AFRICAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE
African societies were based on extended family units, with most people living in
rural villages. Most Africans shared common traditional religious beliefs and customs,
especially the honoring of their ancestors. Through unique musical forms and
storytelling, Africa’s rich cultural heritage was passed from one generation to the
next—influencing world culture today
Aspects of African Society
African towns often began as fortified walled villages and gradually grew into
larger communities serving several purposes. These towns were the centers of
government and trade, with markets filled with goods from faraway regions. African
towns were also home to artisans skilled in metalworking, woodworking, pottery
making, and other crafts, as well as farmers who tilled the soil in the neighboring fields.
Because most African societies did not have written languages, much of what we know
about these societies comes from descriptions recorded by foreign visitors, such as
the Arab traveler Ibn Battuta. Indeed, African society had several unusual features,
including the relationship of African kings to their subjects. For example, African rulers
would frequently hold an audience to allow people to voice their complaints.
King and Subject
In most Asian societies, the royal family and the aristocracy were largely isolated
from the rest of the people. In Africa, the gulf between king and common people was
not as great. Frequently, the ruler would hold an audience (meeting) to let people voice
their complaints. Nevertheless, the king was still held in a position high above all
others. The relationship between king and subject in many African states helped both
sides. Merchants received favors from the king, and the king’s treasury was filled with
taxes paid by merchants. It was certainly to the benefit of the king to maintain law and
order in the kingdom so that the merchants could practice their trade.
Family and Lineage
Few Africans, of course, ever had an audience with their kings. Most people lived
in small villages in the countryside. Their sense of identity was determined by their
membership in an extended family and a lineage group. At the basic level was the
extended family, made up of parents, children, grandparents, and other family
dependents. They lived in small, round dwellings made of packed mud, with a thatch
roof of plant material such as straw. These extended family units were in turn combined
into larger communities known as lineage groups. Lineage groups served as the basic
building blocks of African society. All members of a lineage group could claim to be
descended from a real or legendary common ancestor. As in China, the elders—the
leading members of the lineage group—had much power over the others in the group.
A lineage group provided mutual support for all its members. Members of extended
families and lineage groups were expected to take care of one another.
The Role of Woman
Women were usually subordinate to men in Africa, as they were in most early
societies around the world. In some cases, they were valued for the work they could
do or for their role in having children and thus increasing the size of the lineage group.
Women often worked in the fields while the men of the village tended the cattle or
hunted. In some communities, women were merchants. There were some key
differences between the role of women in Africa and elsewhere.
In many African societies, lineage was based on the mother rather than the
father. In other words, these were matrilineal societies (societies in which descent is
traced through the mother), rather than patrilineal societies (societies in which descent
is traced through the father). One Arab traveler noted, “A man does not pass on
inheritance except to the sons of his sister to the exclusion of his own sons.” Women
were often permitted to inherit property, and the husband was often expected to move
into his wife’s house.
Community Education and Initiation
In a typical African village, a process existed for educating young people and
preparing them to become part of the community. For example, in the Congo, by the
1400s, both boys and girls were raised by their mothers until the age of six. From their
mothers, they learned language, their family history, and the songs that gave meaning
to their lives. At six, boys and girls went their separate ways: girls to the “house of the
women,” boys to the “house of the men.” Fathers then took control of their sons’
education. Boys learned how to hunt and fish, how to grow plants, and how to clear
the fields for planting. By experience, young males learned how to live and survive in
the natural world. Girls continued to learn what they needed from their mothers. This
included how to take care of the home and work in the fields. Girls also learned what
they would need to be good wives and mothers. Marriage and motherhood would be
their entry into the world of the community for females. As the children matured, they
played a larger role in the community. Boys cleared the fields, built houses, and took
part in village discussions and ceremonies. Girls took over more responsibility for
household tasks, took care of younger brothers and sisters, and attended village
ceremonies, especially those connected to marriages and funerals. Finally, young
people reached a point in their upbringing where they were expected to enter the
community fully. This transition—which occurred at the time of puberty—was marked
by an initiation ceremony in which young people were kept isolated from the
community. They then underwent a ritual ceremony in which they symbolically died
and were reborn. Young females were then considered fully women, young males fully
men. Both entered completely into the life of the community.
Slavery
When we use the term African slavery, we usually think of the period after 1500,
when European slave ships carried millions of Africans in bondage to Europe or the
Americas (see Chapter 13). Slavery, however, did not begin with the coming of the
Europeans. It had been practiced in Africa since ancient times. Furthermore, as we
have seen, slavery was not unique to Africa, but was common throughout the world.
Berber groups in North Africa regularly raided farming villages south of the Sahara for
captives. The captives were then taken northward and sold throughout the
Mediterranean. The use of captives for forced labor or for sale was also common in
African societies further south and along the coast of East Africa.
Slaves included people captured in war, debtors, and some criminals. They were
not necessarily seen as inferior but as trusted servants. Some were even respected
for their special knowledge or talents. Life was difficult for most slaves. Those who
worked on farmlands owned by the royal family or other wealthy landowners toiled
hard, long hours. Others were enrolled as soldiers and were sometimes better off.
