Blood drinking in Somali culture

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Struggle

Struggle

I found this interesting piece there are Somalis that drink blood like the Maasai

Blooddrinking.jpg

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Apollo

Apollo

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The Rendille and other 'Nilo-Cushites' in northern Kenya have been influenced by Maasai/Turkana/Samburu type Nilotes culturally. The practice is Nilotic, not Cushitic.
 
Cam

Cam

Apollo said:
The Rendille and other 'Nilo-Cushites' in northern Kenya have been influenced by Maasai/Turkana/Samburu type Nilotes culturally. The practice is Nilotic, not Cushitic.
Click to expand...
Explain this depiction of ancient Somali's then
blood_cow.jpg


This was just over a thousand years ago. Some other Cushite groups still practice this to this day.
 
World

World

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Apollo said:
The Rendille and other 'Nilo-Cushites' in northern Kenya have been influenced by Maasai/Turkana/Samburu type Nilotes culturally. The practice is Nilotic, not Cushitic.
Click to expand...
It’s actually the other way around, blood drinking is known to be a Cushitic practice adopted by some Nilotics similar to how they adopted our aversion to fish:

https://books.google.ca/books?ei=BGV4TvazCsa30AHS1MjxDA&ct=result&id=MMc9AAAAIAAJ&dq="Some+Nilotes+have+adopted+the+Cushitic+custom+of+drinking+"&focus=searchwithinvolume&q="Some+Nilotes+have+adopted+the+Cushitic+custom+of+drinking+"

The geographer Artemidorus, writing around 100 BCE in passages passed down to us by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, described them as living "a nomadic life on their flocks, each group with its ruler. At the time of the Etesian winds, when there are heavy rains, they live on blood and milk, which they mix together."

That was a 100 BC description of the lifestyle of certain Blemmye tribes in Northeastern Sudan (ancestral Beja tribes).

Here is a Chinese source on Northern Somalia during the early medieval period (800-900 CE) that describes the local nomadic pastoralist Somali inhabitants as not only being able to hold back the forces of the "Tazi" (The Caliphates) with a force of 200,000 soldiers (likely an exaggeration to merely put the point across that they had a powerful fighting force) but also having practiced this same custom of drinking cattle blood with milk:

"The people do not eat any of the five grains but they eat meat: more frequently even they pick a vein of one of their oxen, mix the blood with milk and drink it raw."
 
James Dahl

James Dahl

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World said:
It’s actually the other way around, blood drinking is known to be a Cushitic practice adopted by some Nilotics similar to how they adopted our aversion to fish:

https://books.google.ca/books?ei=BGV4TvazCsa30AHS1MjxDA&ct=result&id=MMc9AAAAIAAJ&dq="Some+Nilotes+have+adopted+the+Cushitic+custom+of+drinking+"&focus=searchwithinvolume&q="Some+Nilotes+have+adopted+the+Cushitic+custom+of+drinking+"

The geographer Artemidorus, writing around 100 BCE in passages passed down to us by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, described them as living "a nomadic life on their flocks, each group with its ruler. At the time of the Etesian winds, when there are heavy rains, they live on blood and milk, which they mix together."

That was a 100 BC description of the lifestyle of certain Blemmye tribes in Northeastern Sudan (ancestral Beja tribes).

Here is a Chinese source on Northern Somalia during the early medieval period (800-900 CE) that describes the local nomadic pastoralist Somali inhabitants as not only being able to hold back the forces of the "Tazi" (The Caliphates) with a force of 200,000 soldiers (likely an exaggeration to merely put the point across that they had a powerful fighting force) but also having practiced this same custom of drinking cattle blood with milk:

"The people do not eat any of the five grains but they eat meat: more frequently even they pick a vein of one of their oxen, mix the blood with milk and drink it raw."
Click to expand...

I was going to say this and you beat me to it, the Nilotes learned this from Cushitic people not the other way around, and northern Nilotic people who haven't been influenced by Cushitic people don't practice it.

It's not barbaric at all it's actually pretty smart. With blood and milk you can get most of the benefits you would get from eating your livestock but you don't kill them, so you still have your livestock afterwards.

Some of the "Nilotic" tribes are probably originally Cushitic tribes that adopted Nilotic languages. There's good evidence that the Kikuyu are originally a Cushitic tribe that have adopted various Nilotic and Bantu influences.

The original Cushitic pastoral people:
  • Worshipped Waaq the sky god, the place of worship under a wagar tree (african olive tree). The wagar tree connected heaven and earth.
  • Practiced cattle pastoralism (later some adopted camel pastoralism) and lived off blood and milk, avoiding slaughtering their animals as much as possible.
  • Society was egalitarian with age sets and age grades determining the social role and social standing in the community along with how the community was organized and led.
  • Practiced circumcision upon graduation into the age set allowing marriage.
  • Spoke a Cushitic language
  • Have two moieties, one junior, one senior
 
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Prince Abubu

Prince Abubu

James Dahl said:
I was going to say this and you beat me to it, the Nilotes learned this from Cushitic people not the other way around, and northern Nilotic people who haven't been influenced by Cushitic people don't practice it.

It's not barbaric at all it's actually pretty smart. With blood and milk you can get most of the benefits you would get from eating your livestock but you don't kill them, so you still have your livestock afterwards.

Some of the "Nilotic" tribes are probably originally Cushitic tribes that adopted Nilotic languages. There's good evidence that the Kikuyu are originally a Cushitic tribe that have adopted various Nilotic and Bantu influences.

The original Cushitic pastoral people:
  • Worshipped Waaq the sky god, the place of worship under a wagar tree (african olive tree). The wagar tree connected heaven and earth.
  • Practiced cattle pastoralism (later some adopted camel pastoralism) and lived off blood and milk, avoiding slaughtering their animals as much as possible.
  • Society was egalitarian with age sets and age grades determining the social role and social standing in the community along with how the community was organized and led.
  • Practiced circumcision upon graduation into the age set allowing marriage.
  • Spoke a Cushitic language
  • Have two moieties, one junior, one senior
Click to expand...

Wait, how is this possible? The olive tree isn't native to Sub-saharan Africa.
 
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