Each village consisted of a lineage group, or clan, tracing its origin to a founding ancestor. To judge by reports of early European travelers, many Africans had the misfortune to find themselves without kin, and unable to work. Ghana, first of the great medieval trading empires of western Africa (fl. They have used a wide range of techniques, building up the productivity of the land through manuring, terracing, and digging channels to lead water from stream to field, sometimes across wooden aqueducts. The same eye for beauty and spirit, along with a zest for color and pattern, was revealed in countless textile works from all over the continent. These terms are used to describe societies that did not have a well-defined and complex or centralized systems of government, such as political systems of Ghana, Oyo or Zimbabwe that you studied in Module Seven A Cutting through these landscapes are huge rivers, outstanding amongst which are the Nile, the Niger, the Congo and the Zambezi. Mostly the colonizers centralized power in the hands of the chiefs of the native administration so that these chiefs could better accomplish the tasks given them, like the collection of taxes. Some European captives came the other way, ending up as slaves in the West African kingdoms of Mali and Songhai. Hamilton, et al. Moreover, away from areas especially favored with plentiful rainfall or rivers, the grasslands which cover much of Africa do not make ideal land for crop growing, and are prone to droughts and famines. Facts about Ancient Africa 2: the important civilization All women married, as early as possible. The limited nature of urbanization greatly restricted transport, trade and industry. This article looks at the societies and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern history. The most prized qualities were seen as the preserve of males, such as aggression and courage. NjI4MDI2ZmM3ZTBmNTYxODBhNzFhOWVhY2RlY2YxZDc2ODQwYjlkMTdhZjE3 There were also different social. OTE0MDljOTVhZWU3M2Q2ZmQ2ZGFhNWZmOTE2N2FmZWM0MGJhM2I5YzYxZjZm The resulting dissent, fueled by machismo, ambition, or desire for land, might lead to the exodus of a group of young men to a new location. Towns and cities The larger oases house trading towns and farming communities. Male children could be trained up to become administrators in the royal service, and in some states filled the most responsible positions at court: their lowly social status was thought to act as a check to their ambitions and a guarantee of their loyalty (though a chief slave may have usurped the Mali throne in 1357). Options include print, Easel Activities, Google Forms (passages), and Google Slides (Venn diagrams). In the second millennium CE copper crosses served as a form of currency across much of southern and central Africa. Throughout Africa the basic unit of society was the lineage-group, or clan. Module Ten, Activity Two - Exploring Africa They are in a style of idealized naturalism, most representing kings at the height of their powers. In many of the great kingdoms of Africa, administration was carried on entirely orally. Dance was the most important African cultural form, central to communal festivals, religious ceremonies and masquerades. Some of these clearings became large enough, over generations, to include many villages and so become the basis for chiefdoms, or even kingdoms. When one society was conquered by another, it was the mediums and priests, as well as others in the community with high religious status such as iron workers and herbalists, who often put up the stoutest resistance to alien rule. They assimilated into society by reaffirming . Except in favorable locations, especially where fishing, or gathering aquatic resources, could supplement diets, hunting and foraging groups needed a large area of land on which to sustain themselves. In the savannah and forest regions of West Africa, an international group of traders grew up named the Dyula, who achieved an impressive scale of organization to handle commercial activities over a very wide area. In Africa, trade and industry were constrained by underpopulation. For cultivators in particular, any religious beliefs were underpinned by a deeply-held idea about the world in which they found themselves. Several high mountains rise up from the East African plains, most famously Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. At an individual and family level, dealing with the challenge to build up numbers manifested itself in the supreme importance attached to the production of children. This meant that they usually lived in small and highly mobile bands, building temporary shelters as they move from place to place. Ancient Africa - Social Structure The surrounding bush remained untamed, wild, a source of harm, the abode of dangerous animals and evil spirits. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, this often took the form of inter-generational tensions between elder males with multiple wives and younger males with no wives. Your access to this site was blocked by Wordfence, a security provider, who protects sites from malicious activity. Ancient African Traditional Religions Before Christianity and Islamic African cultivators have generally taken great pride in their skills. Just as there is great cultural diversity so there is diversity in belief systems. MWZkZDVjMmYwOWFkODY0ZjRiZmVjNWQ3ZmIwYzIyOWVjYjk1MzNlNGE5OWU2 He therefore possessed both religious and secular authority within his community. Difficulties in transport encouraged local self-sufficiency, and most trade consisted of purely local exchanges, for example at river banks where fish was bartered for vegetables, or where forest and savannah met, where the products of the two zones were exchanged. Building the dense concentrations of population necessary for the emergence of major civilizations was not an option in most locations. In these, men did the more highly valued work of herding, protecting or raiding cattle, while women did the household chores and cultivated crops a lowly occupation in such societies. The famous one that can be associated with the ancient Africa is the pharaoh and their pyramids. They have used a wide range of techniques, building up the productivity of the land through manuring, terracing, and digging channels to lead water from stream to field, sometimes across wooden aqueducts. MzVjNDBhYTk5MTk1YTUxYzM0ODRjOTE3MGZiNmNiNjg5MWQ5NGYxNDBiNDdm MzE2MGQ0NGZjMTczYTA2YjU3ZDY1YWQ3YTRiOTdlZmE5NTQyMTg0NDgwZTYz Popular culture. By then, however, a countervailing force was at work on the continent, which would put a stop to any expansion in population for two hundred years. 