Tribes of the Niger River BAMBARA : a Mande-speaking people of Mali. Today sedentary farmers, they are divided inti many small chiefdoms, and known for their elaborate cosmology and religion. Earlier they had founded two important states at Seguo, on the Niger. Population 1.2 million. EDO : a Kwa-speaking people of southern Nigeria, the population of the kingdom of Benin; whose political and religious ruler, the , lives in Benin City. The ruling dynasty is historically closely linked with the Yoruba. They are famed for they carving, metal-casting and other arts. Population 1.3 million. FULANI ( FULBE, PEUL) : a people speaking a West Atlantic language, dispersed across the Sahel zone of West Africa from Senegal to Cameroon. They are predominantly Muslim, and coprise both transhumant cattle keepers and also sedentaery agricultural groups. Both are typically minority elements living among other peoples. The pastoralist groups are egalitarian, the sedentary ones having chiefs in some areas, such as northern Nigeria, where they overthrew the Hausa rulers of existing states in the early 19th century, established kingdoms by the conquest of indigenous peoples. population 7 million HAUSA : a Chadic-speaking people of Nigeria and Niger. They are intensive farmers | |
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