Wednesday 31 July 2013

Traditions & Culture of South Africa Tribes



South Africa is a unique and fascinating place with lots of different kinds of traditions and culture. Inhabited both by native Africans and Europeans, South Africa's history consists of struggles between the methods for life for Europeans and also the natives. Even though natives from the majority of the country's population, much native culture is lost or diminished in modern history however, many stronger native tribes have adapted their traditions to satisfy changing times.South Africa may be the only nation-state named after its geographic location; there is a general agreement not to alter the name after the establishment of the constitutional nonracial democracy in 1994.The country came into being through the 1910 Act of Union that united two British colonies and two independent republics into the Union of South Africa. After the establishment of the first colonial outpost of the Dutch East India Company at Cape Town in 1652, South Africa became a society officially divided into colonizer and native, white and nonwhite, citizen and subject, employed and indentured, free and slave. The result was a fragmented national identity symbolized and implemented by the white minority government's policy of racial separation.South african tribes culture is so great.

In South Africa over 80% of the population regularly consult a traditional healing practitioner, either a sangoma.Traditional healing is not a religion, but rather a cosmology. In traditional African healing, the physical, psychological, spiritual and ancestral worlds are interconnected and traditional healers are the mediums through which these worlds are communicated with.Visitors are always welcome to attend traditional healing ceremonies, which happen throughout the year in both cities and rural areas. During these ceremonies the sangomas and nyangas enter a trance state in which they commune with the spirit world and their ancestors.

These men and women believe that their ancestors have singled them out to follow a calling to practice traditional South African healing. If a call to heal is not answered, they believe there is a negative impact on the person ignoring the call, such as illness, instability or even insanity.It is not easy to become a sangoma.
The twasa is a rigorous journey full of hardships, personal confrontations and overpowering visions, aimed at psychically preparing the person for his or her vocation. It is the traditional healer's work to act as a medium between the spirit and physical worlds to discover the hidden causes behind misfortune or illness and prescribe appropriate action. click to know more about south africa culture.

Monday 15 July 2013

Go thru the Costa Rican Food



If you're traveling to Costa Rica for the first time, you may be curious about Costa Rica food. Fortunately, food in Costa Rica is certainly not different from food in the United States - with some notable exceptions. Here are some savory types of Costa Rican food and drink. Be sure to follow the links for tasty Costa Rica recipes!

For lunch, Casados (beans, rice) are served with a few sort of meat or fish along with a salad, fried plantains, white cheese and corn tortilla. The main difference between Gallo Pinto and Casado is that in Casados, rice and also the bean are served alongside and not mixed.There is no typical meal for supper, but another typical main dish in Panama and nicaragua , is arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) which may be served with different vegetables in the area like camote, chayote and yuca. Seafood can also be common thanks to the country’s proximity to both Pacific and Caribbean.

Costa Rica Food culture so nice. Small dishes before or perhaps in between meals are called Bocas, like black bean dip, chimichurri (tomatoes and onions in lime juice) served with tortilla chips or ceviche (fish/ shrimp with onion in lime juice).Tamale is really a seasoned corn meal that is covered in plantains leaves. Within the inside it has rice, beans, vegetables and meat. There's also other traditional sweet corn dishes like pozol (corn soup) or chorreadas (corn pancakes).Typical soups in Panama and nicaragua , are also very popular, such as olla de carne that is a soup with beef, potatoes, carrots, chayote, plantains and yucca, and also the sopa negra, black bean soup.There are plenty of traditional Costa Rican desserts like arroz con leche (rice with milk). The rice is cooked in milk with sugar, cinnamon along with other ingredients.

Friday 5 July 2013

Importance of African drums in African Culture & life



African drums hold a unique place in the history of The african continent. In Western Culture the thought of drumming is nearly always associated with amusement or just to add to the music quality of a song. Within Africa, drums hold the deeper symbolic and historic meaning.Drums are almost always a good accompaniment for any manner of wedding ceremony - births, deaths, marriages together with a ritual dance. The actual vicious sound of many percussion pounding together is also a required installment to stir up feelings in a battle or battle to inspire excitement and fervour. Importance of African Drums in african culture is so greater. Drums are a unique type of communication that can resound feelings associated with celebration, moods of unhappiness, or grand entrances associated with African kings and queens.

Drums are percussion devices played by the action to be beaten or shaken by fingers or sticks. African percussion have different applications and processes, and their use is not restricted to the 54 countries around the continent. Drums have journeyed with African culture all over the world. The origins of Africa drums are hazy, however, many reports do shed a few light. James Blades says in "Percussion Instruments and their History" which "extracts from Portuguese books associated with 400 years ago refer to the actual
existence and importance of the actual drum in South Africa." Patricia Telesco as well as Don Two Eagles Waterhawk declare in "Sacred Beat: From the Coronary heart of the Drum Circle" that Egyptian women danced with drums to compliment the gods, while the Wahinda in far eastern Africa considered it the death wish for a man to check out a drum.
There is little room for argument that the music of sub-Saharan Africa is defined primarily by rhythm. Melody may play a part in African music, but play a traditional West African song for anyone only remotely aware of musical traditions and chances are they will locate the source almost immediately. It is commonly agreed that
rhythm plays a much larger part in the African tradition than it does elsewhere.
Drumming for the most part is a backbone on which to hang instruments of melody and little else for the rest of the world. Rhythm in Africa, most seem to agree, goes well beyond mere musical expression; rhythm is a method of communication. Indeed, for many researchers, rhythm in Africa music has attained the level of a language all its own.