Some facts and info on moroccan history for all the naysayers and to contradict the evidence of the indigenous black presence and role in Moroccan history.
Black Sunrise: Mulai Ismail, Sultan of Morocco by Wilfred Blunt links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0016-7398(195206)118%3A2%3C222%3ABSMISO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D
Historical photos from Europeans in North Africa are a valuable resource in reclaiming the black African presence in North Africa. Another resource is the ancient writings of the black Muslims in Mauretania, Mali and the ancient writings of the Tuaregs(berbers), which are just now being brought to light after years of being hidden. Why in the world would Africans HIDE scholarship, while everyone else was using learning to advance themselves? The obvious answer is in the racism and oppression of the last 500 years in which the caucasian world tried to obliterate anything and everything positive from the African, in order to exploit the labor and resources of Africa. But as the truth comes out, we will see that black Africa has always been an important part of world history, no matter what the racists try and cook up in their so-called academic publishings.
Doug stated "Why in the world would Africans HIDE scholarship, while everyone else was using learning to advance themselves?" and that is difficult in the face of those of us born in a Western European framework where what we possess in perceived material benefit must be paraded to show how great or how people should bend to our way! Who know why the library of Timbuctu never expanded or built to accomodate its treasures? Climate or value placed in living and appreciating the present instead of posturing in possessing and control of objects.
just a thought!
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
Doug M, what about the Arabic writers that called the Masmuda ''black''? Do you still have the link to website? Unfortunately, your post was lost in the archive.
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
Good work, great photos. I'm for sure stuffing them in my Africana images folder!
For indisputable documentation on NW Africa's black indigenees you have to go back to the Greco-Latin writers and the very fist Arabic authors to avoid promoting offspring of lighter NW African -darker W African matings.
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Some facts and info on moroccan history for all the naysayers and to contradict the evidence of the indigenous black presence and role in Moroccan history.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by ausar: Doug M, what about the Arabic writers that called the Masmuda ''black''? Do you still have the link to website? Unfortunately, your post was lost in the archive.
Sure Ausar.
Unfortunately, it is not on a website, but from a book I quoted....
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: Good work, great photos. I'm for sure stuffing them in my Africana images folder!
For indisputable documentation on NW Africa's black indigenees you have to go back to the Greco-Latin writers and the very fist Arabic authors to avoid promoting offspring of lighter NW African -darker W African matings.
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Some facts and info on moroccan history for all the naysayers and to contradict the evidence of the indigenous black presence and role in Moroccan history.
Thanks Bro.
I just bought an English translation of Ibn Kaldun from Borders last night. Hopefully it will prove useful.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Oh boy! Is it Rosenthal's (or some other) translation of the Muqaddimah or is it the full complete "History"?
The Muqadimah lays out an original methodology for historiography still used by historians today. As lengthy as it is, it's only the introduction to the fuller work that goes more in depth into the histories of North Africa in particular and Dhar ul Islam in general, including a little on the Western Sahel/Savanna.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: Oh boy! Is it Rosenthal's (or some other) translation of the Muqaddimah or is it the full complete "History"?
The Muqadimah lays out an original methodology for historiography still used by historians today. As lengthy as it is, it's only the introduction to the fuller work that goes more in depth into the histories of North Africa in particular and Dhar ul Islam in general, including a little on the Western Sahel/Savanna.
I think it is the Muqaddimah, but I will have to check when I get home....
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Tuareg is the name given to the remnants of the ancient black African peoples that onced roamed the deserts of the Sahara and all of North Africa from Morocco to Egypt. Their history is some of the most colorful and "exotic" of the Muslim period in Africa. But the legacy of the Tuaregs is oft distorted, because the name Tuareg is a recent invention, dating back to the 1600s. The original peoples were called by many different names, but most often they were identified as Berbers from many different Berber confederations. These groups played a major part in the military conquests in North Africa, both against and allied with the Muslim invaders. But because there are so many various dynasties that sprang up in North Africa after the Muslim invasion, the identities of these black Africans is often lost amongst the Abbassids, Fatamids, Alouites, Rustamids and others who came along. In many ways, they, along with other black Africans, forged many aspects of what would become Muslim identity, including the wearing of veils and elaborate headwraps. They were the ones driving the caravans across the desert. They were the ones wearing the large round turbans over shawls that often included bandoliers across the chest. The Tuaregs you see today are but a small reflection of the ancient black African peoples that roamed north Africa. These were the ORIGINAL Berbers of North Africa, but of course, modern descendants of Europeans and Arab invaders want to try and make Tuaregs a separate group from the rest of the Berbers, even though they maintain the oldest form of the Berber language, Tifanagh.
Unfortunately, the Tuareg of today have been pushed into a small central location in the Sahara, cut off from the ancient trade routes that they used to control and without a country of their own. Even though they are located in the Central Sahara, well into Algeria, many STILL try to call them 'subsaharan'.
However, the information is out there on the TRUE history of black Africans in North Africa. Histories written in Arabic probably have a wealth of information, along with the oral and written histories kept by the Tuaregs and other black Africans alive today. A good college library will probably be my next stop, to research historical documents, photos and artwork about these people and their history.
On a side note, Algeria and other parts of North Africa have been heavily influenced by populations from Europe, Turkey and the Levant. In Algeria a population commonly referred to as the Pied Noirs numbered upwards of one million. They eventually returned to France after the liberation of Algeria, but undoubtedly, they left their mark, along with the thousands of other foreigners who had come to Algiera in historic times.
A black Frenchman, Frantz Fanon, spent much time in North Africa and wrote many books about the psychological impact of colonialism on subject peoples, especially Africans, including black Africans from Algeria.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
More facts from the history of North Africa, including another photo:
quote: Sanhaja, Masmoda, and Zenata are the three tribes constituting the Berbers .
The Sanhaja, from which sprang the Almoravide dynasty (the founders of Marrakesh) were nomads who in the 11C conquered the desert and much of the region to the south of it for Islam; the Masmouda were quiet farming people who lived in the north and west and in the High and Anti Atlas mountains and it was they who gave rise (from out Tin Mal , S of Marrakesh to the Almohade Dynasty which displaced the Almoravides; the Zenata a sub-group of which the - Beni Marin- swept in from the empty region between the Tafilalet and Algeria to become the great Merinide dynasty, were tough, horse-riding nomads of the cold high plateaux of the interior.
And, against this backdrop, note the history of Tlemcen and the Merinides:
quote: In the immediate neighbourhood of the modern Tlemcen are numerous remains of the fortifications of Agadir (vide infra), and the minaret of the mosque, a beautiful tower dating Sidi from the 13th century, the lower part of which is built Medin. of large hewn stones from the Roman Pomaria. More noteworthy, however, are the ruins of Sidi Bu Medin and of Mansura. Sidi Bu Medin (more properly El Eubbad) is a little over a mile south-east of Tlemcen. It was founded A.D. 1 337 by Ali V., the first of the Beni-Marin (Marinide) sultans who ruled Tlemcen, and commonly called the Black Sultan.
So, as we can see, even with the various names for the dynasties that began to crop up after Islam invaded North Africa, we can still see that black Africans played a major role.
Also note that during the colonial period many indigenous troops from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia served in the colonial European armies. These people also had different names depending on what country or region they were from and who they fought for. One such group is the Spahis, those from Algeria who fought for the French.
Now to put all of this into context.
Much of what became the golden age of Islam was predicated on the backs of the cultures Islam came to dominate. This included the ancient cultures of Africa, Asia and the Near East. In Africa, the spread of Islam incorporated many of the ancient traditions of culture and knowledge found in Egypt and other parts of NOrth Africa. These traditions sometimes became identified with Islam, even though the traditions were already ancient.
For example, there was an already ancient network of trade throughout the Sahara into Egypt and other parts of Africa. These trade routes were dominated by the ancestors of the Tuaregs, Egyptians and many modern West Africans. As the Sahara dried up, some groups became nomadic and others became more settled. Those that settled produced cultures like that of ancient Egypt and its sister nations in Kush and Meroe. Those who chose nomadic lifestyles mainly continued their trade throughout the Sahara using donkey caravans and oasis agriculture. Even though these groups practiced different forms of living, there were many traits that were held in common amongst them all. The Egyptians built massive fortified walled cities along the Nile, as did other African groups further South. These fortified cities became responsible for the palace facade symbolism found in early Egyptian artwork. This same tradition continued throughout Egyptian dynastic history and was widespread throughout North Africa and elsewhere. This tradition of ancient fortifications can best be seen at places like Buhen in the South of Egypt. In many ways, these fortress structures were the predescessors of the architectural style that became synonymous with ancient Moorish architecture in North Africa and Spain: Square towers, fortified walls, houses with open courtyards, gardens and pools. All of these elements were already in Egypt and the Sudan 3000 years prior to the rise of Moorish civilization. Similar traditions of building fortified cities and towns could be found amongst the ancient ancestors of West Africans like the Nok and others.
Likewise, many other traditions from elsewhwere in Africa became part of the spread of Islam. Just like the tradition of fortified cities was ancient in Egypt, so too was the practice of warfare. In fact, the reason many Africans were chosen as warriors in the service of Islam, is the long tradition of steel and iron weapons indigenous to Africa. As a result of trade and commerce, many African populations became wealthy by trading leathers, gold, cotton, iron, skins and other raw materials throughout Africa. Africans also traded in skills, as many Africans have traditions of handicrafts as blacksmiths, leatherworkers, weavers, farmers, woodworkers and so on that are part of a tradition within certain groups. These traditions allowed many black African groups to become wealthy and powerful along with the rise of Islam in Northern Africa, because of trade. It is this combination of factors, combined with the spread of Arabic as a linqua franca for commerce and education that led to the rise of Moorish civilization and culture. As I noted earlier, many of the elements of Moorish/Islamic culture in North Africa have purely African roots. The white gowns and cotton garments worn by African men (see "the Moorish Chief") are exact replicas of garments worn in ancient Egypt and elsewhere in Africa. Africans have a long history of warfare amongst themselves and this too gave rise to the militaristic traditions that also helped propel the Muslim advance into Spain.
As a corollary to what I just said, the same factors that led to the growth of black African groups during the Islamic period also led to their downfall. Islamic peoples from elsewhere became aware of the wealth of Africa because of the amount of raw material and spices being traded by the Tuareg ancestors. They then began to use these caravan routes to venture into Africa and determine the source of this natural wealth. Many spies were sent from Europe into Africa posing as Arabs in the years leading up to the colonial period to gather information to be used in colonial conquest. Arabs, Turks and other Islamic powers began to tax the African traders heavily, if not outright taking over many of the trading cities and routes long held by Africans. Africans themselves began to fight and squabble among each other over land and wealth. The spread of arabic literature allowed the stories of wealth and splendor in North Africa to spread throughout the Islamic world, causing people like the Turks and others to begin to conquer the Islamic kingdoms of North Africa. At some point, the trade of spices and resources from south of the Sahara became a primary route for trading human cargo as slaves for Turkish and other Islamic caliphs. African mulsims became used to support these caliphs in their slave raiding activities. The Kingdoms of Mali and Timbuktu were destoroyed in order to keep the people from benefitting from the knowledge that had been written in books. Soon thereafter, the Europeans became wealthy and powerful in their own right and too wanted some of the power and wealth that they imagined in Africa due to the influence of the Moors. This caused Europeans to then become aware of the slave trade and the profit that could be made off the exploitation of the relatively weak Africans in Africa. Their memory of being "civilized by force" at the hands of Africans caused them to "return the favor" and start colonizing Africa in the name of bringing civilization to Africa. Trade routes overland began to be avoided in favor of sea routes. The Turks began to dominate this trade, by controlling the Barbary coast and the pirate ships there. However, after the demise of the Barbary coast pirates and navy, Europe began to dominate the trade routes by sea and follow them to Asia, cutting off sources of wealth for Islamic African kindoms. All this and other factors began to studily erode the position of black Africans within the realm that they helped to build in Africa.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
The "other side" of Morocco, where the black Africans live.
In stark contrast to the showpieces of Fes and Marrakesch, here is the city of Tinghir with the souk of Rissani:
Rissani is one of the old souks that were part of the caravan routes of the old sahara, dominated by the Tuaregs and other black African traders. Marrakesch was also founded by such traders, but has long since been dominated by those from the North.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
The unfortunate thing is that as you go back, even 100 years, the black presence in North Africa gets more and more pronounced, from writers to artists and even photographs, black Africans were a major presence. And this is only 100 years ago. If you go even further back, the presence would be even more pronounced, especially in the times of the Moors. Modern Morocco is an ancient place physically, but the people are a blend of many different ethnicities. Many Spanish and Europeans of mixed Moorish and European background settled there after 1490. Incursions by other groups of Islamic peoples from Syria and Arabia began to weaken the remnants of the black Moorish dynasties in Morocco, eventually overwhelming them. But even then, the black presence was signifiganct as in the black blood that flowed through the veins of the early Alouite dynasties. Moulay Ismael was the brother of Moulay Rashid, who is often depicted as black. Both supposedly had black mothers. An englishman named John Windus described him as being of middle height but supposedly not having any "negro" features.
quote: “Moulay Bouazza” is an enigma—his genealogy and even the pronunciation of his name are in dispute. According to Vincent Cornell (Realm of the Saint, pp. 68 ff.), Abu Yi'zza was an “illiterate and monolingual Masmuda Berber from the mountainous region of Haskura in the High Atlas." He was also “Shaykh of the Shaykhs of the Magrib” to his fellow Sufis and a miracle worker to the masses across Morocco, to whom he had become famous at the time of his death in an epidemic in 1177, aged over 100 years. His grave is still an important pilgrimage site, and a town is named after it and him.
Some other notes on the history of the inquisition and the relationship between the Moors and Jews: http://libro.uca.edu/lea1/1lea2.htm Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Quote from Marcus Garvey on the Moroccans and Algerians being called "negroes":
quote: The New York World under date of January 15, 1923, published a statement of Drs. Clark Wissler and Franz Boaz (the latter a professor of anthropology at Columbia University), confirming the statement of the French that Moroccan and Algerian troops used in the invasion of Germany were not to be classified as Negroes, because they were not of that race. How the French and these gentlemen arrive at such a conclusion is marvelous to understand, but I feel it is the old—time method of depriving the Negro of anything that would tend to make him recognized in any useful occupation or activity.
The—custom of these anthropologists is whenever a black man, whether he be Moroccan, Algerian, Senegalese or what not, accomplishes anything of importance, he is no longer a Negro. The question, therefore, suggests itself, "Who and what is a Negro?"
Which begs the question, why would Mr. Garvey go out on such a limb if most Algerian or Moroccan troops of this time were "white"? Is it true that many of these troops were black? This is where it is necessary to go back and understand the history of places like Morocco and Algeria and the impact of Europe on these countries. Morocco very certainly seemed to side itself with European countries at various points in its history. The ruling line has also intermarried with those from royal families in the Levant, like Syria and Jordan in order to reinforce its ties with the Arab world. The existance of black Africans on the margins of society in modern North Africa is a testament to the ancient history of racism and oppression against blacks found throughout the world. But the truth is there and we have to find that truth and seek out those Africans, blacks and otherwise who are willing to reveal the truth about the history of North Africa and black Africans. By reaching out to the ancient black African communities in North Africa we can get a valuable insight onto the history of the region which is not possible from the position of being on the outside looking in.
quote: Goulimime is often referred to as the gate to the Sahara, largely because it earlier was an important market place for the Tuaregs of the region, who sold jewellery and camels. In the period from the 10th to the 19th century, Goulimime was on the caravan route from Niger, Mali and Senegal. Items traded included gold, spices, cloth and slaves. Earlier in the 20th century, the camel market of Goulimime was the largest in Morocco, when tens of thousands of camels were sold here annually. Today very little remains of this, and what is left is often staged for tourists.
Keep in mind that black African groups were a major force in the camel trade in Africa and still are to a degree throughout Northern Africa from East to West.
With the modern trade networks based on truck, boat and air, Moroccan traders do not rely on the Saharan trade networks, and the black Africans who controlled them, as much as they used to. It is these ancient networks, and the wealth that it spread among black Africans both North and South that was a vital component of the black African popuolations in North Africa. Marrakesch was founded by black Africans from Mauretania and was named after them, as the "land of the kouch men". Some traditions on the web say that the term kouch refers to the black complexion of the men from modern day Mauretania. However, while I agree that the term was partly a reference to the black skin of the people, I dont agree that the word was kouch. Maure or Marr or Morr is the root of the term which means black and kouch probably is referring to something other than skin color. Either way, the fact that these people were black is a signifigant factor in the name of the three countries: Morrocco, which is named from Marrakesch and Mauretania, all three of which have the root maure, referring to the black populations there. Once again, to see the connections between these black Africans and other black Africans to the south and west, you have to go by the ancient trade outposts that were part of the ancient saharan trade network. Marrakesch was a principle trade outpost, but it has been destroyed and rebuilt many times by succeeding waves of arab and berber groups and today does not have the black African presence it would have had in the time of the Almoravids who founded it. Likewise, the many old souks like Rissam, goulimime and sijilmasa.
Sijilmasa is an important spot if one wants to try and ressurect the black African presence in ancient Morocco and understand how it has been overtaken by modern arab culture. Sijilmasa now only exists in ruins, but once was the ancient city and souk founded by the berbers called Miknasa and currently can be found in Tafilalt.
However modern tifilalt was founded by the Alouites and became the basis of their wealth, based on the cultivation of dates in the oasis there. The tifilalt oasis is called the largest oasis in the world. Prior to the Alouites founding the city of Tifilalt, it was home to the Miknasa who built Sijilmasa. Sijilmasa was part of the caravan route that brought gold from Africa to the Islamic kingdoms of North Africa and was therefore extremely important to the wealth of these kingdoms. Hence, it was a contested city, which was fought over by many of the suceeding dynasties that came into prominence, the Umayyads, the Almoravids, the Almohads, the Merinids and the Fatimids. In a sense the Miknasa were probably middlemen at the time of its founding, growing wealthy from trade on the caravan routes and providing the forces to protect the city as vassals to the Ummayads. Either way, black Africans were among these wealthy Islamic traders, and the extent this wealth in trade extended deep into West Africa under the Almohads, who controlled a territory as far South as Timbuktu. Of course, many "Arab" historians wrote of their journeys from Sijilmasa to the South, but of course you must remember that their writings were tinged with a bit of arrogance and are not always considered 100% trustworthy.
The point here is to uncover the black African presence among the ruling powers of Sijilmasa, the wealth and power of the black Africans on the caravan routes, the presence of black Africans as part of the caravans and the various Berber (tuareg ancestors) groups mentioned as inhabiting the Sahara.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote: It is from Marrakech that Morocco has received its modern name. Europeans got the name of the city wrong, first reducing the "ch"-sound to s, and later even removing the ending until the French were left with "Maroc" and the English "Morocco".
HISTORY 1062: A capital for the Almoravids is founded by Yussuf bni Tashufin. It gets the name "Marra Kouch", which means "Land of the Kouch-men". Kouch was the name given to warriors with black complexion from modern Mauritania.
Another point to remember about this period in North African history is the great Berber Revolt. This revolt was part of the basis of some of these Berber dynasties being labelled as "Kharjite" which means they rejected Islam or parts of it, and rebelled against it. The Kharjite rebellion is portrayed as mainly occurring in Arabia and the Levant, however the rebellions of the Africans in this time period against the ruling authorities in Syria caused them to likewise be labelled as Kharjite. It is often a point of confusion that many events within North Africa are tied to events in the Near East, once again overshadowing the fact of the black African role in the affairs of North Africa in the age of Islam. In fact this is actually a contradiction, as these people in North Africa were rebelling against the treatment they received under the Abassids and Ummayids from Syria and Baghdad.
The rustamids were the main link between the Maghreb and Persian Kharjites and after their dynasty was defeated, they migrated to the Mzab and became the ancestors of the modern Mozabites.
Another important aspect of the Almoravid dynasty is the founding of the Madrassa in Marrakesch of the name Ben Youssef. It was named after an Almoravid ruler and built around a mosque from the 12th century. This Madrassa is famous because of its size and the fact that many historians wrote important works there. During the period of 10ce 16ce, Marrakesh was fought over by various dynasties and eventually declined after the trade routes were moved from there by the Merenids. Marrakesch once again became prosperous under the Saadian dynasty, a dynasty ruled South Morocco and is responsible for the destruction of Timbuktu. This history was recorded by the historians at the Ben Youssef Madrassa. The fact that Morocco was basically a feuding system of city states for most of its history, it is easy to forget and get confused about the black African presence there among the various dynasties. It also important to remember the trading networks and ties between these city states, the black Africans of the Sahara and the peoples further South. Most of the buildings of the Almoravids were destroyed by the Almohads when they conquered the city and subsequent wars further destroyed many ancient monuments. HOwever, it is important to remember the role black Africans played in the founding of the city, the development of the Madrassa (university) there, and other architectural monuments started under the Alhmohads, which make the city famous to this day, including the Menara Gardens and the Madrassa. Keep in mind that by the 16th century the population of the city was said to be 60,000, a low point in its history. Therefore, it is not hard to understand how waves of subsequent dynasties and peoples could have erased the presence of black Africans there.
