Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Temne

For Students 9th - 10th
The Temne occupy some 29,000 square kilometers of Sierra Leone's Northern Province. The Temne language is included in Greenberg's West Atlantic category and in Dalby's MEL category, which is a subdivision of West Atlantic. Dalby found at...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Azerbaijani Turks

For Students 9th - 10th
Learn about the culture of the Azerbaijani Turks. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Armenians

For Students 9th - 10th
Learn about the culture of the Armenians. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Sara

For Students 9th - 10th
"Sara" is the term employed by outsiders to refer to a group of non-Muslim tribes in southern Chad, all of whom speak mutually intelligible dialects. Each tribe is a distinct geographic, political, and endogamous entity. Major tribes are...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: San Speaking Peoples

For Students 9th - 10th
San-speaking peoples do not constitute an ethnic group in the usual sense. The most widely known are those who call themselves "Zhu I oasi" (!Kung or Juwasi in most ethnographies), although the other peoples mentioned above have also...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Samaritans

For Students 9th - 10th
The Samaritans are a sect numbering about 500 who currently reside in Nablus, on the west bank of the Jordan River in Israeli-occupied Jordan, and in Holon, south of Tel Aviv, on the Mediterranean coast of Israel. The Samaritans call...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Sakalava

For Students 9th - 10th
The Sakalava inhabit an expansive region of Madagascar; their territory today encompasses nearly all of the west coast of this large Indian Ocean island. "Sakalava" is a compound term meaning "the long valleys" or "rivers." A noun as...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Pokot

For Students 9th - 10th
During the colonial period, the Pokot were called "Suk" by Europeans. To some Pokot, the older designation is a reminder of an era in which Africans lacked the power to name themselves; to others, it represents the clever ruse of a...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Persians

For Students 9th - 10th
Persians are an ethnic group defined primarily by language and location. The Persian language, also known as Farsi, which linguists classify in the Indo-Iranian Branch of the Indo-European Language Family, had about 23 million speakers...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Rukuba

For Students 9th - 10th
The Rukuba live in central Nigeria, on the High Plateau at some 30 kilometers west of the town of Jos, capital of Plateau State. They are one among the numerous small groups inhabiting the region. These groups are, by African standards,...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Qizilbash

For Students 9th - 10th
The Qizilbash were formed out of several Turkish Shia groups that were living in northwest Persia (Azerbaijan) in the fifteenth century. These groups were oppressed by the Osmanli Turks in the early years of the Ottoman Empire. Shaykh...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Qashqa'i

For Students 9th - 10th
The Qashqa'i are tribally organized, Turkic-speaking, nomadic pastoralists and agriculturists who live in southwestern Iran. They are Shia Muslims, unlike most of Iran's other minorities, who are either Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews,...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Shilluk

For Students 9th - 10th
The Shilluk are the most northern Nilotic-speaking people in modern Africa. Shilluk country covers approximately 320 kilometers on the west bank of the White Nile. Most of Shilluk country is open savanna and free from the annual floods...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Shahsevan

For Students 9th - 10th
In various parts of Iran live the remnants of several tribal groups called "Shahsevan," numbering perhaps 300,000 people. Most are now settled villagers or town dwellers who preserve little of their former tribal organization or pastoral...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Pedi

For Students 9th - 10th
"Pedi," in its broadest sense, has been a cultural/linguistic term. It was previously used to describe the entire set of people speaking various dialects of the Sotho language who live in the northern Transvaal of South Africa. More...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Ajarians

For Students 9th - 10th
Learn about the culture of the Ajarian people. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Abkhazians

For Students 9th - 10th
Learn about the culture of the Abkhazian people. Explore topics such as their history, economy, past settlements, cultural values, religion, and sociopolitical organization.
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Palestinians

For Students 9th - 10th
Palestinians inhabit an area east of the Mediterranean Sea and south of Lebanon. The Jordan River, Lakes Huleh and Tiberias, and the Dead Sea separate Palestine from Jordan. Christians refer to Palestine as "the Holy Land." Today...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Lur

For Students 9th - 10th
The Lur are found mainly in three regions of Iran -- Lorestan, Bakhtiari, and Kohkiluuyeh. Three primary languages spoken by Lur today. The traditional subsistence activity of the Lur is pastoralism; about half of the Lur population may...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Luo

For Students 9th - 10th
The Luo live primarily within the Kenyan province of Nyanza, but several live in Tanzania and other countries. They farm the land in order for adequate food supply, they are first and foremost cattle herders. Wives keep separate houses...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Mamprusi

For Students 9th - 10th
The people now known as the "Mamprusi" occupy the East and West Mamprusi districts of northern Ghana. Agriculture and animal husbandry provide subsistence for most of the population. Sheep, goats, pigeons, fowl, and guinea foul are kept...
Article
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: Covered Ritual Wine Vessel (Gong)

For Students 9th - 10th
View an object (gong) from the Zhou Dynasty and read about its cultural importance.
Lesson Plan
Louisiana Department of Education

Louisiana Doe: Louisiana Believes: English Language Arts: Grade 4: Pushing Up the Sky

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders learn that storytelling is a performance art that also transmits knowledge about cultures and life. Through reading different tales from various cultures, 4th graders are able to compare and contrast similar themes,...
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Khoi

For Students 9th - 10th
"Hottentot" was the collective name given to indigenous herders of southern Africa by early travelers from Europe. Subsistence activity was centered on the care of herds of sheep and cattle, hunting and the collection of wildplant foods....