7 of over forty peoples
The peoples of the Plateau
Plateau State holds more than forty ethno-linguistic groups and no single one of them is a majority. That is the fact the whole state turns on, and it is why a guide to Jos that stops at the landscape has missed the subject.
Niger-Congo · Benue-Congo
Berom
The largest indigenous group in Plateau State, and the people whose green and maroon cloth has become the visual shorthand for the Plateau itself.
- Language
- Berom
- Local government areas
- Jos South · Barkin Ladi · Riyom · Jos North
Niger-Congo · Benue-Congo
Afizere
The people of Jos East and the hills north of the city, with the most fully documented dress and colour symbolism of any group on the Plateau.
- Language
- Izere
- Local government areas
- Jos East · Jos North · Jos South · Mangu
Afro-Asiatic · Chadic
Ngas
Farmers of the southeastern edge of the Plateau, who terrace granite country around Pankshin and close their farming year with Pusdung.
- Language
- Ngas
- Local government areas
- Pankshin · Kanke · Kanam
No dress, food, dance on record
Afro-Asiatic · Chadic
Mwaghavul
The people of Mangu, whose Puus Kaat opens the planting season and calls the whole nation home, from Plateau and from the diaspora.
- Language
- Mwaghavul
- Local government areas
- Mangu
No dress, food, dance on record
Niger-Congo · Benue-Congo
Tarok
An agrarian people of the southeastern plains around Langtang, and a Benue-Congo language holding its ground in Chadic-speaking country.
- Language
- Tarok
- Local government areas
- Langtang North · Langtang South · Wase · Mikang · Kanke
No dress, food, dance on record
Afro-Asiatic · Chadic
Ron
The people of Bokkos, whose Butura community keeps Nahwai and a stone causeway that local account dates to well before anything else on this site.
- Language
- Ron
- Local government areas
- Bokkos
No dress, food, dance on record
Niger-Congo · Benue-Congo
Anaboze
A people of Bassa, north-west of Jos, whose Remeze festival reached this site because the brand filmed it rather than because anyone wrote it down.
- Language
- Buji
- Local government areas
- Bassa
No dress, food, dance on record
Five records is a beginning, not a ranking. The order on this page is not a hierarchy, and the groups not yet here are absent because nobody has written them up — not because they matter less.