The north western slave port at Goree Island, Senegal was only one of several points of departure for Africans being taken to the United States. There were other points as well, stretching as far southward as the present state of Angola. These ports of departure were used for transporting Africans from the African interior - a vast interior. Thus, the ethnic origin of African Americans includes, but is not limited to, the following African peoples:
(Names in bold identify ethnic groups whose origins can be traced back, without doubt, to the Nile Valley civilizations)
Northwest Africa to the Gulf of Guinea; Mossi, Senufo, Mande, Fulani, Toubou, Fulbe, Sara, Moussei, Massa, Wolof, Akan, Ewe, Mandinga, Songhai, Tuareg, Moor, Hausa, Yoruba, Ibo, Kanuri, Ibibio, Tiv, Ijaw...
In everything, there is both positive as well as negative elements. One of the positive elements of the African slave trade to the United States, was that it created the first contemporary Pan-African ethnic group; a group with a common language and culture and separated only by class distinctions. To their credit, African Americans, despite the insidious European labeling of some African Americans as 'mulattoes,' 'quadroons,' etc., clearly rejected the caste system that was adopted in Haiti or Jamaica (or South Africa) for example. Marcus Garvey, when he first brought his movement from Jamaica, found this out the hard way, when he tried to use this caste distinction from Jamaica in the USA vis-a-vis WEB DuBois.To Garvey's credit, he quickly adjusted his thinking to this African American ideology of a caste-free community.
African Americans have the unique distinction of being historically-genetically related to a vast majority of African ethnic-linguistic groups. In this sense, the African American identification to all African cultures is not merely a philosophical one, as in the case of a European Swede identifying with a European ancient Greece.
The African Americans' identification with all African cultures, including and especially, the ancient Nile valley cultures, is both historically and genetically authentic and valid. It has nothing at all to do with what one chooses to believe ...
However, most confused individuals, seem to want to put Africans into neat little rigid compartments as if Africans (indeed all humans) are not a mobile group of peoples, rather than accept the historical reality that western Africans have moved to the east; eastern Africans have moved both westward and southward. The Ancient Egyptians originated, like most Africans, in the regions of the Great Lakes; how did they end up so far north? The Batutsi of Rwanda and Burundi did not always inhabit those territories. When the Europeans began to settle in the area of south Africa, the Bantu migrations were still pushing southwards... This approach to African history; of stagnant ethnicites, and of non-migrations is not only simplistic and immature, it is completely wrong. Human civilization is one continuous and collective historical process, where no one people, in isolation, creates a culture, unaware of the knowledge developed by others.
If I were engaged in a paternity suit and I wanted to determine whether or not the child was mine, I would demand a DNA test. But, there is NO DNA test that can tell me the extent and the individuality of all of my African (and non-African) ancestors:
Prior to DNA, blood tests were a less reliable indicator of parantage, but useful. Blood tests also showed that West Africans and Upper Egyptians had the same blood types; but neither blood tests nor DNA can tell me, or anyone else the various peoples that came together to generate me!
If I were to trace my ancestry to "Kunta Kente" in the region that is now within the country of Senegal, I would not be so naive as to believe that he is my "Adam" but merely only one of them; this reality/objective truth seems to go over a lot of folks' head...
(Aside Note: I also recall reading an old anthropological text in the stacks of the library which gave the ancestral lineages of mostly European groups, and was astounded to find that much of the ancestry of the German nationality was Asian, mostly hun (and hence the offensive term for a German - Kraut); and this was written long before DNA research! I don't think it was a book by Ashley Montagu, but maybe it was, but a prominent anthropologist from the 1950's; there's a wealth of info in the old texts. But, I have read a lot of books, so I'm not sure of the source for this... )
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:But, there is NO DNA test that can tell me the extent and the individuality of all of my African (and non-African) ancestors:
Prior to DNA, blood tests were a less reliable indicator of parantage, but useful.
Good thread.
However it's illogical to question the utility of DNA, while asserting the usefulness of ABO blood tests.
It's like claiming that a crude magnifying lenses is useful for astronomy [observation of the planets and stars], and then questioning the value of a space telescope [like Hubble], which is in fact a million times more powerful and accurate than a magnifying lense.
Genetics is a vital tool for understanding geneology.
Choosing to ignore it, is a mistake.
It will lead to a fundamental disjunction between facts which can be proven, and false ideas, asserted [pseudoscientifically] and which fly in the face of the facts.
I will remind you of a practical and pertinent example.
The Tutsi can be shown to have a genetic profile, essentially similar to other West and Central Africans, and *not* East African.
This is consistant with the origins of their language and their cattle.
In fact there is no evidence of any kind to support the myth that these people come from Ethiopia - a myth created by Europeans, and based on the Tutsi physical appearance, and nothing more. A myth contradicting by much practical observation - how would conquering Ethiopian 'hamites' lose their Ethiopian language, even their Ethiopians words for cattle, and replace it with a Bantu language?
Yet you assert as emperical evidence of Tutsi origin the Hollywood movie - King Solomons Mines, which is completely fictitious. Meanwhile you are forced to ignore genetic evidence, which debunks this myth
This is not a serious approach to history and is in fact both condescending and anti-intellectual.
It a preference for fantasy over fact.
This the 21st century.
There is no excuse for not understanding modern geneology.
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rasol, This topic is neither about DNA or the origins of the Tutsi (used here as examples only of human migrations). It is about the origins of African-Americans and how it is almost absolutely positive that much of the ancestry of African Americans is Nilotic or Nile valley... For example, C.A. Diop, who was a "Marxist" (IE, he used the African method of knowledge) viewed history as a process, and in explaining the origins of his own ethnic group he pointed out a settlement of Wolof in Ancient Egypt and he also traced their migration patterns through the Sudan, citing certain linguistic examples; while others have also traced their history (the Wolof) further across the northern Sahara/Sahel where they ended up today in Senegal, where many of them were transported from Senegambia to my home state of Louisiana: folks in Lousiana have a LOT of Wolof ancestry and customs (don't think so, read some books on Louisiana)...
(Aside Note: Not only are the Tutsi migrant Africans from Ethiopia, but came originally from Kemet. Again, to see this starkly you have to rely on "outdated" sources; a) a photo, which I recently saw again in a window of a Jamaican restaurant, of a Tutsi princess, whose hair style was shaped in the exact manner of the famous crown worn by Nefertiti
b)a recorded album of Tutsi music where there are pictures of a Tutsi musician playing the exact same instrument and dressed in the exact same clothes as that found on the walls of Kemet.
c) The movie King Solomon's Mines was merely reflecting what was already known; the origins of the Tutsi, which if taken further could have also explained the origins of the Yoruba, Wolof, and I seriously believe the Akan as well...
Diop was correct! Kemet was a federation of the collective peoples of Africa, who concentrated themselves in the Nile Valley and who created the first, and perhaps the greatest human cultures ever...
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: It is about the origins of African-Americans and how it is almost absolutely positive that much of the ancestry of African Americans is Nilotic or Nile valley...
But it isn't positive just because you -say- it is so.
You have to provide substantial objective proof.
The tenor of your thread, suggested that genetics can be pre-emtively disregraded if it does not support this prior conviction.
That isn't soundly reasoned thru imho.
quote: C.A. Diop, who was a "Marxist" (IE, he used the African method of knowledge) viewed history as a process, and in explaining the origins of his own ethnic group he pointed out a settlement of Wolof in Ancient Egypt and he also traced their migration patterns through the Sudan, citing certain linguistic examples
I don't recall Diop citing a settlement of Wolof per se in Dynastic Kemet. Can you provide the citation?
However I do recall his suggestion that post the fall of Native Nile Valley Civilisation, Africans fanned out from the Nile Valley elsewhere.
While I think, that in the main, West Africans are descendant from saharans who moved Westwards during the Holocene, where they split from East Africans, long before Dynastic Kemet.
It is also a fact that Wolof and some other West Africans have some East African Ancestry [E3b1/M1] which must post date the original East/West split.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote: Not only are the Tutsi migrant Africans from Ethiopia, but came originally from Kemet.
This statement is false.
