Venda culture has arisen from diverse origins. Many Venda see themselves as traditionalists, but their culture has been very dynamic and adaptable.
In the past, they controlled a vast area in the north of South Africa. Today, as a result of land seizure by white settlers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the apartheid policies from the 1960s, they are centred in the north-east, mainly around Louis Trichardt and Sibasa in Northern Province. Groups are also found in south-eastern Zimbabwe. Fanciful theories have been used to explain the origins of the Venda, but recent evidence has revealed them to be an amalgam of groups.
Music and dance play a central part in Venda life, being performed at weddings and funerals, rituals and initiation schools, beer drinking a...
The smallest unit is the household (mudi), a family or a group of families of the same lineage, who live together in a collection of rondave...
By the fourth century, modern Northern Province was occupied by Khoisan and Early Iron Age peoples, who interacted through trade, marriage a...
Traditionally Venda women did not have the same inferior position held by women in most southern African groups....
The development of the individual was seen as a series of phases, puberty and marriage marking important stages....