Many of us are still reluctant to believe that several ancient African tribes migrated to India and especially to Tulunadu and other parts of southern India in the dark, unrecorded, undocumented antiquity.
Bambrana
Bambrana is a village in coastal Kasargodu district of Kerala. It is well known that Kasargodu and Dakshina Kannada are related by similar evolution, culture, tribes, language and traditions.
Let us analyse the meaning of the word Bambrāna.
In the word ‘BambrāNa’ (Bambara+aNa), the suffix ‘–aNa’ (or aNe) is an ancient spatial denoter (for example village names: Perne, Marne, Perana-manja etc) as explained in many earlier posts herein.
Bambara
Bambara is an ancient West African tribe, belonging to Mande group, hailing from Mali, Senegal and adjoining regions. Toponymic evidences of existence of ancient mande tribes in south India [exemplied by place/river names such as Mande-kolu (Sullia) , Mandagadde (Shimoga), Mandya, Mandovi (River) etc ] have been discussed in earlier posts.Bambara are also known as Bamana or Banmana and their language is known as ‘Bambara’ or ‘Bamanankan’, wherein ‘–kan’ means a language.
Ancient migrations
The place name Bambrana in Kasargodu district is an evidence for the existence of Bambara tribes in the West Coast in the antiquity. Probably during desertification of parts of Africa and consequent formation of Sahara deserts, some of these African tribes migrated to greener pastures like West Coast. It would be interesting to look for further evidences of ancient migration and settlements of African tribes in the West Coast of India. There may be remnant traces of Bambara words in our languages as well as genes in our communities.
The rural toy of ‘spinning tops’ used for playing by children of southern India are also known as ‘bambaram’, probably indicating the originators of this game concept.
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Bambarana_ 'aran' is fort. arana may be aranya. Bamba is some proper noun. May be name of the river or person.
ReplyDeleteSundarVedanth
Nonsense Post. Bambara Tribes are thmselves descended from Mandé ethnic groups and are extremely far placed on the West African region.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you claim Somali , sometimes Ethiopian . sometimes Bambara..........make up your mind!
There is no relation between tribes like SOmali or lets say MAnde. you guyz need to stop clubbing all Africans under one group.
Africa is diverse with different ethnic groups undergoing different evolutionary patterns.
I dont think Tulu has its roots in any of these tribes. Admitted that Tulu might have Afro-Asiatic roots derived from Aborigine tribes like Pambada, Nalike, Koragas, etc. but it is a separate language development. It has nothing to do with todays established mainland African languages.
The migration and diverging of earlier Afro-Asiatic groups took place way before the formation of todays African tribes and languages. Back then these tribes probably existed as different larger ethnic groups. and the migration must have taken way back during prehistoric times.
You need to stop drawing conclusions merely by finding similarities in linguistic individual words. Many a times it is just coincidence.
"Sometimes you claim Somali , sometimes Ethiopian . sometimes Bambara..........make up your mind!"
ReplyDelete-My dear anonymous, the migration of tribes during the early history was a complex phenomenon details of which are little understood so far.I am not clubbing all Africans under group or classifying any of those tribes of past or present, but just generalizing some of the strings in this land that I find strange coincidence with parallel place names/tribe names that existed once upon a time or continue to exist in some specific or unspecified part of Africa.
Of course it is my opinion and you are always at your liberties to draw your own conclusions.