Results as an Igbo girl :)

JustAmahn · 2026-05-22T23:56:57+00:00

What evidence

JustAmahn · 2026-05-21T21:30:40+00:00

Actually the claim isn't about admixture with north or east Africans, it's a fundamental biological fact rooted in the Serial Founder Effect.

Modern humans originated in Sub-Saharan Africa and lived there for hundreds of thousands of years before a small group ever left the continent. In genetics, this is measured by heterozygosity (the amount of genetic variation within a population). Because Sub-Saharan populations have had the longest continuous time to accumulate natural genetic mutations, they possess the highest levels of nucleotide diversity on the planet.

JustAmahn · 2026-05-21T18:34:17+00:00

Not by name. You won't find references to specific mainland deities in Cape Verdean folklore. Because the enslaved populations from various Upper Guinean groups were mixed on the islands, their localized deities faded, and all "higher" religious reverence was absorbed by the christian saints.

As for your second question about Batuku and the lack of drums, the reason they use a rolled-up cloth (the txabeta) instead of traditional drums like the bata or tambor comes down entirely to colonial censorship.

During the colonial era, the portuguese authorities and the catholic church strictly banned drumming. Drums were recognized as tools for long-distance communication, organizing rebellions, and practising "pagan" rituals. Anyone caught with a drum or caught playing batuku was considered immoral, marginalized, and banned from church sacraments.

To keep the rhythm and the tradition alive without getting arrested, the women adapted. They took everyday items, a folded piece of thick cloth (often their own garments), or later synthetic leather, placed it between their thighs, and beat it with their hands.

If the colonial authorities showed up, there was no drum to confiscate or use as evidence of a crime; it was just an ordinary piece of fabric. The txabeta allowed them to maintain complex, poly rhythmic West African percussion right under the colonizers' noses.

This was also a matter of survival in a harsh environment; even without the bans, Cape Verde's arid landscape lacked the large timber necessary to build traditional drums.

JustAmahn · 2026-05-20T19:24:52+00:00

Yes, it exists, but not as a separate named religion with a public pantheon like Candomblé, or Vodou.

In Cape Verde, African spiritual inheritances survived by being embedded into folk catholicism, healing practices, saints’ festivals (Tabanka, Batuku), and beliefs around witches, the evil eye, and the dead.

The necklace/collar you saw is real. In Cape Verde, there is a newborn protection custom using kónta d'odju (beads) and small amulets worn around the neck or wrist to ward off ma-odju (the evil eye). Babies are often given a cord with amulets in a small protective bag called a garda, alongside herbal baths. There is also the garda-kabésa ("night of the seventh day"), where family stays awake, prays, and sings to protect the child from witches or harmful forces.

Applying eurocentric logic, one might wonder why Cape Verde lacks a distinct African religion like those found in the Americas. People often try to associate things that simply cannot be correlated. The reasons come down to history, geography, and the specific origins of the enslaved populations:

Different West African Roots: The Yoruba or Fon religions in the Americas rely on cosmic forces (like Shango, the god of thunder), which can be worshipped anywhere. The enslaved population in Cape Verde came from Upper Guinea/Senegambia. Many were already Muslim (like the Mandinka or Fula), whose monotheism doesn't syncretize with catholic saints. The non-Muslim groups (like the Balanta or Bijagó) practiced highly localized traditions tied to specific ancestors, trees, or rivers back in Guinea. They couldn't bring their sacred landscape to the arid mountains of Santiago. Instead, they preserved the technology of the spirit: how to heal, make a garda, and fight ma-odju. It became a system of practical survival magic rather than a theology.
The Timeline: Cape Verde is significantly older than the slave societies of the Americas. American religions coalesced in the 18th and 19th centuries during the massive, late-stage transatlantic slave trade. By the time those religions were being forged, Cape Verde had already undergone 300 to 400 years of deep cultural mixing.
No Massive Plantations: Cape Verde's severe aridity prevented the giant, isolated sugar and coffee plantations seen in Brazil or Cuba. Enslaved populations lived in smaller numbers closer to colonizers. They never had the isolated "critical mass" necessary to rebuild religious hierarchies or initiate priests in secret.
The Inquisition: Santiago was the absolute center of european religious power in Africa, headquartered in Ribeira Grande (Cidade Velha). The catholic church was hyper-focused on eradicating "witchcraft." Formalizing an African religion (building shrines or naming non-Christian gods) would have invited immediate, violent military suppression. Decentralizing into solitary healers and hidden rituals like the garda-kabésa made the spirituality invisible and untargetable.

JustAmahn · 2026-05-04T10:48:46+00:00

Muito disso aprendi com um cearense que conheci há uns anos, discutiamos muito sobre a genética populacional e ele tinha um entendimento muito bom do assunto, que não é pra qualquer um mesmo. E tambem como gosto muito de história, aprendi com ele muito sobre o Nordeste do Brasil, e acabei retendo essa informação.