Please provide proof for this claim, or stop making it.
quote: Again, to see this starkly you have to rely on "outdated" sources; a) a photo, which I recently saw again in a window of a Jamaican restaurant, of a Tutsi princess, whose hair style was shaped in the exact manner of the famous crown worn by Nefertiti
^ This suggests that African women sometimes have similar hair-styles. I does not prove that Tutsi come from Egypt. It's like saying that Angela Davis has the same hairstyle as Queen Tiye,
....so somehow proving that Angela Davis African ancestors come from Egypt. It's a completely prepostrous leap of ill-logic.
quote: b)a recorded album of Tutsi music where there are pictures of a Tutsi musician playing the exact same instrument and dressed in the exact same clothes as that found on the walls of Kemet.
This doesn't prove what you claim either, however it is interesting. Can you show us this evidence?
quote: c) The movie King Solomon's Mines was merely reflecting what was already known; the origins of the Tutsi,
King Solomon's mines is a racist Hollywood movie, filmed mostly in Kenya actually, not Rwanda and it is completely mystifying to me, that you would cite it as proof of anything.
It is no more accurate a portrayal of Africa than Tarzan or the 10 Commandments.
quote:Diop was correct! Kemet was a federation of the collective peoples of Africa,
Yes, but it was also a particular Nation and culture.
Not all African cultures originate in dynastic Kemet.
Africa has many great cultures. No need to contrive of it as a monolith.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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^ One of the reasons it's important to correct errors borne of repettition of Eurocentric mythical origins of African people is that it has proven to be so poisonous among Africans:
. The radio is said to have the backing of ex-Forces Arm es Rwandaises (FAR), ex-Forces Arm es Zairoises (FAZ) and the Hutu Interahamwe militia. It tells ‘the Bantu brothers’ to 'rise as one’ to combat the Tutsi described as 'Ethiopians and Egyptians' who do not belong in the region."
^ The infuriating thing about this lie, is that it has has absolutely *no native basis* in Africa, and is in fact completely European in origin.
Yet people who consider themselves to be diasporan Africans lazily repeat it, oblivious to [and *safe* from] the practical consequence of fostering these deadly lies.
The national myth has it that both the Hutus and Tutsis came from elsewhere, the Twa (pygmy) people being the original inhabitants. The Hutu are believed to be Bantu people from the south and west, the Tutsis Nilotic people from the north. This would mean in racial terms that the Hutu are 'Black Africans,' while the Tutsi are of 'Ethiopian' stock: with lighter skin, narrower noses and chins, and 'better' hair. Before the Europeans came this didn't matter much. They lived together, married each other, spoke the same language, shared the same religion, and shared power. The fact that the Tutsis tended to be herders (Cain) and the Hutu cultivators (Abel) took on increasing importance during the colonial period. Cattle are valued highly, and Tutsis had become economic and political elites, but social stratification intensified greatly in the mid-1800's, as the entire continent was converted into the machine that cranked out the energy for European capitalism. Until the Germans and the Belgians, the society was porous, and ethnicity was not the only factor that figured into social status and social power.
"You can't tell us apart," Laurent Nkongoli, the portly vice president of the National Assembly, told me, "We can't tell us apart. I was on a bus in the north once and because I was in the north where they"-Hutus-"were, and because I ate corn, which they eat, they said, 'He's one of us.' But I'm a Tutsi from Bugare in the south.' (50)
But when the Europeans came at the end of the 19th century, "they formed a picture of a stately race of warrior kings, surrounded by herds of long-horned cattle and a subordinate race of short, dark peasants, hoeing tubers and picking bananas. The white men assumed that this was the tradition of the place, and they thought it a natural arrangement." (50) The whites saw through the lens of 'scientific racism' what they wanted and expected to see. Of course, the Africans who most resembled them would be seen as superior, and accordingly the Tutsi were cultivated as their 'pet Africans,' forming the bureaucratic and security ranks of the colonial government. This was business as usual for the colonial rulers in Africa, a most successful divide-and-conquer strategy. Upon independence, when the Hutu majority took control, this history was used again and again to justify the murder of Tutsis. The ferocity that shocked the world in 1994 must be seen in no small part as an expression of historical rage against 'the Hamitic hypothesis' that relegated dark-skinned blacks to the bottom of the evolutionary ladder, and thus to the oppressed underclass in every colonized African country. Africa Speaks!Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Unfortunately, there are very few images on traditional Tutsi culture; the only images usually available has to do with the wars in Rwanda and Burundi.
I wish that I could illustrate the picture of the Tutsi princess here in order to show you how empty your argument is about comparing Angela Davis' afro to that worn by Tiye; the Tutsi princesses' hairdo is an exact replica of the crown worn by Nefertiti...
Calling King Solomon's Mines a 'racist' movie has little to do with the illustration of the evidence provided in the referenced segment of the movie...
quote: Rwanda Official name: Republic of Rwanda Independence from Germany/Belgium: 1962
The region was first colonized by the Hutu in the fourteenth century. The subsequent arrival of the Tutsi in the fifteenth century resulted in a Tutsi lord/Hutu serf society. This Tutsi domination was reinforced by German and Belgian colonization from 1890. Since independence in 1962 continued violence has erupted between the two factions. (from About.com:African History
The Egyptian Origin of the Wolof...
quote: African Relatives
"According to the late Cheikh Anta Diop, the great Senegalese historian and anthropologist, the main groups of people in Senegambia have their origins in Ancient Egypt. To support his theory, Diop draws on a number of disciplines from archaeology to linguistics, and a variety of sources from African oral traditions to the writings of Greeks and Arabs." Insight Guides: The Gambia and Senegal, 1996 APA Publications (HK) Ltd, Houghton Mifflin Company
You are so dogmatic about the interpretation of the Tutsi and similar Africans as given by the Eurocentrics, (because the Eurocentrics claimed they looked like them! - there is NOTHING European looking about the Tutsi; rather it would seem that it is probably a source of the mutated European type...) you are blind to the reality that these "Hamites" are no less Black Africans than the rest of Black Africa, indeed if we just show a sample of the Black physical types in Ethiopia we will see that the Ethiopian peoples in a true sense are indicative of the populations of Kemet; all of the Kememou did not resemble the Tutsi people:
Hamer people
Mursi People
Konso People
Majority Oromo people; here, the Borana People
--What is the term 'Elongated African' means except to avoid using 'Hamitic?' :Africoid is a Euphemism for 'Negroid'
But I had wanted to stay on the subject of African American and Ancient Egyptians...
also Diop is correct that Black Africans formed a cluster of peoples in the Ancient Nile Valley, all of whom would be the ancestors of African Americans...
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Wally: Unfortunately, there are very few images on traditional Tutsi culture; the only images usually available has to do with the wars in Rwanda and Burundi.
This is exactly why it makes no sense to make claims about their origins - based upon selective anicedotal 'evidence', or worse....Hollywood movies.
If Europeans hadn't decided to claim the Tutsi were more related to them, [hamites] because they liked the way the Tutsi looked....we wouldn't be having this conversation, since there is NO EVIDENCE that the Tutsi themselves ever made any such claims, prior to European hamite propaganda.
Wally, you should study modern bioanthropology,
not this garbage....
^ This is *not* evidence.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:"According to the late Cheikh Anta Diop, the great Senegalese historian and anthropologist, the main groups of people in Senegambia have their origins in Ancient Egypt. To support his theory, Diop draws on a number of disciplines from archaeology to linguistics, and a variety of sources from African oral traditions to the writings of Greeks and Arabs." Insight Guides: The Gambia and Senegal, 1996 APA Publications (HK) Ltd, Houghton Mifflin Company "
^ ??
Pertains to...
quote:Wally: .A. Diop, who was a "Marxist" (IE, he used the African method of knowledge) viewed history as a process, and in explaining the origins of his own ethnic group he pointed out a settlement of Wolof in Ancient Egypt and he also traced their migration patterns through the Sudan, citing certain linguistic examples.
quote:rasol: I don't recall Diop citing a settlement of Wolof per se in Dynastic Kemet. Can you provide the citation?
I don't see how your citation supports.... he pointed out a settlement of Wolof in Ancient Egypt.
It is still not clear to me that Diop ever said this, or produced evidence of it.
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quote:Calling King Solomon's Mines a 'racist' movie has little to do with the illustration of the evidence provided in the referenced segment of the movie...
The exchange sited in your link is fictional dialogue - written by Henry Rider Haggard, and Helen Deutsch.
I am honestly amazed by your naivety in mistaking their made up story with some kind of *anthropological evidence* (??)
