Azande people

The Azande (Zande) people the Uele borderlands of the Central African Republic, the Congo and South Sudan, along the Uele River towns of Isiro, Dungu and Yambio. Speaking Zande languages of uncertain family, they built 19th-century kingdoms under Avongara princes who absorbed dozens of smaller peoples into the Zande name. Azande witchcraft theory, where every misfortune has its witch and every accusation its benge poison-oracle test, made their logic famous in anthropology. Iron spears, raffia cloth and palm-oil wealth armed courts that raided and traded from Rafaï to Wau. Belgian, French and Anglo-Egyptian conquests divided the nation into three colonies; the Avongara courts fell, but Zande farmers, teachers and musicians kept the language. Bangasu and Obo markets still gather the Central African Azande. Yei, Maridi and Yambio schools teach in Zande today. Yambio markets and the Uele fisheries still feed a people who explain the world by witchcraft and survive it by sense.