Following the publishing of book in 1799 by a Scottish explorer in West Africa, the mythical mountain range of Kong appeared on world maps for more than two hundred years showing the mountain range stretching for hundreds of miles from Côte d’Ivoire to Nigeria. In 1889, a French army officer returning from a trip to Africa tried to debunk the myth, but for years after the mountain range continued to appear on maps because everyone had always thought it was there.
The Communist Party of China was in the right side of history during their meeting with the Black Panther Party. While communism was used a tool for nation-building in China, communism was used as a tool for social and economic equity for the oppressed proletariat by the Black Panther Party in the United States. Imperialism and colonialsm are all vital elements in Marxist-Leninist theory, which greatly influenced the development of the Black Panther Party and Communist Party of China.
TheBirdsong Volume III Kickstarter has launched - A Guide to the Birdsong of Western Africa from @shikashikacollective pairs musicians and imperiled birds from the region to raise money for conservation. I will be contributing illustrations for the highlighted species, including the Yellow-Casqued Hornbill shown here.
And speaking of Senegambia (except not really)….The short-lived French colony of Senegambia and Niger (1902-1904) was reorganized as Upper Senegal and Niger (1904-1921) and then as the colonies of Upper Volta, French Sudan, and Niger (Burkina Faso, the Republic of Mali, and the Republic of the Niger, respectively), all of which came under the governance of French West Africa. [And just to be clear, Senegambia and Niger did not include what would later become either Senegal or The Gambia, and bears no geographical resemblance to the short-lived Senegambia Confederation unifying the two.]
Stamp details: Stamp on top: Issued in: 1903 From: Bamako, Colony of Senegambia and Niger MC #1
Bottom left: Issued in: 1906 From: Bamako, Colony of Upper Senegal and Niger MC #7
Bottom right: Issued in: 1914 From: Bamako, Colony of Upper Senegal and Niger MC #18
I’ve been inactive for a while, dealing with more important…more time consuming things. I’m currently on pace for a downtown apartment this March, potentially being hired on at my job within the next 2 weeks (I’ve been very busy), and working on some other stuff.
And yes, a nigga laptop screen is still cracked to this day. I just haven’t really made the time to fix it. With my apartment situation soon, I plan to finally get that fixed then and also buy an iMac. I have over 50 drafts right now and plenty more source material sitting around elsewhere (also thank you for 4,600 followers in less than a year of activity, appreciate yall). I’m also going to be starting a Patreon to help push this forward. I’ll have details on that within the next few months, so stay tuned.
Now, in regards to the title: I am Nigerian. Which region and ethnic group we come from, I don’t know this accurate of information yet. I have ancestry within the Senagambian region, Ghana and the Gold Coast. I’ve known a lot about/done a lot of research into genealogy, African archaeogenetics, ethnography, historiography, etc. over the years, and within most of what it happens to be related to, Nigeria has always been a main focus; Igbo, Hausa, Biafra, Sokoto (Usman dan Fodio/Nana Asma'u–two of my biggest interests), Fulani, and Tuareg berber-related things specificially. Among other things. So this came as no surprise to me. My friends I discuss this type of stuff with always joked that I was Nigerian, for w.e reason. I made it my educated guess several years ago, and I also correctly predicted my Y-DNA haplogroup as well maybe 4 years ago; it’s part of a huuuuuge archaeogenetics project I’ve helped a good friend on for years.
Basically, my father’s Y-DNA came back, as I was confident, haplogroup E-V38, subclade being E1b1a. E-V38 in ancient times is thought to have spread originated, in what I’d assume is paleolithic times, in East Africa, but later got to West Africa specifically from the Middle East/Levant. I haven’t gotten to my research projects regarding the anthropological landscape of the ancient Middle East, but now I will! This haplogroup is found primarily amongst Nigerians (Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, etc.), Tuareg Berbers of Niger and Libya specifically, Senegalese, and Ghanaians (Asante, etc.) among others albeit in smaller quantities. Also, from what I read recently from a study of Moorish remains in Northwest Africa, it was also present amongst the Moors of antiquity as well. E-V38 is also the haplogroup of Pharaoh Ramesses III, subclade also being E1b1a, iirc.
My mother on the other hand is an odd discovery! From her mtDNA I inhereted the maternal haplogroup L0a1a, which is common in Southeast Africa among people/regions such as Ethiopians and in southern Yemen (my guess is admixture with Ethiopians during the period throughout the kingdoms of D'mt and Saba/Sheba, and the Axumite empire), Mozambique, etc., but also present in small numbers throughtout Northwest/West among the likes of Tuaregs and something like 1 to 5% of Guineans. Oddly enough I grew up with a lot of Eritrean people (one of those “two families collide into one” type of deal that goes back generations; also by marriage). Grew up going to coffee ceremonies at elders’ homes and eating injera and mesir, lol. Still do once or twice a week to this day. Haplogroup L also happens to be the oldest mitochondrial lineage in human history, iirc, being the offshoot of Mitochondrial Eve in southern Africa. That and Nelson Mandela’s haplogroup.
