Chapter 9 'African Religion'.

In Africa, there are three principal religions - Christianity, Islam and Animism (the belief that trees, mountains, and the sky, have souls); which are categorized as being Monotheistic or Polytheistic. Monotheistic religion is the belief in one God, for example Christianity and Islam; while Polytheistic religion is the belief in several gods. There are several different denominations among the African nations. Monotheistic beliefs are the mostly used type of religion practiced in Africa. Christianity and Islam- in our present society religious beliefs and practices play an essential role in Africans daily rituals. Praises and worship is done on daily basis so that God can continue to bless the tribe more abundantly. Guidance, protection and health (or healing) is some of the commonly asked blessings of a Christian. Depending on the faith and actions of the christian, prayer request may or may not be granted since God is believed to know what is best for each individual. These responses never usually have a time frame attached to them, but as the Christianity faith teaches all things will come at the right time.




Here are a few videos showing the how the christians/islamic worships are done.

The Polytheistic type of religion is the worship of many gods and this type of practice through prayer and sacrifice to a spirit, ancestor, or some other divinity. They are represented by earthly structures such as trees, a huge rock ,water and even animals that has there specific function with the higher gods. For example, the people of the tribes would associate sickness and dead crops to some type curse from a bad spirit that another African cast on them or an angry ancestor who is not pleased with that person. Religion that is practiced in such a manor has a spirit to mediate to the supernatural God for whatever blessing or curse to be cast or counteract.

Polytheism although uncommon to the younger generation, it is practiced in the more uncivilized areas of Africa due to lack of exposure and education. This belief is often passed down by traditional teachings. Animism religious practices can be found along with Christianity and Islam like Benin, Togo and Nigeria. Voodoo is one Animism ritual that is still prominently used in Africa and around the world.


A Senegalese Muslim asking for help from the spirits that he believes in.

                                                          

                   

Chapter 1 'Myth and Facts'

My first impressions on Africa were mostly negative judging from commercials of poor, skinny children and parts of Africa that didn't look safe or comfortable to be in. One myth that I've always embedded in my brain was that the population was mainly blacks or “negro”. Wow! Was I wrong?! Another myth that I perceived was that most of the population were of the Islamic religion. Also not true. This chapter really doesn’t discuss much on race and religion like I thought. Even though it touches most of the myths that people would look at first, these were the myths that I pointed out before all the others that were mentioned in this chapter.

“There are seven races of Africa the Negros which are dominant in Sub-Sahara; Ethiopians/Somalis especially the ‘Horn of Africa’; Caucasians which are a part of the South Africa, North Africa, and Zimbabwe, but scattered throughout; Indians which are mainly urban, along the East African coast, Kenya has an especially vibrant Indian population; Khoisans which are mainly found in the Southwest of Africa, especially Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa; Orientals especially the Malagasy Republic after arriving from Indonesia; Pygmy which are in mainly the tropical rain forests and still to this day live from hunting the land. Thanks Professor David Hopkins for this information.

 

Now the religion of Africa is of course different from the religion of us in the U.S. All African religions are monotheistic in the sense that there is a single high God. However, many African religions are also polytheistic in that either pantheons of gods or large numbers of spirits or ancestors or some other kind of divinities may stand between human beings and the ultimate God. So there is the Islam, and Christianity, but also there’s Witchcraft: “The Parasite of Religion”. That’s really the only difference between our religion and theirs.They still ultimately believe in the same things we in the U.S believe.

Chapter 14 'The Era of the Slave Trade'

       When I think about this chapter before reading it, I immediately think about slavery and segregation. Judging from the title I assume this chapter talks about how the slaves were imported to the United States from Africa. Of course this subject is a sensitive subject for me because my ancestors were slaves. From watching movies and reading certain history books of this era makes me very uncomfortable.

The Atlantic Slave trade began in 1450 and the Spanish and Portuguese started slaving in Africa. In 1865 they were still smuggling slaves until the end of the civil war, even though it was illegal technically in 1808. Slaves were not only imported to the United States but also imported to the West Indies which is where the majority of them went. Also they were imported to Brazil the second place where most of them were sent to. The United States actually comes in last place. I’ve always assumed that the United States had the highest population of slaves but this is yet another myth that was proven wrong. 30 million slaves were taken from their homes in Africa. Out of those 30 million, 10 million of them die during the capture phase. Another 10 million die during the middle passage. That leaves the last 10 million to survive to make it over the ocean.

Here is a question that I’ve always wondered for as long as I can remember; Why African’s? Well from research of different sources one reason Is that the Americans are desperate for labor in this era, the second is that it was harder for Africans to run away than Native Americans and lastly, the African’s strengths when it came down to agricultural practices and resistance to diseases. These reasons made me understand a lot better on why our ancestors had been tortured and taken advantage of for so many decades. Not saying it was right but I do feel a little bit more at ease knowing the reasons of such a life changing era. This is why I have so much pride in my race. We’ve come a long way. Not to offend anyone reading this. This is just something that has internally held me curious for so many years.

