Tursombe

The Tursombe people are closely related to the Ligabbi, speaking a very similar language despite living in the more arid regions north of the Ligabe Mountains. Like the Ligabbi, they are predominantly cattle, goat, sheep, and camel herders in a region that is sparse of vegetation and requires a nomadic lifestyle to survive. Because of their remote location they have been little impacted by colonial settlement.
Cattle are a measure of the wealth, status, and stature of Tursombe family groups. Like the Ligabbi they have fierce warriors, although their reputation is not as well known in colonial settler circles. A typical nomadic group consists of five to ten families who move approximately every five weeks in search of new pastures. Women are responsible for the construction of transportable huts, milking cows, obtaining water, and gathering firewood. Men tend and defend the livestock, and fight. Their houses are of plastered mud or hides and grass mats stretched over a frame of poles. A fence of thorns surrounds each family's cattle yard and huts. Tursombe clothing and decorative ornaments are commonly bright red in color.
Circumcision is practiced on both sexes as an initiation into adulthood. Women marry early among the Tursombe, while men must wait well into their thirties, when they cease being a warrior, to become eligible to marry and to become an elder. Marriage involves elaborate ritual, gift giving, and a ceremonial conclusion when a bull enters a hut guarded by the bride's mother, and is then killed. Infertile women are often ridiculed and ostracized, although many fertility rituals are performed to alleviate such conditions.
The Tursombe often sing and dance, with the men jumping high as part of their performances. However they use almost no instruments, including drums. Their beliefs include the worship of the creator god whom they consider to live in the mountains.
==Members==
Members of the Tursombe Tribe
Category:Organizations
Category:Organizations on The Veldt
Category:Tribes
Category:Tribes of the Veldt