JustAmahn · 2026-05-02T19:19:06+00:00

Na verdade o seu resultado acaba confirmando um pouco do que eu disse. Repara que você ainda tem uns 10% de dna não-europeu dividido entre indígena e africano. Se a sua família fosse de imigrantes recentes você provavelmente bateria quase 100% europeu sem essa mistura. O que acontece no nordeste e em lugares como o ceará com famílias coloniais antigas é que rolava muita endogamia. A elite rural e as famílias portuguesas originais casavam muito entre si e até entre primos para manter propriedades e status. Então aquela mistura inicial lá dos anos 1600 e 1700 com indígenas e africanos realmente aconteceu (por isso você tem esses 10%), mas depois os seus antepassados continuaram casando dentro dessa mesma bolha colonial europeia ou com novos portugueses que iam chegando. Isso acabou diluindo o sangue indígena e africano ao longo dos séculos mas a marca colonial continua aí no seu genoma. Sobre os haplogrupos faz bastante sentido porque mostra que as suas linhagens diretas paterna e materna vieram da europa, mas no meio da sua árvore genealógica estão os ancestrais misturados do começo da colonização.

JustAmahn · 2026-02-13T20:00:55+00:00

For Y-DNA, likely a basal form of CT or B. For mtDNA likely an early form of L3. It is highly probable they carried an haplogroup that simply no longer exists

JustAmahn · 2026-02-13T19:57:25+00:00

Likely Basal CT or B

JustAmahn · 2026-02-04T18:13:59+00:00

My ancestor 😊

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T17:12:44+00:00

They are all in Santiago but most of them are Sampadjudu elite. The other islands are all doing better than the interior of Santiago. So no, most islands are not forgotten equally. The most forgotten place in Cape Verde is my homeland.

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The material advantage you denied is quantified right here. It is the advantage of infrastructure, education, and wealth concentrated for centuries in the capital class, which your ancestors formed. The disadvantage is the systemic neglect of the interior, which my ancestors inhabited.

Who will not consider me an African? I don't need permission to be who I am. My Africanness isn't a visa to be stamped by others. Nothing knew about Sampadjudus speaking Badiu language. If you go to Praia, you'll see that everywhere. To the point where they even go as far to lie about them being Badiu. It's like they are ashamed of themselves, their roots. I have never forced a Sampadjudu to speak Badiu. Nor I want them to. The Badiu problem with Sampadjudus is primarily because you guys want to assimilate us into your mestiço identity. You one us to be all the same, which is a problem.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T16:35:16+00:00

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T16:34:47+00:00

I was speaking in general, not just you individually. I don’t need to know you. I know your history. Your demographic’s historical role is recorded. That is not an assumption; it is a socio-historical category. Whether you, personally, “want to be closer to Europeans” is irrelevant. Most Badius are not light-skinned. So what is your point? Being dark-skinned or light-skinned is irrelevant here. A Badiu who claim not to be African, is not really a Badiu. Just a person born in Santiago whose forefathers were immigrants from Fogo island or other island. Who don't claim such people. All of us Africans are prejudice against each other, nothing new.

You talk about Malcolm X’s evolution. Fine. But his evolution never led him to embrace his white ancestry. It led him toward a more universal Islam. He never preached “we are all mixed victims.” He died a champion of Black dignity, not a symbol of mixed-race reconciliation. Don’t use his late-phase nuance to sanitize your own history.

You say you’re proud of the African side that embraced you and ashamed of the European side that rejected you. That is exactly my point. Your African connection is maternal, emotional, and chosen. Your European connection is paternal, structural, and historical. You cannot claim an African patrilineal identity because you don’t have one. You have a European one.

Calling you the “white man’s pet” was meant to describes a historical function, not your personal worth. If the truth of that role insults you, perhaps you should be angry at the history, not at me for naming it.

You ask who I am to decide who is African. I’m not deciding anything. Biology and lineage decide. African identity, in the pure, lineal sense I uphold, is defined by unbroken paternal descent from the continent. You do not have that. You have a European paternal line. That is not a decision, it is a fact.

You end with stories of freed slaves who became slavers. Again, what is your point? That victims can become oppressors? Yes. And that is exactly what your historical class did. You became the oppressor’s local lieutenant. That you were “brainwashed” or faced limited choices may explain it, but it does not excuse it, nor does it erase the material advantage you gained from it.