Honestly, it cheapens your website and opens you up for ridicule. You should remove it, if you wish to maintain a scholarly atmosphere.
quote:; rather it would seem that it is probably a source of the mutated European type...
^ Ignores genetics, then makes up his own pseudo-genetic constructs.
There is no such thing as a mutated european type.
Tutsi are not ancestral to Europeans.
You have no sources for any of this nonsense.
You're desparate and making stuff up.
I asked you for evidence of Tutsi origin in Ethiopia.
You have none. case closedPosts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:You are blind to the reality that these "Hamites"
Here is the reality:
Hamitic is an obsolete ethno-linguistic classification of some ethnic groups within the Afroasiatic (previously termed "Semito-Hamitic") language family.
Today the Hamitic concepts have been widely discredited, and are often referred to as the Hamitic Myth. There is no such thing as Hamites.
^ The only one blind to reality is you.
You cling to obsolete constructs blinding yourself to all that has been learned over the past several decades, because it only thru -willfull ignorance- that you can bolster your wishful thinking and ignore all unpleasant facts that interfere with preferred [hamite] fantasies.
This is why you attempt pre-emptive attack on linguistics [Tutsi speak Kirundi, a Bantu language], and genetics [tutsi are overwhelmingly E3a - a west central African lineage that is virtually non existent in Ethiopia, because you know deep down that your beliefs are bogus.
Now that we've dispensed with your hot air,where in your post was that evidence of Tutsi origins in Ethiopia? ?
quote:What is the term 'Elongated African' means except to avoid using 'Hamitic?'
Elongatation of the skeletal form is and evolutionary adaptation to heat stress, in which and organism adapts by increasing it's surface area in relation to it's mass.
In humans this means most typically elongation and attenuation of the limbs, and reduction of the torso [gracile].
Hamitic is a non scientific anti-evolutionary racial [racist] concept. It isn't being *avoided*, it simply has no scientific meaning, hence it is irrelevant. This is why modern scholarship has grown up, and moved on. And this is what you refuse to do.
You are smart. But you refuse to learn.
So how can we help you?
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^ Alas, this thread proves to be another example of Wally being completely erroneous in his quest for an African-American-Egyptian connection other than the fact that both groups are of African descent. And again he uses obsolete Eurocentric rubbish for his claims. Tsk, tsk. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I think that it is found in this edition Malcolm X Talks to Young People: Speeches in the United States, Britain, and Africa (Paperback)
There is a lecture that Malcolm X gives to young people, and he uses the illustration of the evidence in the movie "King Solomon's Mines" which links the Tutsi to Ancient Egypt and uses this to illustrate to the students that the White man was telling the truth that Ancient Egypt was a Black civilization; that Africans also migrated over periods to the interior. (Djehuti would have us believe the contrary, IE, that the Yoruba have always lived in western Nigeria... )
I would greatly recommend that rasol and Djehuti read this and grasp this, so that they would refrain from making irrelevant, and mostly inaccurate statements on the topic...but then if rasol can't understand that Diop's statements and proofs that the peoples of Senegambia once inhabited Ancient Egypt, and that one of those peoples were the ancestors of the Wolof; we can well see the blinding effect of dogmatic thinking, oh well...
African Americans are related to the Ancient Egyptians by way of migrations of Africans from the Nile valley, the slave trade which served to combine these various groups, who were alread pretty much combined, and who became African-Americans. The lineage is historical and has nothing to do with the fact that the Ancient Egyptians and African Americans are Blacks. Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:I think that it is found in this edition Malcolm X Talks to Young People: Speeches in the United States, Britain, and Africa (Paperback)
Is this supposed to be a reply to someone else's query, or is this simply a monologue? You know...how you monologue instead of dialogue when you're pressed with questions you can't answer?
quote: There is a lecture that Malcolm X gives to young people, and he uses the illustration of the evidence in the movie "King Solomon's Mines" which links the Tutsi to Ancient Egypt and uses this to illustrate to the students that the White man was telling the truth that Ancient Egypt was a Black civilization; that Africans also migrated over periods to the interior.
It's when you make a claim, and are asked for evidence. You don't have any - so you simply repeat -the claim- in different guise.
ie - Sometimes, people seem to think that the more they repeat an idea, the more likely it is that someone else will believe it. They are trying to convince people of something not based upon reasons or evidence, but instead upon sheer repetition.
This is a form of propaganda.
For example: Someone says - everyone knows the Egyptians are not Black.
When asked for evidence - they point to the Hollywood movie - The 10 Commandments with it's fake 'white Egyptians'.
When it is pointed out that this is a work of fiction, and not evidence, they will say...
Yes, but it is only showing the fact that everyone already knows....that Egyptians are not Blacks.
In fact no evidence is presented, because the person has no evidence. They are simply attempting to foster a lie, by repetition.
-> The reason why this is a flaw in reasoning is that the validity or truth of an idea has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with how often the idea is repeated. You can repeat something dozens of times and it will still be false, while a truth remains a truth even if it is stated only once
This is what you are doing Wally.
I asked you with courtesy, and patience, to present evidence that Tutsi originate in Ethiopia.
You have failed to do so, because you don't have any.
The rest of your writings essentially amount to fakery. You just attempt to 'bluff' your way around not having the requested evidence.
You must know by now that this won't work with me, and will eventually earn you only contempt, so I wonder who you aim your elementary logical fallacies at?
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quote:I would greatly recommend that rasol and Djehuti read [Malcolm x]
Can Malcolm X tell us why the Tutsi speak a Bantu language and carry E3a with no E3b, based upon his studies of Tutsi history, linguistics and or genetics?
quote:then if rasol can't understand that Diop's statements and proofs
You produced *no* statements or proofs from Diop to justify *your* bizarre remark, which was, the following....
Diop pointed out a settlement of Wolof in Ancient Egypt.
^ I politely asked you - where can Diop be cited as saying this? And where/what is this Wolof-settlement of Ancient Egypt?
Evidently you have no such citation, because to answer, all you need do is produce it.
You have a tendancy to make overwrought claims and when called on them, you backpeddle into 'jive-talk' mode, where you just make stuff up, and introduced hoped for distractions.
You've quoted Malcolm X and Hollywood movies in and effort to defend your jive.
I suggest that in the same vein in the next reply you quote Spike Lee, and Madonna. Maybe some sucker will bite, and that will get you off the hook.
Or you could admit the truth, apparent to anyone reading your jive/jabber:
You have no evidence of Tutsi originating in Ethiopia.
-> That's really the bottom line and effectively the end of this thread.
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I'm sorry, but Wally has put himself in a pathetic situation but it's not the first time!
His situation is that he unwittingly emulates Eurocentrics and uses debunked Eurocentric notions for his so-called 'evidence'!
Now the guy cites Malcolm X! LOL What does Malcolm X have to do with the topic or anything argued in this thread?!
Wally emulates Eurocentrics in that many Eurocentrics try to claim ancient Greeks as their immediate ancestors when this is not the case at all. The Greeks are southeastern Europeans whereas the great bulk of Western whites including white Americans descend from northwestern Europe-- the complete opposite region of Europe.
A great percentage of African Americans descend from West Africans or peoples of the West African coast and NOT the Nile Valley or northeast Africa i.e. Egypt! Now this is not to say there is no connection between them, as all continental Africans are related, and furthermore the paternal lineage of E3a found in both West Africans as well as Nile Valley peoples along with similarities in culture suggest a common origin in the Sahara which is further supported by archaeological evidence in the Sahara. Although this is quite different and a long leap from saying that West Africans are the direct descendants of "exiled Egyptians" or Egyptians that left in some mass exodus after the fall of their native dynasties. There is no historical or archaeological proof of this so Wally needs to get over it!
Wally also needs to get over using debunked Eurocentric concepts like "Hamitic" which is NOT the same as 'elongated', and "negroid" which is NOT the same as 'Africoid'.
And please Wally for the love of *true* African history and culture, do not cite old 1950s Hollywood movies like 'King Solomon's Mines'!! Such movies are far from being evidence, and like Rasol says are just old racist movies that portray Africa and Africans in the same light as 'Tarzan' and the 'Ten Commandments'!!
It's obvious you are really desperate to sink so low as to cite old 1950's white Hollywood fantasies. There is still hope for you to accept and use real scholarship and add them to your website to educate others about Egypt and the Nile Valley.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Justsome michievous fly in the ointment observations:
1) Any ideas on the cultural trait among some West African peopls known as "Divine Kingship"?