Lastly, I want to be cultured more on where I come from. If anyone could assist me, this would be AMAZING! Fr family somebody get me hip.
Nigeria specifically my knowledge of Nigerian history and culture extends to topics/specific subjects like: food ofc, the region’s archaeology, indigenous architecure, a lot about Igbo people/culture, Ile-Ife (but not much more than that about Yoruba), Fula people, Shehu Usman dan Fodio+Nana Asma'u and the Sokoto Caliphate, Hausa people, Asante/Ashanti people/empire (Ik a but on the Gold Coast century long conflict with the British), some northern politics relating to Shaykh Ibrahim Zakzakay/etc., the civil war and Biafra, Songhai Empire (Askia, Sonni Ali, etc.), ik a lot of Tuareg berbers in the north, the Benin empire (bronzes, Walls of Benin, etc.), Kanem-Bornu, etc.
Idk much about recent history, culture, society or any of that. Nothing political much either (aside from Shaykh Zakzakay’s situation, memes from Nigerian films, and Big Man Tyrone on youtube).
Oualata (also known as “Walata”), located in Southeast Mauritania, is one town out of a string of 4 in total, coined by UNESCO as the Ksour (ksar - singular, ksour - plural; a Maghrebi Arabic term meaning “fortified village”) of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata. The city of Oualata became a popular caravan city, a trading hub, between the 12th and 16th centuries CE. [1] Today it is renowned for its decorative vernacular houses.
The medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar, Ibn Battuta, wrote of his stay in Oualata in his Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, saying:
“Thus we reached the town of Iwalatan [Walata] after a journey from Sijilmasa of two months to a day. Iwalatan is the northernmost province of the Negroes, and the sultan’s representative there was one Farba Husayn, ‘farba’ meaning deputy [in their Ianguage]. When we arrived there, the merchants deposited their goods in an open square, where the blacks undertook to guard them, and went to the farba. He was sitting on a carpet under an archway, with his guards before him carrying lances and bows in their hands, and the headmen of the Massufa behind him. The merchants remained standing in front of him while he spoke to them through an interpreter, although they were close to him, to show his contempt for them. It was then that I repented of having come to their country, because of their lack of manners and their contempt for the whites.
…Later on the mushrif [inspector] of Iwalatan, whose name was Mansha Ju, invited all those who had come with the caravan to partake of his hospitality. At first I refused to attend, but my companions urged me very strongly, so I went with the rest. The repast was served–some pounded millet mixed with a little honey and milk, put in a half calabash shaped like a large bowl. The guests drank and retired. I said to them, ‘Was it for this that the black invited us?’ They answered, ‘Yes; and it is in their opinion the highest form of hospitality.’ This convinced me that there was no good to be hoped for from these people, and I made up my mind to travel [back to Morocco at once] with the pilgrim caravan from Iwalatan. Afterwards, however, I thought it best to go to see the capital of their king [of the kingdom of Mali, at the city of Mali].”
He seems to have met an hateful sentiment against “white” North Africans from someone within the city. Nonetheless, he did not hate the blacks. Also by his own account (and as seen in the next excerpt), this city was inhabited by the Masufa Berbers, a tribe not known much about. The demographics of Oualata, being mostly black, could mean the Masufa are one of the few heavily black Berber tribes (the main most notably being Tuareg people), or they simply could have been the typical “white” Berbers.
University of Georgia historian Timothy Cleaveland notes in his book Becoming Walata: A History of Saharan Social Formation and Transformation (2002), on page 176, that the city was inhabited by a mix of the original Mande-speaking peoples (also inhabited by Soninke people as well), and later migrations of Zenaga-speaking Berbers, followed even further down the line by Arab or “Arabized” nomads. Although, he notes that the composition of the population didn’t change very much. [2]
The famous Israeli historian and expert of African Islamic history Nehemia Levtzion says in his book Ancient Ghana and Mali (1973) on page 147 that “Walata” had a mixed population of [”white”] Berbers and “Sudanese”; blacks. On pages 80 and 158, we read that it fell from its trading popularity to the city of Timbuktu in the second half of the 14th century. [3]
This is what Ibn Battuta had to say of his stay in the city of Oualata, its men and the quality of their women:
“My stay at Iwalatan lasted about fifty days; and I was shown honor and entertained by its inhabitants. It is an excessively hot place, and boasts a few small date-palms, in the shade of which they sow watermelons. Its water comes from underground waterbeds at that point, and there is plenty of mutton to be had. The garments of its inhabitants, most of whom belong to the Massufa tribe, are of fine Egyptian fabrics.
