In Africa
The word can also be used to refer to a number of naming and incantatory customs that are native to the African continent. Ranging as these do from the single word Iziduko of the Xhosa people of Southern Africa to the great stanzas of Oriki that are found amongst the Yorubas of West Africa, hereditary cognomens in this case are used in much the same way today as the Cognomina were during the classical period of Rome. They typically distinguish a family or clan from others of the same tribe, honour its founder and remind his or her descendants who make up the said family or clan to live up to their legacy.
Beyond this particular form, there are also traditions of tribespeople taking either group names or individual names following a ritual initiation, though this would probably be more of a religious name than a cognomen.
Read more about this topic: Cognomen
Famous quotes containing the word africa:
“Everywhere—all over Africa and South America ... you see these suburbs springing up. They represent the optimum of what people want. There’s a certain sort of logic leading towards these immaculate suburbs. And they’re terrifying, because they are the death of the soul.... This is the prison this planet is being turned into.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)