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Article: BAAT??NU PERSONAL NAMES FROM BIRTH TO DEATH.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Africa
- Article date:
- January 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Edinburgh University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Baat??mbu (or Bariba), numbering some 500,000 comprise the largest ethnic group of northern Benin. They occupy most of the historical region known as Borgu, of which a small part is situated in adjacent Nigeria. Their language, Baat??num, is a Gur language related to the central and the Gurunsi groups (Manessy, 1981: 105). The Baat??mbu are the numerically dominant members of a political community composed of several sub-groups. At the top of the complex and rigid social hierarchy are the noble Baat??mbu, or Wasangari, formerly warriors who, according to oral tradition, originated in the Kisra migrations. They imposed themselves on the area progressively from the ...