Their women are of surpassing beauty, and are shown more respect than the men. The state of affairs amongst these people is indeed extraordinary. Their men show no signs of jealousy whatever; no one claims descent from his father, but on the contrary from his mother’s brother. A person’s heirs are his sister’s sons, not his own sons. This is a thing which I have seen nowhere in the world except among the Indians of Malabar. But those are heathens; these people are Muslims, punctilious in observing the hours of prayer, studying books of law, and memorizing the Koran. Yet their women show no bashfulness before men and do not veil themselves, though they are assiduous in attending the prayers. Any man who wishes to marry one of them may do so, but they do not travel with their husbands, and even if one desired to do so her family would not allow her to go.
The women there have ‘friends’ and ‘companions’ amongst the men outside their own families, and the men in the same way have ‘companions’ amongst the women of other families. A man may go into his house and find his wife entertaining her ‘companion’ but he takes no objection to it. One day at Iwalatan I went into the qadi’s house, after asking his permission to enter, and found with him a young woman of remarkable beauty. When I saw her I was shocked and turned to go out, but she laughed at me, instead of being overcome by shame, and the qadi said to me ‘Why are you going out? She is my companion.’ I was amazed at their conduct, for he was a theologian and a pilgrim [to Mecca] to boot. I was told that he had asked the sultan’s permission to make the pilgrimage that year with his ‘companion’–whether this one or not I cannot say–but the sultan would not grant it.”
In a quite hilarious situation, Battuta is surprised by this beautiful woman and attempts to flee like a nervous boy. And he does end up leaving the city of Oualata, in frustration, for Mali to see the king, and notes that it takes 24 days to reach if the caravan pushes on rapidly. [4]
Citation 4 is the text provided by Fordham University’s IHSP.
The renowned 15th-16th century Moroccan Berber-Andalusi writer, Leo Africanus, notes in his Descrittione dell’Africathat:
“The fourth part of Africa which is called the land of Negros, beginneth eastward at the kingdome of Gaoga, from whence it extendeth west as far as Gualata.” (pg 124)
“I* my selfe saw fifteene kingdoms of the Negros: howbeit there are many more, which although I saw not with mine owne eies, yet are they by the Negros sufficiently knowen and frequented. Their names there fore (beginning from the west, and so proceeding Eastward and Southward) are these following: Gualata, Ghinea, Melli, Tombuto, Gago, Guber, Agadez, Cano, Cafena, Zegzeg, Zanfara, Guangara, Borno, Gaogo, Nube.” (pg 128) [5]
The last two citations are unrelated pieces written to explain what exactly this “Gaoga” kingdom was, seeing that it isn’t written of otherwise, for anyone interested.
The beautiful ancient city of Oualata, Mauritania remains a notable tourist attraction today. An hour-long documentary was made about the muralist women of Oualata who decorate these houses, titled “En attandant les hommes”, in 2007 by director Katy Ndiaye.
Seewww.walata.org if you plan to visit. Below are some extra pictures of the city (one of them shows muralists at work). Enjoy.
5. Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa and of the Notable Things Therein Contained: Volume 1, pgs 124 and 128, published by B. Franklin, 1896
For the next week I will be sharing the African-centric photography of Paola Viesi. Ranging from captures of the African social atmosphere, Ethiopian Christendom, to portraits of Tuareg Berbers and more.
Here is her story:
“Paola Viesi is a professional photographer working mainly in Africa.
After classical and humanistic studies in Rome and a nearly fifteen formative years at Olivetti, works for ten years as a Human Resources Top Manager at Telecom Italia, Italy’s main telecommunication company.
With the intention of living a second life, she decides for early retiring to follow her great passion for travelling and the arts. After a first trip to Ethiopia, she moves to Addis Ababa, where she is based since 2002, spending most of her time travelling in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Ethiopia sparks her interest for culture, art and people. Starts travelling extensively throughout the country taking photos with a special aesthetic touch and a sense of classical beauty.
After the success of her photos for UNESCO’s Communication Campaign for the return and the re-erection of the Axum Obelisque, she starts a five years collaboration with Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest airline, travelling and taking pictures in 16 Sub-Saharan countries.
Known for her fearless and long expeditions, her attraction to people takes her travelling to remote places, where she starts taking pictures of great gatherings to holy places with her capacity of capturing magical and unique emotional moments in people’s lives in her vibrant portraits.
