Documents for "Peoples (except New World)":

• aborigines see Australian aborigines.

• Aeta see Pygmy.

• Ainu aborigines of Japan who may be descended from a Caucasoid people who once lived in N Asia. More powerful invaders from the Asian mainland gradually forced the Ainu to retreat to the northern...

• Akan people of W Africa, primarily in Ghana, where they number over 7.5 million, Côte d'Ivoire, and Togo. They speak languages of the Twi branch of the Kwa subfamily. Although patrilineal descent is...

• Akka see Pygmy.

• Alans or Alani: see Sarmatia.

• Arabs name originally applied to the Semitic peoples of the Arabian Peninsula. It now refers to those persons whose primary language is Arabic. They constitute most of the population of Algeria, Bahrain,...

• Aryan [Sanskrit,=noble], term formerly used to designate the Indo-European race or language family or its Indo-Iranian subgroup. Originally a group of nomadic tribes, the Aryans were part of a great...

• Australian aborigines native people of Australia who probably came from somewhere in Asia more than 40,000 years ago. In 2001 the population of aborigines and Torres Straits Islanders was 366,429, 1.9% of the Australian...

• Avars mounted nomad people who in the 4th and 5th cent. dominated the steppes of central Asia. Dislodged by stronger tribes, the Avars pushed west, increasing their formidable army by incorporating...

• Baganda also called Ganda, the largest ethnic group in Uganda. Bagandas comprise about 17% of the population and have the country's highest standard of living and literacy rate. Their traditional homeland...

• Balts peoples of the east coast of the Baltic Sea. They include the Latvians, the Lithuanians, and the now extinct Old Prussians. Their original home was farther east, but from the 6th cent. they were...

• Bantu ethnic and linguistic group of Africa, numbering about 120 million. The Bantu inhabit most of the continent S of the Congo River except the extreme southwest. The classification is primarily...

• Basques people of N Spain and SW France. There are about 2 million Basques in the three Basque provs. and Navarre, Spain; some 250,000 in Labourd, Soule, and Lower Navarre, France; and communities of...

• Batwa see Pygmy.

• Bedouin [Arab.,=desert dwellers], primarily nomad Arab peoples of the Middle East, where they form about 10% of the population. They are of the same Semitic stock as their sedentary neighbors (the...

• Berbers aboriginal Caucasoid peoples of N Africa, called Imazighen in the Tamazight language. They inhabit the lands lying between the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea and between Egypt and the Atlantic...

• Bhils people, numbering about 3 million, who inhabit portions of Pakistan and of W central India, especially S Rajasthan and Gujarat states. They speak an Indo-European language, Bhili, and retain a...

• Boer [Du.,=farmer], inhabitant of South Africa of Dutch or French Huguenot descent. Boers are also known as Afrikaners. They first settled (1652) near the Cape of Good Hope in what was formerly Cape Province. After Great Britain annexed (1806) this territory, many of the Boers departed (1835-40) on the Great Trek and created republics in Natal (see KwaZulu-Natal ), the Orange Free State (see Free State ), and the Transvaal. Hostility between the Boers and the British resulted in the South African War (1899-1902), after which the Boer territories were annexed and the Union of South Africa formed. There has been some tension between South Africans of British descent and the Boers. South Africa...

• Bolgari see Bulgars, Eastern.

• Bulgari see Bulgars, Eastern.

• Bulgars, Eastern Turkic-speaking people, who possessed a powerful state (10th-14th cent.) at the confluence of the Volga and the Kama, E European Russia. The Bulgars appeared on the Middle Volga by the 8th cent...

• Bushmen see San.

• Celt or Kelt . 1 One who speaks a Celtic language or who derives ancestry from an area where a Celtic language was spoken; i.e., one from Ireland, the Scottish Hebrides and Highlands, the Isle of Man, Wales,...

• Chamavi see Germans.

• Chazars see Khazars.

