20 TYPES OF ETHNIC GROUPS IN THE WORLD: CHARACTERISTICS AND ORIGINS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Ethnic groups are a group or community of people who have a series of characteristics in common, be they genetic, historical, religious, cultural, language, among others. There are dozens of types of ethnic groups on all continents, each with its own customs and particular physical characteristics.

Ethnicity is the cultural practices and perspectives that distinguish a given community of people. Members of ethnic groups see themselves as culturally different from other groups in a society and are perceived by others in the same way.

20 ethnic groups in the world and their main characteristics

The wayúu or guajiros

They are an ethnic group that inhabit the Guajira peninsula of Venezuela and Colombia. They are shepherds and craftsmen, and the women are expert weavers, creators of hammocks with beautiful traditional designs. They also work in salt mines.

Their language descends from the Arawak language. They are polygamous and the guajiros with purchasing power have more than one wife, which increases their status and gives them social prestige.

The elderly are highly respected in Guajira society and it is said that when they die, they go to live in the world of the dead called “jepira”.

An important figure in Guajira society are the shamans, who use traditional medicine, although the Guajiros live close to civilization and can opt for modern medicine.

The Maasai

The Maasai are an ethnic group with approximately one million members living in Kenya and Tanzania. They are a nomadic people of shepherds who live in huts called “manyattas”, made of mud, straw and bricks that are made from animal excrement.

They speak a dialect called "maa" and are characterized by having large holes in their ears, which are made with an ax in their adolescent age.

They are a hierarchical society where the number of children and livestock determines the social class and position of power in the tribe. They are polygamous and celebrate the arrival of adulthood of warriors when they reach 30 years.

Currently, the Maasai welcome tourists, speak English and entertain foreigners with their beautiful dances, where as a sign of virility the men jump in the air with great skill.

The urus

They are an ethnic group that lives on around 80 floating islands in Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia. They were forced to build these floating islands to avoid a war with the Incas, who displaced them from their original lands.

Their way of life is primitive; men are in charge of hunting and fishing, and women in raising children and cooking. They have beautiful rites to celebrate the Earth, which they call “la pachamama”.

The floating islands, which are interconnected, are built with a reed from the same lake, called “totora”. They are great craftsmen and they make really beautiful fabrics. They have a maximum chief and each island has its president, who is elected in a democracy.

The bribri

They are an indigenous group that lives in Talamanca, Costa Rica. It is characterized by being independent and self-sufficient. In order to live, they sow cassava, banana, cocoa and some vegetables in their own gardens. They have pens with chickens and pigs, which are their main source of food.

They communicate in their own language, also called Bribri, spoken by about two or three thousand people. Their houses are made of straw or wood and their huts are usually separated from each other up to an hour's walk.

The Bribri grandmothers are the ones in charge of transmitting the language, traditions and customs. They practice their own animist religion and it can be said that it is the oldest in the Costa Rican territory.

The piranhas

It is a peculiar tribe of a little more than 200 members who live on the banks of the Maici River, in the Amazon, Brazil. Their language is both simple and strange; Although they lack words to designate numbers, colors or verb tenses, and have only 8 consonants, they can communicate perfectly.

They are a tribe with little interest in other cultures, they have no religion or have developed artistic manifestations such as painting or sculpture. They live from fishing and only deal with present problems without thinking about the future. They lack collective memory, myths and do not know how to add or count.

The bodi

They are also called "the obese tribe" and are an ethnic group that lives in southwestern Ethiopia, on the banks of the Omo River. They are semi-nomadic, sedentary, farmers and adore cows, since for them they are a symbol of wealth and prosperity.

Their language is Mekan, and they have used an alphabet called Ge'ez, although today they have adopted the Latin alphabet.

For this tribe, fat is a symbol of well-being, so each year in June they choose the most obese man, who gets respect and recognition for life.

The men who participate in this ceremony are dedicated to gaining weight for 6 months, a period in which they remain isolated, without sex, eating excessively and drinking large amounts of cow's blood mixed with milk.

The winner is named "King for a day" and presented to the most beautiful woman of the tribe. The bodi have their own music called "gulay", very happy melodies that they accompany with dances and an alcoholic drink that they produce at home called "sholu".

The awa

The Awa are an ethnic group that has a binational presence in Ecuador and Colombia. They speak the Awapít language, of Chibcha origin. They are about 13 thousand inhabitants and are dedicated to agriculture, fishing and livestock.

His clothes are currently Western. Among their customs is the use of the bodoquera or blowpipe as a hunting instrument. In their musical performances they use the marimba, interpreting melodies of happy rhythms.

Unfortunately, the indigenous people of the Awa ethnic group have been displaced from their ancestral lands due to internal conflicts in Colombia, and currently occupy a place on the list of the 35 indigenous peoples at risk of extinction in Colombia.

The karen

They are a Tibeto-Burmese ethnic minority living in southern Burma and in refugee camps in northern Thailand. In 1990 they were recognized as a people displaced by operations of the Burmese government army.