2) And the totemic role of "Ram worship" in some West African cultures?
3)And the seeming resemblance between the diademic head emblems between AE and that of the Ife Yoruba.
4)And the similar parabolic shapes of head rests of some West African groups and those of AE?
5) And German ethnographer Leo Frobenius's claim that the ruling groups of some West Africa peoples claimed to have migrated from the East? He made this claim for the Yoruba among other groups.
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quote:1) Any ideas on the cultural trait among some West African peopls known as "Divine Kingship"?
I think divine kingship is a pan african cultural trait, which is great testiment to the fact that AE was and African culture.
We actually get too caught up, in some instances in ancestry. Kemet was culturally African. And there *is* common shared culture and language among Africans.
Note: You could just as easily claim devine kingship originated in say - the holocene sahara and spread to Km.t and elsewhere from there, as opposed to claiming that is was invented in dynastic km.t and spread to the rest of Africa from Egypt.
And example of this premise can be seen with the practise of mummification.
The earliest examples are from 7000 kya in southern Libya.
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: 2) And the totemic role of "Ram worship" in some West African cultures?
Totemism is also a pan-African trait as it is found virtually throughout the continent. Mind you the ram is not as prominent in West Africa as is the panther which was considered a royal totem. Also, I noticed that many West Africans traditionally believed the ibis to be oracular or associated with wisdom and it was the same species of animal used to represent the Egyptian god of wisdom, Djehuti.
quote:3)And the seeming resemblance between the diademic head emblems between AE and that of the Ife Yoruba.
Another pan-African trait as headdresses in general vary greatly in Africa. I have seen the fillet (head-bands) more commonly worn by other Afrasian speakers in the Horn region.
quote:4)And the similar parabolic shapes of head rests of some West African groups and those of AE?
Same answer.
quote:5) And German ethnographer Leo Frobenius's claim that the ruling groups of some West Africa peoples claimed to have migrated from the East? He made this claim for the Yoruba among other groups.
The story of having ancestry is purely a legend which depending on the people is either false or have some grain of truth in it, but even if true says nothing about Egypt!
This is another thing people of African history should be cautious of as Rasol pointed out-- that just because there are similarities between two or more African cultures does not mean one is derived from the other! A more likely explanation is that those groups merely share a common history as Africans. To say one culture diffused elsewhere to another is not only wrong but gives the impression that cultures in say West Africa did not develop independently as they have really done but was only a result of influence. This is merely a repetition of the Hamitic race myth that every advance cultue in Africa has to be due to "Hamites". We all know the Egyptians were not Hamites, but it still no excuse to give other African credit to them! This is the mistake that Wally and others like him make. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:This is another thing people of African history should be cautious of as Rasol pointed out-- that just because there are similarities between two or more African cultures does not mean one is derived from the other!
Wally and I discussed this also perhaps a couple years ago.
Trying to tie all native African culture to Ancient Egypt is a dangerous double edged sword, which has led to a backlash from some West African historians.
You can quickly end up implying, without intending to....that anything of value in Africa, is only that which is passed down 2nd hand from Egypt.
Keita - who is perhaps the most important scholar of African biology/history since Diop, offers the more plausible approach of a Holocene wet phase in the sahara, which spawned many of the common-ancestor African cultures.
When the sahara dried up populations converged onto the Nile and Niger river valleys from the East and the West and that led to the flowering of many of Africas great civilisations.
This approach is consistent with multi-disciplinary lines of evidence, and also nullifies the accusations of "Egypto-centrism" from some West African historians.
Have to keep learning...keep moving, if one really wants to be considered 'progressive'.
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posted
^ Unfortunately for some that can be kind of hard to do. Just like (and I hate to use this example) white racists who have been raised or conditioned to view history or humanity in a certain way, but when faced with facts that destroy their dogma, it is hard for them to move on.
I agree that Wally is an invaluable person with a invaluable tool (his website). He needs to move on past the mistakes of Diop and advance to a greater level of learning.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I'm not back. I just had to throw in these ideas. Some of following I've already said in other threads.
All African American ancestors did not come from the same tribes. Some came from Angola, some were Mande speakers, some were Fulani, approximately 30% of African American mtDNAs are Central-West African and include AfroAsiatic and Nilotic family speakers such as Tuaregs, Hausas and Songhays.
I received my mtDNA results (MatriClan analysis) from African Ancestry. I'm told that my mtDNA sequence is identical to the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS), and that while the CRS is found primarily in Europe, it is also found among the ancestry with the Hausa people in Nigeria, the Tuareg people in Niger, and people living in Egypt, so I share maternal genetic ancestry with people in those groups.
I'd initially submitted my DNA sample to FamilyTree DNA (only because a friend had had hers done by them and also because I'd spoken with a representative from that company at the National Genealogical Society annual conference last May in Sacramento, CA). The initial results I received from them, at the time, did not mean a whole lot to me -- I understand it all a bit better now. Also, initially they were not able to assign my results to a Haplogroup and needed to do more testing. I recently heard from them and they determined my Haplogroup to be U6 (Europe).
Persons who have been tested can add their results to the FamilyTree DNA sponsored public database and search for genetic matches among others who have been tested. It doesn’t matter which lab did your testing. When you create a new user record there is a field to indicate the name of the company that did your testing. The Web address is: www.MitoSearch.org. After adding my results I did a search and got one hit. My HVR1 results matched his exactly, plus one. He had one more mutation than I. His Haplogroup is U6b. Information he shared about his maternal lineage indicates his most distant known maternal ancestor’s country of origin to be La Vega, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. She was born in 1887 and died in 1966. Her surname was Nunez-Sanchez. He also shared that his grandmother and his mother both migrated to Havana, Cuba about 1940, with his grandfather. His grandfather and his father, (and three brothers) migrated to Havana, Cuba, about 1936, from Viveiro, El Ferrol, Galicia (NW) Spain.
My most distant known maternal ancestor is my great...
This woman's mtDNA matches Hausa, Tuareg, and Egyptian. Need more proof?
Maybe, if Wally Mo took the DNA test he'd find similar results. Who knows? This is a complicated subject. There are 40 million African Americans.
How many West African tribes have Nubian ancestry? What do you really know of the totality of Nile Valley history since it extends down to Kenya?
Harrell-Miller traveled to Niger, West Africa, utilizing genealogy and African Ancestry DNA to trace her maternal family lineage. Her DNA test connected her to the Tuareg people. She spent three weeks in Niger, Harrell-Miller was the first African American in the state of Louisiana take the African Ancestry DNA test.
quote: Some came from Angola, some were Mande speakers, some were Fulani, approximately 30% of African American mtDNAs are Central-West African and include AfroAsiatic and Nilotic family speakers such as Tuaregs, Hausas and Songhays.
I agree. Though I wish you would not always reduce 'africans' to 'tribes'.
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quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
I'm not back. I just had to throw in these ideas. Some of following I've already said in other threads.
All African American ancestors did not come from the same tribes. Some came from Angola, some were Mande speakers, some were Fulani, approximately 30% of African American mtDNAs are Central-West African and include AfroAsiatic and Nilotic family speakers such as Tuaregs, Hausas and Songhays.
I posted this before...
I recall similar statements that you've made in the following threads:
I went to school with non-Black kids. Several times over the years usually East Asian immigrants would ask me, if you're African American, then which country in Africa did your ancestors come from? Sometimes, they would bring a map - no lie! I'd had to look at the maps with great puzzlement.
I was asked that very question by a Korean immigrant not long ago. I knew then to explain to the Korean guy that African Americans lost their heritages in the slavery period and had formed a new identity over here.
If you had asked me years ago, if the Ancient Egyptians and Nubians were distant ancestors of the African Americans, I would have probably would have said either "No" or "I'm not sure".
Now, after meeting Ausar online and coming on EgyptSearch and reading francophone Afrocentrique writings, other English Afrocentric websites and DNA results I can say the African Americans are partly the distant descendants of the Ancient Egyptians and Nubians and other Nile Valley peoples. That's amazing for someone like me.
This is not an off-the-wall pursuit that Wally Mo and others have done. This is an amazing genetic-memory encoded in the DNA of African Americans and the nay-sayers cannot stop it. It's almost spiritual. It is spiritual.
But, the answer can only be found in detailed research of pan-African culture and histories. Therefore, one must speak of tribes in detail.
