Zande, a people of Central Africa who speak a language of the Adamawa-Ubangi branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Extending across the Nile-Congo drainage divide, they live partly in South Sudan, partly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and partly in the Central African Republic. The regions they inhabit, savanna in the north and rainforest in the south, are mostly suitable for agriculture and hunting. The contemporary people are fine craftsmen in iron, clay, and wood. The Zande numbered more than 3.8 million at the end of the 20th century.
The Zande are ethnically mixed. In the 18th century a people calling themselves Ambomu and living on the Mbomu River began, under the leadership of their ruling Avongara clan, to conquer vast stretches of territory to the south and east, overpowering many peoples, some of whom have preserved their own languages while others have been completely assimilated. This amalgam constitutes the modern Zande people. During their conquests, scions of the royal clan carved out kingdoms for themselves, and wars between these various kingdoms were frequent.
The Zande traditionally lived in widely scattered family homesteads. Polygyny is still practiced; in the past many men, especially the nobles, had so many wives that it was difficult for the younger men to marry. Adultery could be heavily punished. Marriage was contracted by the gift of about 20 spears by the bridegroom to the family of the bride. Girls were married very young and sometimes affianced a few hours after birth. While commoners will not marry into their own clans, nobles often marry kinswomen, even their paternal half-sisters and their own daughters. Patrilineal clans are numerous but widely dispersed. These clans are totemic, and it is believed that at death the body-soul, one of the two souls extant in Zande religion, becomes a totemic animal of the dead person’s clan. Zande religion also focuses on ancestor worship.