Also note that it was the Almoravids and Almohads who intitiated the building of super large minaret towers in Morocco and Spain. The tower of Hassan in Rabat and its sister tower the Giralda of Sevile would form the foundation of the religious architectural style found in many religious churches and their square church steeples. In fact this style of architecture comes from Africa and was introduced into Christianity by the Moors. Look closely at these towers, especially the intricate windows and you will see the influence of the Moors on Christian architecture. However, let me be clear here, most writers will try and divert attention from the essential historical basis for the Christian church steeple inheriting from the Muslim Africans, by talking about phallic symbolism and the such, all of which is purely nonsense. Sure Moorish kings wanted their towers to be the tallest in the world, but this sort of allusion to a Freudian phallic symbolism is secondary to the primary purpose of both within their respective communities. They are towers used to call people to prayer at regular intervals throughout the day. Christian steeples often feature bells or organ music piped from inside, but Islamic towers had muezzin who issued the call to prayer at the appropriate time of day. This call to prayer therefore aligned itself (no pun intended as these towers had to be properly aligned to Mecca) with the ancient practice of timekeeping as a function of religious priests, for the purpose of timing of religious ceremonies. It is here and in the idea of alignment of religious structures with stars or other locations that you can see how these practices stretch all the way back to ancient Egypt.
Both are modelled after the Koutoubia mosque in Marrakesch, also built by the Almohads. It is often said that the period of Islamic architecture in Al Andalus in Spain was one of the grandest of the Moorish period. These works and others bear testament to this period.
Also note that the architects of the Almohads also introduced the hypostle style layout of the central prayer area, similar to the arrangement of other ancient religious houses of worship, as in Egypt.
Final note: Modern Moroccans have been classified as having a great amount of European and Far East ("arab") ancestry, mainly due to the history of people from Syria, Baghdad, the Levant and Europe in the area.
quote: Dermatoglyphic finger patterns and pattern intensity were examined in a sample of 204 (105 males and 99 females) adults from the authochthonous Arab population of south central Morocco. No significant sex differences were found for the overall finger pattern incidence or for the pattern intensity index. A high incidence of arches is the most remarkable characteristic of this population as compared to other Mediterranean groups. The significant differences from two previous sets of Moroccan data indicate a remarkable heterogeneity within the present day Moroccan population. Also important is the differentiation of this sample from other north African ethnic groups such as Berbers and Tuaregs. An analysis of the dermatoglyphic relationships using R-matrix analysis, shows a relative proximity between this Moroccan series and other southwest European groups as compared to north African populations.
Once again, black African identity is lost among a tangle of ethic and religious identifiers that are meaningless to outsiders.
More about the Mzabites and others: Note the story of the racist European historian Byron Khun de Prorok
quote: Archaeologist Count Byron Khun de Prorok talks about the Tuareg in his book Mysterious Sahara. This 1920s work describes the Tuareg as “the giant white race of the Sahara”. Prorak came face to face with 5,000 Tuareg, wielding swords and was lucky not to suffer the same fate as many of his contemporaries, brutally killed on sight. ... He finally discovered the remains of the queen herself along with ancient Roman coins and other Mediterranean artifacts, as well as gold necklaces and bracelets, all of which he looted before the Tuareg could discover just whose tomb it was.
As said time and again, the relatively 'pale' skin seen in coastal "Berber" speaking groups of northwest Africa can be attributed to gene flow from across the Mediterranean sea in southern Europe, particularly the Iberian peninsula. Nothing is more apparent about this than the heterogeneity of a single predominantly 'Berber' speaking nation, thereby making the populations therein bio-analytically 'intermediate' between the much darker sub-Saharan groups and the palest skin northern Eurasians, with 'berber' groups ranging from 'dark' skin or 'tawny' to relatively 'pale' [on par with southern Europeans] groups, just as they are from a genealogical standpoint and in cranio-metric trends. No artificial boundary can be drawn between the populations in the aforementioned skin tone gradients. 'Berber' languages come from an East African basal language, and so, even the 'pale' looking ones must not necessarily mislead one to assume that they are 'non-indigenous', although obviously some may well be, particularly self-proclaim 'Arabs' amongst them:
That said, in order to understand these north Africans in a 'complete' African context, it is useful to re-emphasize the placement of 'Berber' speaking groups into a broader historical [and pre-historical] context, encompassing both bio-anthropology and cultural anthropology, as being done here [thus far, largely with the latter ].
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Supercar: As said time and again, the relatively 'pale' skin seen in coastal "Berber" speaking groups of northwest Africa can be attributed to gene flow from across the Mediterranean sea in southern Europe, particularly the Iberian peninsula. Nothing is more apparent about this than the heterogeneity of a single predominantly 'Berber' speaking nation, thereby making the populations therein bio-analytically 'intermediate' between the much darker sub-Saharan groups and the palest skin northern Eurasians, with 'berber' groups ranging from 'dark' skin or 'tawny' to relatively 'pale' [on par with southern Europeans] groups, just as they are from a genealogical standpoint and in cranio-metric trends. No artificial boundary can be drawn between the populations in the aforementioned skin tone gradients. 'Berber' languages come from an East African basal language, and so, even the 'pale' looking ones must not necessarily mislead one to assume that they are 'non-indigenous', although obviously some may well be, particularly self-proclaim 'Arabs' amongst them:
That said, in order to understand these north Africans in a 'complete' African context, it is useful to re-emphasize the placement of 'Berber' speaking groups into a broader historical [and pre-historical] context, encompassing both bio-anthropology and cultural anthropology, as being done here [thus far, largely with the latter ].
I agree. Unfortunately for most of the history of archeaology and anthropology in Africa, foreigners have attempted to categorize an isolate groups by anything that they can consider a distinguishing feature of a certain population. This is long before the idea of cultural complexes, or related cultures that fell within a pattern of belief and expression. Berber is a meaningless term to begin with. It originally was used by foreigners, especially Muslims, as a reference to the populations they found in Africa as they conquered. This therefore is not a reference of any sort of historical or anthropological usefulness, since any number of groups were called Berbers from the beginning of the Muslim period, from throughout Northern Africa. So by using the term Berber as the basis of the identification of the various peoples, cultures and history of North Africa is inheritenly and excercise in distortion. African identity today is largely determined by foreigners and foreign ideologies and has nothing to do with Africans and their own definitions of identity. Religion, nationality and ethnicity are largely the result of foreign frameworks being applied to African people. Christianity and Islam have done much to smother the identity of African peoples historically. National boundaries were determined by foreigners who cared less about the traditional land areas occupied by various African groups. Ethnicity in Africa is based on all sorts of vague and misleading labels created by foreigners to categorize Africans more for the purpose of political power, subjugation and exploitation than any real attempt at understanding African identity. Berber, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Nubian, Tuareg and other terms are purely the result of such foreign designations and are actually quite meaningless.
For me, it is not so much that there are people in North Africa that are of lighter complexion. The issue for me is to unravel the myriad layers of foreign labels and concepts to reveal the fact of the black African presence in North Africa that has always been there and has yet been denied. The truth is there if one seeks it and we should not allow the existence of populations who look more European to allow our common sense to be overriden. Once again it is a case of understanding how the modern identity in North Africa has been framed in terms of foreigners and begin to understand the identity of people based on their own views, not some manufactured nonsense.
Also, it should not be forgotten that there are and historically have always been jet black Africans in North Africa who were not just slaves introduced from the South. They have existed throughout North Africa, from Morocco to Sudan and are not FOREIGN to North Africa. It is those who are descended from Europeans and elsewhere that are the foreigners, even if they have been there for a few thousand years or more. This doesnt make them more native or indigenous than those who were there and were always of darker skin complexion.
If one really wants to see this, all one has to do is research the books, artwork and photos that Europeans made from the 1700s to early 1900s and see the descriptions and images for yourself. It must be remembered that many parts of North Africa have been swamped by the influx of foreign persons from the Islamic period to the modern day and that the ancient populations of indigenous, relatively unmixed Africans there have been overwhelmed in many ways. But that does not mean that they arent there. North Africa down to the Sahara is a huge place and is almost twice the size of the continental U.S. It would take forever for a person to actually go there and document all the various populations that exist, sometimes in groups numbering only a few thousand. This is the point I am getting at, which is that to rely on generalities and samples of a few hundred people in one or two places does nothing to tell the whole story. Which I why I agree with what you said about the need to put the history of North Africa into a complete African context.
It is also important to remember that the history of North Africa over the last 1000 years is one of cruelty and intolerance, especially towards the indigenous black Africans of North Africa. This is the reason for the lack of a black African identity in North Africa. The modern countries that are most repressive in North Africa are exactly those who promote foreign ideaologies and identities in North Africa, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauretania, Sudan and Egypt. All of these countries explicitly promote a foreign "Arab" identity and culture, along with dictatorial rule by Kings who seek to legitimize their ties by blood relationship to other rulers in the "Arab" world. You cannot explain the lack of a black African identity in North Africa without understanding this history, just like you cannot understand the current political and economic situation of black Africans anywhere in Africa without the same sort of historical context. Much of this geopolitical realignment of North Africa has also been used by Europeans to further their own aims and allow them to further isolate and disenfranchise black Africans. So, even though I do suggest researching the evidence from the 18th and 19th century European travellers, it must be remembered that this was an era of extreme predjudice especially against black Africans. All of the photos and excerpts I have posted here are to put the historical black African context into view in North Africa, against those who still try and deny it.
quote: They are known in Morocco as the "years of lead" - lead because of the heaviness in people's hearts, the lead of the darkness they saw around them and the lead of the bullets that shot them.
It is no coincidence that the U.S. has been alleged to use Morocco as one of the locations for secret torture chambers for terrorists. It also shows the ties between America, Europe and some of these countries, even as they have oppressed their people. Morocco has for centuries used harsh tactics to deal with the population and reinforce and entrench the growing power of the Arab ruling class. This is how they came to dominate the politics and economy of North Africa. For all the glittering palaces and architecture of Morocco, there is also a dark side of dungeons and decay in dungeons. There are also enclaves of European sovereignty in Morocco, which also shows the fact that Morocco has tended to try and balance coexistence with Europe and its own Arab identity.
The flood of black Africans from places like Mali and Senegal through Morocco only reinforces the fact that black Africans have never been blocked from North Africa and that originally black Africans were present there both as indigenous people and migrants. Their current treatment by North African "arab" countries as well as Europeans only shows the level of hatred people have for black Africans.
A good book written in the 1800s that shows the presence of black Africans in Morocco as well as the European racist attitudes towards the same are found here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16526 download the 4.2 Mb file and look at the images. In it you will see the black Africans and if you read the book you will hear how they are described with the typical European attitude towards black Africans. You will also see the remnants of the Moors in Morocco and the headwraps that are featured on the coat of arms from Aragon. This was only 100 years ago, but 100 years is a long time and it is odd how you no longer see these types of black Africans in most images from modern Morocco. Just think what the situation was 800 years ago in the Moorish period. The arabization of North Africa is a process and part of this process is to promote an Arab identity and ethnicity in North Africa, to the exclusion of black Africans. The same thing can be said for all parts of North Africa, as photos from 100 years ago show more undeniably black Africans than you see there today, and many of them were certainly not slaves, but indigenous to the area.
As an exercise in understanding the European desire to deny the black presence in North Africa, compare this attempt to explain description of the black Africans on the coat of arms of Aragon by modern historians to the photos in the link above.
Another downloadable EBook from the 1800s that shows the contradictory European perception of Moors and Berbers:
quote: Few who glibly use the word "Barbarian" pause to consider whether the present meaning attached to the name is justified or not, or whether the people of Barbary are indeed the uncivilized, uncouth, incapable lot their name would seem to imply to-day. In fact, the popular ignorance regarding the nearest point of Africa is even greater than of the actually less known central portions, where the white man penetrates with every risk. To declare that the inhabitants of the four Barbary States—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli—are not "Blackamoors" at all, but white like ourselves, is to astonish most folk at the outset.
It also shows the ignorance of Europeans, as the coastal Berbers who pride their white skin and look like Europeans, are descended from Europeans. Likewise, it is therefore ignorant to claim these people as an indigenous African race. It also shows the fact that many Europeans did not know that the Moors came from a wide swath of North and West Africa, even Arabia and not just the coasts of North Africa. It is this fact that has caused most of the confusion, because they do not grasp the fact that the people called Moors came from a large area of North Africa and not just the coast. Coastal white North Africans do not represent an ancient indigenous white race purely native to North Africa and they dont represent all Africans in North Africa. As we all know populations like the modern Tuaregs have been roaming the Sahara for thousands of years and they are black. So, once again this is a perfect example why we need to avoid the misperceptions and distortions of Europeans. It must be remembered that Moor is as much of a meaningless term as Berber is. The name Moor only refers to the skin color of many of the Islamic invaders of Spain. This description and name does nothing to really deepen the understanding of the people who made up the Islamic invaders from North Africa and it does nothing to explain their identity where they came from and where they went. The remnants of these "Moors" went back to North Africa, but they were under attack from warring factions of other North African groups as well as Arabs. This further fractured the remnants of the Moors. Some, like the veiled ones, became the modern Tuareg nomads. Some went back to Mauretania and some went into Senegal, Niger and Mali. Those that went to Mauretania fought a hundred year long war with the Arabs, where the Arabs eventually defeated these black Africans and implemented the racial caste system of white moor, black moor and negro. This is another example of the way words and identity have been tortured and abused by foreigners. The others who went further South became subject to the aggression of European whites looking for slaves. In fact, many remnants of the Moorish population in Morocco were also subject to slavery by Arabs in their quest to control North Africa for themselves. So there is a lot to the story of the Moors and it is not a simple one of white North Africans being the masters of black Africans to the South. This situation only came about after hundreds of years of warfare by Arabs and other Muslims against black Africans and black Africans being conquered by Europeans. Just as many of the black African Moors did not originally come from Morocoo (as no such country existed), many of them did not return there either, as the stories in the books being revealed from Timbuktu are starting to show. It must also be remembered that some of these black Muslims also participated in the slave trade and destroyed or conquered other black Africans. But most often they are not called Moors but "Arabs", as many other black Africans have been labelled as "Arabs" over time by Europeans and others, which again points out the sometime unreliability of these terms in reference to populations in Africa.
The only reason I posted the link to this e-book is that it has some pictures, so that you can see more of what I am talking about.
Note the fact that it is another of the ancient waypoints on the Saharan waypoints that has come to be abandoned and thus no longer prosperous. Tissint is the Berber word for salt, another reference to the importance of the city on the old caravan routes carrying salt.
I dont know what the terms mean or what they refer to but tissint, ahwach and Taskiwine return a lot of photos of the black African population among the Moroccan Berbers.
Also look for Ahidous and you will find many videos and mp3s of various Berber/Moroccan dancing troupes with an undeniable African rythms.
Ahwach is the dance of the Chleuh berbers and is the most different of the Berber Ahidous.
quote: The dancers put in circle, in half-circle, or on two rows facing, men alone, women alone, or, men and women alternated, narrowly tightened, shoulder against shoulder, they form block. The dance is rythmée with the tambourine and by beats of hands. The movements are collective; it is a trampling, a tremor which is propagated, intersected with broad undulations, strong gales on corns. By their ease and their unit, they testify to a direction of the remarkable rate/rhythm. However, doing everything almost always the same gesture at the same time, it is especially a whole of juxtaposition which the ahidous present. In this direction, it is very characteristic of the mentality of Amazighs. The ahwach danced by Chleuhs of the Western Atlas is already extremely different.
A good summary of the ethnicities of Morocco and the fact that Arabs and Moroccan Berbers are indistinguishable ethnically, obviously this means that over time the impact of European slaves, intermarriage with Spanish and Arab nomads has left many Berbers being Berber in language and culture, but they have genetically and biologically become a heterogenous population. Therefore, focusing on these Berbers as being the most indigenous form of North African is blatant nosnsense, especially if you ignore the recend European and Eurasian influence and mixing in recent North African history.
Also note that the Moors are identified as being a tiny fragment of the population of modern Morocco that is located in the extreme South and are closely related to the Tuaregs. Once again, this only reinforces the facts of history in Morocco, where after the Moors left Spain, they were attacked in Morocco by the Arabs and migrated South and West, into the Sahara , Mauretania, Mali, Senegal and Niger. And even some of these remnants are mixed with Arabs. This means that the 500 years since the time the Moors dominated Moroccan culture and Spain, the Arabs have all but completely obliterated their presence and taken control of the history and culture. Wjat little is left of the connection between the Moors of Morocco and other black Africans in the Sahara and areas South of Morocco, including black Berber tribes, is something that has to be searched for and picked out, as it is not as predominant as it used to be.
quote: While it may be true that in Morocco one finds a more consistent and compact Berber culture than in any other North African country, today it is quite difficult to detect an actual ethnic difference between Berbers and Arabs. The distinction can be made only in language differences and in the residue of pre-Islamic elements of some cultural aspects. It can be generally observed that the people who speak the Berber tongues live in the Atlas and anti-Atlas mountain areas, while the Arab-speaking groups live in the more fertile lowlands toward the Atlantic and in the cities. .... While the Jews of the pre-Sahara lowlands have now all emigrated to Israel, there are still groups in Morocco consisting of Moors or the so-called "blue men" whose name derived from the long, indigo-colored robes they wear and whose color partially stains their skin. The Moors live in the extreme south of Morocco (along the Dra river) and are nomad camel-drivers. They are completely islamized (with traces of magic-religious elements from pre-Islamic Bedouin tradition), and speak Arab intermixed with various Berber words. About 20,000 nomad Moors live in Morocco and total about half a million dispersed throughout five nations, besides Morocco, in Rio de Oro (Spanish Sahara), Mauritania (c. 320,000) Algerian Sahara and Mali. These "blue men" are closely related to the Tuareghs of the central Sahara.
If you go back and check I would bet that more photos of Chleuh and other Berbers would show a more decidedly black African mixture than many modern Chleuh. It is in cases like this that you need to go to the next level and find out why these black Africans are no longer as prominent among these groups. Maybe there has been an assimilation of Arabs into Berber culture, which is the cause of much of the friction between Berbers and Arabs in Morocco (even though they are indistinguishable today). This kind of question can only be answered by getting closer to the facts and complexities of Moroccan history and determining the truth. In this case, I would say that it is a classic case of Arabization through blood ties that has led to the distinctly un black African ethnicity for many Berbers in Morocco and throughout North Africa.
Note, taskwine is a particular form of the Chleuh Berber Ahwach, which has more flutes and other instruments among other differences.
quote: Spread in the Western High-Atlas, the taskiwine is a particular form of the ahwach. Male dance accompanied by flutes and drums and generally qualified the warlike one, it is with these areas what the ahwach based on sung poetry is with the other areas of the Atlas...... the taskiwine car its name of the horn with richly decorated powder that each dancer carries on the left shoulder. Warlike dance, it evokes heroism and of bravery and underlines the need for cohesion of the tribe. Its given rhythm rate/rhythm points out the predominance of the values, of renouncement of oneself of the profit of the continuity of the group.
Just from this you see the traditions of black Africans in Moroccan history and how that tradition is largely being erased by both Arab and European ethnic identity in North Africa.
It must also not be forgotten that along with the Arabization there is a Europeanization of the people of North Africa as many have been subjected to waves of European colonists and travellers since ancient times as well. The point here being that such things are never mentioned when people try and claim that North Africa was always populated by North African caucasians, contradicting the evidence, some of which I have presented here from more recent times, let alone the evidence from ancient times.
Another note on the attitude of Chleuh Berbers and their treatment by the Arabs by a more contemporary Chleuh artist:
quote: According to him, those in power were not simply unappreciative, they were also alienated because they only recognised songs sung in Arabic either by Moroccans or by Egyptians such as Abdelhalim Hafiz and Abdelwah. This attitude revived once more in him the painful feeling of being marginalised. The State, he sang, marginalises Shleuh singers, of whom he felt he was the spokesman. He continued "they want us to die silently and without dignity, on the fringes of the city like pariah dogs (zun d igh immut uydi gh umedduz, to die amongst the leavings of animals like pariah dogs). The Shleuh humorist, Abdallah Anidif spoke succinctly of the place held by this culture in the media: Tumez teshelhit gh lidaa uncek lli tamez lebcklît gh ccanti ccanti (the space taken up by the Tashelhit language on the radio is the same as that taken up by a bicycle on the road).
From: http://www.azawan.com/tachelhit/albensir/artistePres.htm (So if it is bad for modern Arab/white berbers it must have REALLY been bad for the black berbers over the last 500 years).
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
If you didnt already, I suggest you find the link above and click save page as (html). It will save the page and the flash file that goes with it that containts the movie. Definitely a rare sight in Modern morocco (black Berbers doing the traditional dances that hark back to the ancient black African Moors and Moroccans).