You don't say White people came down from the north and entered in to the Roman Empire. You say Germanic, Frankish and Anglosaxon tribes challenged the supremacy of Rome. And don't forget the Celtic tribes!
I just found out recently, that Fulani slaves in the pre-Civil war USA claimed Ancient Egypt as a homeland. So, this is not something that African Americans began to say recently. We always said it!!!!!!!
The DNA tests reveal a large portion of American Blacks are descendant from Fulanis from Fuuta Djallon, northern Nigeria and Cameroon. These DNA test results are saying something I did not believe before. They are saying are ancestors came from tribal groups that originated more inland and more in the Northern half of Africa. There are many implications to all that too. Many implications!
Tomb of the Songhay Askias in Gao
From:http://www.rupestre.net/tracce/subsaha.html
We can add to these groups some particular figures which seem to be unique in the region: an engraving of fish discovered in Bamako-Sotuba, near the river Niger and the group of painting ships from Airé Soroba. At present, such representations of boats are only known in Upper Egypt (Winkler 1938).
Egyptian Ankh
Tuareg Cross
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
Thanks Mystery Solver
You bet; I posted it purposefully, so that you and anyone else can go through it again, and *carefully* read the points made therein, that are not to be forgotten about the issue you brought up here.
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quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian: Egyptian Ankh
Tuareg Cross
^ Perhaps if the head of the Tuareg cross were turned upside-down there would be a closer resemblance.
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These ankhs below show signs on variation. Think of all the variations one can make over time and distance.
Below is a cross from the region of Agadez, Niger and is a symbol of that region. The blacksmiths of each region have their own style which is passed down from father to son. The crosses themselves are called tenegelt (spelling changes in transliterations). They are made out of silver.
Some say represent the Southern Cross. Some believe they are Ancient Egyptian origin because these designs are identical to ancient designs found on caravan routes between AE and Niger and others give their origin to other sources.
The head has it's shape because it is hung around the neck.
These are blacksmiths.
This cross is from the Iferoune and shows a different configuration.
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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posted
This forum kind of remind me of a topic that is on the man page of ebonyissues.com
quote: posted by RU2religious:
Lately African Americans such as I have been getting caught up in this phenomenon called, “take DNA test to locate ancestry”, which many of us hope to find our common place within Africa. I’ve seen the commercial like many other people and you see African American jumping up for joy, as they are linked to certain tribes in Africa. What is fascinating to me about this test is some African American is popping up with 0 to 10% African ancestry which seems illogical. What determines one of African Ancestry and what determines one of European ancestry.
I know from family research that I have a lot of Native American within my family history but the irony of that is; the test will tell me that I have European DNA. For the purpose of keeping this topic simple I will evade using terminologies that most of us wouldn’t understand, but to sum it up Native Americans, East Africans, Mediterranean, and Aboriginals of Australia are considered to have European DNA. As it may be, this is an attempt to take Egypt out of Africa and make it none African in origins but we know that this is not possible and wont let that happen.
So, am I to believe that I’m half European even though there are not traces of European rapist in my line? Another point that gets me about the test is that they will say, “your DNA links you to the Wolof of Senegal-Gambia” but as an African American with common sense that sounds good but I know that there is a lot more to that. So let us say My Grandmothers, Mother was Wolof of Senegal-Gambia, but her father was Igbo of Nigeria and let us says that my Grandfathers, Mother were Akan of Ghana and his father was Dogon of Mali, does that still make me Wolof of Senegal-Gambia? I’m afraid to say that it doesn’t, but what it does make me, is a West African from what we know in Modern history. I personally believe that West Africa was a combination of many migrations from various parts of Africa but that’s another topic for another day.
Using the same scenario as the one used above, let us add a pinch of Native American, and a dash of Asians with some Oceanic oregano and we’ve become a new dish. So why do we call ourselves African Americans? Why does the African part mean so much more then the Native American, Asian, Oceanic or even European aspects of our characteristics? I was having a debate with some Africans from the Sahel and Somali; two different points in Africa and I was debating that African Americans are a combination of many cultures within Africa and they reminded me that I was not only mixed with several of West African cultures (kept me on debated topic) but that I was a mixture of other cultures.
I then pointed out that they are a mixture of various cultures too, especially after Africa was colonized by the Arabs, French, British, Scots, Portuguese and others … Now I know I was being childish but I had to go for mine, I means it was as though they cursed me with word of war. So now who are we and what makes an African American an A-A?
quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian: Djehuti,
These ankhs below show signs on variation. Think of all the variations one can make over time and distance.
Actually if you noticed, the Egyptian ankh did not vary in overall shape.
The bottom one is not a variation but a combination of 3 different icons-- the ankh, the djed pillar, and the was scepter.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I think this symbol called the crux ansata was used by Coptic Christians. I think I saw this exact circle top cross on some AE pic in some books sometime in the past. Maybe it had another name.
What I was trying to do is connect Africans to AE which seemed hard to believe for the early posters and many others offline. Connecting AAs to the Tuareg, Hausa, Fulani makes a better intermediate case.
Below is a Tamazgha map in a language that is or similar to Dutch???????
As you can see Niger is closer to Egypt than Morocco. Yet, some want to claim a proto-Berber-only origin for AE. I read through a francophone interview with Helene Hagan. She was asked were the AEs Black or White? or Amazigh? She said that the AEs were Black to White in a range and the AEs foundation was a native Black population along the Nile infused with proto-Amazigh nomads from the West.
Helene Hagan concentrates on Neith as an Amazigh deity.
I read the essence of this book on another website. She knows that AE has Black Nubian roots, but her book only deals with the Amazigh contribution to AE. Others are running with this book claiming an Amazigh-only origin to AE civilization.
When she was confronted on a francophone forum about the Nubian roots of AE , she did not reply. The Afrocentric writer said that there were more pyramids in Nubia than AE and the AE pyramids were concentrated in the south.
She said she began thinking about this topic in 1999 when she saw an exhibit about a Libyan mummy. I think she was saying the Black Mummy from Libya was really proto-Berber.
I mentioned Helene Hagan before and again now, because I see more and more websites quoting her.
The AA DNA results linking to the Tuaregs take the thunder out of this theory. Since African Americans are combined from many African sources and have real possibility to be linked to AE, Nubia and other areas. I don't thinks skeptics have thought much about this.
quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
Djehuti,
I think this symbol called the crux ansata was used by Coptic Christians. I think I saw this exact circle top cross on some AE pic in some books sometime in the past. Maybe it had another name...
^ Indeed the Coptic symbol of the crux ansata is non other than the ankh itself! I agree. As for any other connection to the Tuareg and other Tamazigh (Berbers) I know not of any. Unfortunately I haven't read much info in regards to anything else that connects the Berbers to Egyptians other than language. As far as physical objects and icons, I have seen more connections from the Horn area.
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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One should be circumspect about those pay DNA tests. I read recently where a Belgian man whose ancestors never travelled to the Americas(including himself) was told that he had substantial Native American ancestry.
Unless one has direct knowledge of ancestry those tests should be treated with some circumspection.
Conversely: I recently saw clips of the Fiji rugby team play Wales and if I were ignorant of geography I could have easily assumed that the Fiji team was an African team--speed of foot, vigour and lots of panache.
Yet DNA analysis informs us that Fijians do not belong to the set of African lineages.
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quote: I read recently where a Belgian man whose ancestors never travelled to the Americas.
You know this - how? Can you provide source/reference?
quote:Conversely: I recently saw clips of the Fiji rugby team play Wales and if I were ignorant of geography I could have easily assumed that the Fiji team was an African team--speed of foot, vigour and lots of panache.
Yet DNA analysis informs us that Fijians do not belong to the set of African lineages.
Relevant how? Other than as and example of stereotyping?
You are aware of the claim that North American Kenniwick man supposedly looks like "Capt Picard" of StarTrek?
Unsubstantiated anecdote should not be confused for evidence.
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RE: The Fijian Rugby team that just defeated Wales(Rugby World Cup)--that's just my casual observation. I(again my subjective impressions)note that African football teams show a similar lind of athletic vigour, speed and panache. The same for those European football teams that have noticeable numbers of African/black players.
African-Native American Genealogy Forum
Re: NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTRY
Posted By: David Cornsilk Date: Monday, 22 May 2006, at 2:51 p.m.
