AFRICAN CULTURE

The culture of Africa is varied and manifold, consisting of a mixture of tribes that each have their own unique characteristics. It is a product of the diverse populations that today inhabit the continent ofAfrica and the African Diaspora.

African culture includes but is not limited to: The centrality of spirituality, the placement of music, aesthetic, family formations, marriage rites, both the tangible and intangibles intellectual paradigms. The agents affecting culture are climate, geography, technology, cross-cultural interaction and unfortunately a history of oppression. Long ago some wise people realized that certain habits bore bad fruit, while other habits, such as marriage bore success in the group setting. It was also realized that at some stage children became adults when they had been fully institutionalized to the ethics of the group's culture. At this stage a ritual demarked this transition to full group membership. These "rites of passage" became critical in nation building.