The Karen are best known for their wives' custom of stretching their necks with brass rings.

They have a single chief, who is usually the oldest in the tribe and who has full authority. They resort to mediators to marry and the normal age for marriage is 25 years.

Funerals are joyous celebrations, since according to their traditions the spirit should be guided to a new life with happiness. For the Karen, "pgho" is the supernatural force that governs men and things.

The Korowai

The Korowai are a tribe that lives on the banks of the Brazza River in Papua New Guinea. Until 1970 it was a totally isolated people, shocking the world for building floating villages on the top of the trees and for being cannibals.

There are approximately 3,000 people who make up this tribe and they live in groups of 10 to 12 people, without knowing electricity or roads.

They kill and eat the "khakhua", individuals considered witches who bring calamities to their people.

Celts

The Celts were a group of tribal societies linked by the same language, religion and a similar culture that developed in the Iron Age and medieval Europe. Celtic culture began to develop in 1200 BC and spread to the British Isles, Spain, France, and other parts of Europe.

Currently "Celtic" refers to the descendants of this culture that spread across 7 European regions and who have preserved their language, folklore and gastronomy. The Celtic League is a league of 7 nations that preserve Celtic cultural roots.

In the Asturias region, where Celtic tribes lived who fought against the Romans and the Moors in the Iron Age, Celtic traits are still preserved in their folklore, where they use bagpipes. Also in their meals, such as fabada, a white bean soup, made from the farm fabe, a bean that only grows in the area.

In the Celtic region of Brittany located on the northwest coast of France, folkloric customs linked to Camelot are maintained and even King Arthur's week is celebrated.

Cornwall, in England, is another region considered a Celtic nation due to its linguistic and cultural manifestations. There are many legends about King Arthur alive.

In the Celtic region of Wales, the Celtic language has been preserved almost intact. Various legends are preserved around the magician Merlin, who is said to have been born in Carmarthen.

Armenians

The Armenians are a people of the Indo-European race, considered one of the oldest ethnic groups in history. Armenians were born as an ethnic group with the formation of the kingdom of Ararat between the 9th and 6th centuries BC

In 383 AD they convert to Christianity, being the first state to proclaim itself Christian. There are currently an estimated 10 million Armenians and only a little more than 3 million live in the Armenian state.

Although the other 7 million Armenians live in all regions of the world, especially North America and Russia, the Armenian people preserve their customs and traditions.

They maintain their own alphabet, which was created in 406 AD. The Armenian language, its syntactic construction and articulation corresponds to the Indo-European language family. Armenians also developed their own musical system called "Khaz", which is still taught in Armenian schools.

Among the Armenian artistic manifestations we find its famous carpets (Kazakh and Karabakh), made by hand and whose intense reds have been created since millennia by a dye derived from a local insect called "ordan".

Mount Ararat is very important to Armenian culture and many of its legends unfold on this mountain. The most famous of the legends is the belief that Noah's ark was parked at the foot of Mount Ararat after the universal flood ended.

The Tuareg

The Tuareg are a nomadic people who represent one of the best known Berber ethnic groups. They inhabit a wide area that includes the northern and western Sahara.

The Tuareg language (Tamahaq) is a southern Berber language that has different dialects depending on the region. Their writing system is the tamajaq or shifinagh, which descends directly from the original Berber script used by the Numidians in pre-Roman times.

Tuareg society is one of classes, with nobility (free men) and vassals. They are matrilineal and although they adopted Islam as a religion, women do not wear a veil, while men do. The most famous symbol of the Tuareg man is the tagelmust, an indigo blue veil that is said to ward off evil spirits, but which has surely been adopted as protection against the desert sand.

Among its crafts are finely crafted swords called takaba and beautiful gold and silver necklaces called takaza.

As a nomadic people, their current situation is uncertain and some Tuareg live in settlements much like refugee camps.

The hunza

An ethnic group lives in the Hunza Valley that has attracted attention because its members live to be 120 years old. The Hunza, a town of approximately 40,000 inhabitants, are in such health that women are fertile up to the age of 60 and men over 100 are still active in farming and herding.

They differ racially from the other ethnic groups in Pakistan and have European features, with many historical accounts claiming that they are direct descendants of the King of Macedonia, Alexander the Great and his troop.

The Hunza people have one of the highest literacy rates compared to other peoples in Pakistan.

Research indicates that the longevity of the Hunza people is directly linked to their diet. They eat meat only once a week and for 3 months they only eat vegetables and fruits, they drink little milk due to the absence of livestock and they do not season their meals, nor do they drink coffee, tea or alcoholic beverages.

The water coming from the rivers of the Himalayas seems to have a healthy effect on this population where diseases such as cancer are not known.

The Jews

The Jewish ethnicity is defined by its ancestry, religion, culture and traditions. Jews are said to be the people from Judah, and Jewish law considers Jewish only those who are born to Jewish parents and those who convert to the Jewish religion under halachic supervision or a special court presided over by three dayanim or judges.

