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Nara people

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This article is about the ethnic group that lives in Eritrea. For other uses, see Nara (disambiguation). Ethnic group
Nara
Total population
108,000
Regions with significant populations
 Eritrea
Languages
Nara
Religion
Islam
Related ethnic groups
Kunama

The Nara are an ethnic group inhabiting southwestern Eritrea. The society is divided into four subtribes, who are traditionally animist. They are mostly subsistence farmers.

Ethnolinguistic map of Eritrea; the Nara live in the sea-blue region.

Overview

According to the Eritrean government, the Nara are descendants of the first Nilo-Saharan settlers in Eritrea, who had migrated from the Upper Nile area and intermarried with local Pygmy populations.

Today, the Nara number around 108,000 individuals. They constitute around 1.5% of the population of Eritrea. They are typically agrarian and have settled primarily along the border with Sudan.

They area located north of the Kunama, in the western parts of Barka Plains, the Nara constitute about 1.5% of the Eritrean population.

The Nara population is divided into four subtribes: the Higir, Mogareb, Koyta and Santora. They traditionally adhered to animist beliefs. By the 15th century the Nara were introduced to Islam and after the Egyptian occupation in the 19th century, most Nara adopted Islam.

The Nara ethnonym means "Sky Heaven". They also used to call themselves the Barya.

An Eritrean Nara hunter with a Lion

Language

The Nara people speak the Nara language considered a language isolate in typological research but which has been grouped with the hypothetical Nilo-Saharan language family. Through contact with neighboring Afroasiatic-speaking populations, many Nara are also bilingual in Tigre and/or Arabic. They traditionally had no writing system, with the few existing pieces of literature in Nara transcribed using the writing system of either Tigre or Arabic.

The language is also known as Nara-Bana, meaning "Nara-Talk".

Social organization

Social organisation of the Nara people is based on the clan and subclan, with people living in villages and hamlets. The lineage system is patrilineal, unlike that of the Kunama people. Land belongs to the clan and shared out among the families in the clan.

Genetics

According to Trombetta et al. (2015), 60% of Nara are carriers of the E1b1b paternal haplogroup. Of these, around 13% bear the V32 subclade, to which belong 60% of the Tigre Semitic speakers in Eritrea. This points to substantial gene flow from neighbouring Afro-Asiatic-speaking males into the Nara's ancestral community. Cruciani et al. (2010) likewise observed that the remaining Nara individuals are primarily carriers of the Afro-Asiatic-associated haplogroup J (20%), as well as the A lineage (20%), which is instead common among Nilotes.

References

  1. ^ "Nara". Ethnologue. Retrieved 20 July 2016.
  2. ^ Mussie Tesfagiorgis G. (2010). Eritrea. ABC-CLIO. p. 177. ISBN 978-1-59884-231-9.
  3. "The people of Eritrea". Ministry of Information, Eritrea. Retrieved 20 July 2016.
  4. Killion, Tom (1998). Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. ISBN 978-0-8108-3437-8.
  5. Tesfagiorgis, Mussie G. (2010-10-29). Eritrea. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-232-6.
  6. ^ "Eritrea: Nara People's History". Archived from the original on 2018-05-23. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  7. Killion, Tom (1998). Historical dictionary of Eritrea. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-3437-8.
  8. Cavalli-Sforza, L. Luca; Menozzi, Paolo; and Piazza Alberto The History and Geography of Human Genes Princeton, New Jersey: 1994 Princeton University Press "Ethiopians, Some of Their Neighbors, and North Africans" Page 173
  9. Woldemikael, Tekle M. "Language, education, and public policy in Eritrea." African Studies Review 46.1 (2003): 117-136.
  10. Beniamino Trombetta; Eugenia D'Atanasio; Andrea Massaia; Marco Ippoliti; Alfredo Coppa; Francesca Candilio; Valentina Coia; Gianluca Russo; Jean-Michel Dugoujon; Pedro Moral; Nejat Akar; Daniele Sellitto; Guido Valesini; Andrea Novelletto; Rosaria Scozzari; Fulvio Cruciani (2015). "Phylogeographic refinement and large scale genotyping of human Y chromosome haplogroup E provide new insights into the dispersal of early pastoralists in the African continent". Genome Biology and Evolution. 7 (7): 1940–1950. doi:10.1093/gbe/evv118. PMC 4524485. PMID 26108492.
  11. Cruciani, Fulvio; et al. (2010). "Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages". European Journal of Human Genetics. 18 (7): 800–807. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2009.231. PMC 2987365. PMID 20051990.; Supplementary Table 3
Ethnic groups in Eritrea
Afro-Asiatic
Cushitic-speakers
Semitic
Nilo-Saharan
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