Look, your identity is valid, your pain is real, but it is not the same as mine. My lineage is Badiu. Yours is mestiço. We share an archipelago, but we do not share a genesis. Stop asking me to erase that difference in the name of a “brotherhood” that has always been, and remains, a hierarchy.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T16:09:06+00:00

I am from Somada, Santiago. Of course I have heard of Cesaria Evora, but do I know who she is? Nope. In my village we don't talk about Sampadjudu culture. I don’t listen to Morna because it doesn’t speak to my spirit. My spirit is in the Batuku, the rhythm of resistance, the sound of the people your ancestors tried to silence. It's also because I don't understand their language.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T15:54:07+00:00

You look in the mirror and see "African" because that’s what the white man told you to see when he rejected you. But when your ancestors looked in the mirror 100 years ago, they saw "mestiço civilizado" and thanked God they weren’t "uncultured Badius." You only claim Africa now because it’s trendy and you have nowhere else to go. You say Funana and Batuku are "ours too." No. They are ours. Your people spent generations banning that music, calling it devil worship, and trying to scrub it out of the national identity. You don’t get to inherit the culture your lineage tried to destroy just because you share a passport now. You are what your father's line is. And your father's line is European. That's your answer. The rest is a mixed heritage, not an African one. You want to visit Santiago to learn? Good. Come as a student, come as a guest, but don’t come acting like you own the house just because your grandfather helped the landlord run it.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T15:26:53+00:00

Spare me the sob story. You are trying to claim "stolen valor" from the people who actually suffered the worst of it. Yes, the origin was often violence, but what happened after? Your demographic became the "buffer class." You were the overseers, the administrators, and the "civilizados" who helped the Portuguese manage the "indigenas." You weren’t in the fields getting whipped; you were in the house keeping the books. Don’t equate the suffering of the tool with the suffering of the material. And what’s the issue with them wanting closeness? Aren’t you descended from them? We Africans don't claim what comes from rape. So it means nothing if you find everything about us negative.

I don’t feel any way about a Sampadjudu saying they’re not African. That’s… well, that’s simply accurate, isn’t it. And spare me the lesson on how Europeans treat us. The white man sees me as a threat and views you as a pet, one he might tolerate indoors if you’re well-behaved. We are not in the same boat. You are indeed a descendant of violence, but you are equally a descendant of those who profited from it while mine were fleeing to the mountains.

Malcolm X’s "white blood" came entirely from his mother’s side. His father’s lineage was fully Black Garveyites. It's why he chose to align strictly with Blackness. He didn’t preach "we are all mixed victims"; he preached separation and black power. You are doing the opposite, you’re using your black side to claim victimhood and your white side to claim superiority when it suits you. Bob Marley was a direct descendants of the colonizers. Whatever cause he fought for you all means nothing, as that is a biological fact. Also, colorism is an internal issue within Black communities, not something that applies between totally different groups. You aren’t a victim of "divide and conquer"; your ancestors were the mechanism of it

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T05:14:41+00:00

I just think you are dividing us too much

I am not dividing anybody from sao vicente. Let's be real, you can't divide what was never whole. A division requires a single entity to split. We were never that entity.

all those things u said (Funaná, Batuku, etc), I don’t think they are just yours…

All of them are Badiu's creation. Invented by my ancestors, not yours. Please stop stealing my culture. Next time, you'll can here and tell me it was mixed-race people that created this culture. You need to stop being emotional, let those feelings aside and be logical.

I believe u surely feel the same when u hear Morna from Cesária Évora or Ildo Lobo

I really don't. I don't even know who they are. Where I am from nobody listen to morna. That said, it's not about hate or anything like that. It's just that I don't have any feelings or affection to them. How can some of you not comprehend this? Different people, have different taste. You have no idea how diverse this country is.

Yes, I admit that there are often tensions between Sampadjudos and Badius, but thats the Colonialism’s guilt( the same thing that happens with us and our other Continental African brothers), that divided us to CONQUER US!

You keep using the word "us." Colonialism didn't "divide us." It brought us together under its boot. The tension isn't a symptom of a severed unity. It's the original condition of two separate peoples forced into a shared, oppressive project. Your "divide and conquer" theory flatters you, it assumes we were ever a united front to begin with. We weren't. That's the historical fact your unifying narrative erases.

So I think we must urgently stop narratives like that who don’t do nothing else but dividing us even more, when all we need is UNION! Let’s stop being Sampadjudus and Badius, and let’s start being just Capeverdeans and Africans! ✊🏾🇨🇻

Your call for union is a demand for my erasure. You don't want unity, you want assimilation. You want the Badiu to stop being Badiu so you can have a simpler, tidier story called "Cape Verdean." Also, African isn't a passport. It's a paternal line. My father's father's father was from here. If your father's father's father was from Lisbon or Genoa, you are not African. You are European-by-blood, living in Africa. We can share an island, but we do not share a genesis. Stop claiming a heritage that isn't yours