In Response To: NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTRY (Debra Diaz)
The only light that can be shed on the current status of DNA testing for Native American genes is that it is unreliable. There has not been adequate testing and documentation of Native genes from proven tribal people for those with unproven ancestry to use DNA as reliable proof of Indian ancestry.
As badly as many want to claim Native American heritage, DNA, at this point, is not the answer. I have several friends who have taken DNA tests and have all received similar results. Their tests came back showing them to be Native American with varying percentages ranging from 3% to 30%. All of them are genealogists with proveable lineages only to European immigrants.
Amazingly, my friend who showed the highest percentage of Native ancestry was born in Belgium of a German mother and a French father. His ancestry never came close to America, he is a legal immigrant, green card and all, with no genetic ties to the native people of the Americas. And mathematically and logically, 30 percent Indian ancestry would mean he is more than 1/4 Indian. That translates to at least one full blood Indian grandparent. That's just not possible in his lineage.
My recommendation to you and anyone hoping to learn the truth about their ancestry, at least as much of the truth as is available, would be to begin with yourself, document each generation with records, until you run out of records and then go demand your money back from the people that gave you the DNA test.
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What are you trying to say? If Africans Americans get DNA tribal results they can't be trusted? Since, I was getting so close to proving a link.
Well, it's very interesting that you brought up Native Americans. That's a subject I avoided for years. Many of the old women in my family spoke over and over again of Native American roots. I clearly remember one tying her hair in Indian braids and being called and old squaw. I was invited several times to Pow Wows and did not go.
And Lamin bring this up!!!!Wow!!!
The Belgian man could have ancestry he doesn't know about. Going back generations almost anything can come out.
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When White British Prove to Be Native Americans - Native American genes found in white British women By: Stefan Anitei, Science Editor
Few months ago, British geneticists discovered Black African genes amongst White British people. And it was not about recent immigrants from Africa or Caribbean but ancestors older than 300 years. But Blacks were first recorded in Britain in the Roman troops defending Hadrian's Wall. Now DNA testing has discovered British descendants of Native Americans arrived in the UK centuries ago as slaves, translators or tribal representatives. The analysis revealed two white British women DNA markings typical to American Indians. This was unusual as the British had no idea about their Native American ancestry. Native Americans were brought to the UK beginning with the early 1500s, first as curiosities. Others made the journey in delegations during the 18th Century to ask the British help over trade or protection from other tribes. Some of them could have remained and married in local communities of Britain.
The two women, Doreen Isherwood, 64, from Putney, and Anne Hall, 53, of Huddersfield, discovered their Amerindian ancestry when they paid for commercial DNA ancestry tests. Isherwood found her American antecedent could have entered Britain in the 18th or 17th centuries, as her maternal ancestors back to 1798 presented no sign of Indian ancestry.
The tests analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is transmitted only from mother to daughter more or less unchanged; even if tiny mutations do accumulate over successive generations. This type of tests is based on the classification of the mtDNAs into broad types (haplogroups), correlated to some extent to race or geographical type of the race. Isherwood and Hall have haplogroups typical to the indigenous people of the Americas. "Most of the people we test belong to one of the European maternal clans," said Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford and whose company Oxford Ancestors carried out the tests.
"There are matches between [Doreen and Anne] and particular Native American tribes, but that doesn't necessarily mean those are the tribes their ancestors came from." "A number were brought over through the 1500s, mainly as curiosities," said Alden Vaughan, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, in New York, about Amerindians reaching British soil. Others learned English in Britain to be used as translators in colonies. "Sir Walter Raleigh brought back several individuals from the Jamestown area and from the Orinoco valley. Pocahontas went to England in 1616 and died there the next year." "She was accompanied by several of her tribal associates. Some of them stayed in England for several years. I don't know of any marriages or even relationships between those women and Englishmen, but it is certainly possible."
"Later in the 17th Century, Native American slaves were brought over. I don't know much about them, because all the evidence I have are ads in London newspapers for runaway bond-servants, described as being Indians." explained Vaughan.
Musicians like Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Cockburn, Corey Harris, and Markus James have been exploring the African Mali connection to the roots of American Blues over the last decade.
British guitarist Justin Adams, a member of Robert Plant's band, produced the first recording of Tuareg desert Blues by the northern Malian group Tinariwen called The Radio Tisdas Sessions.
The Tamashek people of North Africa are a collection of nomad clans, with Berber (Amazight) roots, who make their home in the ever-expanding vastness of the Sahara Desert. Forced from their nomadic life, they became fighters in the Tuareg insurgency against the Malian government. It was in the rebel camp that the members of Tinariwen came together while fighting as soldiers and began forming music relating to not only the rebellion, but also the struggle of their people to be educated and to provide for themselves and their families.
Their songs and original fusion of Western-influenced Rock, Reggae, and Blues styles quickly caught the imagination of the Tuareg youth due to their lyrics, awakening political consciousness and evoking the plight of their people across the desert. By the mid-1980s, Tinariwen's songs of exile had crossed the desert via home recordings made on ghetto blasters and by the end of the decade the band's reputation for political protest had spread to the point where the Malian government outlawed the possession of any of their musical cassettes.
In 1999, when the French World Music group Lo'jo visited Mali, they met members of Tinariwen in the Malian capital, Bamako, and invited the group to perform at a huge festival in France. After the concert, Lo'jo asked Tinariwen if they thought it would be possible to have a music festival in the desert? They told Lo'jo yes and the result was the first "Festival in the Desert," which is now five years old and a World Music legend unto itself.
Tinariwen's most recent album, Amassakoul, was released in 2004 to widespread critical acclaim. Described as "Fela Kuti meets the Velvet Underground," "desert Blues," and "the Rolling Stones of the desert," it earned them the BBC Award for World Music 2005. In an interview, guitarist, singer, and songwriter Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni talked about his collective musical group. Alhousseyni was the band member who introduced electric guitars and bass to Tinariwen's music. He also brought the musical tapes of Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, and Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure's bluesy interpretations of Songhai, Tamascheck, and other northern Malian folklore into the group.
Phil Reser for BluesWax: How would you describe your musical style?
Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni: Our style of music is modern Tuareg guitar music. That's it really.
Tinariwen at the 2005 Notodden Blues Festival
Photo by Art Tipaldi
BW: What type of instrumentation does the band use?
AAA: Guitars, percussion, voices, and handclaps.
BW: Do you experiment or collaborate with additional musicians at times?
AAA: Sometimes. We like working with musicians like Justin Adams, from Robert Plant's band, who has been producing our new album. We have also collaborated with Taj Mahal. Of course we also love collaborating with other desert musicians and friends. We've seen plenty of artists during tours in the last few years and we like meeting and talking to them. But mostly we just play our own style.
"We have a word 'assouf,' which means sadness, longing, nostalgia, pain in the heart, etc. In fact, it means 'Blues.'"
BW: How do you create your lyrical messages and what type of things do you sing about?
AAA: In fact Tinariwen is like a collective of songwriters. The main ones are Ibrahim, Hassan, Japonais, and myself, Abdallah. Each of us writes about what concerns us most and then we bring our songs to the group, and take it from there. The main themes are about nostalgia, friendship, loss, homesickness, education, desertification, love...all kinds of things. It's true that during the 1980s, Tinariwen's songs were often very militant, but they have always been very personal, too. It's just that our personal experience at that time was very militant!
BW: What kinds of ties do you see between the Northern and Western African music?
AAA: Of course there are plenty. To begin with, we sing in a Berber language called Tamashek, which is very close to the Berber languages of North Africa like Kabyle, Chleuch, and Chaoui. The Berber singers of North Africa are also very aware in their lyrics, talking about love, loss, and struggle just like us. So people see quite a lot of similarity between our music and that of artists like Ait Menguellet, Idir, or Ferhat. Then, in the 1980s, when we were often in Algeria or Libya, we absorbed a lot of North African music, especially Rai and all the Moroccan groups from the 1970s, like Nass El Ghiwane. Then there's Gnawa, which has its roots in West Africa, and which is such a huge influence on North African music. So these musical worlds are very close, just as they are in terms of language, culture, and society.
Photo by Art Tipaldi
BW: In what ways do African, and especially Tinariwen music, connect to the American Blues?
