The Barambu (or Barambo) are an ethnic group who live in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Abarambo (Barambo), with whom are tentatively included the Amadi (with almost no information) and the Duga, are reported to resemble the Mangbetu in culture.
The Amadi live partly in the midst of the other Abarambo and partly in an enclave in Mangbetu country to the east.
Peoplegroups.orgt as of 2024 gave the population as 72,000 located in the Poko territory of Bas-Uélé province, between the Bomokandi and Uélé rivers. They were almost all Christian, broken down as Roman Catholic 41%, Protestant 28%, Other Christian 19% and Independent 12%.
Linguistically the Abarambo are said to be akin to the Azande and Badyo, who belong to the Eastern branch of the Niger-Congo linguistic stock, but available information gives no indication of close affiliation with these or any other tribes of the region. Two 1953 sources treat the language of the Amadi as distinct from all others in the area.
The Italian explorer Giovanni Miani, who visited the Uele region in 1872, was the first European to mention the Barambu people. A 1948 account by S. Santandrea summarized what was then known of the Barambo and other peoples of the Bahr el Ghazal basin. The Zande call them Amiangba or Amiangbwa, but this may also cover the Pambia. The Barambu appeared to have been a large tribe that crossed the Mbomou River before the Zande people and mostly settled along the Uele River, although some stragglers ended up on the upper Api River. After the "Sudanese" sections of the tribe crossed the Congo-Nile Divide they settled between the Mongu and Ringasi rivers. In 1948 about 2,900 tax payers of the tribe inhabited the country between the hills near Tombora and the Boku River in the French Congo.
The name Barambu or Barambo means in their language "man", and is similar to bambu, which means "man" in the related Pambia language. According to Glottolog, the Barambu language as of 2017 had AES status "threatened".
Primarily agricultural. The principal crops are bananas, manioc, sweet potatoes, sesame, and eleusine, but millet (possibly sorghum), maize, peanuts, yams, and pumpkins also are grown. Dogs, a fair number of goats, numerous chickens, and a very few ducks are kept. Fishing is important on the rivers, whose "Rakango" (Kongo) inhabitants exchange fish with the inland dwellers for agricultural products. Hunting is important, and termites are collccted as a delicacy. There are markets.
Agricultural work is done mainly by women.
Necklaces of dogs' teeth are highly prized. Iron money is used; it is shaped with appendages at the top and bottom.
Each polygynous family occupies a separate homestead.
The local community is a neighborhood of scattered home steads, each surrounded by plantations. Dwellings are normally round, with low cylindrical walls of mud and conical thatched roofs, but rectangular huts with gabled roofs are occasionally found in consequency of Badyo influence.
Patrilocal clan-communities are probable, since sibs are reported to be territorially distinct. Boys are circumcised at ages 6 to 10. Secret societies exist.
There are local headmen with little influence.
The Abarambo were subjugated by the Azande. They have sizable chiefdoms modeled on the Azande pattern, which are believed to be of recent origin. The chiefs have rainmaking functions.
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