• Chorotega aboriginal people and language group of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Little is known of the Chorotega, primarily beause of the absence of extensive ruins. Contemporaneous with the Maya to...

• creole Span. criollo [probably from crío =child], term originally applied in West Indies to the native-born descendants of the Spanish conquerors. The term has since been applied to certain descendants in the West Indies and the American...

• Cumans or Kumans , nomadic East Turkic people, identified with the Kipchaks (or the western branch of the Kipchaks) and known in Russian as Polovtsi. Coming from NW Asian Russia, they conquered S Russia and Walachia...

• Dayak see Dyak.

• Dogon African people who live on the bend of the Niger River in the Republic of Mali in West Africa. A patrilineal, sedentary agricultural people, they number over 360,000. They depend mainly on grain...

• Dravidians name sometimes given to the peoples of S and central India and N Sri Lanka who speak Dravidian languages. They are so called for purely linguistic reasons; the peoples are of varying racial types. It is thought that Dravidian-speaking peoples may have been spread throughout the Indian subcontinent...

• Dyak or Dayak , name applied to one of the groups of indigenous peoples of the island of Borneo , numbering about 2 million. The Dyaks have maintained their customs and mode of life largely uninfluenced by modern civilization. The group is generally divided into the Sea Dyaks, or Iban, who...

• Eskimo a general term used to refer to a number of groups inhabiting the coastline from the Bering Sea to Greenland and the Chukchi Peninsula in NE Siberia. A number of distinct groups, based on...

• Ewe African people, numbering over 3 million, who live in SE Ghana, S Togo, and S Benin. When German Togoland was partitioned after World War I, the Ewe in that colony were divided between France and...

• Fanti black African ethnic group, S Ghana, living around Cape Coast and Elmina, one of the Akan peoples. The Fanti speak a Twi language, which is part of the Kwa group of the Niger-Congo branch of the...

• Fulani people of W Africa, numbering approximately 14 million. They are of mixed sub-Saharan African and Berber origin. First recorded as living in the Senegambia region, they are now scattered...

• Ga black African ethnic group, SE Ghana. The Ga speak a Kwa language and, together with the closely related Adangme, number over 1 million. Inheritance and succession to public office are determined...

• Galla see Oromo.

• Gipsies see Gypsies.

• Gond ethnic group in central India. The group is now divided among the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharshtra, and Madhya Pradesh; in Madhya Pradesh there was a small but powerful Gond kingdom until the...

• Gurkha ethnic group of Nepal. They claim descent from the Rajputs of N India and entered Nepal from the west after being driven from India. They conquered (early 16th cent.) the small Nepalese state of Gurkha and henceforth called themselves Gurkhas. They...

• Gypsies or Gipsies [from Egypt, because of an inaccurate idea that Gypsies came from a so-called Little Egypt], a traditionally nomadic people with particular folkways and a unique language, found on every continent; they often refer to themselves as Roma. Their language, called Romany , belongs to the Indo-Iranian family and is closely related to the languages of NW India. Their blood groupings have been found to coincide with those of S Himalayan tribes, and genetic mutations...

• Hamites African people of caucasoid descent who occupy the Horn of Africa (chiefly Somalia and Ethiopia), the western Sahara, and parts of Algeria and Tunisia. They are believed to be the original settlers...

• Hausa or Haussa , black African ethnic group, numbering about 23 million, chiefly in N Nigeria and S Niger. The Hausa are almost exclusively Muslim and practice agriculture. Their widespread trading activities have...

• Haya people of Africa living on Lake Victoria in the extreme northwest of Tanzania. They originally came from W Uganda, a region they left because of endless wars. There are now about 1 million Haya;...

• Hephthalites see White Huns.

• Herero Bantu people, mainly in Namibia and Botswana. They number about 75,000. A pastoral tribe noted for their large cattle herds, the Herero probably migrated from the region of Lake Tanganyika in the...

• Hottentots see Khoikhoi.

