EASTERN AFRICA

part of sub-Saharan Africa comprising two traditionally recognized regions: East Africa, made up of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda; and the Horn of Africa, made up of Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. The Horn of Africa, containing such diverse areas as the Ethiopian highlands, the Ogaden desert, and the Eritrean and Somalian coasts, is home to the Amhara, Tigray, Oromo, and Somali peoples, among others. Washed by the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean, this region has long been in contact with the Arabian Peninsula and southwest Asia. Islam and Christianity are of ancient standing here, and the people speak Afro-Asiatic tongues related to the languages of North Africa and the Middle East. East Africa, too, has a long history of contact with Arabia, particularly through the island of Zanzibar and the ancient ports of the Swahili coast, but it was through the Bantu kingdoms near Lake Victoria and through the farming and cattle-raising cultures of the Kenyan highlands that this region, early on, showed a much closer affinity with sub-Saharan Africa. Both regions went through periods of conquest and colonization by European powers, the Horn being controlled by Italy, France, and Great Britain and the East African lands becoming protectorates of Britain and Germany. It is to this era, which finally came to an end in 1977 with the independence of Djibouti, that the seven countries discussed here owe their present boundaries. This article begins with a description of the geography and economy of all of eastern Africa; it then proceeds with sections on the cultures of East Africa and the Horn of Africa. For more detailed geographic information, see Africa. For artistic expressions, see African arts. The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica region of the African continent, extending southward from the Horn of Africa through the former German and British territories of East Africa. As defined by Encyclopdia Britannica, the region includes the modern countries of the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia) and the countries of East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda). Area 1,420,000 square miles (3,678,000 square km). Pop. (1995 est.) 141,261,000. Additional reading The land and economy of eastern Africa Africa South of the Sahara (annual) includes updated essays on all aspects of the countries of eastern Africa. Comprehensive overviews of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania are given in W.T.W. Morgan, East Africa (1973); and W.T.W. Morgan (ed.), East Africa: Its Peoples and Resources, 2nd ed. (1972). Plant life of the region is covered in E.M. Lind and M.E.S. Morrison, East African Vegetation (1974); and D.J. Pratt and M.D. Gwynn (eds.), Rangeland Management and Ecology in East Africa (1977). The lakes are described in L.C. Beadle, The Inland Waters of Tropical Africa, 2nd ed. (1981); and the rift valleys and their setting are explained in B.H. Baker, P.A. Mohr, and L.A.J. Williams, Geology of the Eastern Rift System of Africa (1972). The anomalous climate of this portion of Africa is outlined in ch. 7 of Glenn T. Trewartha, The Earth's Problem Climates, 2nd ed. (1981).Economic development is best treated in country-by-country accounts or continental overviews, such as Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action (1982), a World Bank study. William Thomas Wilson Morgan The people of eastern Africa George Murdock, Africa: Its Peoples and Their Culture History (1959), covers all the African peoples. Jocelyn Murray (ed)., Cultural Atlas of Africa (1981), is also helpful. George Balandier and Jacques Maquet (eds.), Dictionary of Black African Civilization (1974; originally published in French, 1968), offers survey articles on the major ethnic groups. A large series of slim but densely factual volumes, Ethnographic Survey of Africa (1950 ), covers the entire region in two sections: East Central Africa and North Eastern Africa. East Africa John D. Kesby, The Cultural Regions of East Africa (1977), groups the peoples of East Africa and neighbouring areas into cultural regions and attempts to identify the processes by which cultural differences have arisen. Lucy Mair, Primitive Government: A Study of Traditional Political Systems in Eastern Africa, rev. ed. (1977), studies the social organization of the best-documented of the peoples for the period 18901960, concentrating on obligations and the settling of disputes.There are many studies of individual peoples. L.S.B. Leakey, The Southern Kikuyu Before 1903, 3 vol. (1977), is a detailed example, covering the southern third of one of the most numerous peoples of the Eastern Rift region. Other studies include Andrew Fedders, Peoples and Cultures of Kenya (1979); John Lamphear, The Traditional History of the Jie of Uganda (1976); and J.C.D. Lawrance, The Iteso: Fifty Years of Change in a Nilo-Hamitic Tribe of Uganda (1957). John D. Kesby The Horn of Africa Jan Brgger, Belief and Experience Among the Sidamo (1986), analyzes destiny, illness, and the spirit cult in Sidamo religion in relation to their economy. Frederick C. Gamst, The Qemant: A Pagan-Hebraic Peasantry of Ethiopia (1969, reissued 1984), is a general anthropological study of the culture and social institutions of a remnant of the Cushitic-speaking Agew peoples. Alan Hoben, Land Tenure Among the Amhara of Ethiopia: The Dynamics of Cognatic Descent (1973), provides a pioneering study of rural Amhara society. Karl Eric Knutsson, Authority and Change: A Study of the Kallu Institution Among the Macha Galla of Ethiopia (1967), contains a full sociological analysis of the main religious institutions of the Oromo. Asmarom Legesse, Gada: Three Approaches to the Study of African Society (1973), gives the most comprehensive account of the gada system. Donald N. Levine, Wax & Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopian Culture (1965, reprinted 1986), offers a thorough and detailed study of the culture and ethos of the politically dominant Amhara, and his Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society (1974), explores cultural parallels and connections among the many different ethnic groups of the Ethiopian mosaic. J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (1952, reissued 1965), is a comprehensive cultural history of the Horn of Africa.I.M. Lewis, A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa (1961, reprinted 1982), and Blood and Bone: The Call of Kinship in Somali Society (1994), study Somali society and culture and the linkages between traditional and modern political organization. Ioan M. Lewis