The Draa Valley in Morocco is a place where many black Moroccans live. In fact the name Draawa is said to refer to the dark skinned populations from the Draa Valley by Moroccans elsewhere in Morocco. The Saadi Dynasty of Morocco originated in the Draa Valley. Those Zagoran performers would fit this description and are an example of the Southern black African Moroccan presence, who are NOT descended from slaves, as is often said for people like the Gnawa.
quote: The water from the Draa is used to irrigate Palmeraies and small horticulture along the river. The inhabitants of the Draa are called Draawa (an exonym), the most famous Draawi undoubtedly being mawlay Mohammed ash-Sheikh. Outside of the Draa region this name is mostly used to refer to the dark skinned people of Draa which make up the largest portion of its inhabitants.
The city of Tamegroute is also famous in Morocco as the place where Sufism officially became accepted in Moroccan culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamegroute
The region is also famous for the Venus of Tan Tan, one of the oldest human figurines ever found, dating from somewhere arount 300,000 to 500,000 years ago. The region is also famous for its prehistoric rock art. So, as you can see, this is another example of the black African presence in this area of Africa.
The Saadians are an example of historic Moroccan leaders who have been quasi puppets of various European powers. Many of the more modern rulers have also had to balance European geopolitical interests with their own agenda. Thami El Glaoui is another example of such a puppet. But much of this love/hate relationship between Morocco and Europe can be seen in the history of the Saadian dynasty, where various heirs appealed to European and other outside powers to help them conquer various cities in Morocco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Abdallah_Mohammed_II_Saadi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Marwan_Abd_al-Malik_I_Saadi
This ultimately led to the destruction of Timbuktu by a mostly foreign Army under Al Mansour:
quote: Most of those chosen by al-Mansur to take part in the invasion were not of Moroccan origin. The force was so overwhelmingly extranational in origin that the official language of the expedition was Spanish. Op Cit Bovill p.168. In The Golden Trade of the Moors Bovill breaks down the force by both profe ssion and nationality. He concluded that the constitution of the force demonstrates that Al-Mansur lacked faith in his countrymen as soldiers. Of the four thousand who left Morocco only fifteen hundred light cavalry men were Moroccan. The remainder of the force included two thousand footmen, half of which were armed with the arquebus and an additional five hundred mounted arquebusers. The strength of the force came from later twenty-five hundred troops which was composed of Aldalsians and renegades. Spanish Moors who had migrated to Morocco T his group provided the stability, power and structure for the army. The large numbers of troops present required the immense numbers of camels brought to transport the munitions, food, water, and other supplies for the long march and the following battl e. A number of historians wrote that an earlier invasion attempt may have taken place in which al-Mansur sent more troops and less supplies. If the rumors of an earlier invasion are accurate, the men send died in the desert except for a single survivor.
So, the Saadi dynasty, even if it was made up of blacks from the Draa valley, were really very responsible for the destruction of the important center of learning for black Africans in Timbuktu. And this episode is a perfect example of the European presence and impact on the history of Morocco since the Moors and how this presence, combined with the influence of Arabs has meant death and destruction for the black Africans in Morocco and North Africa. All of which would give rise to the next dynasty in Morocco, the Alouite dynasty, whose chief Moulay Ismail would NOT use Berber armies, since they were known for their shifting allegiences. It is at this time that the Black Guard was formed with many soldiers from Senegal and it may be that many of the early rulers of the Alouites were black themselves.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Once again, these terms have no real meaning. So called Berbers are supposed to be most numerous in Morocco. Morocco is a tiny part of North Africa and the closest part of africa to Europe. Yet people still want to believe that these white Berbers are indigenous to Africa and not really descendants of European migrants. The funniest thing is that none of these terms used by modern Berbers have any meaning when you go back 500 years. There are no traditions of anyone called Ait Atta, Kabyle or any of the other Amazigh tribal names found along coastal North Africa. Therefore, where do these people come from and what was their identity 500 years ago? I definitely do not beleive that the Sanhaja, Masmuda or Zenata Berbers of the early muslim period where white people. In fact, I firmly beleive that many of the modern white Berbers are descended partly from Jewish populations, partly from Spanish expatriates, partly from European slaves and concubines and partly from older European colonies. The fact that so many in dress and custom seem closer to the Bulgarian women I posted earlier, with a smattering of African beads and jewelry really reinforces my opinion that many of these so-called Berbers are just Europeans parading around as ancient indigenous Africans. This would be part of the reason why they would have practiced slavery as they did not identify with indigenous (meaning black) Africans. I look at these people similar to the way I would look at Afrikaaners. Their languages are not even really related to each other and really the only true historic berber language and script is Tifanagh, which is almost exclusively Tuareg, ie black African. On top of that, the original black presence in Moorish Morocco came from the OUTSIDE Morocco in Mauretania and Senegal and the Sahara,where there ARE no white Berbers. Yet the Almohades and Almoravids are labelled as Berbers, when in reality they are only LOOSELY linked to the modern Berber clans, as they represent populations from outside the modern day boundaries of white berber groups. But at the same time, these outside groups represent the ancestral connection between North Africa and the rest of Africa where black AFricans have always been trading and traveling along and between NOrth Africa and the interior as well as the Sahara. Therefore, by accepting the concept of Berber, you are only really accepting an identity that is partly based on foreign descent, partly based on foreign notions of identity and fully distorted in relation to the rest of Africa. Therefore, modern white Berbers do not represent the ancestral populations of North Africa and they do not really represent the indigenous ancient stock of North Africa. Another difference that betrays this is the fact that Berbers are patrilineal while most other Africans, including Tuaregs are matrilineal. This too links white Berbers to Europe and also allows for more Arab gene flow since Arab males have often been responsible for integrating themselves among indigenous populations and arabizing them.
As I pointed out earlier the dance styles of the various Berber groups is where you see the "soul" of these groups and how these traditions are undeniably black African, even though many of these groups no longer identify as "black". It is funny too, since this is about the only time you will regularly see any black berbers in any real sense:
At this point it must be blatantly obvious that the history of these Berber groups is more sophisticated than what is often represented.
This is where you need to get access to the histories written by the muslims and Arabs in the various universities in Morocco. Then go to the histories and traditions written in the books of Mauretania, Mali and the Tuaregs. Then you need the oral histories of the modern populations of these areas. No small task, but quite necessary to fill in the true histories of black Africans in these areas.
One note about Berber identity: the term Amazigh is actually one of two phrases, the other is Ismkhan. Ismkhan is the name for slave in Berber culture, while Amazigh is used to refer to the "free men". Of course the free men equates to "white" Berbers, while "slave" refers to blacks. This trend of identifying whites with free men and blacks with slaves is seen so often throughout moroccan history that it seems to be purely an expression of racial superiority. In other words, while white concubines were taken as slaves by Muslims and produced various Kings, they are never referred to as son of slaves. However, when a king is born of a black concubine slave, automatically he is the son of a slave. This obvious double standard therefore makes the presence of blacks in Moroccan history even harder to detect, since many of these indigenous blacks were run out of Morocco by Arabs and others and then any traces of these populations still in Morocco and the history of Morocco are automatically labelled as "descendants of slaves". So, if you were to go and ask the Amazigh in Morocco about these black performers, it may be that they will call them Imskhan and not "true" Berbers.
More about that video I posted with the dancers with swords. It is called the sword dance (la danse de l'épée) and done by the group Sif Zagora.
quote: Akellal Sif Zagora: the dance of the sword the Moroccan women of popular arts ' I am opriginaire valley of Draa, the dance of the sword recalls for us the origins Bedouins of the tribe.... THEY are the rates/rhythms to the sound of the Daf: essential instrument for the song, it is in the form of rhombus... Our art marks the strong moments of the relation man women. Two young men enter in duel to the sword for a woman who is in the center... '
quote: the Tuaregs from Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania in the desert with Tan Tan too were can-celebrated and acted a whole week, also the dance of the Guedra could we experience see.
(note the reference to the Arab/Berber wedding music traditions on this page, therefore showing the extent to which Arabs and Berbers have been intermarrying, North African caste system: 1. Arab, 2. Berber, 3. African) but even within this there are the contradictions where some black Africans can be included in all three.
The more I look at it the more it strikes me that the white berbers in dress and custom remind me more of a blend of the traditions and cultures of other populations from the Levant and Europe with customs of Africa. I dont see them as being purely indigenous, but a mix of traditions. Even the arabs themselves have said how they see traditions from Arabia, Syria and elsewhere in some of these peoples historically.
Also I ran across this: the Tahtib a dance using sticks from Egypt. It seems to be closely related to the Saidi dance from Upper Egypt. The funny thing I have noticed is the similarity between such stick and cane dances throughout Africa with African American fraternity "steps".
Actually for a better comparison, look at the sword dance video I posted earlier and compare that with the Kappa step. A much better comparison in my opinion showing the continuity of black African experience from ancient times to modern. (and how white culture has come to coopt it in many ways).
The key here is that many of these dances, like those of the Berbers are all dances of "fraternity" or kinship in one way or other. Many African groups also have such performances of their own dance styles and customs which show clearly the origins of such fraternal customs in Africa.
But note these are Arabized versions of ancient African styles. Note also that the Egyptian females also had a version of this dance, as do many other African groups.
I don't know how relevent to the the discussion but on ancient Egyptian reliefs you find dark skinned Libyans[no relation to the modern nation] and later fair skinned ones. If any of these populations depicted on ancient Egyptian reliefs are related to modern populations is debatable.
Libyans were people that lived east of the Nile Valley depicted in ancient Egyptian iconography.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
And you cannot talk about the Atlas berbers without talking about the Glaouis family. From this family came Thami El GLaouis, who became powerful under the French. But the families' prestige and influence came from long before that around the time of Moulay Ismael.
quote: Over dinner, we discussed El Glaoui. He had been the staunch ally of the French, who armed and encouraged him while overlooking his excesses. His loyalty allowed him to become the virtual ruler of southern Morocco, and kingmaker to the whole country.
“He belonged to another world,” said Giovanni, our urbane host. “He was a Berber from the Atlas, a warlord, a mountain chieftain. To understand El Glaoui, you must go to the great kasbah at Telouet, to his mountain stronghold.”
Glaouis is but the last of a long line of Southern black Berber rulers that have held sway over Morocco during its long history.
The camel festival of Goulimine is a good place to see the traditions of the ancient tuareg Moors in Morrocco.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by ausar: I don't know how relevent to the the discussion but on ancient Egyptian reliefs you find dark skinned Libyans[no relation to the modern nation] and later fair skinned ones. If any of these populations depicted on ancient Egyptian reliefs are related to modern populations is debatable.
Libyans were people that lived east of the Nile Valley depicted in ancient Egyptian iconography.
In general, from all of the research I have been doing, the issue of white identity is complex. Yes the ancient Libyans were sometimes depicted as white. However there were also ancient Libyans who were depicted as blacks. Also, modern LIbya and ancient LIbya are not the same and do not share the same boundaries. The issue of the ethnicity is clouded by racial, ethnic and religious terms as well as predjudices. Many of the modern white Berbers are really arabized clans of Berbers who have intermarried with Arab nomads. Many of the Berber clans who are still black are on the most extreme fringes of Morocco, physically and politically and this is what has allowed them to maintain their distinct identity. There is no point in denying that many groups have established an identiy in Northern Africa. However, the white berbers of Morocco and Algeria are only a small part of the total area of North Africa and do not represent all North Africans. THis is where I see the distortion of the facts. Some want to make the areas of Morocco and Northern Algeria into all of North Africa and they arent. LIkewise people want to play down the European ancestry of these white Berbers, to try and make them as African as the original black Africans from NOrth Africa, but they arent. They have more European ancestry than other Africans and this is why they look the way they do. It is obvious based on geography and history that this is the case, but many want to deny this for various reasons, including trying to claim all NOrth Africa as the exclusive domain for white Africans. This is no different that Afrikaaners trying to claim all South Africa as the exclusive domain of white Afrikaaners.
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
Doug M stated:
quote:In general, from all of the research I have been doing, the issue of white identity is complex. Yes the ancient Libyans were sometimes depicted as white. However there were also ancient Libyans who were depicted as blacks. Also, modern LIbya and ancient LIbya are not the same and do not share the same boundaries. The issue of the ethnicity is clouded by racial, ethnic and religious terms as well as predjudices. Many of the modern white Berbers are really arabized clans of Berbers who have intermarried with Arab nomads. Many of the Berber clans who are still black are on the most extreme fringes of Morocco, physically and politically and this is what has allowed them to maintain their distinct identity. There is no point in denying that many groups have established an identiy in Northern Africa. However, the white berbers of Morocco and Algeria are only a small part of the total area of North Africa and do not represent all North Africans. THis is where I see the distortion of the facts. Some want to make the areas of Morocco and Northern Algeria into all of North Africa and they arent. LIkewise people want to play down the European ancestry of these white Berbers, to try and make them as African as the original black Africans from NOrth Africa, but they arent. They have more European ancestry than other Africans and this is why they look the way they do. It is obvious based on geography and history that this is the case, but many want to deny this for various reasons, including trying to claim all NOrth Africa as the exclusive domain for white Africans. This is no different that Afrikaaners trying to claim all South Africa as the exclusive domain of white Afrikaaners.
Please read what I posted about the ancient Libyans. You simply regurgitated exactly what I said. Do you attribute the lightening of the Berbers to Arab invaders? Most Western scholars mistakenly think the Arab bedouins that migrated into North-western Africa actually darkened the inhabitants up.
I am not very well versed on Greco-Roman discriptions or Arabic author descriptions of North-western Africans. Perhaps, you can post some of these authors. From a previous discusion on this forum we talked about the leuko-ethiopies[that is leukos[whites] with an Ethiopian culture described in Greco-Roman texts] so I believe these populations already existed alongside the darker populations of north-west Africa.
What is not detailed enough is the Barbary pirates bondage of Christian Europeans. Slavery of Europeans was not outlawed untill the late 1800's.
I believe that others on this board have presented genetic evidence that the matrilineal ancestry of many of the ''fair'' skinned modern Berbers come from Europe. Please don't quote me on the following because I don't have a firm grasp of population genetics.
Although your pictures are well selected, many times you cannot tell how dark or light somebody is by black/white phtography. Many of the people in the pictures could be dark but how dark is questionable.
Many of your claims are likewise unsubstaniated. What evidence do you have that the invading Arabs ran the ''black'' populatin of northern Africa out? Arab infiltration was more of a linguistic instead of demographic diffusion. Indeed, some areas like modern Libya have very little Berber speaking populations due to the Hilian invasion. The Hilal were brought into north-west Africa to decrease the power of native Berber caliphs.
Libya is an exception to the rule. Even within Libya many of the nomadic groups intermingled with the Bani Hilal and other bedouins.
The word iklan is found in the kel Tamelsheq[Tuareg] languages also meaning a slave. The term does not have a color conotation. Many Western ethnologist have taken the caste system of the Kel Tamelsheq out of proportion. Kel Tamelsheq caste does not differ much from Wolof,Mande or Fulani castes. Most don't mention that Western Africans predominate in Kel Tamelsheq castes as metal smiths.
I am not certain with other Berber oral legends but all Tuareg Kels trace their lineage to Tin Hanan. She is both from southern Morocco and also the ancestress of most Kel Tamelsheq. Some Western archaeologist claimed to have found her remains in southern Morocco.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by ausar: Doug M stated:
quote:In general, from all of the research I have been doing, the issue of white identity is complex. Yes the ancient Libyans were sometimes depicted as white. However there were also ancient Libyans who were depicted as blacks. Also, modern LIbya and ancient LIbya are not the same and do not share the same boundaries. The issue of the ethnicity is clouded by racial, ethnic and religious terms as well as predjudices. Many of the modern white Berbers are really arabized clans of Berbers who have intermarried with Arab nomads. Many of the Berber clans who are still black are on the most extreme fringes of Morocco, physically and politically and this is what has allowed them to maintain their distinct identity. There is no point in denying that many groups have established an identiy in Northern Africa. However, the white berbers of Morocco and Algeria are only a small part of the total area of North Africa and do not represent all North Africans. THis is where I see the distortion of the facts. Some want to make the areas of Morocco and Northern Algeria into all of North Africa and they arent. LIkewise people want to play down the European ancestry of these white Berbers, to try and make them as African as the original black Africans from NOrth Africa, but they arent. They have more European ancestry than other Africans and this is why they look the way they do. It is obvious based on geography and history that this is the case, but many want to deny this for various reasons, including trying to claim all NOrth Africa as the exclusive domain for white Africans. This is no different that Afrikaaners trying to claim all South Africa as the exclusive domain of white Afrikaaners.
Please read what I posted about the ancient Libyans. You simply regurgitated exactly what I said. Do you attribute the lightening of the Berbers to Arab invaders? Most Western scholars mistakenly think the Arab bedouins that migrated into North-western Africa actually darkened the inhabitants up.
I am not very well versed on Greco-Roman discriptions or Arabic author descriptions of North-western Africans. Perhaps, you can post some of these authors. From a previous discusion on this forum we talked about the leuko-ethiopies[that is leukos[whites] with an Ethiopian culture described in Greco-Roman texts] so I believe these populations already existed alongside the darker populations of north-west Africa.
What is not detailed enough is the Barbary pirates bondage of Christian Europeans. Slavery of Europeans was not outlawed untill the late 1800's.
I believe that others on this board have presented genetic evidence that the matrilineal ancestry of many of the ''fair'' skinned modern Berbers come from Europe. Please don't quote me on the following because I don't have a firm grasp of population genetics.
Although your pictures are well selected, many times you cannot tell how dark or light somebody is by black/white phtography. Many of the people in the pictures could be dark but how dark is questionable.
Many of your claims are likewise unsubstaniated. What evidence do you have that the invading Arabs ran the ''black'' populatin of northern Africa out? Arab infiltration was more of a linguistic instead of demographic diffusion. Indeed, some areas like modern Libya have very little Berber speaking populations due to the Hilian invasion. The Hilal were brought into north-west Africa to decrease the power of native Berber caliphs.
Libya is an exception to the rule. Even within Libya many of the nomadic groups intermingled with the Bani Hilal and other bedouins.
The word iklan is found in the kel Tamelsheq[Tuareg] languages also meaning a slave. The term does not have a color conotation. Many Western ethnologist have taken the caste system of the Kel Tamelsheq out of proportion. Kel Tamelsheq caste does not differ much from Wolof,Mande or Fulani castes. Most don't mention that Western Africans predominate in Kel Tamelsheq castes as metal smiths.
I am not certain with other Berber oral legends but all Tuareg Kels trace their lineage to Tin Hanan. She is both from southern Morocco and also the ancestress of most Kel Tamelsheq. Some Western archaeologist claimed to have found her remains in southern Morocco.
I really wasnt regurtitating anything Ausar or trying to be the end all answer to anything. What this thread is attempting to do is show that ethnic identity in North Africa is very complex, but that black Africans are part of this identity and have been historically and not just as slaves. The fact that there are many populations in North Africa who are not "black" is a testament to the complex history of North Africa and the various migrations and interactions of people from many places over the last few thousand years. Some want to use this type of ethnic variation as an excuse to claim that black Africans are not indigenous to North Africa, hence what I posted in reply to your post. I think we are both addressing the same issue, which is the distortion of ethnic identity in North Africa by years of predjudice and oppression by various groups for political, economic and ethnic reasons. In a nutshell, what I am suggesting is that we get past the generalized frameworks provided by foreign interperetations of African peoples and begin to go to the family, clan and small group level and try and understand the history from the perspective of the people of Africa as opposed to outsiders. This information in combination with archaeological information, genetic information, other historical data, oral traditions, written histories and biological data would give us a better understanding than the broad generalizations we have now. I am suggesting a framework for the history of North Africa and the rest of Africa that is not purely dependent on what we get from foreign distortions about African history.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
The videos were taken last week. Obviously there is a still vibrant culture among the Chleuhs. In respect to what I am saying about getting around the distortions of foreigners looking in, the best way to get at the heart of the issue would be to ask the people in these videos about the intricacies of Chleuh culture, tradition and identity.
I wish I could, but a trip to morocco is expensive . Anyway enjoy the Moroccan version of "Stomp The Yard" Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
The core component of Haritin Imazighen are in all probability the most direct descendents of the historic central and north Saharans written of by Greco-Latin authors, i.e.,
Leukaethiopes
Melanogaetuli
Nigritae
Western Ethiopians (Hesperii)
Pharusii
Icthyophagi Aethiopes
etc.,
These were peoples living approximately 250 miles (or more) south of the littoral. If truly the indigenees, they may have been neolithic "Berber" speakers (after leaving the proto-language's Gharb Darfur birthplace to traverse the Sahara before reaching the Maghreb).