• Huns nomadic and pastoral people of unknown ethnological affinities who originated in N central Asia, appeared in Europe in the 4th cent. AD, and built up an empire there. They were organized in a...

• Ibo see Igbo.

• Igbo or Ibo , one of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria, deriving mainly from SE Nigeria, numbering around 15 million. Originally settled in many autonomous villages, the Igbo nevertheless had a sense of...

• Igorot general name for the people of N central Luzon island, the Philippines. The Igorot form two subgroups: the largest group lives in the south, central, and western areas, and is very adept at...

• Jackson Whites name applied to a group of people of mixed descent (African, European, and Native American) living in the Ramapo Mts. along the New Jersey-New York state line. The origins of these people have for...

• Kabyles people, predominantly agricultural, of North Africa, whose center is the rugged Kabylia region of Algeria. Of uncertain origin, they form one of the larger divisions of the Berbers. Known for their fierce resistance to the successive conquerors of the region, they were slow to adopt the Muslim religion and Arabic speech and in Great Kabylia (the central and southern region of...

• Kafirs or Kaffirs [Arab.,=infidel], name applied by European settlers to the Xhosa branch of the Bantu -speaking people of S Africa. Originally used only for the inhabitants of the Transkeian Territories (then called Kaffraria), the name came to be commonly employed as a derogatory term for all black...

• Karens members of a Thai-Chinese cultural group, one of the most important minorities in Myanmar, living in the Kayah State , Kayin State, Tanintharyi , and the Ayeyarwady delta. They form 7% of Myanmar's population. The Karen hill tribes have tended to remain animistic, but among those settled in the plains there are about many Buddhists and...

• Kelt see Celt.

• Khoikhoi people numbering about 55,000 mainly in Namibia and in W South Africa. The Khoikhoi have been called Hottentots by whites in South Africa. In language and in physical type the Khoikhoi appear to...

• Kikuyu Bantu-speaking people, numbering about 6 million, forming the largest tribal group in Kenya. The Kikuyu live in the highlands NE of Nairobi. Before the British conquest they were the most...

• Kipchaks see Cumans.

• Komi Finnic people of the northeastern part of European Russia. There are two traditional branches of the Komi—Zyrians and Permyaks. The Zyrians are now officially called Komi and make up over half of...

• Kumans see Cumans.

• Lapps see Lapland.

• Maasai see Masai.

• Magyars the dominant people of Hungary , but also living in Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia, and Serbia. Although in the past it was thought a common origin existed among the Magyars, the Huns, the Mongols, and the Turks, modern research has...

• Mahrattas see Marathas.

• Malay see Malayan.

• Malayan or Malay , general term for one of a population of persons inhabiting SE Asia and the adjacent islands. The Malays vary greatly in physical appearance. The term Indonesian, used as an alternative for Malayan, is sometimes applied to the people of interior districts, who are thought to be related to the Pygmies or Negritos (probably the earlier inhabitants of the region). In the coastal districts there...

• Manchu people who lived in Manchuria for many centuries and who ruled China from 1644 until 1912. These people, related to the Tungus, were descended from the Jurchen, a tribe known in Asia since the 7th...

• Maori people of New Zealand, believed to have migrated in early times from other islands of Polynesia. Their tradition asserts that seven canoes brought their ancestors to New Zealand. The Maori...

• Mapuche see Araucanians.

• Marathas or Mahrattas , Marathi-speaking people of W central India, known for their ability as warriors and their devotion to Hinduism. From their homeland in Maharashtra their chieftains rose to power in the 17th cent. The Marathas helped bring about the fall of the Mughal empire and were the most determined rivals to British supremacy in India. Under the leadership of Śivaji , power was extended throughout the Deccan and much of S India. By the mid-18th cent. the Marathas, with their capital at Pune , were the leading power in India, but their domain soon split into several territories. In the early 18th cent. power passed to a succession of Brahmans who had been serving as peshwas (prime...