4.7. They also had a reputation for being independent-minded. In that case, though not always, the excluded group has the propensity to oppose the incumbent extractive governance system. Fewer than 30 examples have survived, all made by the lost wax process. However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. In folktales, the rewards for perseverance, intelligence and courage were wives, children, status, wealth, and security in other words, to become a Big Man. NzlkMGVmMDZkZjMzN2QyN2NjYTRkMGVkOTczNzJjZGYxZTAxZDM3MjAwYWJj For cultivators in particular, any religious beliefs were underpinned by a deeply-held idea about the world in which they found themselves. There is little known about the early history of Axum, however, from Greek and Roman sources, we know that the Axum Kingdom was a rapid growing kingdom in the first century CE. The sparser population of eastern, central and southern Africa, compared with western Africa, reduced the scale and impact of commercial activity. Ancient Egypt is arguably the most well-known of Africa's ancient civilizations. Famine was another source of slaves, causing people to sell themselves, or their children, into slavery in order to survive. A further one thousand a year may have been taken each year through the Swahili ports and up the east coast of Africa, destined for the Middle East and South Asia. The sculptural tradition in West Africa goes back to the terracotta figures of the Nok culture of the early first millennia BCE and CE, and began to reach a peak in the 13th and14th centuries in Ife, in Yorubaland (in modern day Nigeria). Indigenous African belief systems have the oldest roots of any of the continent's religions. The more high-status and long-distance traders, however, were men. Learning support for teachers and students. They represent the spectrum of human conditions, from kings and courtiers to the diseased and the executed. The long-distance trade networks were in the hands of comparatively large and sophisticated commercial organizations. Interesting Facts about Traditional Religions of Ancient Africa The people of the Mali Empire believed in a magical force called "nyama." The religious beliefs of Africans impacted all aspects of their everyday lives including their food, work, and family life. The sheer effort of doing so, as well as the obstacles to population growth (such as the tsetse fly, mentioned above, which kills people as well as animals), meant that such clearings have formed isolated pockets of comparatively dense population surrounded by vast tracts of untamed forest. They have few open spaces and are not suitable for herding animals and in any case, in Africa the forests are infested with tsetse fly, which spread a disease deadly to cattle. It offers a general survey of the geographical environments they inhabited; their settlements, social structures and economies; and their religions and cultures. In most territorial kingdoms, local rulers who had been defeated were not eliminated, but became vassal rulers. Such was their reputation for effective healing that the early Europeans resorted to witch doctors, including Christian missionaries. Population growth, Gods and spirits They would form a group of inter-related clans, or lineages, tracing their descent back to a single ancestor. From its territories, great civilizations have risen to glory. In times of external danger such societies could come together to resist attack; however, they were peculiarly vulnerable to slave raiding from predatory states. Equality was very important in these tribes and all people were treated equally. States emerged in the forest regions to the south from the end of the first millennium, while in the equatorial forests and grasslands of central, east and southern Africa the state-building process did not start until the early- to mid-second millennium. Having said that, no one can look at a Benin bronze figure and argue that skills of the very highest level were lacking in African craftsmanship; and fine crafts were to be found up and down the continent. An Awilu was a free person who belonged to the affluent and wealthy upper class and enjoyed grants and benefits. Hunter-gatherer peoples had inhabited sub-Saharan Africa for millennia prior to herders, and later agriculturalists, starting to settle the region. Government and Economy - Ancient Africa - Google Witches were widely blamed for misfortunes, especially involving the fertility of women and the survival of children. Men captured in war or raids were often sacrificed to the gods, and the wives, retainers and servants of dead rulers were frequently buried with him. They were now in a position to acquire wives and found their own family lines. As in all pre-modern societies, infants and their mothers, the very groups upon whom the successful growth of population most depended, were most at risk. What were the social classes in ancient Africa? Of the outlying settlements, only the more successful ones would survive. The histories and cultures of Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia and North Africa are covered elsewhere. They include the second largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Victoria. This would exacerbate the already existing social fault-lines which afflicted all such societies. Ghana | historical West African empire | Britannica In some cases such children were castrated as a further measure to reduce ambition they would not then be able to establish an independent dynasty. A West African Social Hierarchy: The Caste System This reflects the much more limited role of trade outside West Africa. In case of divorce she often lost all rights to her children, a cruel policy used to impose more rigorous female chastity than was demanded elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. MmYyNjc5MzNiN2Y1ZWY3NWJhMmMyZTBhZGE4YzI0OTI2MjAwZTRmODkwN2M1 This categorization was not hard and fast. Connected with this, feats of memory were a key part of African religious, political and commercial life. Also the leaders were chosen if they were the strongest to beat everyone who opposed them or the smartest as in the most strategic (Adams, 2016). Egypt and Nubia were both complex civilizations ruled by a monarchy and the leader was often considered the god on Earth In Africa it