I offer the below in relevance to the indigenous dark Moroccans nearer our times topic. It's from a correspondance with an Amazigh activist:
quote: The matter of the Harratin has always been subject to controversy. While they were seen for a long time as late comers to the area, some of the most recent findings are suggesting the opposite. The "Blackness" of the Haratin has never been in contention. Even in early history of Morocco, the fact that a deputy of the Egyptian General began to enlist them as soldiers of an all Black Army created a huge debate among the Moroccans, who did not consider them of the same "social category" as the Sudanese, and protest arose because they were "free human beings" and not of the "slave" category susceptible to be rounded up for this Corps of Black slave-soldiers. It created a great stir among "Berbers."
This was a precision to something the Amazigh activist had earlier wrote on a guarded forum:
quote: Imazighen (Berbers) ... are related by language to the Tuaregs of the Sahara and sub-Sahara [.] Even the Black Harratine people of the northern Sahara have recently yielded DNA which makes them closer to Berbers of North Africa than to other neighboouring Black groups. This parentage is also verifiable through language.
And this is basically true. The Haratine are a social group of formerly subjugated peoples.
Since they were not all of one homogeneous ethnicity, the freed slaves marrying among each other created a new ethnicity. The bulk of this new ethnic group, "the One Fifth-ers", were the indigenous inhabitants of the Saharan Oases. Another Amazigh activist chided me for leaving out the former "owners" as part of the mix, which is correct because there was sex between the male "owners" and the subordinated females as well as the subordinated males with the "owners'" wives.
When I wrote to this same Amazigh activist that I felt there was an ongoing NorthAfricentrist attempt to remove blacks from Tamazgha history as either an ancient population absorbed into the stock of MESHWESH originating Imazighen or as a minority Imazighen subtype the reply was:
quote: I have asked before what ever happened to the black population of the area. In the literature, they are said to have been pushed south, but I maintain that inter-marriage or inter-breeding did occur. Now if DNA studies show that the black and white population in the north are related, I don't see why this is a problem. ...DNA studies are the most scientific proof we have, if it was conducted in an objective fashion. But I would like to see if the Amazigh also showed any non-Berber Haratine DNA.
So you see there is a subconscious hesitancy to unequivocally classify Haritin as truly Amazigh by Amazigh activist who themselves often enough have an Iberian, Italian, or French mommy. The Haritin are 100% African yet these hybrid Africans who think of themselves as truly Amazigh doubt the Haritin Amazighity underneath it all. An amazing example of double think!
It's eight years since the correspondance and I wonder what that particular Amazigh activist has made of the extensive mtDNA & NRY reports showing North African males to be overwhelmingly of East African origins and North African females to have substantial origins in east, northern-central and west Africa, even though the majority do indeed have "Eurasian" antecedents.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: The core component of Haritin Imazighen are in all probability the most direct descendents of the historic central and north Saharans written of by Greco-Latin authors, i.e.,
Leukaethiopes
Melanogaetuli
Nigritae
Western Ethiopians (Hesperii)
Pharusii
Icthyophagi Aethiopes
etc.,
These were peoples living approximately 250 miles (or more) south of the littoral. If truly the indigenees, they may have been neolithic "Berber" speakers (after leaving the proto-language's Gharb Darfur birthplace to traverse the Sahara before reaching the Maghreb).
I offer the below in relevance to the indigenous dark Moroccans nearer our times topic. It's from a correspondance with an Amazigh activist:
quote: The matter of the Harratin has always been subject to controversy. While they were seen for a long time as late comers to the area, some of the most recent findings are suggesting the opposite. The "Blackness" of the Haratin has never been in contention. Even in early history of Morocco, the fact that a deputy of the Egyptian General began to enlist them as soldiers of an all Black Army created a huge debate among the Moroccans, who did not consider them of the same "social category" as the Sudanese, and protest arose because they were "free human beings" and not of the "slave" category susceptible to be rounded up for this Corps of Black slave-soldiers. It created a great stir among "Berbers."
This was a precision to something the Amazigh activist had earlier wrote on a guarded forum:
quote: Imazighen (Berbers) ... are related by language to the Tuaregs of the Sahara and sub-Sahara [.] Even the Black Harratine people of the northern Sahara have recently yielded DNA which makes them closer to Berbers of North Africa than to other neighboouring Black groups. This parentage is also verifiable through language.
And this is basically true. The Haratine are a social group of formerly subjugated peoples.
Since they were not all of one homogeneous ethnicity, the freed slaves marrying among each other created a new ethnicity. The bulk of this new ethnic group, "the One Fifth-ers", were the indigenous inhabitants of the Saharan Oases. Another Amazigh activist chided me for leaving out the former "owners" as part of the mix, which is correct because there was sex between the male "owners" and the subordinated females as well as the subordinated males with the "owners'" wives.
When I wrote to this same Amazigh activist that I felt there was an ongoing NorthAfricentrist attempt to remove blacks from Tamazgha history as either an ancient population absorbed into the stock of MESHWESH originating Imazighen or as a minority Imazighen subtype the reply was:
quote: I have asked before what ever happened to the black population of the area. In the literature, they are said to have been pushed south, but I maintain that inter-marriage or inter-breeding did occur. Now if DNA studies show that the black and white population in the north are related, I don't see why this is a problem. ...DNA studies are the most scientific proof we have, if it was conducted in an objective fashion. But I would like to see if the Amazigh also showed any non-Berber Haratine DNA.
So you see there is a subconscious hesitancy to unequivocally classify Haritin as truly Amazigh by Amazigh activist who themselves often enough have an Iberian, Italian, or French mommy. The Haritin are 100% African yet these hybrid Africans who think of themselves as truly Amazigh doubt the Haritin Amazighity underneath it all. An amazing example of double think!
It's eight years since the correspondance and I wonder what that particular Amazigh activist has made of the extensive mtDNA & NRY reports showing North African males to be overwhelmingly of East African origins and North African females to have substantial origins in east, northern-central and west Africa, even though the majority do indeed have "Eurasian" antecedents.
It is funny how many dont realize the double talk of some Amazigh activists. On one hand they call the Haratin the indigenous people, who they say were pushed out by the Amazigh ancestors. But then they turn around and claim that the Amazigh the indigenous people. They claim that they are the pure descendants of the Caspian population, but yet again, this distinction would go to the Haratin wouldn't it? They want to claim white Amazigh culture as being the original basis of the culture of all Berbers, but in actuality much of the culture among the Magrebian Berbers originated in the East. The culture of the Berbers in Morocco and Algeria is derived from that of the Tuaregs and the original dwellers of the Sahara who are nomads. The prehistoric Sahara was the womb from which much African culture is derived, including Egypt, the Sahel, the Maghreb and places to the South of the Sahara. They are all linked through connections to populations in the Sahara. This link was continued through the nomadic ways of the desert dwellers in historic times. The culture and tradition of horse riding was first found along the Nile and the horse culture of North Africa spread from there as well as elsewhere. The colorful knitting and adornment of camels and tents and fabrics, along with jewlry styles can be found in from the Atlantic to East Africa among various nomadic African groups some of whom do not call themselves Berber. Ironically some of these groups are called Arabs. The earliest examples of weaving and knitting is found in Egypt. In fact the earliest examples of dyed fabrics are found in Egypt. Many of the so-called Moorish, Berber or Islamic inspired styles of dress can actually be traced back to Egypt and East Africa. Unfortunately, due to the destruction of many African kingdoms from East Africa to West Africa, the history and traditions of weaving and knitting in Africa have not been given their proper context. Henna painting is another African tradition, but hardly ever is it given any association with originating in Africa.
The beads and jewelry worn by the Berbers in Morocco and Algeria are only a variation on that worn elsewhere. Many of these traditions can be traced to the Fulani and other nomadic groups in Africa. The amber bead tradition is ancient in Africa.
But a note of warning, much of Fulani history is still tinged with the racist claim that the original Fulani are descended from white invaders, like Semites, white Moroccan berbers or some other groups. We have discussed here how these people are indigenous black Africans and not derived from any white population. Likewise, any search on amber and beads will most likely not include Africa at all. Therefore the amber beads of the Fulani would be considered a recent tradition derived from the Mediterranean or elsewhere. This is another example of how Africans need to become experts in their own history and not allow foreigners to define them.
A more up to date account of Fulani history:
quote: The Fulani people, also called Fulbe (pl. Pullo) or Peul, are well known for the delicate decoration of utilitarian objects such as milk bowls that reflect their nomadic and pastoral lifestyle. The history of the Fulani in West Africa begins in the fifth century A.D. Islamized early on and traveling constantly, they did not develop a tradition of figural, sculpted art. The complex nature of art among this large and long-established group in West Africa is widely recognized but still understudied.
A Long Itinerary
Although the migrations of the Fulani cattle herders, as well as their physical appearance, have generated a variety of hypotheses about their origins outside the region, current studies demonstrate that Fulani culture belongs to the West African context.
Their language, the Pular or Fufulde, onto which some pre-Berber components are grafted, is of the Niger-Congo group. The ancestors of the Fulani, among other groups, seem to have been pushed from the Sahara southward at the onset of its desertification around the third millennium B.C. Established in southern Mauritania at the beginning of the Christian era, Fulani people developed a strong presence in Futa Toro in Senegambia from the fifth to the eleventh century. From there, they migrated further east.
Fulani people were among the first Africans to convert to Islam. Between the eighth and the fourteenth century, Fulbe-speaking people of Takrur had produced a class of Muslim clerics, the Torodbe, who would take on proselytizing activities across the entire western Sudan. Increasingly, the memory of their previous pastoral religion was lost, except in some sub-groups such as the Bororo or Wodaabe (i.e., "Isolated"), who remained animists and nomads. Between the eleventh and the seventeenth century, the Fulbe gradually extended their grazing territory from over much of the West African savanna up to Borno. They usually took no part in the political life of the surrounding entities, and were sometimes subjected to heavy taxes.
To resist taxation and military conscription or acquire more grazing land, Fulani waged religious wars in the nineteenth century. From these jihads, or holy wars, Muslim theocracies emerged, for instance, the Sokoto caliphate that became, under the leadership of Usman dan Fodio (cUthman ibn Fudi), the largest single West African state of the nineteenth century.
Over the centuries, Fulani migrations have interacted with all the other groups in western and central Sudan. Today, Fulani people live in nearly every country of the West African savanna, between Senegal and Cameroon.
Traces of Fulani Culture in Tassili
Examination of certain rock paintings in the Tassili-n-Ajjer suggests the presence of proto-Fulani cultural traits in the region by at least the fourth millennium B.C. Scholars specializing in Fulani culture believe that some of the imagery depicts rituals that are still practiced by contemporary Fulani people.
At the Tin Tazarift site, for instance, historian Amadou Hampate Ba recognized a scene of the lotori ceremony, a celebration of the ox's aquatic origin. In a finger motif, Ba detected an allusion to the myth of the hand of the first Fulani herdsman, Kikala. At Tin Felki, Ba recognized a hexagonal carnelian jewel as related to the Agades cross, a fertility charm still used by Fulani women.
Some would also say that the Fulani are also descended from the dark skinned "Libyans" depicted on ancient Egyptian reliefs. I am also sure that Al-Takrur would know a little about this history of the Fulani ancestors, the earliest converts to Islam in Takrur. The first converts to Islam were peaceful nomads and did not get involved in politics until much later, when it had disastrous affects on West Africa (according to some). These Muslims of the Takrur and their nomadic kin are related to other African groups like the Tuareg and Berbers and are considered the original dwellers of the Sahara. This show the link between East and West Africa through the Sahara, as many scholars are beginning to say that the skulls of the Fulani seem to be related to those of East Africa and the Nile. But this is again an issue where Africans need to pick up their own history and understand the connections, especially the state of Africans in the Sahara, Sahel and West Africa prior to the advent of Islam (700A.D.). Most histories of West Africa begin with this period and obviously that is a biased view of Africa as not having any history until the appearance of "foreigners" or "foreign ideas".
A good example of this is the bronzes of West Africa. The first histories of these bronzes dated them to the 1400s, (time of European discovery). More recent findings have pushed these dates back to at least 900 A.D. (which puts it into the Islamic period). Of course, they dont want to push it back further and the excuse will be that they have no corroboration, in other words they have no writings from the Islamic period to use as a basis of evidence...... However dating is hardly ever based on writings of foreigners anywhere else and it is more likely a desire to tie African traditions with foreigners and deny any African ingenuity. It is odd how Africans would get the lost wax technique from Muslims, when Muslims are not known for even practicing such a technique especially since they were not in the practice of making depictions of humans in artwork. Africans say they are even older, but of course many European historians would dispute this. What is not disputed is that this civilization was destroyed by the arrival of Europeans. Another example of how Europeans came not to bring civilization to Africa, but destroy it and its history. (Not to say that Africans were the first to invent the technique, but that it does not mean it was introduced by Muslims or anyone else. Seeing as this is a relatively isolated technique, it may be a case of local invention or earlier contacts with other people through trade much earlier than the arrival of Islam to Africa.)
It is the fact that African history has been colonized and coopted by foreigners that all of these connections between African populations are not put into the proper context. Many traditions attributed to the Amazigh are actually just local variations of a more widespread African cultural tradition. It would be an interesting excercise to get a fuller understanding of the history of the following in Africa: henna painting knitting and weaving jewelry leatherwork steel and ironmaking rug making tent making architecture irrigation palm fiber weaving grass weaving
I am almost sure that you will hardly get a full treatment of all of these traditions as they relate to East Africa and the Nile or even the Sahara. In fact, most often these techniques will be given an extra-African source, if they are mentioned at all. Clothing in East Africa is given a late origin, notwithstanding all the evidence of clothing from the Nilotic cultures. The same for mud brick/brick architecture, pottery and other forms of early technologies.
Note that the style of mud brick housing that is famous in parts of Morocco is likewise not a Moroccan tradition. The houses along the Nile from Egypt to Aswan all featured the same gardens, pools walk in wells and other features made famous in Morocco as part of the Moorish style. So suffice to say, there is nothing about Moroccan or Berber history that makes Berbers distinct and separate from other Africans. The traditions in the Magreb are only extensions of African traditions that are more easily observed because of the history of Morocco. Once again, this is where we need not follow the foreign model of history and anthropology in Africa and try and segment Africa and its history into pieces for the convenience of categorizing Africans based on meaningless labels and terms that dont show the true history and connectedness of African peoples.
Also note that the Ksar or fortified town is an ancient pattern of living that is found all over North Africa and the ancient Nile Valley. Ancient cities like Nekhen and Abydos were all examples of this fortified town pattern in ancient Africa. The same can be found among other African populations in West Africa, Central Africa and elsewhere.
The only separation between the white Berbers and other Africans is the fact of Eurasian ancestry among many white Berber groups and the fact that in some extreme cases this Eurasian ancestry gives some Amazigh the desire to separate themselves from Africa and is a form of white supremacy.
More about the tradition of house building in Nubia (a national symbol in Sudan):
quote: "A miracle in architecture passed all but unnoticed until the time had come for it to disappear. This happened in Nubia in 1933, when the Aswan Dam was elevated for the second time and all the villages of Nubia were to be submerged. The Egyptian government had allotted the relatively trivial sum of LE 750.000 as an indemnity to the Nubians for the 35.000 houses which were to be destroyed. It was only natural that the Nubians resented and were reluctant to accept this indemnity, and, in consequence, they started negotiating with the government. Finally the Nubians accepted the government's offer with reluctance and started building just one year before their houses were to be submerged. In no more than twelve months, they rebuilt their houses. No two houses were the same, each was more beautiful than the last; each village created its own character. Construction in the villages went ahead unimpeded. All were built at the same time at normal cost price. This happened because the Nubians, being remotely situated and living in isolated villages, had always depended on their own resources to build their houses. They had no contractors, engineers or architects to help them. If they managed, it was mainly because they had retained a technique for roofing in mud brick, using vaults and domes, which had been passed down to them from their forefathers... "
..... The homes in Nubia which made up the nugu (village) extended 320 Km along the Nile at irregular intervals in a staggered line more or less parallel to the river"... Traditional Nubian house Traditional Nubian house
"Throughout Nubia, the principal entrance to the houses faced the river, whether they were on the east or west banks of the Nile".... "The threshold was highly decorated. It symbolized the heritage of the household and was the chief feature of ornamentation, which might be carried from the doorway on throughout the whole house. Usually the designs were inspired by nature"... "The main entrance led into an open courtyard or haush, with rooms adjoining the exterior walls on one or more of its sides"... "Some living rooms had a high wall-to-wall opening above the door or would be completely open on to the courtyard. In front of these rooms there was a flat roofed space known as the khayma (literally "tent"), covered with palm stems and branches... it was a covered sitting area along the open courtyard"... "The guest room or mandara usually had separate entrances, allowing the guest freedom of movement, while sustaining the privacy of the inner family quarters. The mandara was considered an important part of the house, as was hospitality, which continues to be an important obligation to Nubians"... "In the South were the Nile was wider and alluvional mud was plentiful, a method know as the galos or tuf technique of construction prevailed. The walls were made of mud, mud brick (adobe) or stone, and were a dira'a (half an arm's length) thick"... "They constructed their roofs by using split palm trunks and acacia wood beams"... "The women and the children of the household plastered and decorated the interior and the exterior of their homes with bright, bold and colorful designs representing man-made objects such as cars, airplanes, trains, and ships, or sometimes depicted the owner's pilgrimage to the holy city of Makka".
And this is just what we see today and is nothing compared to what was lost when the dam was flooded in terms of ancient housing sites. Not only that but there are hundreds of other sites throughout Sudan of mudbrick and stone architecture that is literally rotting in the sun. A second dam is going to submerge more of this history. Sites stretching back to pharoanic times are all over the Nile. Also there are all the remains of the cities that were built in the Medeival period in Dongola. In modern Nubian houses you see the style of housing like that of ancient Egypt and you see a tradition of houses that is indeed ancient in Africa and has nothing to do with foreigners. Models of houses in Egyptian tombs shows the antiquity of houses like these in Africa and this style can be found all over from Egypt to West Africa. (But ignored by most scholars.)
quote: The same architectural finishes on 20th-century walls and gateways—blind arches over doors, openwork in the shape of tented bricks as a running wall cornice, and square cross reliefs—were also found north in Faras and south in Old Dongola in houses dating from Nubia’s Christian period (sixth to 14th centuries). Some historians say that many elements of Nubian folklore, such as immersing newborns in the river, crossing their foreheads with kohl, and rattling a copper mortar and pestle in their ears, also date from this period.
More good photos at the Nubia Museum site..... Note the dress of the women and the man with the tambourine like those guys in the videos in Morocco. Aside from the veils, the women's dress is an ancient style from the Nile Valley. As I have said before, the style of dress that people consider Middle Eastern (the simple shawl with a slit neck and the other more fancy designs like those in Morocco) are Egyptian. Egypt was the main provider of Linen in dynastic times and this is the basis for the widespread adoptation of the style throughout the Levant.
As far as culture is concerned you can go from Morocco to Ethiopia and see similar traditions of dance and song throughout Africa as seen in Morocco. There are stick dances, sword dances, Marriage dances and all sorts of other dances. The point is that the Moroccan form is just a variation of the African dance tradition along with other traditions.
This is all about continuity and the fact that nothing in Africa is new and that most traditions said to be introduced by foreigners are actually ancient in Africa.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
While we are hearing more and more about Timbuktu and the records being uncovered, here is a note about some records that were revealed and translated long ago. These concern the city called Asben, a city in the Western Sahara. Asben is what we call Kel Air for the Tuaregs there today.
(Another ancient city described by Europeans and others with houses similar to those I described above. Also another important trade city that rose and fell in ancient times, but is important to the history of the region. All Africans did not live in huts....)
Another important city, in Mauretania, Azougi. This was the home of the Almoravids before they invaded Morocco and Spain.
Also note that Chinguetti is famous for its ancient rock towns, featuring houses built with stones. This style is similar to that of ancient Azougi. It is also another example of the architectural traditions in Africa that are truly ancient and indigenous.
Link to an article about a researcher digging at Gebel Berkal and showing the continuing distortion about the relationship between Egypt and "Nubia" (mainly that there was no Nubia in ancient times and in actuality Nubian in Egyptian is a sacred word, that refers to the golden ones, the gods and the ancestors.... another reference to the South).
quote: The ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that Nubia was the original home of the Egyptians and the fountainhead of civilization. He called them Aethiopies, "the burned-face ones," because they were said to be Earth's firstborn and thus stood closest to the sun. "The Greeks and Romans romanticized the Nubians as a people living in a pure state," Kendall says. Egyptian conquest texts, on the other hand, seldom refer to Nubia without describing it as "wretched," and when Nubians appear in tomb reliefs they are usually being led in shackles or bearing tribute to the pharaohs. Tutankhamen symbolized his hold on the detestable hinterlands by carrying ceremonial staffs and canes whose handles were fashioned in the form of Nubians, their arms bound behind their backs. He ordered that Nubian figures be embroidered on the soles of his slippers and carved on the legs of his footstools so that he could perpetually trample them.