Many slaves were used in the royal household or as domestic servants in private
homes. These slaves usually had the best existence, with decent living conditions. In
Muslim societies in Southwest Asia, slaves might at some point even win their
freedom.
Religious Beliefs
Early African religious beliefs varied from place to place. Most African societies
shared some common religious ideas. One of these was a belief in a single creator
god. The Yoruba peoples in Nigeria, for example, believed that their chief god sent his
son Oduduwa down from Heaven in a canoe to create the first humans. The Yoruba
religion was practiced by many of the slaves transported to the Americas. Sometimes,
the creator god was joined by a whole group of lesser gods. The Ashanti people of
Ghana, for example, believed in a supreme being called Nyame, whose sons were
lesser gods. Because the Ashanti gods could not always be trusted, humans needed
to appease them to avoid their anger. Some peoples believed that the creator god had
lived on Earth but left in disgust at human behavior. However, the god was also
merciful and could be pacified by proper behavior. One way to communicate with the
gods was through ritual. This process was usually carried out by a special class of
diviners, people who believe they have the power to foretell events, usually by working
with supernatural forces. Many diviners were employed by the king. This was done to
guarantee a bountiful harvest or to protect the interests of the ruler and his subjects.
Another key element in African religion was the importance of ancestors. Each lineage
group could trace itself back to a founding ancestor or group of ancestors. Ritual
ceremonies were dedicated to ancestors because the ancestors were believed to be
closer to the gods. They had the power to influence, for good or evil, the lives of their
descendants.
Many African religions shared a belief in an afterlife. Human life, it was thought,
consisted of two stages. The first stage was life on Earth. The second stage was an
afterlife. Ancestral souls would live on in the afterlife as long as the lineage group
continued to perform rituals in their names. African religious beliefs were challenged,
but not always replaced, by the arrival of Islam. Islam swept across northern Africa in
the wake of the Arab conquest. It was slower to penetrate the lands south of the
Sahara. The process likely began as a result of trade, as merchants introduced Muslim
beliefs to the trading states south of the desert. At first, conversion took place on an
individual basis. Initially, African rulers did not convert to Islam themselves, although
they welcomed Muslim traders and did not try to keep their subjects from adopting the
new faith. The first rulers to convert were the royal family of Gao at the end of the tenth
century. By the end of the fifteenth century, much of the population south of the Sahara
had accepted Islam. The process was even more gradual in East Africa. It had less
success in areas of Ethiopia, where, as we have seen, Christianity continued to gain
followers. Islam was first brought to East Africa by Muslim traders from Arabia, but it
did not gain many converts there until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. At that time,
Swahili culture emerged, and many upper-class people converted to Islam. In some
ways, the beliefs of Islam were in contrast to traditional African beliefs and customs.
Islam’s rejection of spirit worship ran counter to the beliefs of many Africans and was
often ignored in practice. Likewise, Islam’s insistence on distinct roles for men and
women was contrary to the relatively informal relationships in many African societies.
As elsewhere, in Africa, imported ideas were combined with native beliefs to create a
unique brand of Africanized Islam.
African Culture
In early Africa, as in much of the rest of the world at the time, the arts—whether
painting, literature, or music— were a means of serving religion. A work of art was
meant to express religious conviction. The earliest art forms in Africa were rock
paintings. The most famous examples are in the Tassili Mountains in the central
Sahara. These paintings show the life of the peoples of the area as they shifted from
hunting to herding and eventually to trade. Wood-carvers throughout Africa made
remarkable masks and statues. The carvings often represented gods, spirits, or
ancestral figures and were believed to embody the spiritual powers of the subjects.
Terra-cotta (clay) and metal figurines served a similar purpose. For example, terra-
cotta human figures and human heads found near the Nigerian city of Nok are thought
to have had religious significance. The Nok culture is the oldest known West African
culture to have created sculpture.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, metalworkers at Ife (EE•feh), the
capital of the Yoruba people, in what is now Nigeria, produced handsome bronze and
iron statues. The Ife sculptures may have influenced artists in Benin in West Africa,
who produced equally impressive works in bronze during the same period. The Benin
sculptures include bronze heads, many of kings, and figures of various types of
animals. Like wood carving and sculpture, African music and dance often served a
religious purpose. African dancing served as a way to communicate with the spirits. It
was also “the great popular art of the African people.” With its strong rhythmic beat,
African music would influence modern Western music. African music also had a social
purpose. It was used to pass on to young people information about the history of the
community. In the absence of written language, the words to songs served to transmit
folk legends and religious traditions from generation to generation. Storytelling, usually
by priests or a special class of storytellers known as griots (GREE•OHZ), served the
same purpose. Storytellers were historians who kept alive a people’s history. For
example, much of what we know about Sundiata Keita—the founder of the kingdom
of Mali—has come down to us from the oral traditions of the griot.