has become clear that characteristics depend on economic development. One way in which the older generation could impose its control on the younger was through initiation. The Bantu, a large group of related peoples, originated along what is now the border between NIGERIA and CAMEROON and spread throughout central and southern Africa. In more densely populated societies a number of such lineages might be clustered together to form a large village or small town. To the south of the western savannah is the region of rainforest which encompasses the southern areas of West Africa and most of the Congo Basin. They sought to bring shrines and cults under their authority through a mixture of threat and patronage. This was a form of draughts, and was played in private rather than in public. In North Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, there is a narrow zone of temperate, Mediterranean climate. The most spectacular practitioners of this were kings and chiefs, which gave rulers swarms of sons to contest the succession or fragment the state. The main city, Adulis, at the time was a very important port. In a few, more sophisticated kingdoms, such as Songhai, power was more centralized, with the state divided into provinces ruled by governors appointed by the king. Together with freedom it is an important element of the economy, culture and social structure of a country. The exchange of salt for gold or grain was the foundation of the trans-Saharan trade, which had such a major impact on West African civilization. In cattle-herding societies, and some crop-growing societies which were in close proximity to them, the young men were grouped into an age set of junior warriors. Women predominated in small-scale trade as market sellers, which gave those involved considerable economic independence. Hidden 9-meter long chamber inside Great Pyramid revealed Even the Swahili trading ports of East Africa such as Lamu, Mombasa, Kilwa and Zanzibar, home to a sophisticated Arab-African culture, were strung out along the coastline with great distances between them. They were much more likely to have to go and live in their husbands familys village after marriage, which put them in a comparatively powerless position. Secondly there was the nobles, people who fought in the King's army and provided it with weapons. Outside the oases there are some areas of scrubland, and here nomadic pastoralists Berber peoples, most notably the Tuareg graze their herds. The effects of disease were compounded by diets amongst crop-growing peoples low in animal protein and vitamins, in milk for infants, and, for many places, restricted access to clean fresh water. A hidden corridor nine meters (30 feet) long has been discovered close to the main entrance of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza, and this could lead to further findings, Egyptian . He was surrounded by his extended family his wives and children, his brothers and their families, more distant relatives, and unrelated families who had been separated from their own clans for various reasons and who looked to him for protection. Many African kingdoms had lineages of rulers who traced their origins to foreign lands. If you believe Wordfence should be allowing you access to this site, please let them know using the steps below so they can investigate why this is happening. Other common maladies were hookworm anaemia, yaws, leprosy, smallpox and endemic syphilis (though not the more lethal venereal kind, which was only introduced into sub-Saharan Africa in the 16th century, after Europeans arrived). Africa [ushistory.org] Taking captives was a major objective in war, with most of the individuals thus enslaved being women or children. The earliest kingdoms we know of in West Africa, such as Ghana and Mali, were located at strategic points in the trans-Saharan trade network. It is inhabited by the San hunter-gatherer people who have adapted their lifestyle to this forbidding environment over 20,000 years. If they were too old, ill or handicapped to work effectively; or if through misfortune they had no children; or if they had no kinsmen to aid them clear land and tame fields, they were very vulnerable. Africa Africa's Great Rift Valley is the largest landform on Earth, and the only one visible from the moon. Some of these lived permanently in one town, but others spent much of their time wandering from town to town, market to market, with their wares. A common idea was that the founders of a particular community, on first settling the area, had made a pact with the spirits of the land in order to ensure good harvests. This meant that, for a man to marry he must have some wealth, and since this took time to build up most men were in their thirties when they married. Hidden corridor discovered in Great Pyramid of Giza - CNN Style In many cases, however, craft production was devoted to local, regional or long-distance trade. NjhkMjY1MGEwZGFkNGU1MTkyY2ZlMDdlNWEwMTIxZGI5YjQwNzljMmRjOWI2 - africa's social structure forms political nations that will help people from violence. This bred a society in which extra-marital sex was common and accepted, and young men adopted an attitude of machismo and insolence towards their elders. Defence could become more organized, and they could build up their numbers by large raids on neighboring peoples and bring in captives as new (if somewhat disadvantaged) new settlers. There was constant tension between the generations, which could spill over into real violence. ZTBhMDQ4MWZjMjIzYTBiMjFlOTFiZWYwZDcxMGI4YjMwYzhkYWEwMDgwZTFk First are the hunter-gatherer societies. Weaving with the loom seems to have come late to sub-Saharan Africa, introduced by Muslim traders into West Africa towards the end of the first millennium AD; and probably separately to eastern and southern Africa, also by Muslim merchants via the Swahili ports. This close concentration of dwellings formed the core of the villages. All this has left African societies comparatively isolated from the great developments affecting other regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, and indeed from each other. In contrast to all this, anthropologists found that the pygmies who inhabited the deep forests, and who relied for their survival on its produce, regarded the forests as innately good, and the lands surrounding it as fearful. At the top were the gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis. Sumer SOCIAL CLASSES - 8 CHARACTERISTICS OF A CIVILIZATION