As 19th-century archaeologists came to rely more and more on Egypt's propagandistic texts, they turned away from classical histories. "The ancient Egyptian attitude towards Nubia took root in their minds, until by the end of the century it had entirely supplanted the old notion of Nubia as the well-spring of civilization," Adams writes in Nubia: Corridor to Africa. "Something of the same attitude is conveyed in the nineteenth-century term 'Darkest Africa.' African darkness, as the Victorians conceived it, was more than a matter of skin colour; it was a darkness of the mind as well."
http://www.discover.com/issues/dec-05/features/nubia-black-pharaohs/?page=2 (How about European archeologists chose to ignore the evidence and focus on whatever they could to reinforce their own stereotypes. Even though the U.S. is a former colony of Britain doesnt mean that they were always friendly.....)
Discovery of the oldest habitation yet found on the Nile.... In Sudan ("Nubia"):
quote: 2. Nubia's Oldest House?
Some of the most important evidence of early man in Nubia was discovered recently by an expedition of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, under the direction of Dr. Kryzstof Grzymski, on the east bank of the Nile, about 70 miles (116 km) south of Dongola, Sudan. During the early 1990's, this team discovered several sites containing hundreds of Paleolithic hand axes. At one site, however, the team identified an apparent stone tool workshop, where thousands of sandstone hand axes and flakes lay on the ground around a row of large stones set in a line, suggesting the remains of a shelter. This seems to be the earliest "habitation" site yet discovered in the Nile Valley and may be up to 70,000 years old.
What the Nubian environment was like throughout these distant times, we cannot know with certainty, but it must have changed many times. For many thousands of years it was probably far different than what it is today. Between about 50,000 to 25,000 years ago, the hand axe gradually disappeared and was replaced with numerous distinctive chipped stone industries that varied from region to region, suggesting the presence in Nubia of many different peoples or tribal groups dwelling in close proximity to each other. When we first encounter skeletal remains in Nubia, they are those of modern man: homo sapiens.
3. Nubia's Oldest Battle?
From about 25,000 to 8,000 years ago, the environment gradually evolved to its present state. From this phase several very early settlement sites have been identified at the Second Cataract, near the Egypt-Sudan border. These appear to have been used seasonally by people leading a semi-nomadic existence. The people hunted, fished, and ground wild grain. The first cemeteries also appear, suggesting that people may have been living at least partly sedentary lives. One cemetery site at Jebel Sahaba, near Wadi Halfa, Sudan, contained a number of bodies that had suffered violent deaths and were buried in a mass grave. This suggests that people, even 10,000 years ago, had begun to compete with each other for resources and were willing to kill each other to control them.
And this is not the only evidence that shows that the earliest human activity along the Nile was on the Upper Nile, therefore giving much credence to what the Egyptians said themselves about the ancestors being from the South and West, notwithstanding the so-called debates of European historians who dont want to accept it.
Just as an exercise, look at the photos on this page and you should see something familiar. If you say Saqqarah you are on the right track: http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/field/2004a.html (Hint look at the dig house.)
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Just a note, those houses called "Nubian" are actually in Upper Egypt and therefore Egyptian. This is another example of how foreign terms for African people and culture only serves to distort the history and connections of people from Africa. The people around Aswan are Egyptians. Technically, Nubian is a term for Egyptians from the area between modern Naqada. Naqada was originally named Nubt, for gold, by the Egyptians. Thefore, this area is Nubia from an ancient Egyptian perspective. Hierankopolis is South of Nubt. So, if you put it in perspective you see that the modern distinction of what a Nubian is has nothing to do with the ancient Egyptian concept of Nubian, which had to do with gold, a shining one, revered ancestors and the people from the golden city and golden regions to the south.
Another page on the cities of Africa and cultures of Africa as found by European explorers. Many of these cities have houses and the people dont all live in huts. Also shows some photos of the calvary that was widespread among African people in the Sahel and West Africa from prior to the medeival period right through to the 1800s. Much of this African cavalry tradition, along with the metal smith tradition made these African troops formiddable and was another reason of the success of African armies in Muslim Spain.
More photos of African cavalry from Mali and Niger. The cavalry tradition in Africa is one of the most colorful anywhere in the world, but unfortunately, like anything else, understudied in the West and almost unknown. http://www.geocities.com/jmayer_mac/mirriah.html
Every year in Niger, Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere there are festivals featuring men in their traditional cavalry dress. These styles cross many groups including Hausa, Dogon, Kanem, Sokoto and others.
quote: The kingdom of Mali eventually standardized its warriors’ battle regalia and uniforms, as did the kingdoms of Ghana, Songhai, and Benin. In addition, Malian rulers introduced the so-called Honor of the Trousers. According to the twelfth century Arab author al-4Umart (1301-1349), who chronicled the history of the Mali Empire, “Whenever a hero adds to the list of his exploits, the king gives him a pair of wide trousers, and the greater the number of a knight’s exploits, the bigger the size of trousers. These trousers are characterized by narrowness in the leg and ampleness in the seat.” Combat insignia and ethnic accoutrements were also characteristically donned by warriors, and the role of insignia, such as feathers inserted into headgear, was intended to signify rank and status within the battle formations. Fifteenth century Bini swordsmen were depicted in brass castings wearing an elaborately standardized protective armor that included armored helmets, spiked collars and breastplates, massive curvilinear swords, and war-hammers.
Now with all this military might, people might wonder why the Europeans were able to conquer West Africa. The answer is multiple. Some groups, like the Tuareg (Moors) were under attack on multilpe fronts by Arab armies. They also refused to use gunpowder weapons because of their cultural traditions and beliefs (to this day some Tuareg view guns as weapons of "treachery"). Their main tradition was horseback/camelback warfare with swords and javelins. In West Africa, the main problem was that many of the kingdoms were warring with each other and this weakened the militaries of these areas which made it easier to conquer. The Toucoleurs in particular are a good example of this, but this was late, occurring in the 1800s. But primarily the advent of Islamic slavery and wars between Islamic states and non Islamic states did much to damage the ability of Africans to resist European invasions. But even then, many colonial attempts to pacify West Africa met with stiff resistance in Dahomey and elsewhere.
More on the cities and cultures of West Africa found by the Europeans:
quote: Many centuries ago, at the time when Benin was called Igodomingodo, that geographical area now known as Benin, was the hob of a conglomeration of little towns that developed or spread into most of the areas of modern Bendel State. Throughout that period, lgodomingodo made steady progress especially in the areas of spiritual, philosophical and administrative development. Its efforts were largely concentrated on the arrangement of human order so that by the time Europeans made contact with the people of Benin in the 15th century, they had already established an administrative system which, till this day, baffled the Europeans and earned for the Capital of this "far flung" African country, the appellation "City". The nucleus of this great civilization was the monarchy which the Binis perfected around the 18th century when, after a series of experimentation with the Ogiso, and some of the past-Ogiso Obas, they introduced a monarchical system that is based on the principle of primogeniture, beginning with Ewuakpe, about 1712 A. D.
Note also that the Bini are a secret society in West Africa and this may have much to do with the traditions of cavalry and other customs not being widely known outside Africa. Another reason is that the Bini are part of the Edo and other cultures that produced the fine lost wax bronze casts we know today from Benin. Their civilization was largely destroyed by Europeans.
While on the subject of secret societies and cavalry, the Oyo of Nigeria also had cavalry and they were responsible for attacks on the Nupe civilization (note:Nupe is another name for the African American fraternity that uses sticks when they step-an ancient African tradition, but they think they are Greek so anyway.....)
quote: The Ife model of government was adapted at Oyo, where a member of its ruling dynasty consolidated several smaller citystates under his control. A council of state, the Oyo Mesi, eventually assumed responsibility for naming the alafin (king) from candidates proposed from the ruling dynasty and acted as a check on his authority. Oyo developed as a constitutional monarchy; actual government was in the hands of the basorun (prime minister), who presided over the Oyo Mesi. The city was situated 170 kilometers north of Ife, and about 100 kilometers north of present-day Oyo. Unlike the forest-bound Yoruba kingdoms, Oyo was in the savanna and drew its military strength from its cavalry forces, which established hegemony over the adjacent Nupe and the Borgu kingdoms and thereby developed trade routes farther to the north (see fig. 2).
Another jstor article about the cavalries in West Africa: //links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8537(1975)16%3A1%3C1%3AAWACST%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L
However, note also that there is a difference between the ancient traditions of warfare and cavalries among Africans from the times of the Moors, to the cavalries that came about through slave trading with Europeans. Indeed the two are linked, but there is a also a tradition of cavalry that came to West Africa from the East and peoples in the North as well. Much of it traces back to the trade routes across the Sahara and the cavalry traditions of Dongola in Sudan, which was widely known as a horse breeding center.
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
Ever seen Watts' pamphlet The 100,000 Horsemen of West Africa?
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Nope. But thanks alTakruri for pointing it out, I will look for it.
Dar Tichitt is known for its stown masonry buildings stretching back possibly as far as 4,000 B.C. or farther. Yet hardly is anything mentioned about this civilization when talking about ancient civilizations in the world. This style of building is still practiced in Mauretania and can be seen in the ancient Almoravid city of Azouga as well as Chinguetti.
The settlement at Tichitt is said to have been built by Mande speaking people:
quote: The Ghana Empire is believed to have started as a small agro-pastoralist settlement in a region known as Awkar, established around the middle of the fourth century. Then around 750 or 800 AD, a Mandé people known as the Soninke united under Majan Dyabe Cisse or Dinga Cisse in taking over Awkar.
Archaeological testimony supports that the Mandé were among the first peoples on the continent, outside the Nile region and Ethiopia, to produce stone settlement civilizations. These were built on the rocky promontories of the Tichitt-Walata and Tagant cliffs of Mauritania where hundreds of stone masonry settlements, with clear street layouts, have been found. Dating from as early as 1600 BC, these towns had a unique four-tier hierarchy and tribute collection system. This civilization began to decline around 300 BC with the intrusion of Berber armies from the Sahara, but with later reorganization and new trade opportunities, the Wagadou/Ghana Kingdom arose. This polity seems to have inherited the social and economic organization of the Tichitt-Walata complex. [1]
Over time, Wagadou became the center of power for trade in the region. The Dinga Cisse became the first Ghana (warrior king) and his clan became the rulers of the new state. To this day, the Cisse name is prominent in the politics of Mali and Mauritania.
Meanwhile, to the East, the Kanem Bornu empire is said to have been derived from Nilo Saharan populations and is partly responsible for the spread of items, including horses from Dongola in Sudan and other things like the "Nubian" house style, IMO.
quote: n the Lake Chad region, far to the east of the Niger bend, trans-Saharan trade was controlled by the state of Kanem, founded by Nilo-Saharan Kanuri nomads in about 800. By 1000 Kanem came under the leadership of the Saifawa clan, who established an Islamic dynasty and a settled capital at Njimi, north of Lake Chad.
Kanem controlled the shortest route across the desert, by way of the highlands of Aïr (in what is now north central Niger) and the Libyan region of Fezzan. Its traders also had access, by way of the Sudanese regions of Darfūr and Kordofan, to the markets of the Sudanese Nile and ultimately to Egypt. Kanem traded copper and salt from the desert, horses from North Africa, and ivory, ostrich feathers, and slaves from the south. In the 13th century, Kanem’s army was 40,000 horsemen strong, and the state controlled trade as far north as Fezzan. Near the end of the century Kanem absorbed the state of Bornu, southwest of Lake Chad, and moved its capital to Birmi, in the grasslands of Bornu. In the 16th century the rulers of Kanem-Bornu strengthened their control over the region with firearms imported from Ottoman North Africa.
Some more images from Mauretania, the city of Walata(Oulata) showing the style of housing called "nubian" in Egypt but here they are in West Africa. The funniest part is that these houses are labelled as "arab" or "mediterranean", but totally originate in Africa. Once again, instead of calling this style of housing "nubian" or "mediterranean" they should just call it African and leave it at that. Of course then they wouldnt be able to divide up African history and give parts of it to other cultures as originators. In fact, the official Sudanese government site on the houses in Nubia tries to pass off the painting on the walls as a recent trend...... Right! On houses that have been there for thousands of years someone just now showed them how to paint stuff on them? And this is in an area where Egyptians and other Africans built temples covered with images...... Keep in mind too that the temples of Egypt are only stone versions of the ancient fortified towns, houses and religious structures found throughout the Nile and the Sahara since ancient times. All of which originated in the "sub Saharan" areas of Africa. But take note, even though tichitt goes back to 2000 B.C. or more, most of the documentation on ancient Tichitt only focuses on the history of the Islamic period. Likewise, throughout the Sahara and North Africa, ancient settlements are linked to the Islamic period or other periods of foreign presence. With this frame of reference, of course all the architecture of the Kasbahs and Ksars would seem to be a foreign invention. However, there is an ominous gap in history between the rock art of the Sahara and the Ksars of the Islamic period. It is most likely that many of these settlements are more ancient than the Islamic period, but since these areas are considered part of the Islamic world, the history of the pre Islamic era will not get due treatment.
There is a continous tradition of architecture from mud brick to stone in Africa as the temples in Egypt attest. However, when one does research you will find different names for the same thing all over Africa. The houses and structures in Mauretania are called one thing, those in Sudan and elsewhere called "Nubian" and those in Morocco and Tunisia are called Ksar or Ksours, yet they all stem from the same tradition. Using this divided approach to African history the towns in Morocco and Tunisia are "Berber" the ones in Mauretania are Afro Berber and the ones in Sudan are "Nubian". All of which is a bunch of nonsense to dilute and distort the African origins of such building styles.
Note that the mansions of the wealthy and royalty were covered in fiance tile. When the first palaces were built in Morocco by the Moors and Arabs they were also built using fiance tile from Egypt. At that time, Egypt had the finest fiance tile, but was superseded by tile techniques from elsewhere. The towers or minarets of the Mosques are basically the adaptation of the towers found on these fortified towns in Africa, going all the way back to the Pylons of the Egyptian temples, which in turn are stone versions of African mud brick fortified towns.
Also note also that the name Al-Karnak supposedly means fortified village in Arabic. But this is said to trace from the presence of fortified villages and towns that they found in Egypt, built of mud brick and stone.
quote: Tel- Habwa
Lying north east of Qantara East, Tel- Habwa contains some monuments that have been recently discovered, including mainly a Pharaonic castle dating back to the era of King Seti I (Modern Kingdom ). The mud- brick- castle covers an area of 800 400 m with a number of towers. It seems to have been a fortified town, as there have been discovered some storage facilities, houses, hundreds of pieces of antiquity and seals of Egyptian kings Tihotmus III, Ramsis II and others.
Dar Tichitt is known for its stown masonry buildings stretching back possibly as far as 4,000 B.C. or farther. Yet hardly is anything mentioned about this civilization when talking about ancient civilizations in the world. This style of building is still practiced in Mauretania and can be seen in the ancient Almoravid city of Azouga as well as Chinguetti...
You may recall that we once had some heated exchanges on the issue of ancient 'permanent' and/or stone building outside of the Nile Valley in Africa; good to know that you've broaden your perception on the issue.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Supercar:
quote:Originally posted by Doug M:
More on the antiquity of house building in Africa and the tradition of building with stone in the Western Sahel:
Dar Tichitt is known for its stown masonry buildings stretching back possibly as far as 4,000 B.C. or farther. Yet hardly is anything mentioned about this civilization when talking about ancient civilizations in the world. This style of building is still practiced in Mauretania and can be seen in the ancient Almoravid city of Azouga as well as Chinguetti...
You may recall that we once had some heated exchanges on the issue of ancient 'permanent' and/or stone building outside of the Nile Valley in Africa; good to know that you've broaden your perception on the issue.
Yes I remember.
However, what I was trying to point out was that the difference between Egypt and other African societies is that they built in monumental stone. That really didn't mean that other Africans did not build houses and the such, because there are only a few civilizations in Africa that built in monumental stone like the Egyptians. Dar Tichitt is mainly masonry stone (stones of varying sizes used like bricks). All come from the same tradition however and this tradition is one of mud brick and sometimes fired brick. However, since that material is more susceptible to decay, much of it is lost. There are probably hundreds of mud brick cities and other structures that were built throughout the Sahara, Nile Valley and elsewhere that havent survived due to climate and other circumstances. For example, we know there was a palace facade motif in ancient Egyptian tombs and Mastabas, because they were built in stone, but we havent found any of these ancient houses or palaces that the facade supposedly imitates. We dont really know much about the architecture of ancient buildings in the predynastic for the same reason. We also dont know a lot about how widespread such buildings were outside the Nile for the same reason that most times they were built of mud or clay and they haven't survived. Dar Tichitt has survived precisely because it was built using stone masonry. These gaps is something that causes some to propose an origin for much African architecture outside of Africa. For example, the Ksars and Kasbahs of Morocco supposedly only first came about in the Islamic period, however that doesnt make any sense. These Ksars are part of the same style as found in Sudan ,Mauretania, Egypt and the rest of Africa, which are much more ancient tradition, yet most historians tend to associate these structures with Islam. Once again, because the Egyptians built in monumental stone, we can see that this style of architecture is at least as old as the dynastic period in Egypt and probably older, but we dont have much left to look at because the mud brick structures have decayed, are ignored or have been and will be sumberged by dams.
In fact you can even see this same tradition in the houses of the Ndebele people in South Africa.
Once again, it is an issue of us looking at African history from an African perspective and not from a foreign perspective. A foreign perspective divides up the history and places the impetus on foreign involvement, whereas an African perspective sees continuity. For example, much of the architecture in Africa outside Egypt tends to focus on the Islamic period as the "historical" period when various architectural traditions were created. However, that is a distortion of history. Islam did not bring architecture to Africa, Asia or anywhere else. Religious structures are not new concepts in Africa and Mosques are not unique, because most elements of a mosque, including the minaret are aonly variations on ancient styles of architecture already in existence. Yet if you look at much of the history written about architecture in West Africa, the Sahel, Sudan or elsewhere, it tends to focus on mosques or churches, as if they represent something new to the architectural tradition of the area.
quote: According to the Bornu Chronicle (a written history based upon oral tradition), at about 800 CE, the Kanuri people of the Lake Chad region, under the leadership of their legendary king Dugu, formed the beginnings of the trading empire of Kanem, and later Bornu. With the introduction of horses and camels, the Kanuri created a strong military presence that was renowned from the Nile to the Niger and was used to great effect to unify the area.
At about 1085, with the influence of Islam having entered the region some time before, the first Muslim ruler, Houme of the Sefawa dynasty, came to the throne. And, under Mai (king) Salma (1194-1221) Islam became the state religion. The reign of Mai Dunama Dibalemi (1210-1248) saw a strengthening of the Kanem Empire which gained control of the Saharan trade routes north of Lake Chad.
From Kanem's beginnings, through this time, towns were little more than nomadic settlements of reed huts with thatched roofs. Such was the city of Njimi, the early Sefawa capital. In legend, Njimi was the site of a palace built of red brick (a building method imported from the Nile), and there are many sites in the region of Kanem with ruins of such structures. This innovation advanced the Kanem culture in it's architecture.
Page about how Africans put birds and other objects at the top of tall steeples and towers to ward of lightning or spirits (something we think of as an American or European tradition):
quote: Bronze birds and snakes used to ornate the high towers, the bird presumably protecting against lightning, and the snake representing the power of the oba.
An example of the nonsense taught about architectural traditions in Africa:
quote: Early civilizations in the western Sudan region had strong trading links across the Sahara, and an Islamic presence south of the desert was established 1,000 years ago. In the 11th century Kumbi, the capital of the kingdom of Ghana (in present-day Mali), was described as having a dozen mosques. Subsequently the kingdoms of Mali and Songhai superseded ancient Ghana, with Timbuktu and Gao on the Niger River becoming major centres of learning and commerce. Excavations have revealed that these towns were large, prosperous, and well constructed. Muslim builders introduced a type of dwelling reflecting their Arab and North African traditions: rectilinear in plan, flat-roofed, and often two stories or more in height, these dwellings were built of sun-dried mud brick or of mud and stone. By the 16th century this form had penetrated the Nigerian savanna with the establishment of the Hausa states. Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, and Zaria today present an appearance probably comparable with that of earlier centuries, but with the former cylindrical huts replaced by those of square plan, reflecting the changing size of families. New houses are built from tabali, or pear-shaped mud bricks, and the large palaces of the emirs are often richly decorated within, with spaces spanned by palm ribs.
Obviously a distortion. Rectilinear housing is ancient in Africa and did not originate with Islam. Nilotic structures are rectilinear. The ancient dwellings at Dar Tichitt are rectilinear. The ancient structures of the Nok are rectilinear. The houses of ancient Kush and Meroe were rectilinear and so on. The rectilinear houses of the Western Sudan were built buy Soninke peoples thousands of years ago, prior to the advent of Islam.
Posted by Supercar (Member # 6477) on :
quote:Originally posted by Doug M:
Yes I remember.
However, what I was trying to point out was that the difference between Egypt and other African societies is that they built in monumental stone.