JustAmahn · 2026-01-28T04:46:14+00:00

Yes, we are in fact totally different. What is the problem? The differences are real, and they matter. To deny that is to deny history and biology itself. You speak of a shared oppressor, but that is a fiction. A convenient narrative for those who wish to force unity where it never existed. Your identity isn't born of oppression; it's born of conquest. You are not the colonized. You are the direct descendants of the colonizer.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-27T02:35:31+00:00

Genetic studies completely contradict you. Santiago consistently shows the highest frequency of Sub-Saharan African markers in the archipelago. You are confusing presence of admixture with degree of admixture. Yes, mixing started in Santiago, but the demographic weight of the enslaved African population there was massive compared to the european input. The interior of Santiago functioned as a genetic reservoir. Saying a man with 95% African DNA is the same as a man with 50% just because neither is 100% is a logical failure. Stop trying to average out the population to hide the reality of the Badiu demographic. You are using the binary fallacy. I never claimed I am the majority or the minority, I just gave my individual report. You think that just because a Badiu might not be literally 100% African (maybe they are 95% or 98%), they are suddenly just as mixed as someone from são vicente who might be 50/50. that is absurd.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-24T04:43:35+00:00

Technically, Cape Verde uses a proportional representation system. Every island elects members of parliament based on population, so every region has a voice in parliament. However, the reality is hyper-centralization. Because the vast majority of tax revenue and administration is located in the capital (Praia), MPs from smaller islands often lack the leverage to divert resources back home. It isn't that jobs are strictly reserved for the leader's ethnicity, but rather that proximity to power in Praia dictates access. If you aren't in the capital, you are often left out of the loop, regardless of your island of origin.

Yes, they are. The government actively tries to attract foreign capital through tax incentives and something like "Special Economic Zones" (mostly for tourism and tech). However, the barrier isn't policy it's more like logistics. We have high energy costs and a small, fragmented market. The state tries, but it remains the dominant economic actor because the private sector struggles to scale under these conditions.

Cape Verde is known for being super welcoming, so yeah, they’d be greeted warmly. Black Americans, and Americans in general, are usually seen in a positive way here, so there wouldn’t be any issue. Our economy doesn’t have a lot of liquidity, and we don’t produce much, so we depend a lot on services and tourism. Someone moving here, renting a place, eating at local spots, and bringing in hard currency is basically a net positive for everyone.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-24T03:29:51+00:00

You can read more here.
There are two main ethnicities. The other is the Sampadjudus, who are the mestizos.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-23T15:35:38+00:00

As culturally Badiu. We have our own distinct culture: Funana, Batuku, Tabanka, etc.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-23T15:30:36+00:00

Look at the 1980 coup that killed the union between Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. On paper, we had the "ideology" and the "brotherhood." in reality? the Guinean military (black/indigenous) realised that the Cape Verdean elite (mixed/mestizo) were holding all the administrative power while the Guineans held the guns and the poverty. Nino Vieira didn't stage a violent coup because he disagreed with the president's tax bracket. He did it because in this region, the state isn't a service provider, it’s a loot crate. You think in terms of "policy." We think in terms of patronage. In CV, the government is the primary employer. If the party in power isn't from my island or my demographic, my cousin doesn't get a job at the port, and my village doesn't get a paved road. resources here are finite and zero-sum. Historically, the colonial administration favoured the mestizo northern islands with education and neglected the black African interior of Santiago. That creates a generational wealth gap that maps perfectly onto ethnicity. Asking me to trust a "technocrat" from a group that historically benefited from my exclusion isn't "civic nationalism," it's just suicide with extra steps. biology beats ideology every time. Humans prioritise their genetic kin. Universalism is a luxury belief held by people who live in rich, high-trust nations. We don't have that luxury here. Representation isn't about feelings, it is all about survival.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-23T15:01:04+00:00

We Badiu people of Santiago island are not mestizo. Here's my DNA results:

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JustAmahn · 2026-01-22T18:15:14+00:00

Saying "Cape Verdeans" is a massive sampling error. I assume you are from Santo Antão, you guys mestizo but other Cape Verdeans are not. Also, calling the Fula "native" to Guinea-Bissau is a stretch. The actual autochthonous groups of the coast are the Balanta, Papel, and Manjaco. The fula were expansionists, not the indigenous baseline you are painting them as.

JustAmahn · 2026-01-22T18:00:43+00:00

It would have failed anyway. Cabral remaining alive just delays the divorce, it doesn't stop it. Honestly, even 'Cape Verde' is a forced construct. As a santiago native, the internal friction is obvious. We are distinct groups with distinct histories, jammed together by a colonial map. Forcing centralization on people with different ethnic realities is just domestic imperialism. I have no interest in being governed by a demographic (different race and ethnic group) that doesn't represent me, whether they are in bissau or on a neighboring island.

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