• maroon term for a fugitive slave in the 17th and 18th cent. in the West Indies and Guiana, or for a descendant of such slaves. They were called marron by the French and cimarrón by the Spanish. Formerly much used in the West Indies and South America, the term later came to be used with particular reference to certain blacks living in W Jamaica. The maroons fled when the...

• Masai or Maasai , a largely nomadic pastoral people of E Africa, chiefly in Kenya and Tanzania. Cattle and sheep form the basis of the economy that they have maintained in resistance to cultural change. The Masai...

• Mashona see Bantu.

• Matabele see Ndebele.

• Mongols Asian people, numbering about 6 million and distributed mainly in the Republic of Mongolia, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China, and Kalmykia and the Buryat Republic of Russia...

• Moros [Span.,=Moors], group of Muslim natives, numbering about 3.8 million, of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, and Palawan in the Philippines and of Borneo, who were converted in the great missionary...

• Mossi African people, numbering about 2.5 million, mostly in Burkina Faso. From c.AD 1000 the Mossi were organized into several kingdoms, one of which has continued to the present day. Despite long and...

• Ndebele or Matabele , Bantu-speaking people inhabiting Matabeleland North and South, W Zimbabwe. The Ndebele, now numbering close to 2 million, originated as a tribal following in 1823, when Mzilikazi, a general under...

• Negrillo see Pygmy.

• Negrito see Pygmy.

• Nuer a Nilotic people living around Lake No in the S Sudan. Their economy and social life generally revolve around cattle, which are grazed on the plains during the dry season and in the hills during...

• Oromo or Galla , traditionally pastoral tribes who live in W and S Ethiopia and part of Kenya. They number about 20 million and are largely Muslim. Originally from N Somalia, they later migrated to the region of...

• Pathans group of seminomadic peoples consisting of more than 60 tribes, numbering approximately 10 million in Pakistan and 6 million in Afghanistan, where they form the dominate ethnic group (historically...

• Patzinaks see Pechenegs.

• Pechenegs or Patzinaks , nomadic people of the Turkic family. Their original home is not known, but in the 8th and 9th cent. they inhabited the region between the lower Volga and the Urals. Pushed west (c.889) by the...

• Pennsylvania Dutch [Ger. Deutsch =German], people of E Pennsylvania of German descent who migrated to the area in the 18th cent., particularly those in Northampton, Berks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Lebanon, York, and adjacent counties...

• Petchenegs see Pechenegs.

• Pigmy see Pygmy.

• Polovtsi see Cumans.

• Pygmy or Pigmy , a racial designation of dark-skinned people who live in equatorial rain forests and average less than 59 in. (150 cm) in height. Some studies make a distinction between Negrillos, who live in...

• Rajputs [Sanskrit,=son of a king], dominant people of Rajputana , an historic region now almost coextensive with the state of Rajasthan, NW India. The Rajputs are mainly Hindus (although there are some Muslim Rajputs) of the warrior caste ; traditionally they have put great value on etiquette and the military virtues and take great pride in their ancestry. Of these exogamous clans, the major ones were Rathor, Kachchwaha, Chauhan, and...

• Roma people: see Gypsies.

• Sami see Lapland.

• Samoyedes or Samoyeds , partly nomadic, partly settled agricultural tribes found in N Siberia and the Taimyr Peninsula, especially in the basin of the Ob and Yenisei rivers. Traditionally they hunted reindeer and held...

• San people of SW Africa (mainly Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and South Africa), consisting of several groups and numbering about 100,000 in all. They are generally short in stature; their skin is...

• Seljuks see Turks.

• Semite originally one of a people believed to be descended from Shem, son of Noah. Later the term came to include the following peoples: Arabs; the Akkadians of ancient Babylonia; the Assyrians; the...

• Slavs the largest ethnic and linguistic group of peoples in Europe belonging to the Indo-European linguistic family. It is estimated that the Slavs number over 300 million in the world. They are usually...

• Sorbs see Wends.

