The Ndipaya were a tribe of West Africans living near the Kijuju coastal region. They suffered a drastic reduction of their population in the 20th century and may have died out entirely in the early 21st.
History
The Ndipaya tribe lived primarily in the caves away from the Kijuju Autonomous Zone, where they constructed a vast underground kingdom. At some point in their history, however, they proceeded to abandon their thriving capital to ruin, leaving to setting in the wetlands. They did, however, send boys and young men between the ages of thirteen and twenty-five back to the capital to guard it.
Around September 1966, their city was discovered by a botanical expedition led by Lord Oswell E. Spencer and Dr. James Marcus, who were searching for the Sonnentreppe, a flower known to the locals as the "Stairway of the Sun". This led to conflict between the two groups, with the expedition finally leaving after three months with the samples they sought after. In March 1968, after failing in their research, Dr. Marcus and his student, Brandon Bailey, returned to the ruins to collect more samples. In questioning the Ndipaya defense, Lord Spencer suggested that Marcus' expedition simply take the land from them. In this second conflict, which was continued in September by the expedition's hiring of armed soldiers, the Ndipaya quickly began to lose out to Western technology. This led to even worse problems as young warriors consumed the highly-toxic plant in a ritual to gain superhuman powers (see: Culture). They were soon forced to cede half of the underground city, which included the Garden of the Sun, to the invaders, though they refused to completely abandon their attachment to the city. The expedition succeeded in removing the Ndipaya warriors from the entire city with difficulty, erecting a laboratory complex in the caves to extract the Progenitor Virus. This research outpost soon after became an important part of the fledgling Umbrella Corporation.
Like the Sodibaya tribe in the wetlands, the Ndipaya were subject to experimentation with Plaga Type 3 in 2008. As a result of the parasite, Ndipaya women and child hosts failed to cohabit with the parasite and died.
Culture
The Ndipaya's governing structure was that of a monarchy, though was non-hereditary. Rather than being guaranteed Kingship through virtue of birth, hopeful candidates as future leaders of the Ndipaya were to attend a ceremony in the Garden of the Sun. The ceremony revolved around the ritual consumption of a flower translated into English from the Ndipaya tongue as "Stairway of the Sun". The plant was highly toxic, and killed most who consumed it. Those who survived were said to be rewarded with superhuman abilities, rightfully making them King in their eyes. The tradition finds basis in their folk history, which claims such a legendary King survived the plant's toxic properties centuries ago. Elements of the ritual was continued into the 21st century by Ndipaya descendants to honor their forefathers.
Their culture adapted to their mysterious abandonment of their capital, in both folklore and folk tradition. With a boy being considered a man by the age of thirteen, those between the ages of thirteen and twenty-five were required to spend at least two years guarding the capital from rival tribes, and were to keep the city a secret. After the 1960s, their culture again adapted to Umbrella's presence in their city, yearning for a new Ndipaya King to rise up and overthrow the invaders.