Despite having been a persecuted people, the current Jewish population ranges between 12 and 15 million and they are characterized by preserving their language, traditions and religion wherever they are.

There are 3 Jewish ethnicities:

• The Ashkenazi: Jews from Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Russia, whose language is Yiddish.
• The Sephardim: Jews from Spain and Portugal. Their language is Ladino, a dialect of Castilian.
• The Misrajim: They are the Jews of the communities of the Middle East, mainly Yemen, Iraq and Iran.

They are the first monotheistic people in history. They commemorate Passover as a celebration of the freedom they achieved by leaving Egypt, they celebrate Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles, which evokes the time they spent in the desert.

They wear the kippa or skullcap, a cap that reminds them that God is always above men. The important religious events of the Jewish people are the Sabbath or Sabbath of rest - remembering that their God rested on the seventh day-, the Bar Mitzvah -after the age of 13, where the young man must read the Torah-, and Yom Kippur or day of forgiveness - where Jews fast and ask forgiveness for their sins.

The kalash

Image via: Olivier Matthys / EPA

They are a pagan people living in the Chitral area of ​​Pakistan. They are said to be descendants of King Alexander the Great and his troops. It is an ethnic group on the threshold of extinction, since there is only a population between 3 thousand and 6 thousand people left.

They live almost isolated, do not have many rules of life and are frowned upon by Pakistanis for their pagan condition far from Islam.

Their folklore is closely linked to the folklore of ancient Greece and a great majority of the Kalash are usually blondes with blue eyes. They earn a living tending livestock, raising goats, and growing wheat, corn, rice, and grapes.

They have different gods to whom they build altars. In all its celebrations, men and women dance to the sound of flutes and drums. The marriage is not arranged and if the women are mistreated, he can resort to divorce.

The Arawaks

They constitute the group of indigenous ancestral peoples settled in the Greater Antilles and South America. The Tainos, a subgroup of the Arawak ethnic group, were among the first native peoples encountered by Christopher Columbus.

Currently, around 15 thousand Arawaks or Arawaks live in South America. Their language, Arawak, still survives. They cultivate cassava, guava, passion fruit, granadilla, orange, and lemon for their subsistence. corn, potato, onion, garlic, broad bean, cabbage, lettuce, blackberry, tree tomato, pumpkin, wheat and fique.

They believe in the spirits of their ancestors and profess a cult of respect for the land, rivers, and lagoons, which they consider sacred. There is a settlement of 40 thousand Arawaks settled in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. They raise chickens, cattle, goats and sheep on a small scale. They are coffee producers.

Kalbelias or gypsies of the Thar

The Kalbelias are a semi-nomadic ethnic group that is located mainly in the Thar desert, Rajasthan. They are very proud to have "snake charmers" ancestors. They still trade in snakes and are often excellent craftsmen, dancers, and musicians.

For their performances they use the typical instruments of Rajasthan; the tabla, the sarangi, the harmonium, the kartal (a kind of castanets), the sâtara, the morchang, the dholak, the kamaicha, and the pungi.

Their languages ​​are Hindi and Marwari. They used to be a people rejected by society and they always lived on the outskirts of towns in tents or movable tents called “deras”.

Berbers

The Berbers are an African ethnic group that extends through North Africa and Egypt, being considered the first inhabitants of these areas and occupying it for five thousand years.

Their language is Tamazight and they have their own writing system called Tifinagh. Its name was given by the Romans, referring to this people as "barbarians" (hence the origin of "Berber"). They are farmers and have always been in business.

The Berbers developed unique architecture in the Jebel Nefusa hills, building very interesting underground houses. Currently the Berber people are Muslim, but they believe in the presence of spirits called "djinns". For Berbers, drinking and serving tea is a very important social ritual.

The Lusitanians

The Lusitans were a group of people from a Celtic tribe that came to the Iberian Peninsula along with other Celtic tribes around 3000 BC.

The Lusitanian Celts are thought to come from the Celtic tribes that came from the Helvetian mountains of modern Switzerland.

The Lusitanian ethnic group is Indo-European and their language is independent. The Lusitanians ate bread made from acorn flour and male goat meat. They were a people that practiced human sacrifice and used to amputate the hands of their prisoners.

It should be taken into account that the Portuguese and the Lusitanians who currently occupy Portugal do not have the same ethnic origin. Lusitanians today are found in the central region of Portugal and some still speak the old Proto-Celtic Lusitanian language “eukantu”.

The vadoma

The Vadoma ethnic group is a people living in the Zambezi River Valley in Zimbabwe. Its population is approximately 18 thousand people and its main language is Shona.

It has remained quite isolated, a fact that has developed a rare condition called ectrodactyly or "ostrich feet", a common disorder in this ethnic group.

Although they are mostly Christian, they also practice a religion called Mwari. Mwari is their creator God, responsible for bringing the rains, which are rare in the region.

References

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