BANTU. — Under this name are grouped many tribes of the southern part of Africa that are not culturally or racially homogeneous. It is, in fact, an exclusively linguistic grouping (ba-ntu is the plural of mu-nnu, man).
The languages of the peoples in question share a common structure. They divide nouns into classes characterized by prefixes placed before the roots; these prefixes, in full or contracted form, serve to express various grammatical relations. Each class has its own set of pronouns. Prepositions are either absent or nearly so, while temporal and spatial relations are indicated by placing nouns in the appropriate classes. Gender is also absent. Adjectives are few, and their meanings are often emphasized through verbs. The causative, applicative, iterative, and other forms of verbal action are expressed by means of verbal suffixes. Despite notable phonetic differentiations—whose laws of transition are now largely understood—the entire lexical heritage of the Bantu languages reveals significant common roots, strongly suggesting a common origin.
The languages of this group are spoken, with the exception of the extreme southern regions inhabited by the Bushmen and Hottentots, as well as the southwestern part of Africa, as far as the equatorial line, extending beyond it in the central and especially the western regions. Important centers of Bantoid idioms are found in Nigeria and along the coasts of Guinea. As we have noted, linguistic unity does not correspond to cultural unity. We shall briefly summarize the relevant ethnological features.
All these peoples practice agriculture using hoes, either through crop rotation or by burning wild vegetation as fertilizer. Some southern and eastern tribes also raise livestock, which constitutes the best form of capital accumulation; indeed, cattle are used to pay the bride price to the future in-laws, whereas other tribes prefer to pay with hoes.
From a social standpoint, the Bantu tolerate polygyny, though most are in practice monogamous. The legalization of marriage—and thus of offspring—generally depends on the full payment of the aforementioned bride price; children born before this payment are considered illegitimate. In many tribes, the family functions as a true economic unit in the sense that it produces what it consumes. The family also ensures the primary education of children, unless—this occurs among many tribes—the tribe itself intervenes through initiation rites. Finally, for nearly all, the family serves as the center of ceremonies related to birth, marriage, and death, as well as the site of sacrifices, which are commonly offered in the fields or huts to deceased ancestors during planting and harvest seasons.
Politically, there are tribes that lack a central governing body but instead split into groups within which the elders make decisions as needed. Others, however, have coalesced under specific leaders, even making neighboring peoples tributary to them (e.g., the Zulu and Basuto among the Hehe in the east). In the Congo and South Africa (Monomotapa), and even in the Great Lakes region, true kingdoms have arisen. The position of federation chief or monarch is almost always hereditary within the same family, and this authority holds significant sway over economic organization (land distribution, oversight of agricultural and pastoral activities, etc.), as well as tribal governance and the administration of justice. In some tribes, such authorities also held religious functions, particularly concerning general prosperity, field fertility, and livestock growth, while in other groups, special ministers of religion—official or unofficial—oversaw the activities of magicians, sorcerers, and diviners. In West Africa, these figures played a key role in the development of secret societies.
In most tribes, the cult of the dead is predominant. Some regard the dead in the manner of Latin *manes*, i.e., as beings concerned only with consumption, while others include all ancestors in this category, attributing to them a vigilant concern for the moral and material well-being of their descendants. The Bantu also believe in the existence of a Supreme Being (Mulungu, Unkulunkulu, or Niambi, Leza, etc.), who is generally not conceived in animistic terms in relation to the deceased. This Supreme Being is not the object of regular worship. Certain tribes attempt to appease him ceremonially during times of collective calamity. He is conceived as the creator of the world, or as the lord of the sky who, however, has ceded governance and direct contact with humans to the deceased, reserving for himself only the supreme power over life and death, happiness and suffering (e.g., over a woman’s fertility or sterility). The Supreme Being is also seen as upholding moral principles, punishing collective transgressions with droughts, epidemics, and the like, while the *manes* and ancestors cannot act against his explicit will.
Bunt.: As regards anthropological questions connected with the B., cf.: J. Deniker, Les races et les peuples de la Terre, 2nd ed., Paris 1926, pp. 566-82; C. G. Schlieman, Races of Africa, London 1930, pp. 181-232. — On economic and social problems: D. Kidd, Savage Childhood. A Study of Kafir Children, London 1906; E. Franke, Die geistige Entwicklung der Neggerkinder, Leipzig 1915; J. Roscoe, The Northern B., Cambridge 1915; G. Spannaus, Züge aus der politischen Organisation afrikanischer Völker und Staaten, Leipzig 1929; E. Schultz-Ewerth-L. Adam, Das Eingeborenrecht, 2 vols., Stuttgart 1929-30 (cf. Ostafrika, Kamerun, Herrero); E. Earthy, Valenge Women, London 1933;