Stone is well, stone; and so, I'd like to know what you define "monumental" stone.
quote:Doug M: That really didn't mean that other Africans did not build houses and the such, because there are only a few civilizations in Africa that built in monumental stone like the Egyptians.
See post above.
quote:Doug M:
For example, we know there was a palace facade motif in ancient Egyptian tombs and Mastabas, because they were built in stone, but we havent found any of these ancient houses or palaces that the facade supposedly imitates.
What time frame is in question here; dynastic or predynastic? Because, you go onto say:
We dont really know much about the architecture of ancient buildings in the predynastic for the same reason. Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Supercar: Stone is well, stone; and so, I'd like to know what you define "monumental" stone.
What time frame is in question here; dynastic or predynastic? Because, you go onto say:
We dont really know much about the architecture of ancient buildings in the predynastic for the same reason.
Monumental stone architecture is really a reference to size, the size of the stones and/or the size of the resulting structure. In ancient Egypt the temples were built of large stones and were very large. Therefore, they are monumental. The buildings at dar tichitt are not monumental, either in overall size or the materials used. The stones at dar tichitt were small enough to be moved by a single person by hand. Secondly, if I remember correctly, the point I was making when I first made this argument a long time ago, is that the Egyptians were rare among African cultures in that they both built in monumental stone and decorated the stone with scenes of everyday life, religious beliefs and important events that we can use now in understanding how they lived. Most other cultures of the time, not just African, did not build in such a way, so what we know about them is very limited. The Egyptians left us temples of stone covered with scenes of all sorts. They had decorated tombs featuring scenes of everyday life and models of daily activity. The fact that the materials they used to record such things were durable have allowed us to get a better understanding of Egyptian life. However, what I was saying then and what I am saying now is that the Egyptians were but a part of a larger tradition that originated in Africa. The life style of the Egyptians and their beliefs reflected ancient African lifestyles and beliefs. The temples and mastaba tombs were but stone versions of the architecture that was built in mud brick. The mud brick has in many cases long been destroyed by time, man and weather, but the stone has lasted. These traditions stretch back into antiquity, but the difficulty now is in trying to piece together where they originated. I believe that many of the sites on the Nile submerged under Lake Nasser would have given us some insight. I also beleive that there are some places in the sahara that have yet to be uncovered that would give us a better understanding as well. I also believe that the people of dar Tichitt were also connected with those of the Nile Valley through trade. So, I dont believe that Egypt is separate from the larger scope of African cultural tradition, but it is a somewhat unique in that it built in stone and left so much information to us about how they lived, whereas others did not. Remember as well that there were other African people, who did not build in stone at all, but their lifestyles and worldviews were just as much reflected in Egyptian art as any other African group.
Posted by Supercar (Member # 6477) on :
quote:Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:Originally posted by Supercar:
Stone is well, stone; and so, I'd like to know what you define "monumental" stone.
What time frame is in question here; dynastic or predynastic? Because, you go onto say:
We dont really know much about the architecture of ancient buildings in the predynastic for the same reason.
Monumental stone architecture is really a reference to size, the size of the stones and/or the size of the resulting structure.
So "monumental" simply refers to 'size' in the context that you placed it, and hence, immaterial to the point about the utilization of 'stone' in architecture transcending the Nile Valley?
quote:Doug M:
In ancient Egypt the temples were built of large stones and were very large. The buildings at dar tichitt are not monumental, either in overall size or the materials used. The stones at dar tichitt were small enough to be moved by a single person by hand.
How large? The only Egyptian structures which utilized 'large' stone blocks as far as I can recall, were the Pyramids at Giza, and perhaps the nearby colossal Sphinx sculpture. These structures are obviously unique to the Nile Valley, and hence, again of no relevance to the issue of stone architecture or buildings.
quote:Doug M:
Secondly, if I remember correctly, the point I was making when I first made this argument a long time ago, is that the Egyptians were rare among African cultures in that they both built in monumental stone and decorated the stone with scenes of everyday life, religious beliefs and important events that we can use now in understanding how they lived.
Simply put, this is what sparked the debate and what the argument centered on:
Originally posted by Doug M:
"I believe that the only difference between Egypt and the rest of Africa is that they built in stone and left images of their religious practices and texts for us to study."
To which I replied...
Originally posted by Supercar:
What about the Great Zimbabwe, the stone walls of Jenne Jeno, the megaliths of the Sahara, the artistic impressions left by the Nok? I suppose I could go on with other examples. To understand the history of Africans, the peopling of the continent is a must know, not to mention linguistic reconstructions, and chronology of cultural processes such as those of economy or subsistence. The key to avoid making incorrect observations about Africans, is to thoroughly research Africa.
…to be exacerbated by comments like this:
Originally posted by Doug M:
Ok, if you want to be TECHNICAL, unlike MOST African cultures, the Egyptians built in stone and left lasting images of their religious ceremonies and processions for us to observe. Even though there were OTHER cultures in Africa that built in stone, NONE other than Egypt, carved images into stone of daily scenes of life and worship. MOST African cultures DID NOT build in stone regardless. Or do you have evidence to the contrary? Please, come off your grandstand or whatever it is trying to correct me over such a SMALL issue. If it is that siginificant show me more than a HANDFUL of cultures in ancient Africa that built in stone like the Egyptians…
The Egyptians left us temples of stone covered with scenes of all sorts. They had decorated tombs featuring scenes of everyday life and models of daily activity.
Hardly unique to the Egyptians [including even in Africa], and immaterial to the issue of stone buildings.
quote: Doug M:
However, what I was saying then and what I am saying now is that the Egyptians were but a part of a larger tradition that originated in Africa.
That point isn’t reflected in this:
Doug M: I believe that the only difference between Egypt and the rest of Africa is that they built in stone and left images of their religious practices and texts for us to study.
quote:Doug M:
These traditions stretch back into antiquity, but the difficulty now is in trying to piece together where they originated.
As pointed out, the Nile Valley traditions drew from their ultimate East African origins, in situ [including traditions emanating from what is now dubbed by Eurocentric scholarship as “Nubia”] and the eastern Sahara-Sahel regions.
quote:Doug M:
I believe that many of the sites on the Nile submerged under Lake Nasser would have given us some insight. I also beleive that there are some places in the sahara that have yet to be uncovered that would give us a better understanding as well. I also believe that the people of dar Tichitt were also connected with those of the Nile Valley through trade. So, I dont believe that Egypt is separate from the larger scope of African cultural tradition, but it is a somewhat unique in that it built in stone and left so much information to us about how they lived, whereas others did not.
Was just a matter of time…before you reverted back to your strange claim about ‘stone building’ being unique to ancient Egypt, even as you have cited an example to the contrary. It flies in the face of logic. This is what got you in the hot seat in the earlier discussion, and which you’ve attempted to explain away here as you tried then, but apparently unsuccessfully. My earlier assessment that you may have broaden your perception, may need reexamination.
quote:Doug M:
Remember as well that there were other African people, who did not build in stone at all, but their lifestyles and worldviews were just as much reflected in Egyptian art as any other African group.
Red herring. Immaterial to the fact that your point about ancient stone building being unique to Egypt is baseless.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Supercar:
quote:Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:Originally posted by Supercar:
Stone is well, stone; and so, I'd like to know what you define "monumental" stone.
What time frame is in question here; dynastic or predynastic? Because, you go onto say:
We dont really know much about the architecture of ancient buildings in the predynastic for the same reason.
Monumental stone architecture is really a reference to size, the size of the stones and/or the size of the resulting structure.
So "monumental" simply refers to 'size' in the context that you placed it, and hence, immaterial to the point about the utilization of 'stone' in architecture transcending the Nile Valley?
quote:Doug M:
In ancient Egypt the temples were built of large stones and were very large. The buildings at dar tichitt are not monumental, either in overall size or the materials used. The stones at dar tichitt were small enough to be moved by a single person by hand.
How large? The only Egyptian structures which utilized 'large' stone blocks as far as I can recall, were the Pyramids at Giza, and perhaps the nearby colossal Sphinx sculpture. These structures are obviously unique to the Nile Valley, and hence, again of no relevance to the issue of stone architecture or buildings.
quote:Doug M:
Secondly, if I remember correctly, the point I was making when I first made this argument a long time ago, is that the Egyptians were rare among African cultures in that they both built in monumental stone and decorated the stone with scenes of everyday life, religious beliefs and important events that we can use now in understanding how they lived.
Simply put, this is what sparked the debate and what the argument centered on:
Originally posted by Doug M:
"I believe that the only difference between Egypt and the rest of Africa is that they built in stone and left images of their religious practices and texts for us to study."
To which I replied...
Originally posted by Supercar:
What about the Great Zimbabwe, the stone walls of Jenne Jeno, the megaliths of the Sahara, the artistic impressions left by the Nok? I suppose I could go on with other examples. To understand the history of Africans, the peopling of the continent is a must know, not to mention linguistic reconstructions, and chronology of cultural processes such as those of economy or subsistence. The key to avoid making incorrect observations about Africans, is to thoroughly research Africa.
…to be exacerbated by comments like this:
Originally posted by Doug M:
Ok, if you want to be TECHNICAL, unlike MOST African cultures, the Egyptians built in stone and left lasting images of their religious ceremonies and processions for us to observe. Even though there were OTHER cultures in Africa that built in stone, NONE other than Egypt, carved images into stone of daily scenes of life and worship. MOST African cultures DID NOT build in stone regardless. Or do you have evidence to the contrary? Please, come off your grandstand or whatever it is trying to correct me over such a SMALL issue. If it is that siginificant show me more than a HANDFUL of cultures in ancient Africa that built in stone like the Egyptians…
The Egyptians left us temples of stone covered with scenes of all sorts. They had decorated tombs featuring scenes of everyday life and models of daily activity.
Hardly unique to the Egyptians [including even in Africa], and immaterial to the issue of stone buildings.
quote: Doug M:
However, what I was saying then and what I am saying now is that the Egyptians were but a part of a larger tradition that originated in Africa.
That point isn’t reflected in this:
Doug M: I believe that the only difference between Egypt and the rest of Africa is that they built in stone and left images of their religious practices and texts for us to study.
quote:Doug M:
These traditions stretch back into antiquity, but the difficulty now is in trying to piece together where they originated.
As pointed out, the Nile Valley traditions drew from their ultimate East African origins, in situ [including traditions emanating from what is now dubbed by Eurocentric scholarship as “Nubia”] and the eastern Sahara-Sahel regions.
quote:Doug M:
I believe that many of the sites on the Nile submerged under Lake Nasser would have given us some insight. I also beleive that there are some places in the sahara that have yet to be uncovered that would give us a better understanding as well. I also believe that the people of dar Tichitt were also connected with those of the Nile Valley through trade. So, I dont believe that Egypt is separate from the larger scope of African cultural tradition, but it is a somewhat unique in that it built in stone and left so much information to us about how they lived, whereas others did not.
Was just a matter of time…before you reverted back to your strange claim about ‘stone building’ being unique to ancient Egypt, even as you have cited an example to the contrary. It flies in the face of logic. This is what got you in the hot seat in the earlier discussion, and which you’ve attempted to explain away here as you tried then, but apparently unsuccessfully. My earlier assessment that you may have broaden your perception, may need reexamination.
quote:Doug M:
Remember as well that there were other African people, who did not build in stone at all, but their lifestyles and worldviews were just as much reflected in Egyptian art as any other African group.
Red herring. Immaterial to the fact that your point about ancient stone building being unique to Egypt is baseless.
I dont know why you dredged up that old thread, but yes you were right in pointing out that other African cultures did indeed build in stone. It seems that my post was improperly worded and because of that we wasted a whole lot of time and space debating a side issue and not the true point I was trying to make. So, I dont think it is necessary to argue what we both agree is a long history of stone building in Africa. The fact, IMO, still stands that outside the Nile Valley, very few African civilizations built in stone or, if they did, left any sort of documentation of their every day lives and/or daily lives on the walls of their monuments, which makes it a bit harder to reconstruct such things from the remaining evidence. It does not say that no other African cultures built in stone, but just that most did not and those that did did not write an account of their daily lives on the wall. Many other civilizations in Africa built in mud brick and others reed, grass, wood, straw, cloth or animal hides for tents or huts or other structures. These structures do not have the longevity of stone and therefore do not allow us to uncover the evidence of their existence as easily. Likewise, even when you do find such sites, there is still a lot more work that needs to be done filling in the details on the day to day material existence of such groups. Even in Egypt, with all the details they left to us of every day life and religious ceremonies, will still dont know a lot about how they lived at all levels, commoner and king.
Yes, my statement in the original thread was wrong, as I said. But it is not a red herring since I know what I was trying to point out and just correcting me on the one statement and continguing to correct me does not change it. The issue now, as I said before, is one of study and research and how many aspects of African culture and history are undocumented. I didnt know about the existence of the Nok culture prior to the discussion on that thread. I also didnt know about dar Tichitt prior to this thread, as a result of my own searching. Anyone who is studying African history and culture should not have to dig as hard to get unbiased facts about the history and culture of Africa. Unfortunately, to many of our scholars are to busy attacking the system just for the purpose of attacking the system or are chasing ideas that are tangent to the core facts of African history. More needs to be done to redress the fact that large parts of African history are under researched due to either a lack of interest or funds, bias or all three. Likewise, when the information is found and researched, it is not updated in the mainstream knowledge base about Africa. Most people are not going to go to a college library and read through hundreds of journals to uncover the facts and discoveries unearthed in Africa that shed light on its history. Most people only get African history either from high school history, the discovery channel, national geographic or maybe on the internet, if at all. The answer is ultimately in the hands of Africans to research and document their own history and stop relying on foreigners to "do the right thing" and tell African history in an accurate and unbiased manner.
As a matter of fact, I went to a college library yesterday to do some research. I was shocked(not really) to find out that 1) they dont have much on Moorish civilization in Europe (other than Stanley Lane Pool and Van Sertima) and they dont allow general use of the "Image of the Black in Western Art, Vol 1." (which is out of print for some reason and the original photos are only available for primary research) Also, I was reading a recent book on battles leading up to the expulsion of the Moors from Spain (written from the perspective of European's rise to prominence) and found some glaring distortions as well some very funny facts. The distortions were mainly related to the level of sophistication and technology in Moorish Spain, especially regarding the use of gunpowder weapons by the Moors. The funniest part is how the Spanish were bombardi ng some of the last strongholds in Granada with cannon, when Boabdil persuaded them to fight mano-a-mano. Ferdinand and Isabella's forces were being summarily dispatched by the Moorish troops with ease. Finally, realizing that this was futile and that the goal was to win and not about chivalry, honor and personal courage, they went back to bombarding the strongholds with cannon. Very funny indeed.
I dont know why you dredged up that old thread, but yes you were right in pointing out that other African cultures did indeed build in stone.
Simple solution: re-read the postings again, and learn why I 'dredged up that old thread'.
quote:Doug M:
It seems that my post was improperly worded and because of that we wasted a whole lot of time and space debating a side issue and not the true point I was trying to make.
And yet, you use the same shaky "wording" here again?! 'Once' maybe a mistake, but more than once, well...
quote:Doug M:
So, I dont think it is necessary to argue what we both agree is a long history of stone building in Africa.
I am certain that "I" agree with the highlighted piece. I am not so sure about you.
quote:Doug M:
The fact, IMO, still stands that outside the Nile Valley, very few African civilizations built in stone or,...
These "very few African civilization" who "built in stone" are a subset of how many "African civilizations", and which go by what 'names'? How can you claim that your 'facts' stand, when you have yet to demonstrate that they have any leg to stand on?
quote:Doug M:
if they did, left any sort of documentation of their every day lives and/or daily lives on the walls of their monuments, which makes it a bit harder to reconstruct such things from the remaining evidence. It does not say that no other African cultures built in stone, but just that most did not and those that did did not write an account of their daily lives on the wall.
Well, writing 'proper' seems to have become more established in the Nile Valley prior to not only elsewhere in Africa, but also in a global sense. Writing however, is not the only means by which people documented aspects of the culture. Relics of building structures, pottery and fragments of artifacts [whatever their nature] and possibly of fossilized fauna and flora are factored into the equation. There is no 'unison' way of trail of cultural expression, and corresponding documentation. More to the point, speaking of 'art on the wall', is completely immaterial to the tradition of using stone in 'architecture' on the African continent, outside of ancient Egypt. And to reiterate, even artistic reliefs depicting human activity, isn't unique to ancient Egypt on the African continent. You are trying to simply make 'substance' out of air.
quote:Doug M:
Yes, my statement in the original thread was wrong, as I said.
Which doesn't stop you from repeating it.
quote:Doug M:
But it is not a red herring since I know what I was trying to point out and just correcting me on the one statement and continguing to correct me does not change it.
You've got it twisted: You are wrong for stating that no other African culture save for that of AE built in stone, and that none used art reliefs to depict human activity, and it is a "red herring" to point to the idea that there were Africans who built structures from mud and other less durable material than stone. This is immaterial to the fact that ancient stone architecture have been uncovered in various parts of the continent, i.e. north, east, west and south.
quote:Doug M:
The issue now, as I said before, is one of study and research and how many aspects of African culture and history are undocumented. I didnt know about the existence of the Nok culture prior to the discussion on that thread. I also didnt know about dar Tichitt prior to this thread, as a result of my own searching.
Which makes you look silly making the same old claims, after you've learnt about such things.
Posted by Israel (Member # 11221) on :
Doug,
Thanks for the information. There is alot of stuff here and it will take me a couple of days to read through it! lol. Salaam
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Supercar:
quote:Originally posted by Doug M:
I dont know why you dredged up that old thread, but yes you were right in pointing out that other African cultures did indeed build in stone.
Simple solution: re-read the postings again, and learn why I 'dredged up that old thread'.
quote:Doug M:
It seems that my post was improperly worded and because of that we wasted a whole lot of time and space debating a side issue and not the true point I was trying to make.
And yet, you use the same shaky "wording" here again?! 'Once' maybe a mistake, but more than once, well...
quote:Doug M:
So, I dont think it is necessary to argue what we both agree is a long history of stone building in Africa.
I am certain that "I" agree with the highlighted piece. I am not so sure about you.
quote:Doug M:
The fact, IMO, still stands that outside the Nile Valley, very few African civilizations built in stone or,...
These "very few African civilization" who "built in stone" are a subset of how many "African civilizations", and which go by what 'names'? How can you claim that your 'facts' stand, when you have yet to demonstrate that they have any leg to stand on?
quote:Doug M:
if they did, left any sort of documentation of their every day lives and/or daily lives on the walls of their monuments, which makes it a bit harder to reconstruct such things from the remaining evidence. It does not say that no other African cultures built in stone, but just that most did not and those that did did not write an account of their daily lives on the wall.
Well, writing 'proper' seems to have become more established in the Nile Valley prior to not only elsewhere in Africa, but also in a global sense. Writing however, is not the only means by which people documented aspects of the culture. Relics of building structures, pottery and fragments of artifacts [whatever their nature] and possibly of fossilized fauna and flora are factored into the equation. There is no 'unison' way of trail of cultural expression, and corresponding documentation. More to the point, speaking of 'art on the wall', is completely immaterial to the tradition of using stone in 'architecture' on the African continent, outside of ancient Egypt. And to reiterate, even artistic reliefs depicting human activity, isn't unique to ancient Egypt on the African continent. You are trying to simply make 'substance' out of air.
quote:Doug M:
Yes, my statement in the original thread was wrong, as I said.
Which doesn't stop you from repeating it.
quote:Doug M:
But it is not a red herring since I know what I was trying to point out and just correcting me on the one statement and continguing to correct me does not change it.
You've got it twisted: You are wrong for stating that no other African culture save for that of AE built in stone, and that none used art reliefs to depict human activity, and it is a "red herring" to point to the idea that there were Africans who built structures from mud and other less durable material than stone. This is immaterial to the fact that ancient stone architecture have been uncovered in various parts of the continent, i.e. north, east, west and south.
quote:Doug M:
The issue now, as I said before, is one of study and research and how many aspects of African culture and history are undocumented. I didnt know about the existence of the Nok culture prior to the discussion on that thread. I also didnt know about dar Tichitt prior to this thread, as a result of my own searching.
Which makes you look silly making the same old claims, after you've learnt about such things.
This is tired. I already said that the statement I made originally was wrong. Ok. I said it. Done deal case closed. Its over. My point was and still is that Egypt, in putting volumes of information on the walls about everyday life, culture and relgious beliefs IN SCULPTED MONUMENTAL STONE, was unlike most civilizations in Africa. The point was and still is that the fact that they built so many monuments using very large stone blocks and on such a large scale allowed the monuments to survive along with the carved reliefs and give us more insight on the nature of African civilizations at such an early date than would be otherwise possible. Egypt is an extension of other ancient African civilizations, however much of the evidence for the overall nature of these civilizations prior to ancient Egypt has been lost, leaving somewhat of a gap between the developments of the ancient Nile Valley and other parts of Africa. We know that there were direct antecedants to Egyptian civilization in the Sudan, but unfortunately much of the evidence is lost under lake Nasser. However, I believe that other parts of Africa and ancient Egypt were connected culturally and literally via trade and other commerce at a far earlier time that generally admitted by current scholarship. Ancient Egypt was just the end result of a long series of developments IN Africa that were expressed in the massive stone structures found along the Nile.