In 2007 starts a fruitful collaboration with Slow Food, travelling and focussing on Rural Communities and Fishery Projects, documenting many differents Slow Food projects and Presidia throughout Africa.
After 150.000 kilometers mainly on rough roads travelling with her car in 30 African countries, her intention is only to continue to travel more throughout the world, taking more pictures of people, places, unique events and artwork with her tireless creative energy.”
Oualata (also known as “Walata”), located in Southeast Mauritania, is one town out of a string of 4 in total, coined by UNESCO as the Ksour (ksar - singular, ksour - plural; a Maghrebi Arabic term meaning “fortified village”) of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata. The city of Oualata became a popular caravan city, a trading hub, between the 12th and 16th centuries CE. [1] Today it is renowned for its decorative vernacular houses.
The medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar, Ibn Battuta, wrote of his stay in Oualata in his Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, saying:
“Thus we reached the town of Iwalatan [Walata] after a journey from Sijilmasa of two months to a day. Iwalatan is the northernmost province of the Negroes, and the sultan’s representative there was one Farba Husayn, ‘farba’ meaning deputy [in their Ianguage]. When we arrived there, the merchants deposited their goods in an open square, where the blacks undertook to guard them, and went to the farba. He was sitting on a carpet under an archway, with his guards before him carrying lances and bows in their hands, and the headmen of the Massufa behind him. The merchants remained standing in front of him while he spoke to them through an interpreter, although they were close to him, to show his contempt for them. It was then that I repented of having come to their country, because of their lack of manners and their contempt for the whites.
…Later on the mushrif [inspector] of Iwalatan, whose name was Mansha Ju, invited all those who had come with the caravan to partake of his hospitality. At first I refused to attend, but my companions urged me very strongly, so I went with the rest. The repast was served–some pounded millet mixed with a little honey and milk, put in a half calabash shaped like a large bowl. The guests drank and retired. I said to them, ‘Was it for this that the black invited us?’ They answered, ‘Yes; and it is in their opinion the highest form of hospitality.’ This convinced me that there was no good to be hoped for from these people, and I made up my mind to travel [back to Morocco at once] with the pilgrim caravan from Iwalatan. Afterwards, however, I thought it best to go to see the capital of their king [of the kingdom of Mali, at the city of Mali].”
He seems to have met an hateful sentiment against “white” North Africans from someone within the city. Nonetheless, he did not hate the blacks. Also by his own account (and as seen in the next excerpt), this city was inhabited by the Masufa Berbers, a tribe not known much about. The demographics of Oualata, being mostly black, could mean the Masufa are one of the few heavily black Berber tribes (the main most notably being Tuareg people), or they simply could have been the typical “white” Berbers.
University of Georgia historian Timothy Cleaveland notes in his book Becoming Walata: A History of Saharan Social Formation and Transformation (2002), on page 176, that the city was inhabited by a mix of the original Mande-speaking peoples (also inhabited by Soninke people as well), and later migrations of Zenaga-speaking Berbers, followed even further down the line by Arab or “Arabized” nomads. Although, he notes that the composition of the population didn’t change very much. [2]
The famous Israeli historian and expert of African Islamic history Nehemia Levtzion says in his book Ancient Ghana and Mali (1973) on page 147 that “Walata” had a mixed population of [”white”] Berbers and “Sudanese”; blacks. On pages 80 and 158, we read that it fell from its trading popularity to the city of Timbuktu in the second half of the 14th century. [3]
This is what Ibn Battuta had to say of his stay in the city of Oualata, its men and the quality of their women:
“My stay at Iwalatan lasted about fifty days; and I was shown honor and entertained by its inhabitants. It is an excessively hot place, and boasts a few small date-palms, in the shade of which they sow watermelons. Its water comes from underground waterbeds at that point, and there is plenty of mutton to be had. The garments of its inhabitants, most of whom belong to the Massufa tribe, are of fine Egyptian fabrics.
Their women are of surpassing beauty, and are shown more respect than the men. The state of affairs amongst these people is indeed extraordinary. Their men show no signs of jealousy whatever; no one claims descent from his father, but on the contrary from his mother’s brother. A person’s heirs are his sister’s sons, not his own sons. This is a thing which I have seen nowhere in the world except among the Indians of Malabar. But those are heathens; these people are Muslims, punctilious in observing the hours of prayer, studying books of law, and memorizing the Koran. Yet their women show no bashfulness before men and do not veil themselves, though they are assiduous in attending the prayers. Any man who wishes to marry one of them may do so, but they do not travel with their husbands, and even if one desired to do so her family would not allow her to go.