AAA: I think the connection is pretty close. A lot of the African American slaves who developed the Blues style could trace their ancestry back to West Africa and especially to the Niger Bend in Mali and Niger. That's the heart of the African Blues and the root of American Blues. And the Blues is about loss, pain, suffering, longing and we have had a lot of reason to feel those kinds of emotion in the past few decades. We have a word "assouf," which means sadness, longing, nostalgia, pain in the heart, etc. In fact, it means "Blues." So when we heard the American Blues for the first time, we were struck by the emotional connection. Then the actual music is very close, of course. Africans went to America centuries ago and took the kind of music that our traditional griots play over there. We're like cousins.
All I am saying is that individual genealogies for all humans are not as discrete(meaning "clear-cut") as many would want to think. If the empirical evidence is there then OK, but otherwise just going by hear-say or fabricating--as in the case of Sherifism[lineage links with Mohammmed]or African phenotyped individuals in the Americas who make it known without any inquiry that they have Native American ancestry--as if to say "well, I may look black but just don't think I am African".
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RE: The Fijian Rugby team that just defeated Wales(Rugby World Cup)--that's just my casual observation. I(again my subjective impressions)note that African football teams show a similar lind of athletic vigour, speed and panache. The same for those European football teams that have noticeable numbers of African/black players.
African-Native American Genealogy Forum
Re: NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTRY
Posted By: David Cornsilk Date: Monday, 22 May 2006, at 2:51 p.m.
In Response To: NATIVE AMERICAN ANCESTRY (Debra Diaz)
The only light that can be shed on the current status of DNA testing for Native American genes is that it is unreliable. There has not been adequate testing and documentation of Native genes from proven tribal people for those with unproven ancestry to use DNA as reliable proof of Indian ancestry.
As badly as many want to claim Native American heritage, DNA, at this point, is not the answer. I have several friends who have taken DNA tests and have all received similar results. Their tests came back showing them to be Native American with varying percentages ranging from 3% to 30%. All of them are genealogists with proveable lineages only to European immigrants.
Amazingly, my friend who showed the highest percentage of Native ancestry was born in Belgium of a German mother and a French father. His ancestry never came close to America, he is a legal immigrant, green card and all, with no genetic ties to the native people of the Americas. And mathematically and logically, 30 percent Indian ancestry would mean he is more than 1/4 Indian. That translates to at least one full blood Indian grandparent. That's just not possible in his lineage.
My recommendation to you and anyone hoping to learn the truth about their ancestry, at least as much of the truth as is available, would be to begin with yourself, document each generation with records, until you run out of records and then go demand your money back from the people that gave you the DNA test.
1st) Thanks for your response Lamin.
- The comment from the discussion group does not appear to be by a geneticist, nor does it contain any specific or scientific information.
-- Your personal observation on Rubgy is non-sequitur, since it does not suggest or relate anything about common ancestry. It's like suggesting that the precense of South African - Steve Nash - as NBA basketball player MVP, shows the common African ancestry, with African Americans.
Steve Nash is white.
It's clear based upon Genetics, and anthropology, and geography, and historical record, and linguistics, that Pacific Islander, in general, do not have recent African ancestry.
They are descendant from -paleolithic- populations that migrated from South Asia to the Pacific over 50 thousand years ago.
Genetics is consistent with every other discipline with regards to this.
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posted
Crocodiles and the ordinary house cockroach have remained virtually unchanged over the last 60 million years. Thus it is quite possible that Pacific Islanders such as Fijians and Solomon Islanders have retained the same traits with which they left Africa some 50,000 years ago. The new lineages that developed as a result of genomic mutations only tell us how long ago the Pacific Islanders migrated away from the African mainland.
It would that environment is the key here: Africans and the Pacific Islanders migrated within similar geographical climes so their morphological traits remained basically the same. Others who migrated to different climes had to adjust adaptively--hence the differences in surface morphology between Europeans a nd Pacific Islanders.
Re Nash: From what I have read and seen African Americans do not consider Nash a great player nor is he seen as bringing to the game anything resembling their particular style of play.
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: To Red-White-Blue
All I am saying is ....African phenotyped individuals in the Americas who make it known without any inquiry that they have Native American ancestry--as if to say "well, I may look black but just don't think I am African".
You can't accuse me of that one.
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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Don't tear my or other African Americans' American Indian connection down. It is real and a part of our American experience.
Remember Helene Hagan who I keep mentioning over and over about the Amazigh roots of Ancient Egypt?
Helene E. Hagan is a psychological anthropologist who has worked with Native American issues for over a decade. She lived for four years on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota while working on an elder oral history project. This article is reprinted with permission from the INSTITUTE OF ARCHETYPAL ETHNOLOGY newsletter September l992.
The Plastic Medicine People Circle by Helene E. Hagan
Several individuals have recently brought to my attention that the phenomenon of new-shamanism, also styling itself as "core shamanism" is taking ample proportions in N. California. I have researched the particular group led by Sedonia Cahill and Bird Brother, known as THE GREAT ROUND organization. This group was targeted as it is typical of this New Age phenomenon, both in its practices and its public assertions as innovator and creator of ritual while proffering a public denial of its Native American character.
There are other groups advertising seminars, sweatlodges and vision quests as if they were indeed purveying true Indian teachings. All such groups follow the patterns followed by The Great Round in as much as they are imitators of Indian ways and are led by individuals who do not have any inside knowledge of American Indian spirituality.
The Great Round teachings
These teachings are put forth in advertisement, brochures, flyers and newsletters in Native American terminology and symbols, as an invitation to a meaningful journey, Indian style. What indeed attracts followers is the opportunity to practice Indian ways, and the people who respond to this promotional material are not versed enough in Native American traditions to be able to tell the difference between the imitation and the real thing.
This phenomenon is prevalent in many parts of the nation, and is not restricted to the practices of Sedonia Cahill, Bird Brother and the Great Round. Indeed these two individuals and their group are just another group in a phenomenon which began with Sun Bear. Sun Bear isolated himself from his own community by "selling out" bits and pieces of Indian spiritual knowledge. He established the "Bear Tribe", composed of non - Indian followers.
Another individual who continues to hold influence in these circles is Hyemeyohsts Storm. This man stands in the background of the Deer Tribe, publicly headed by Harley Swift Deer Reagan. He carries the title of "General Storm." The Deer Tribe is composed of women's earth lodges and men's Metis Brotherhood lodges. For many years a number of Native American leaders have stated that Mr. Reagan is a Caucasian man who has adopted a false Indian identity, as have many of the people listed as venerable teachers by Sedonia Cahill, Bird Brother and The Great Round in their publications.
What makes these groups appear to be Native American, without being Indian or having proper Native American training and teachings, is the use of ceremonial pipes, smudging, the use of Indian names, the making of Indian paraphernalia such as "prayer arrows," tobacco ties, the use of feathers, the use of cornmeal and tobacco in offerings, the use of braided sweetgrass for blessings, the making of "medicine bundles", eagle feathers, the ceremonial use of medicine wheels with the four directions, Indian chanting to drums, the practice of purification in seatlodges and the vision quest. All these practices are the public outward aspects of North American Indian religions, and are well known to be so.
There is, however, a vast difference between the manipulation of objects, or the imitation of rituals on instructions gathered from readings and public knowledge, and the profound wisdom of spiritual practices of Native American people, still in the keeping of true medicine people who are unknown to the general non-Indian population of this network. People who are truly knowledgeable are the traditional elders of Indian nations, practitioners of various medicines, and a few anthropologists, writers, artists and people who have been invited to share in real ceremonies and do not write about, sell or divulge their experience.
The most common features of all these individuals Indians call "plastic medicine people" is the marketing of their limited knowledge, the offering of paying workshops, and the business aspect of their spirituality. All peddle the scant information they have gathered from a few discredited figures or textbooks which have a poor reputation both in Indian country and among anthropologists. This is evident in the reading list in the Deer Tribe Apprentice Manual and the Sedonia Cahill reading list for vision quests. The most common cliches all these people adopt are several statements: they have access to real Native American traditions; Indians do not have a monopoly on these traditions; they have been properly trained by qualified Indian Medicine people; and what they are doing has validity, meaning and cannot be contested.
They even trivialize the concerns of Native American elders, which they lately seem to reduce to such issues as "ownership of spirit," or "jealousy." Such trivialization and such ditortion of the real central issues are not to be taken lightly. They hide cultural projections and indefensible acts of desecration.
