Nubians

expand_more Description

Nubians, separately identified according to regional languages, live in villages scattered along the banks of the Nile in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Their traditional economy depended on sorghum, wheat, and date palms; cash crops such as sugarcane and cotton have grown in importance. The raising of the Aswan Dam in 1933 submerged much of "Old Nubia" in Egypt, and most Nubians relocated to new villages north of the dam where they became increasingly dependent on income from an established pattern of labor migration to Cairo and other big cities in which they had built a reputation as hard-working and ethical. Increased rural-urban interaction led to additional religious syncretism, and to modifications in taboos in rites such as circumcision and marriage. Another round of resettlement in 1963 with the construction of the Aswan High Dam galvanized a sense of common ethnic identity and raised their political profile nationally.

Identifier

Region

• Africa

Subregion

• Northern Africa

Subsistence Type

• horticulturalists

Samples

• EA
• SCCS

Countries

• Egypt
• Sudan