Now I am sure you want to nit pick this to death and try and find any small flaw you can to sidetrack the discussion into something totally irrelevant. However, I made my point and I am done with this issue in this thread. However, if you again want to go into another thread about stone building civilizations in Africa or resurrect that same old one, feel free to do so and I will contribute, as it will give others insight into the traditions of stone building in ancient Africa that they may not have known about.
Posted by Supercar (Member # 6477) on :
quote:Originally posted by Doug M:
This is tired. I already said that the statement I made originally was wrong. Ok. I said it.
Lol. Saying you are 'wrong' is meaningless, when you keep repeating these 'wrongness', and hence, not learning from the wrong.
quote:Doug M:
Done deal case closed. Its over.
The case will only be closed if you deliver the requests made of you. Saying so, doesn't cut it.
quote:Doug M:
My point was and still is that Egypt, in putting volumes of information on the walls about everyday life, culture and relgious beliefs IN SCULPTED MONUMENTAL STONE, was unlike most civilizations in Africa.
"putting volumes of art" on walls, is immaterial to the fact that stone use in architecture in Africa clearly transcends ancient Egypt. Nor is such use of art in African history, unique to Egypt.
quote:Doug M:
The point was and still is that the fact that they built so many monuments using very large stone blocks and on such a large scale allowed the monuments to survive along with the carved reliefs and give us more insight on the nature of African civilizations at such an early date than would be otherwise possible.
Which 'facts' point to the idea that Egyptians used 'large stone blocks' for so many monuments outside of say, the pyramids and the sphinx, and how many of these monuments are there?
quote:Doug M:
Egypt is an extension of other ancient African civilizations, however much of the evidence for the overall nature of these civilizations prior to ancient Egypt has been lost, leaving somewhat of a gap between the developments of the ancient Nile Valley and other parts of Africa.
Simple, and I reiterate, since it didn't soak in the first around: Ancient Nile Valley complexes draw from their ultimate East African origins, locally [i.e. in situ], as well as from eastern Saharan-Sahel regions. How do you suppose we know this?
quote:Doug M:
We know that there were direct antecedants to Egyptian civilization in the Sudan, but unfortunately much of the evidence is lost under lake Nasser.
And how did you know this; just from a bunch of 'art on the walls' of monuments built from "huge" blocks of stone?
quote:Doug M:
Now I am sure you want to nit pick this to death and try and find any small flaw you can to sidetrack the discussion into something totally irrelevant.
Your sleazy predictions is what becomes irrelevant considering that you, quite bankrupt intellectually, keep repeating what you know to be in the wrong, so as you keep saying...like a broken record.
quote:Doug M:
However, I made my point and I am done with this issue in this thread.
What point was that again? Feel free to demonstrate it with 'substance'.
quote:Doug M:
However, if you again want to go into another thread about stone building civilizations in Africa or resurrect that same old one, feel free to do so and I will contribute, as it will give others insight into the traditions of stone building in ancient Africa that they may not have known about.
Do I sense a copout?
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Now, as for information about the influence of Africa on the military traditions in Europe.
I picked up the following book today, along with others:
From the book on Moorish arms I got some nice gems. Here are some of them:
North Africa may have had a large number of Jewish tribes among the Berbers, who dominated surrounding pagan tribes (even though what tribes these were is not mentioned and it is not ever said how they dominated, ie. slavery or taxation or other). Note however, Berber is often used but nowhere is Berber defined, once again a reference to the fact that Berber as a historical, cultural or ethnic identity is never really defined. In most cases it is generally implied to mean mixed or white North African population. Ironically, many of the people in North Africa at the time probably weren't mixed but included many plain old fashioned black Africans, but this is never fully explained. However, it does go on to say that black African warriors played a dramatic role in Southern European history because of the spread of the horse and camel in Africa. The Judaized Berbers may have been raiding Southern Spain prior to the arrival of the Muslims.
Among the first invaders of Spain there may have included quite a few Coptic Egyptians. Again I have said often that Moorish civilization was but the last gasp of ancient Egyptian civilization in protoIslamic form.
The Masmuda were one of the first pagan Berber tribes to convert to Islam, prior to the Romanized townfolk.
The Coptic Egyptians and Latin Christians (afariqa) built a naval base at Ifriqiya in Tunisia. Afariqa refers to a Christianized North African. If you look closely the name includes the name Afar, which may be a reference to the Afar tribe in Ethiopia.
When I looked up Afariqa I found the following image referenced here in reference to Mozarabs(persecuted Christians/Jews in Islamic Spain and North Africa): http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:B_Valladolid_93.jpg Wow! Afros in 10th century Christian art, strangely enough just like that in Ethiopian christian art. So, maybe there is a link between the Coptic African and Islamic period in Spain. http://www.answers.com/topic/mozarab
Doing more research into this interesting image, I found the following: Valladolid was a city taken by the Spanish in the 10th century and many of the people there were Mozarab Christians. Many Christian documents were created in the Illuminated style of the Muslims, featuring richly colored text and art and it is this artwork that is the basis of the early artwork of Christian Spain. The Spanish view the early Mozarab Illuminated Christian texts as being their own national treasure, distinct from other forms of Christian art. However, seeing that most of these early images are of people with afros looking like early Coptic Christians from Ethiopia, I beg to differ.
Mozarabic Christian art is based on both Byzantine and African traditions, but the early forms seem most like the traditions handed down from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is where some books of the Bible were translated ingo Ge'ez in the 4th Century. It is possible that this style of iconography also originated there as well.
quote: “Noah’s Ark, Beatus de Facundus” Spain, X century
This book is one of the most flamboyant examples of mozarab art – the art of the christians of Spain when the country was occupied by the Maures. The Spanish christians, organised by the “infidels” lived in fear of their loss of identity, hence the popularity of the Apocalypse and its commentary written by Beatus de Liebana, which overshadowed the Gospels. The Apocalypse predicted the success of the reconquest and the end of the infidel’s power.
The commentaries of the Apocalypse were, remarkably, copied 32 times between the X and XIII centuries.“Noah’s Ark” by the illuminator Facundus is exceptionally shown in a cross section and is characterised by bands of horizontal colours.
At the top of the Ark, Noah, surrounded by his family, receives the dove carrying the olive branch announcing the end of the rains.
The representation of the griffin in the fourth band marked the interest of the Maures and their influence for the antique culture yet, this was to dissipate in the west in the VI centuryThe range of colours, audacious yet always harmonious, is the mark of the mozarab illuminator.
Keep in mind also that the first illuminated documents are considered to be from the Egyptians:
quote: The earliest known illustrated rolls come from Egypt; they include the oldest example, the Ramesseum Papyrus (c.1980 BC) and fragments from the Book of the Dead, found in tombs. Little or nothing survives of ancient Greek illumination, although scientific treatises and epic poetry are said to have contained pictures. It is thought that by the 2d cent. AD the long papyrus roll began to be replaced by the parchment codex (or leaved book). Thus a new, compact format was introduced as the framework for the picture. From the late classical period (probably 5th cent. AD) come the illustrations of Vergil (Vatican) and the Iliad (Ambrosian Library, Milan).
Earliest bibles written in old latin (north African Latin):
quote: It is from North Africa that the earliest Latin literature of the church has come down to us. The church of North Africa early received a baptism of blood, and could point to an illustrious roll of martyrs. It had also a distinguished list of Latin authors, whose Latin might sometimes be rude and mixed with foreign idioms, but had a power and a fire derived from the truths which it set forth. One of the most eminent of these Africans was Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who won the martyr's crown in 257. His genuine works consist of a number of short treatises, or tracts, and numerous letters, all teeming with Scripture quotations. It is certain that he employed a version then and there in use, and it is agreed that "his quotations are carefully made and thus afford trustworthy standards of African Old Latin in a very early though still not the earliest stage" (Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in Greek, 78).
African book making and writing traditions basis for the creation of the earliest forms of biblical documents:
quote: Some evidence indicates that the codex format as used for literary works was distributed from African models. This codex model is related to the papyrus industry of Egypt4 and to sectarian book production in north and eastern Africa extending uninterrupted from late antiquity to the present. .... The idea of a single African codex model also lumps together Christianized Egyptian and non-Egyptian book making, in spite of the fact that these traditions are as distinct as they are related.8 Religious texts of the Coptic Church are in the Egyptian language of the first centuries AD, written in the alphabet derived from the Greeks. Religious texts of the Ethiopian or Abyssinian Church are in Ge'ez a liturgical language using an extremely ancient syllabic alphabet derived from southern Arabian origins. The contemporary language of the Egyptian Copts is Arabic while a main contemporary language of Ethiopian Christians is Amharic. Coptic Egyptian bookbinding is known from archeological materials which feature papyrus texts and covers and a bridled, encircling stitch to connect the boards. Ethiopian bookbinding is known from ethnographically collected vellum manuscripts with an internal, tunnel lacing stitch to connect the boards. ... From the perspective of technology, many comparisons of the scroll and codex format focus on text management features of the two formats. However, during this early period all books, both scroll and codex, lacked text management devises such as word spacing, pagination or punctuation. Only the punctuation of the codex page itself9could have played a part in the first century selection of the format. The influence of page format on illustration, as opposed to text, would recommend the codex since iconography could be set off into distinct fields. The African model is relevant here since the tradition of illuminating Christian books was advanced, not by Greek convention, but by the heritage of Coptic art. In pharonic times prayers and liturgies were illustrated with figures of deities and protective symbols in bright colors with boarder designs at the top and bottom. The texts were traced in black outline with catchwords written in red. ... The legacy of the African model codex is apparent in the modern paperback. The speed and economy of three-edge trimming and perennial features of stackability, portability, light weight and structural pliancy project this early prototype far into the digital era.37 The African model and the modern paperback have no rounding or backing, that is, no shaping of the contour of the text back. The boards are flush to the folds of the endpapers and the binding has a rectangular geometry that shelves like a video cassette or CD case. Other characteristics of the African model that persist in the modern paperback are its all paper construction, its equitable leaf attachment, attachment of covers as if they were outer leaves and a flush trim of covers and text to the same size. These perennial features are so taken for granted that they are frequently discounted.
All of which points to the reason for those early Christian illuminated gospels done in Mozarab style looking like the style of Christian art done by Ethiopians for centuries. Ethiopian Christianity started in the 4th or 5th century when the Christian Gospel was translated into Ge'ez. What remains is for us to find examples of the earliest illuminated scripts to see if these follow the theory above, that the Mozarab Coptic Christians from Africa introduced the Ethiopic style of illuminating Christian texts to Spain....
An example of these early codexes from Africa:
quote: A most valuable Greek manuscript of the Old and New Testaments, so named because it was brought to Europe from Alexandria and had been the property of the patriarch of that see. For the sake of brevity, Walton, in his polyglot Bible, indicated it by the letter A and thus set the fashion of designating Biblical manuscripts by such symbols. Codex A was the first of the great uncials to become known to the learned world. When Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Alexandria, was transferred in 1621 to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, he is believed to have brought the codex with him. Later he sent it as a present to King James I of England; James died before the gift was presented, and Charles I, in 1627, accepted it in his stead. It is now the chief glory of the British Museum in its manuscript department and is on exhibition there. [Editor's Note: The British Museum and the British Library split in 1973, and the Codex is now kept in the latter.] ... The handwriting is generally judged to belong to the beginning or middle of the fifth century or possibly to the late fourth. An Arabic note states that it was written by Thecla the martyr; and Cyril Lucar the Patriarch adds in his note that tradition says she was a noble Egyptian woman and wrote the codex shortly after the Nicene Council. But nothing is known of such a martyr at that date, and the value of this testimony is weakened by the presence of the Eusebian Canons (d. 340) and destroyed by the insertion of the letter of Athanasius (d. 373). On the other hand, the absence of the Euthalian divisions is regarded by Scrivener as proof that it can hardly be later than 450. This is not decisive, and Gregory would bring it down even to the second half of the fifth century. The character of the letters and the history of the manuscript point to Egypt as its place of origin.
Unfortunately a systematic dating of ancient Ethiopian texts has not largely been done and there are some that feel this aspect of the Ethiopian legacy to the Christian church has been under appreciated: http://assets.cambridge.org/052153/7223/sample/0521537223ws.pdf
More on the Egyptian tradition of illuminated manuscripts and its impact on the ancient world:
quote: Oxyrhynchus (Greek: Οξύρρυγχος; "sharp-snouted or sharp-nosed"; ancient Egyptian Per-Medjed; modern Egyptian Arabic el-Bahnasa) is an archaeological site in Egypt, considered one of the most important ever discovered. For the past century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been continually excavated, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the time of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history. Among the texts discovered at Oxyrhynchus are plays of Menander and the Gospel of Thomas, an important early Gnostic document. ... The town was named after a species of fish of the Nile River which was important in Egyptian mythology as the fish that ate the penis of Osiris, though it is not known exactly which species of fish this is. One possibility is a species of mormyrid, medium sized freshwater fish that figure in various Egyptian and other artworks. Some species of mormyrid have distinctive downturned snouts or barbels, lending them the common name of elephantnoses among aquarists and ichthyologists. A figurine from Oxyrhynchus of one of these sacred fish has many attributes typical of mormyrids: a long anal fin, a small caudal fin, widely spaced pelvic and pectoral fins, and of course the downturned snout.[1]
Note also that much of the symbolism from Egypt also was contained in some of these early manuscripts. The reference above to the penis of osiris and the fish fits well with the image of the birth of christ I posted earlier: http://medspains.stanford.edu/demo/themes/adoptionism/beatus.html
IMO it shows an obvious link between the Osirian myth and the birth of Heru as the basis of the early Christian thought concerning Jesus Christ.
Another important tradition that was passed down from Egypt in this form of writing is the books of hours:
quote: A book of hours is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Each book of hours is unique in one way or another, but all contain a collection of texts, prayers and psalms, along with appropriate illustrations, to form a reference for Catholic Christian worship and devotion.
The Latin name for a book of hours is horae, the English one primer. The original books were always printed in Latin. There are over 800 books of hours made in England scattered to libraries all over the world.
Note the name even reflects on the origins: Book of Horae is a form reminiscent of Book of Horus which would probably have been part of the tradition going back to Egypt and the priest who were watchers of the hours in the temples to keep time for religious activities. This tradition was passed down to the Christians and the Muslims in that they use towers to with bells or human callers to bring people to prayer throughout the day. The towers themselves are modelled after the pylons and gates or towers in the Egyptian tradition of fortified cities and fortified temples, which also had much to do with the tradition of such towers, especially the early square minarets of the Muslims being aligned to Mecca, as early Egyptian temples were sometimes aligned to stars or other monuments. This can best be seen in the Mosques built in North Africa from Algeria to Morocco and the Kasbahs and Ksars in the same area. Early Mosques built in Egypt did not have the same form as these later mosques which featured tall square towers as prominent features.
Also, a lot of the earliest books of illuminated works in Europe deal with the apocalypse, which features many dragons and monsters. These images remind me of things like the book of gates from Egypt: http://touregypt.net/featurestories/bookofgates.htm But there are a lot of others from Egypt that also present similar motifs, as well as the procession of the hours: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/underworld.htm Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
And continuing from the previous post, the Ethiopian tradition in Christianity extends back even further with the conversion of the Aksumite king Ezana:
quote: The minting of Aksumite coins begins in the third century A.D., and from this point it is possible to date the individual reigns of Aksumite royalty. In the fourth century A.D., the rule of one monarch in particular marked a defining transition in Ethiopian religious and cultural history. Byzantine and Roman historians chronicle how a Syrian Christian named Frumentius, called Abba Salama in Ethiopian versions, came to be captured and later hosted by the Aksumite court, whose king he ultimately converted. Following his conversion, King Ezana (r. 320–50) had the crescent-and-disk of South Arabian polytheism removed from his coins and replaced with the Christian cross.
Also continuing up the Nile, you have the early Christian kingdoms of Makuria, Nobotia and Alodia, which were all early Christian states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makuria
While I was sidetracked on the search for mozarab art and its connection to Ethiopia, I ran across some other good info on the relationship between Islamic North Africa and Europe in the area of building codes. Muslim Spain provided the basis of much of what we call the European city plan, and these documents cover how Muslim building codes have influenced the development of European cities:
Note that since the earliest times Egyptian cities have been fortified with surrounding walls and defenses for protection, which led to the development of what we see as the castles and fortress like structures found around the world today.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
From the book on Moorish soldiers, I found these other tidbits:
The Muslims introduced the practice of heraldry as sociated with the armies of 11th and 12th century Europe:
quote: When Al Hakkam II left Medina Al Zahra, in AD 971, he was 'proceeded by different classes of banners and ensigns, among which, for the special honour with which his lord distinguishes it, was the lofty satrang'. This word comes from the persian shatrang meaning chess or chessboard. On another occassion Galib ibn Abd al-Rahman sent a military detachment to cordoba in 'perfect formation with parade ornaments including the Satrang' The oldest pattern in European heraldry is, in fact, the checky, a word with again springs from Persian shatrang.
From: Men at Arms, the Moors.
Also from the same book, there are notes about the Ghana empire having 200,000 soldiers, 40,000 of whom were archers. It also notes that other arab historians noted that African cavalrymen used quilted armor at a very early period. The Mali empire had quilted armor for its troops and there is no doubt that it had all the heraldry and colors found on early medeival soldiers elsewhere.
The drum corps as part of the military march became predominant due to the use of African drum soldiers by the Almoravids in the Islamic armies of Spain. Mail was the predominant form of armor amongst the Africans of the Almoravid armies and many had steel helmets, probably from African metalsmiths and were seen elsewhere in Africa.
More on quilted armor and its African origins:
quote: · The earliest known quilt is carved on an ivory figure of a Pharoh of the Egyptian First Dynasty about 3400 BC
· The oldest surviving example of patchwork is a quilted Egyptian Canopy used by the queen for festive occasions in 980 BC. It now resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo
· In 1924 archaeologists discovered a quilted floor covering in Mongolia dating back from first century BC to the second century AD
· As early as the 1300’s, Mali warriors wore quilted suits of armor for protection in battle
· In the Sudan, full quilted garments for both warriors and their horses were worn as protective armor in battle
· Until the end of the 19th century, the Fulani calvary wore quilted cloaks (sometime decorated in patchwork) for warmth or ceremonial occasions. They would have been too cumbersome in battle. Under the cloaks, heavy quilted armor (made in several pieces to protect different parts of the body) was worn. These were worn over metal body armour or chainmail.
Here are some notes about about the Muslim(Moorish) presence in other parts of Europe.
The Moors in Italy:
quote:
Islamic Sicily
Just two miles off the toe of the Italian boot lies a sunny island once dedicated to Muslim accomplishment.
"It is a fair kingdom, is it not, sir?" asked King Roger II of Sicily, lifting his blond-bearded head and gazing round him in the summer morning.
"It is indeed," answered Idrisi, his Arab geographer, a shorter man with a swarthy skin, but nonetheless noble, descended from African caliphs and princes of Malaga. "And especially your capital here, known for its elegance. Palermo turns the heads of all who see it."
The two men stood together on a rocky hill in the Cassaro, the walled inner city, and gazed over the roofs and towers below them to the shimmering plains and far-off foothills wooded with cypress, chestnut and stone pine. Close around the Cassaro circled the outer city, also walled. Beyond lay the villages and market gardens providing all manner of succulent food—corn, melons, tomatoes, celery, onions, cucumbers, herbs and salad greens unknown in Europe, come from the Old East, as Idrisi's people had come. The Muslims, too, had devised the system of narrow canals for irrigation, the tall tapering giarre or water towers standing up everywhere. Beyond the villages stretched broad arable lands, criss-crossed with little rivers. Great fish swam in these rivers, both men knew, and mills rose along their banks. Windmills spread their arms above wide wheat fields. As in Muslim times, this island just to the south of Italy waxed rich in the Mediterranean.
quote: Muslim interest in Sicily goes back to the very threshold of Islamic history. The first military expedition against the island took place during the caliphate of 'Uthman, only 20 years after the death of the Prophet, Muhammad, when Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria, sent a naval expedition. This was an extension of the battles that were taking place in the east, where the most formidable enemy the Muslims faced was the Byzantine empire. Sicily was a Byzantine province and from its strategic location in the Mediterranean the Byzantines were able to control shipping and launch naval attacks against the coastal cities of the Muslim Levant and North Africa.
Through the years, many efforts were made by the Muslims to invade Sicily, but it was not until June of 827 that they finally obtained a foothold by taking Mazara on the western end of the island.