The Ceremonial Pipe
Though Native Americans of this continent used several forms of personal, social and ceremonial pipes, the teachings of the Sacred Pipe through The Buffalo Calf Woman came to the Lakota people alone (Circa 900 A.D.). This is a real event and not a myth, for it occurred in historical time, as a supernatural event recorded in Lakota sacred texts. It is indeed far more recent than the times of Jesus and the writing of the New Testament, or than the revelation of the Koran to Mohammed.
The Lakota are The Keepers of The Sacred Pipe, as the Cheyenne are The Keepers of The Sacred Arrows. No group has the right to usurp such functions, or to imitate specific ceremonies in any form or fashion without showing deep ignorance, blasphemy, or just looking very silly. In Indian tradition, those who imitate others are without true understanding of what they are doing. They have no real identity and are considered "fools". All the individuals we will review later, quoted by Sedonia Cahill and Bird Brother as teachers, are considered by real Indians as such fools and clowns. I have personally worked with hundreds of dreams of Indian men and women, and the images of "clowns" ("Heyokas" and "Mudheads") often occur in Indian dreams in relationship to white "wannabe" people. These dreams frequently depict those people as being very immature, unruly children and associated with clown figures and acts. They also appear as being dangerous, causing distress and wreaking havoc. In addition, the dreams emphasize the grief of Indian people and the necessity for women to protect the Pipe from such white children.
Indian people recognize that these individuals do not know who they are, have little sense of true identity, and need to borrow false names and false origins in order to impress others and obtain a following. Sedonia Cahill invokes the story of the Buffalo Calf Woman before her Pipe ceremonies on the vision quests, linking what she does to the tradition of the Sacred Pipe, which is specifically Lakota Sioux. The Buffalo Calf Woman brought a specific message to the Lakota people alone. Only part of the message is known to the general public. The ceremonies built around The Sacred Pipe have a context and a meaning for the Lakota people.
When she appeared upon the Plains, the Sioux were a Warrior Society with ancient war rituals. The Buffalo Calf Woman emerged from the collective psyche of the Plains Warrior Society, and is meaningful in that context. To take this event out of context, and to assign arbitrary meanings to it today is improper. If these people advanced that Moses brought corn to his people in the desert, or Jesus taught his disciples how to build an igloo, it would be just as ludicrous as to pretend that The Buffalo Calf Woman is -watching over Sedonia Cahill's vision quests.
"Medicine" names, and the granting of honor feathers
At the conclusion of some of her ceremonies, Sedonia Cahill, like Harley Swift Deer at the end of his "Hoksida Rituals" or so-called "Sun Dances," often gives her cusstomers and Indian name and a feather like a "prize." However many of the questers take a name on their own. In Native American traditions, a name is bestowed, not self-given.
In real circumstances, Indian names are only bestowed upon non-Indians by Indians for specific, sustained and efficient work or contribution to an Indian community. An Indian name is an honor when it is thus acquired, meaningless if it is bestowed by a non-Indian such as Sedonia Cahill or Mr. Reagan. A feather is an honor which is rarely bestowed outside Indian circles. It acknowledges a specific contribution to the community, or a heroic deed for the protection of an Indian community. A feather and an Indian name given by a white woman to another white person carries no deep meaning. It is simply an imitative act without context or public communal significance. In Indian societies, the honor is a public honor, like a congressional medal. Socially, Sedonia Cahilll's act has no such value. She, and many like her, IMAGINE that this is a great spiritual gesture, not knowing that the real meaning of feather and namegiving is social recognition.
Medicine Wheels and teachings
The terminology of The Great Round teachings is identical to that of Harley Swift Deer Reagan as worded in his Apprentice Manual. "Tonal" and "Nagual" shields are terms borrowed by both Mr. Reagan and Sedonia Cahill from Carlos Castenada. Castenada's work is not validated by Yaqui spiritual leaders (personal conversation between Helene Hagan and Alfonso Valencia, Spiritual Head, Pasquale Yaqui Reservation, Arizona), or in anthropological circles. Yet, Sedonia's reading list for vision quests includes his work, with the books of Lynn Andrews and others. Lynn Andrews has been instrumental in propagating the non-existent "Sisterhood of the Shields"". She has been shown to peddle fantasy, and heads the list of "fake medicine people." The vision quest reading list also includes the writings of Jamake Highwater, a well-known Indian impersonator who actually was an Armenian ballet dancer in San Francisco.
Shields are associated with warrior paraphernalia and carry such a meaning in warrior societies of several nations of North America. They displayed honors obtained on the battlefield and were exhibited by the entrance of a tipi, as a coat of arms, so to speak. They carried no spiritual significance, but were held in great respect, for they depicted the high deeds of many valorous warriors. The making and use of shields by Sedonia Cahill and others is another misappropriation, distortion and abuse of meaningful Indian ways torn out of their contexts. The making of shields is part of Sedonia Cahill's and Bird Brother's teachings. There are many individuals in Northern California teaching the making of shields, as if it were an Indian ritual or ceremonial act of great spiritual significance.
The Sun Dance Ritual, the "Prune Dance," the "Flowering Tree Ceremony" and other such gatherings
The specific indications that the teachings of the Great Round are connected to the practice of the Sun Dance which is strictly a Plains ceremony, is the statement on the part of one of the members of the group that some attend the Swift Deer Sun Dance and a photograph from her recently published book . Such practice of the Sun Dance, without understanding the profound context of Lakota society and the place of this ritual in that context, is a travesty of a sacred ritual. The parody of a ritual, divested of its original intent within a given community where all ritual phases are interlinked in a specific way, is quite evident in the spurious sun dances held outside Indian communities.
The Medicine Wheel, which is used for ceremonies and the structure of the Vision Quest, is borrowed straight out of General Storm's book Seven Arrows, and is also at the core of all Deer Tribe teachings. Thus, Sedonia duly acknowledges Harley Swift Deer on page 15 of her book: "I give special thanks...to Harley Swift Deer for his beautiful and inspiring Medicine Wheel Teachings" .
(Other acts of desecration include) the Vision Quest paraphernalia such as making tobacco ties, making prayer arrows, cornmeal offerings etc. Imitations and borrowings from Indians in "playing Indian", buzzwords andsymbols which grant an aura of "Indianness" to language and activites, for an appearance of authenticity.
Symbols
The Coyote Figure is displayed consistently in The Great Round Newsletter. The Coyote is a Native American trickster figure. It often is the first teacher, an intermediary between the higher spirit and mortals, particularly prominent in teachings for children. Coyote stories are morality tales like Aesop's Fables and constitute a Native American literary genre. This figure is demeaned by Sedonia, Bird Brother and The Great Round, and used as a cartoon prop speaking slang or poor English. For instance, A Spring l989 newsletter inclludes the following poem:
ONE LAST COYOTE POEM-you like this newsletter? You wanna keep getting copies? You think this doesn't cost us anything? Hey, Sedonia needs your help...Please send some bucks if you haven't recently, to help pay for newsletter repro and mailing.
Activities
1. All ceremonies (pipe ceremonies, sweatlodges, vision quests, Indian chanting, medicine circles).
2. Various instructions on "how to" feather tying, making tobacco ties, making prayer arrows, making shields, making medicine bundles (including eagle feathers which are federally protected for use only by Native Americans), making amulets which include menstrual blood, pubic hair and fluids from genitalia.
3. Ancient gambling games like bone games.
4. Indian name giving, medicine name giving, honoring with feathers and using pipes. The use of the Pipe in a ceremonial way and the carrying of a pipe is by itself, without any other imitation or borrowing, a desecration of a ritual object sacred to the Plains people.
Based on the above list of linguistic habits, activities, symbols and publications, there is no doubt that Sedonia Cahill, Bird Brother and the organization of The Great Round, as do similar groups, present themselves to the public as teachers of Native American ways. They are indeed imitators, despite their claim to the contrary, to being "innovators and creators" of ritual, as put forward by Sedonia in her last publication (Summer l992 Earth Circle News). "I have not known anyone in this community to copy ceremonies from any other people. We are innovators and creators.." Such a statement does not need any further elaboration, in the light of the review of the activities just described. The pretense to innovation and the denial of imitation ring false. These phrases, activites, and ritual behavior have been learned from "teachers" whom they name in their publications. Almost all of these "teachers" are themselves non-Indian, often considered impersonators of Indians, and not trained in Native American traditional ways.
quote: a recorded album of Tutsi music where there are pictures of a Tutsi musician playing the exact same instrument and dressed in the exact same clothes as that found on the walls of Kemet.
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