857, Prophecies

The wider Xhosa chiefdoms of the Eastern Cape frontier among whom the prophecy and its consequences spread.

Source The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856-7Jeffrey B. Peires
Xhosa Traditional Religion, Religions
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Originated In

South Africa, Countries
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Southern Africa, Regions
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Related To

Swazi (Eswatini), Cultures
Zulu, Cultures
Sources
1. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. Xhosa religionView the Source
1. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005Originated In: Southern AfricaView the Source
1. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005Originated In: South AfricaView the Source
2. The Bantu Languages
Derek Nurse and Gerard Philippson (eds.), Routledge, 2003
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