The first certain record of noodles cooked by boiling is in the Jerusalem Talmud, written in Aramaic in the 5th century AD. The word used for the noodles was itriyah. In Arabic references this word stands for the dried noodles purchased from a vendor, rather than homemade noodles which would have been fresh. Dried noodles are portable, while fresh must be eaten immediately. More than likely, pasta was introduced during the Arab conquests of Sicily, carried in as a dry staple. The Arab geographer, Al Idrisi wrote that a flour-based product in the shape of strings was produced in Palermo, then an Arab colony.
Some historians think the Sicilian word "maccaruni" which translates as "made into a dough by force" is the origin of our word, macaroni. Anyone who has kneaded durum wheat knows that force is necessary.
quote: Fresh pasta is dough made of flour and water and is present in most cultures and on all continents. Dry pasta began in Italy and embarked from there to conquer the world. People have attributed Marco Polo with having introduced spaghetti to Italy from China, but that is incorrect. Mediterranean people even before the Romans knew fresh pasta, and dry pasta was unknown to the Chinese.
Dried pasta was familiar in the Mediterranean area in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and also was mentioned in Genovese documents. The first traces of dry pasta in Europe came from Sicily, where documents of the twelfth century tell of something like a factory of dry pasta, localized in the area of Palermo. From this site the pasta (called itrjia) was then exported to other regions of southern Italy.
Genovese sailors were among the most active traders within the Mediterranean. It is not surprising that in the thirteenth century Genova became trader, and then fabricator, of dry pasta, spreading it to many other countries — which led to this pasta gaining the name Genovese.
The oldest macaroni recipes found are from Sicily: macaroni with eggplant (eggplant was introduced by the Arabs in Sicily around the year 1000 from India) and macaroni with sardines. Both these delicious dishes are still present today in Sicilian cooking.
quote: Like so much of southern Italian life, the Arab invasions of the 8th century heavily influenced the regional cuisine and is the most accepted theory for the introduction of pasta. The dried noodle-like product they introduced to Sicily is most likely the origins of dried pasta and was being produced in great quantities in Palermo at this time. The modern word "macaroni" derives from the Sicilian term for making dough forcefully, as early pasta making was often a laborious daylong process. How it was served is not truly known but many Sicilian pasta recipes still include other Arab gastronomic introductions such as raisins and spices like cinnamon. This early pasta was an ideal staple for Sicily and it easily spread to the mainland since durum wheat thrives in Italy's climate. Italy is still a major producer of this hard wheat, used to make the all-important semolina flour.
quote: In the anonymous thirteenth-century Hispano-Muslim cookbook Kitab al-tabikh fi al- Maghrib wa’l-Andalus, we find some of the earliest references to macaroni. We are told that there are three ways of making it. It can be "made round like a coriander seed," "thin with the thinness of kaghit [sheet of paper] and which is woman’s food," and "lengthened in the mode of wheat" [fidawsh, vermicelli].46 The coriander seed-type appears to be a form of pasta secca, called maccarone in fifteenth century Sicily, that later became known as maghribiyya in Syria, also known as the name of a dish, and the muhammas of Tunisia and the burkukis of Algeria. The one with the thinness of kaghit sounds much like lasagne. "It is cooked with zucchini, aromatics and fat; and then there is the kind like qataif [sic]." This qataif is the qata’if mentioned above, a kind of pastry made from both soft and hard wheat and almond oil. Interestingly, the Kitab al-tabikh instructs the cook to cook fidawsh in the same manner as you would macaroni (itriya). From the word al-fidawsh came the Spanish word for spaghetti, fideos, as well as similar words in other Iberian and northern Italian dialects.47 The Kitab al-tabikh gives a recipe for macaroni:
Note: while many of these sites mention pasta originating among "arabs" from North Africa, it is possible that these were Arabic speaking peoples from Africa, not Arabia or the Levant. Egypt is one of the oldest centers of Wheat cultivation and it is quite possible that dried pasta originates with wheat flour mixed with water and formed into balls or rolls and dried for storage. This dried "paste" could then be boiled later to produce a pasta like noodle for soup etc.
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
Actually, wheat was introduced into Egypt from either the Levant or Mesopotamia. The wheat known today was not introduced into Egypt untill the Greco-Roman period.
I have seen little evidence of dried pasta in ancient Egypt but ancient northern Africans have cous-cous. I believe cous-cous is indgenous to northern Africa.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
I didnt say Egypt was the first, but that it is one of the oldest. If any sort of pasta did exist it was probably like a dumpling of some sort. The pasta that arrived in Spain probably came from Muslim contacts with China prior to Marco Polo. So while the Muslims first introduced it to Europe, the Chinese were probably the first to invent pasta as we know it.
Egyptians were credited with first discovering leavened bread using wheat flour almost 4,000 yrs. Ago. Of the grains used by the Egyptians, only wheat flour had the potential to produce a leavened bread (rye was unknown to the ancient Egyptians). At the time grains were parched or roasted in fire prior to threshing. The application of heat to the grains made the glumes easy to remove but also changed the gluten, making it inelastic and unable to trap CO2. The resulting meal produced only flat breads. It wasn’t until a new free-threshing form of wheat was discovered that bread could be leavened. It’s assumed that the yeast, perhaps from the air or maybe from some beer added for flavoring, was accidentally introduced into a dough prepared from these unparched grains. If the dough was set aside for a time before baking, it would rise and so produce a lighter, tastier bread.
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Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
More on African traditions of horsemanship and regalia:
http://www.ontheglobe.com/photos/nigeria/nigeria6.htm Various variations on this can be seen from Africa to India among muslims, but the traditions of horsemanship was already old in Africa and India prior to this. Note that the horseblankets and regalia are not much different than those seen onthe walls of Egypt. The crossed bandolier pattern is something also seen on the walls of ancient Egypt on archers and some soldiers.
Durbar is just another name for festival of which many can be found all over Africa, with roots that stretch beyond Islamic times.
This tradition of colorful heraldry and custom and horsemanship went on to influence the European tradition through the black African Armies among the Moors.
quote: Another spectacular sight is the Durbar in Kano - traditionally held in February. Nowadays there are two Durbar celebrations (the main and the lesser Dubar). They're a culmination of the two Muslim festivals Id el Fitri and Id el Kabir.
The original Durbar dates back hundreds of years to the time when the Emirate (state) in the north used horses in warfare. During this period, each town, district, and nobility household was expected to contribute a regiment to the defense of the Emirate. Once or twice a year, the Emirate military chiefs invited the various regiments for a Durbar (military parade) before the Emir of Kano and his chiefs.
During the parade, regiments would showcase their horsemanship, their preparedness for war, and their loyalty to the Emirate.
These days the day begins with prayers outside town, followed by processions of horsemen to the public square in front of the Emir’s palace, where each village group, district, and noble house take their assigned place. Last to arrive is the Emir and his splendid retinue; they take up their place in front of the palace to receive the jahi, or homage, of their subjects.
The festival begins with each group racing across the square at full gallop, swords glinting in the sun. They pass just few feet away from the Emir, then stop abruptly to salute him with raised swords. It can be scary watching them charging forward with their spears but somehow they manage to stop. The last and most fierce riders are the Emir’s household and regimental guards, the Dogari. The Emir then heads a procession of the ruling families (there's a pecking order and each family have their own recognizable clothing and historic regalia) around Kano town and back to the Old city to his palace. The fanfare is intensified by drumming, dancing and singing, with small bands of Fulanis performing Shadi.
It is an obligation for all chiefs, district heads and lesser rulers to take part in the event. It takes days for many of them to travel by road to Kano with their families and guards. They don't have horse-boxes (nowadays the older men travel in cars leaving the younger one to bring the horses). Lamido took part in the event well into his 80's. He was about 6'4" and during the parade he was very distinctive because he was seated noticably taller on his horse.
Lamido once showed me the boxes where he kept the traditional regalia for the family and the royal horses. It was one of those awe-inspiring moments to see old gold & bronze footwear, spears and chain-mail garments. They were so heavy. It was like looking at items going back to the Crusades. He had no idea how old they were and was bemused when I mentioned their historical value to museums. Some of my questions were answered in sort of stories - it was difficult to talk to him at the best of times because he spoke Fulfulde in the village so we needed a translator - The people are Fulanis and have their own language.
This one is interesting: http://www.abcdelacpa.com/8457.jpg (heaz da king! gets yo swag on! Bow and gives him de props!) But otherwise, note what looks like the number of black African troops in the army and royal guard of this time.
Interesting notes on the relationship between France and Morocco: (Morocco has been variously allied with different European countries, which many say is the reason it has never really been conquered by Europeans)
quote: Morocco has been French only since 1912. Before that, for eleven centuries, it had been a free and sovereign state since the time when a dissident leader of the all-conquering Arabs declared his independence of faraway Baghdad in the 8th century. For centuries, rulers alternated between Arab dynasties and the indigenous Berbers. The empire waxed and waned but was never conquered. While medieval Europe fought and languished, the university of Fez gathered scholars from all over the known world. The Moorish empire reached into Spain, building aqueducts, huge irrigation systems, and the great Alhambra at Granada. The present Sultan is of a dynasty founded in 1660, claims direct descent from the Prophet's only daughter, Fatima. This gives him baraka, the spiritual quality that makes it lucky just to kiss his garments and gives him special title to spiritual (as well as temporal) leadership of his people.
The French Presence. France grabbed Morocco from the weak Sultan Moulay Habid in that grand African divvy on the eve of World War I in which Britain got a free hand in Egypt, Spain a piece of northwest Morocco, and Germany a slice of Africa south of the Sahara.
As first governor of its new protectorate, the French sent the revered Marshal Louis Hubert Lyautey to Morocco. Lyautey's policy: "Do not offend a single tradition or change a single habit." He ordered French towns built alongside but separate from the Moroccan towns, put all mosques off limits to unbelievers, and met the Moroccans as friendly equals. When he sent the Foreign Legion to subdue rebellious chiefs, he warned his commanders: "Always show your force in order to avoid using it. Never enter a village without thinking that the market must be opened the next day."
Paris was not for long content with such enlightened methods. Frenchmen poured into Morocco, grabbed up the best farmland with the help of laws dedicated to "extending the French presence," and allowing French farmers to pay 20% less tax than a Moroccan. They displaced the Moroccan administrators. They dug mines, made Morocco the world's second in production of phosphate, fifth in manganese, seventh in lead. They built roads and railroads, power plants and dams, constructed ports (Casablanca handles more tonnage than Marseille). They built 133 hospitals, at one time boasted they were opening a school a day. But the roads mostly went to French farms or French factories, the schools were chiefly for French children. Even now, only one in five Moroccan children goes to school; and in the 44 years of the protectorate, only an average of eleven Moroccans a year completed a pre-university education.
As a result, 875 Moroccan physicians are French, only 19 Moslem; there are 350 French lawyers, only 27 Moslem. The French lived in Morocco as in a good hotel, and luxurious apartment houses overlooked squalid bidonvilles where Arab laborers crowded into shacks roofed over with flattened gasoline tins.
quote: Mohammed began collecting guns, race horses, and fast cars which he drove himself (he once drove a Bugatti 55 miles from Rabat to Casablanca in 32 minutes). He kept a reported 40 concubines, frequently adding fresh ones and sending faded beauties off to a convent. The French encouraged such distractions from more serious affairs of state (though later, to discredit him, they spread the word that he dealt savagely with servants who seduced some of his concubines, had one whipped to death). He exercised fully the Sultan's traditional right to exact gifts from his subjects, and the saying was that for the Moroccans, there were three possible catastrophes : drought, locusts, and a visit from the Sultan. Once he called on a minor caid and remarked pointedly on the caid's china, saying: "This is a tea set fit for a king." The cups were in the king's luggage when he departed.
And how the French tried to use divide and conquer tactics on the country:
quote: "Morocco Must Realize." After the war, France sent tough Marshal Alphonse Juin to put the now restless Moroccans in their place. Juin began by arresting scores of Istiqlal (Independence) leaders, announced: "Morocco must realize that at the end of its evolution it will remain tied to France." The Sultan retaliated by always meeting Juin unshaven and by committing himself wholeheartedly to the Istiqlal, smuggling leaders into the palace, sometimes in trucks delivering groceries. In the classic divide-and-conquer style. Juin assiduously cultivated the antagonism of the mountain Berbers for the urban Arabs. He made a special ally of rich old El Glaoui, Pasha of Marrakech, who claimed to command some 300,000 fighting Berbers.
Whenever the Sultan showed signs of obduracy. El Glaoui would summon Berber horsemen down from the hills to surround the Arab towns in ragged but menacing array. In 1951, Juin forced a showdown, demanding that the Sultan condemn the Istiqlal and fire all nationalists from the government. Berber horsemen headed for Rabat, and Juin had a plane waiting at the airport to carry Mohammed V to exile if he balked. Glumly, Mohammed V capitulated; he denounced "violence," but he refused to condemn the Istiqlal. To Juin, it was clear that Mohammed would have to go.
One day in the spring of 1953, old El Glaoui got into his Cadillac, began rounding up signatures demanding the Sultan's abdication. The Glaoui was armed with a photograph of the Sultan's lissome daughter Aisha in a one-piece bathing suit. How could Mohammed be Imam to his people when he allowed his daughter to expose herself in public, offending every right-thinking Moslem? Urged on by the French, back-country chiefs signed up, until El Glaoui had the signatures of 311 of Morocco's 323 caids. In a matter of days a crestfallen Sidi Mohammed was bundled onto a plane with his two wives, five children, and assorted veiled ladies of the court for exile in Corsica. El Glaoui briskly produced his replacement as Sultan—goateed Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa, a timid cousin of Sidi Mohammed's.
The Terror. Exile consolidated Mohammed's place in the hearts of his people as his presence never had (a process which the British seem doomed to repeat in Cyprus with Archbishop Makarios). Moroccan women began to see Mohammed's face in the full moon. Imams refused to say prayers in Cousin Moulay Arafa's name. The French did their best to discredit Mohammed, releasing a flood of stories of alleged collaboration with the Nazis, and hustled him even farther away, to Madagascar. Back in Morocco, anger swelled, and terrorism began. Trains were derailed, warehouses fired, boycotts of French goods organized. It became virtually a death sentence for an Arab to be caught smoking a French cigarette.
The French reacted with brutal ratissages, in which thousands of Moroccans were savagely beaten with clubs in the search for a handful of terrorists. Moroccans were thrown in jail simply for shouting the Sultan's name. French colons launched counterterror, shooting down Frenchmen suspected of sympathy with Moroccan aspirations.
The end came in a welter of blood in Morocco and political chaos in Paris. The Berbers rebelled against El Glaoui and his stooge Sultan, went on a major uprising in the Atlas Mountains. The last straw for the French came when El Glaoui himself drove into Rabat in his black Bentley and blandly declared: "I identify myself with the wish of the Moroccan nation for a prompt restoration of Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef."
Mohammed V was brought back from Madagascar to France. The throne council which was supposed to replace him flew to Paris to pledge their allegiance. So did scores of Moroccan chiefs and notables. Sycophant El Glaoui humbly prostrated himself before Mohammed, kissed his monarch's feet and begged forgiveness. Suddenly anxious to please. Foreign Minister Antoine Pinay agreed not only that Mohammed should return to the throne, but that France would help Morocco to "achieve the status of an independent state, united to France by the permanent ties of an interdependence freely accepted and defined." Pinay even agreed that the terms of "interdependence" could be negotiated later (they are still unsettled). Grumbled one unreconstructed colon: "The Sultan asked for a cup of water and Pinay gave him the ocean."
The Triumph. Mohammed returned to Morocco in triumph. All Morocco went on a week-long celebration. Berbers staged feasts in crenelated mud-walled casbahs. In the cities Arabs paraded with flags and portraits of the Sultan. In factories and mines, work stopped. In the hills, guerrillas calling themselves the National Liberation Army looted French plantations, murdered rich Moroccan farmers who had sided with the French. In the subsequent panic, thousands of Frenchmen packed up and fled to France, taking with them capital roughly equivalent to Morocco's whole annual budget.
Well aware that Morocco needs French capital, Mohammed V reacted with typically shrewd sense. He appointed 27-year-old Prince Moulay Hassan commander of the Royal Moroccan Army (trained and equipped by the French), and sent him out to disband the Liberation Army by swearing its men into the Sultan's own force. Steely-nerved Moulay Hassan had soon sworn in some 5,000 irregulars, sent the rest home except for some holdouts mostly in the deep south. The Sultan himself toured all Morocco, traveling in a huge caravan and camping in tents on the plains. Talking to crowds of 100,000 at a time, Mohammed V drummed home his message that independence was not an end in itself, that the new nation must go back to work if it wanted new schools, roads, houses. Morocco needed the French, and Mohammed V indulged in no rabble-rousing rhetoric about "expelling the oppressors." He called for the "creation of democratic institutions resulting from free elections . . . within the framework of a constitutional monarchy."
Until democracy can be established (municipal elections are scheduled this fall, provincial elections the following year for an assembly which will write a constitution), Mohammed is still conducting an autocratic reign, with the help of a Cabinet which he appoints and a 76-man consultative assembly which he selects. Out of a palace budget of $4,000,000, the Sultan maintains a yoman "Black Guard" and their 300 horses, keeps 35 cars ranging from a Rolls Royce to a jeep, and big villas and staffs for his two sons and the three elder daughters. Apple of her father's eye is three-year-old Lalla Amina, daughter of the Sultan's second wife, who can break up any council of state by dashing in and flinging herself into her father's arms.
Although one wing of the rambling Rabat palace is still called "the harem," its inhabitants are mostly poor relatives or aging concubines left over from his father's regime. Court attendants are now referred to as "ladies in waiting." Explains one Moroccan: "The word concubine is outmoded."
In a normal day, Mohammed V rises at 6, dresses himself in slacks and sports jacket, climbs into one of his sports cars, and drives into Rabat to look around. He is a confirmed sidewalk superintendent, often stops to watch workmen putting up a new building. Audiences take up most of the rest of the morning. In the afternoon, the Sultan confers with Premier Si M'Barek ben Mustapha el Bekkai, a onetime lieutenant colonel in the French cavalry who lost a leg in the Ardennes. After dinner, the Sultan usually works until midnight, often dealing with the affairs of his personal fortune, which is estimated to run into several millions.
Nearly all of Morocco's problems stem from its relations with France, and Morocco's man of balances has the delicate task of steering between the intemperate demands of Arab nationalists and the soberer counsel of those who recognize that France still has a considerable hold on Morocco's purse strings. The dominant Moroccan political force, stoutly behind Mohammed V, is still the Istiqlal, a party whose leadership is largely intellectual, membership mostly trade unionist. But one of Mohammed's problems is how to balance its laicist modernists against the conservative religionists of the medinas and the rural areas. Chief of the Istiqlal, and probably the most popular man in Morocco after the Sultan himself, is Allal el Fassi, a fire-breathing orator who spent nine years in exile, mostly in Cairo.
Waiting for Money. After Morocco got its independence, the economy staggered under the flight of French capital. Industries have slowed down, the tourist trade has fallen off. By unhappy coincidence, drought has parched the fields, and a slim harvest means hunger, discontent, and a flight from the starving countryside into the already bursting bidonvilles. Morocco is also confronted with the need of developing its own administrators, technicians and civil servants (the government's daily business is still conducted by some 11,000 Frenchmen). A crash educational program has been devised: private houses converted into schools, teachers drafted, and any Moroccan with a good education is asked to teach 20 others what he has learned. The Ministry of Education has blueprinted a plan to put every Moroccan child into school within five years, at a cost of $160 million. When does the program start? "When we get the money," shrugs an education official. The money can come only from France.
(Some of these links require http in front since they contain parenthesis in the URL.) Mostly false color images, which obviously arent always 100% accurate.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
(On a side note, djerma also refers to a breed of North African horses that partly descends from a breed of horses called dongola from Sudan. Another testament to the spread of Nilotic African traditions, customs and culture from East to West in Africa.) http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/djerma/index.htm
On a separate note, here is some interesting info I ran into about the Sallee Rovers, a group of Corsairs from Morocco/Algeria:
quote: There never was, nor ever can be again, such a perfect example of a confederation of the brethren of the sea as that of the Pirate Republic of Bou Regreg. Rabat and Sale were the twin cities at the heart of this Republic. They were both guarded by medieval walls that had been greatly reinforced by artillery fortresses dug into the outlying cliffs that overlook the dark, muddy waters of the Bou Regreg estuary from the north and the south banks. Submerged rocks, a line of forbidding cliffs, Atlantic reefs and a sand bar at the mouth of the tidal Bou Regreg made the estuary waters a very safe harbour.
The Sallee Rovers did not just restrict their operations to the capture of shipping but took the war into the lands of the enemy; landing raiding parties that returned with captives. Their notoriety as white slavers reached a crescendo in the mid 17th century England when a series of daring slave raids seized captives from St Micheals Mount in Cornwall and Baltimore in south-west Ireland as well as intercepting the cod fishing fleet off Iceland. The boasting verses in Rule Britannia about Britons never shall be slaves could certainly not have been written in those years. It has been calculated that in this period that there were more Britons labouring away as slaves and concubines in North Africa than as settlers in all of the colonies of North America put together.
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