ID questions and short essay questions
707803
pre-colonial_african_values.pptAFRICA
A. Introduction
-Overview
54 nations, diversity, etc
- Geography & Climate
- Tropical, Mediterranean, arid, etc
- History & Environment
- Languages:
- Reflect the complexity of Africa. Five major language families:
- Niger-Kordofanian
- Nilotic
- Afro-Asiatic
- Khoisan
- Malagasy-Polynesian
What is the meaning of history for the African people?
- Idea of History
- Knowledge of past & present,
- Consciousness to preserve story, griots
- Understand beginnings of communities, legends, folktales, folk beliefs, proverbs, praise songs, myths, religious practices, etc
- Definite purpose, survival of community’s traditions, socializing, values, codes, control, knowledge of institutions
- Broad themes of African History
- change & endurance, conflict, migration, community belonging, group identity, village consciousness, trade, etc
Empires of the Western Sudan: Ghana, Mali, Songhay
-contextualize in history
- Civilization
- A)-political Organization: family, village, kingdom; power structure
- B) –economic life: agriculture, commerce- long and short distance trade
- C) –social organization: family, polygamy, slavery
- D) Religion: ancestral worship, spirit of the land, variation,
- E) –art: carvings, sculpture, significance
- F)- music: instruments, songs, dance, significance
- G)- griots
African Cultural Survivals
- many have documented this, J. Franklin, L. Levine, S. Sturky, L. Turner, C. Woodson, etc, etc.
- Art: much creativity, aesthetic, folklore, music, etc.
- Literature: Folk tales, folk beliefs
- Religion: concepts & practices, ring shout, celebration, vodo (Dahomian word for spirit), rituals, magic, etc.
- Music: instruments, banjo, drums, song types, spirituals and early beginnings in slave ships, etc.
- Music from the kongo contributed to the rise of the national music of Brazil –Samba. Dance
- Food: okra is a crop native to West and Central Africa, sorghum introduced to the US from West Africa.
- Black-eye peas are African in origin; fish stew and gumbos that Louisiana is famous for are African in origin, etc, etc.