• Swahili [Arab.,=coast people], name for some of the inhabitants of the Kenya, Tanzania, Somali, and Mozambique coasts, Zanzibar, and E Congo. Descendants of black Africans and Arab traders (who came to the...

• Székely ethnic group of Transylvania and of present-day Romania. Except in a few isolated communities, where the ancient customs of the Székely have survived, there is little difference between Székely and Magyars. The Székely (also known as Szeklers or Siculi) came into Transylvania either with or before the Magyars. Their organization was of the Turkic type, and they are probably of Turkic (possibly Avar)...

• Tadjiks see Tajikistan.

• Tagalog or Tagal , dominant people of Luzon, the Philippines, and the second largest ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines. They number about 16 million. Most of the population is Christian. Tagalog, a...

• Tartars see Tatars.

• Tasaday alleged band of 25 hunter-gatherers living in the Philippine rain forest, purportedly contacted by Westerners for the first time in 1971 in southern Mindanao (Cotabato Province). They reportedly...

• Tatars or Tartars , Turkic-speaking peoples living primarily in Russia. They number about 5.5 million and are largely Sunni Muslims. The name is derived from Tata or Dada, a Mongolian tribe that inhabited present NE...

• Touareg see Tuareg.

• Tuareg or Touareg , Berbers of the Sahara, numbering c.2 million. They have preserved their ancient alphabet, which is related to that used by ancient Libyans. The Tuaregs traditionally maintained a feudal system consisting...

• Tungus Siberian ethnic group, numbering perhaps 30,000. They are subdivided into the Evenki, who live in the area from the Yenisei and Ob river basins to the Pacific Ocean and from the Amur River to the...

• Turcomans see Turkmenistan.

• Turkomans see Turkmenistan.

• Turks term applied in its wider meaning to the Turkic-speaking peoples of Turkey, Russia, Central Asia, Xinjiang in China (Chinese Turkistan), Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, Iran, and Afghanistan. They...

• Tutsi or Watutsi , cattle-raising people of central Africa, particularly in Burundi and Rwanda ; they are also known as Watusi or Batusi. The original Tutsi homeland was probably in Ethiopia, and c.400 years ago they migrated south to around Lake Kivu. Here they established the native...

• Uigurs   Uighurs, or Uygurs , Turkic-speaking people of Asia who live mainly in W China. They were the Yue-che of ancient Chinese records and first rose to prominence in the 7th cent. when they supported the T'ang Chinese in...

• Walloons group of people living in S Belgium who traditionally spoke a dialect of French called Walloon, but who today for the most part speak standard French. The Walloons, numbering some 3.5 million,...

• Watutsi see Tutsi.

• Wends or Sorbs, Slavic people (numbering about 60,000) of Brandenburg and Saxony, E Germany, in Lusatia. They speak Lusatian (also known as Sorbic or Wendish), a West Slavic language with two main dialects: Upper Lusatian, nearer to Czech, and Lower Lusatian, nearer to Polish. The towns of Bautzen...

• White Huns or Hephthalites , people of obscure origins, possibly of Tibetan or Turkish stock. They were called Ephthalites by the Greeks, and Hunas by the Indians. There is no definite evidence that they are related to the Huns. The White Huns were an agricultural people with a developed set of laws. They were first mentioned by the Chinese, who described them (AD 125) as living in Dzungaria. They displaced the Scythians...

• Wolof black African ethnic group numbering over 3 million, along the Atlantic coast of W Africa; most live in Senegal, but there is a significant minority in Gambia. Traditional Wolof society was...

• Yoruba people of SW Nigeria and Benin, numbering about 20 million. Today many of the large cities in Nigeria (including Lagos , Ibadan , and Abeokuta ) are in Yorubaland. The old Yoruba kingdom of Oyo was traditionally one of the largest states of W Africa, but after the mid-1700s its power slowly waned. At the beginning of the 19th cent., Fulani...

• Zyrians see Komi.