The women there have ‘friends’ and ‘companions’ amongst the men outside their own families, and the men in the same way have ‘companions’ amongst the women of other families. A man may go into his house and find his wife entertaining her ‘companion’ but he takes no objection to it. One day at Iwalatan I went into the qadi’s house, after asking his permission to enter, and found with him a young woman of remarkable beauty. When I saw her I was shocked and turned to go out, but she laughed at me, instead of being overcome by shame, and the qadi said to me ‘Why are you going out? She is my companion.’ I was amazed at their conduct, for he was a theologian and a pilgrim [to Mecca] to boot. I was told that he had asked the sultan’s permission to make the pilgrimage that year with his ‘companion’–whether this one or not I cannot say–but the sultan would not grant it.”
In a quite hilarious situation, Battuta is surprised by this beautiful woman and attempts to flee like a nervous boy. And he does end up leaving the city of Oualata, in frustration, for Mali to see the king, and notes that it takes 24 days to reach if the caravan pushes on rapidly. [4]
Citation 4 is the text provided by Fordham University’s IHSP.
The renowned 15th-16th century Moroccan Berber-Andalusi writer, Leo Africanus, notes in his Descrittione dell’Africathat:
“The fourth part of Africa which is called the land of Negros, beginneth eastward at the kingdome of Gaoga, from whence it extendeth west as far as Gualata.” (pg 124)
“I* my selfe saw fifteene kingdoms of the Negros: howbeit there are many more, which although I saw not with mine owne eies, yet are they by the Negros sufficiently knowen and frequented. Their names there fore (beginning from the west, and so proceeding Eastward and Southward) are these following: Gualata, Ghinea, Melli, Tombuto, Gago, Guber, Agadez, Cano, Cafena, Zegzeg, Zanfara, Guangara, Borno, Gaogo, Nube.” (pg 128) [5]
The last two citations are unrelated pieces written to explain what exactly this “Gaoga” kingdom was, seeing that it isn’t written of otherwise, for anyone interested.
The beautiful ancient city of Oualata, Mauritania remains a notable tourist attraction today. An hour-long documentary was made about the muralist women of Oualata who decorate these houses, titled “En attandant les hommes”, in 2007 by director Katy Ndiaye.
Seewww.walata.org if you plan to visit. Below are some extra pictures of the city (one of them shows muralists at work). Enjoy.
5. Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa and of the Notable Things Therein Contained: Volume 1, pgs 124 and 128, published by B. Franklin, 1896
The Art of Africa is a casualty of colonial exploitation, surviving principally in the museums of other countries. ~ Nadine Gordimer
“My objective in this work is to document an extraordinary art form - vernacular art and architecture in West Africa - that is not transportable and therefore not seen in museums around the world. It is an attempt to capture the unseen Africa, a glimpse into the homes and into the spirit of very proud and dignified peoples. In much the same way as I photographed the art of Ndebele women, I have drawn on my personal affinity for the art itself, for methods, design and form, rather than the socio-anthropological or political realities of a people or continent in dilemma. These images portray a unique tradition of Africa, a celebration of an indigenous rural culture in which the women are the artists and the home her canvas.”
I made a similar blog post to this a while back, about the vernacular architecture of Oualata/Walata, Mauritania (in fact, the second and last photos are of Oualata).
You can read it here (not sure why, but when I format the link to my post in that text, it keeps redirecting to some old blog for whatever reason):
Continuing on from my previous costumedesign for this character, here’s the latest… Gave this one the name, ’Joseph’.
For this costume, I took influence from Ancient Egyptian (Kemetic) plus a few traditional West Afrikan fashion influences of royalty… A very common misconception people have of Afrikan history is that other than Egypt (for the few who are aware Egypt is in Afrika), nothing else of equal or greater significance occurred… This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Afrika has always had a rich & ancient history of powerful civilizations with great Kings & Queens. One such figure was the West Afrikan Emperor, Mansa Musa, who was ruler of the Mali empire during the 13th century, & is historically recorded as to have been the wealthiest man to have lived at that time; & some say to this day… It is said that during his well known pilgrimage to Mecca, when passing through Egypt, he gave out so much gold that it literally threw off the Egyptian economy.
A building owned by Malian Minister of Justice Kassim Tapo in Bamako, Mali, after it was burned and looted following the recent military coup. Photo of courtesy Maliki Diallo on Twitter.
A building owned by Malian Minister of Justice Kassim Tapo in Bamako, Mali, after it was burned and looted following the recent military coup. Photo Anne Risemberg for Agence French-Press via Getty Images, accompanying this Wall Street Journalarticle.