Chapter 8 'African Trade and Markets'

In the African cultures Markets and trades play an important role and unlike in the western civilization, the African market is a place where families from different tribes meet to engage in the trade of goods on one specific day. Therefore tribes are specialized in certain activities such as hunting, fishing and farming depending on their locations. For instance a tribe that is located close to the bushes or jungle will specialize in hunting in order to provide bush meats on the market and in return, the tribe men will get whatever they need for their family. In the Mina tribe in West Africa the market day is called “Assigbe” and it takes place on Mondays. The exchanges always take place after a representative of the host village ( the village that allows its market space for the trades because the market days are proper to village. In other words if there is a market day in a village on Monday, the next market day will be in the nearby village in the next couple of days) give the signal; usually the representative honk a traditional horn or beat the gong and he determined the end of the market day. The most fascinated aspect of the notion of market in Africa is how the Africans used the rotation of market days to date events and ceremonies.
With the introduction of currency, tribes used different objects as currencies. In the West Africa, cowry shells and gold were used as monetary means. Then the people has been placed a high value in these objects. Therefore the rate of tribe’s migration increased.
Nowadays the markets keep the same scenes with the only exception of an announcer of the beginning and the end of market days and the currencies play a huge role in the exchanges.

Chapter 7 'African Politics and Courts'

In African you have "State" and "Stateless" society's.  The "state" is bureaucracy organized specifically to carry out the activities; taxes, laws, and public safety.  The "stateless" is a non-centralized system of organization based on kinship or other informal structure.  Most tribes in Africa used the "stateless" system and found it useful in using the extended family and lineage forms for organizations.  This system worked great for tribes in Africa.  They based there way of life on kinship but for people in the West they needed the "State" society to solve the problems of daily life.

Ways to Resolve Disputes, in tribes....Ordeals, Seers/Diviners, Contests, Self Help

Ordeals- done when there is an absence of evidence, oaths are given at shrines
Seers/Diviners- Contact the Gods
Contests- competition "winner"
Self Help- man collects his own debts (common in stateless)

 

Chapter 5 'African Families'

     In the United States, a tradtional family simply consists of father, mother, and children. We practice monogamy and that is what is normal to us. While monogamy is practiced in Africa as well, polygyny and bride wealth is also practiced, making family life a bit more complex. We may have different views on family life, but there is one major task of any family and that is to rear a successful younger generation. One other similarity that the book proclaims, is that the love and concern and the trust of the family members for one another is species-wide.




Polygyny is defined as the state or practice of having more than one wife or female mate at a time. While the definition is simply put, there is more to it than that. To someone who is unfamiliar with its practice, they may have an impression that it is something negative or biased. So much as to say that polygyny exploits women or is all about sex, but this is not true. One may also think that the man is the only benefactor in this practice, again this is not true. In tribal Africa the major concept of polygyny was that the male married more than one women depending on the bridal-price or bride-wealth he or his family could afford. The husband was obligated to provide farm for each wife equally. In exchange, the woman and her children were required to work and attend to the maintance on the farm. The material or the resources from the farm where brought together therefore providing an economic structure that benefited the family and the extended family.







In Africa, as well as anywhere else, the root of their kinship derives from their ancestors. Ancestors play a major role in the life of Africans. They are not just seen as an old family member who has passed away, but are seen with a great deal of respect. They are who have, in a sense, made the individual and other members of the family, who they are. They are called upon in times of dispair for their knowledge and wisdom and they are thought to be closer to God. While to us our ancestors are just a part of our personal history and we see it as just that, history, To tribal Africa, the ancestors played a major role in their present.

Chapter 4 'African Arts'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVT--v-fAKw

Art represents artist different types of emotion and feelings within their work.The most important thing to me that African art symbolizes is their culture and emotion. From years back into ancient Africa Nok art was very popular in Nigeria, some artifacts even as old as 2,000 to 2,500 years old. Most Nok artifacts were sculptures of heads with different types of expressions on them. The part that stuck out the most on the sculptures were their lips,nose and eyes. The heads of the art work were mostly likely to be life size which made it more realistic.

Another unique type of African art was the African dance,different dances between different tribes symbolized much more then how Americans look at dancing today. To the Africans dancing was used to demonstrate many different types of emotion,ways to communicate and also used to catch the attention of others.Much like our local and modern day dance class or you tube videos to show us how to dance, each tribe normally has instructor's to teach the younger kids how to dance.African dancing is taken to a much more competitive level with decorating their body's with different types of paint and other equipment. What I also found oddly interesting was that their was a routine for funerals that had dancing in the ceremony. Here in the United states we are all about moment of silence of that we can reflect on the individuals life but in Africa they play a store of the deceased member's life which tells their upbringing.One last thing that also caught my attention was the fact that most of their dances were normally involving the same sex, where here in America it would seem odd for two men to dance together.

Chapter 3 'Mapping Africa'

                             AFRICA'S BOUNDARIES



                   


Africa continent was studied only in geography classes. If it appeared at all in studies of history or politics, the central issue was colonialism, which again involved maps of the boundaries which European powers had drawn between the territories they carved out for themselves. Once African Studies came into maturity as a study of developments within indigenous societies and cultures, there was an understandable hostility to maps as external impositions. Nonetheless, cartography essential to grasping both the forces within Africa and the constraints both natural and political which continue to place this region at a disadvantage in the global order. The view of all African tribes for the land was totally different from the European and Western Societies. Their land or territories were not divided, sold or exchange for anything. That land was part of their life, their ancestors, their cultures and believes.









                                  

                 Characteristics Among the African Tribal Life 


-Great respect and loyalty towards the Group and Ancestors.
-Religion, important ceremonies and rituals are part of every Tribal Group.
-Group is essential and more important than the individual.
-A Stateless Society based on Kinship or other informal structure.





Languages of Africa and Sounds: Over 1,400 languages in Africa and dialects, and some are just as unique as the one on this short video will show you.

The Click Language.

                                       Modes of Subsistence of African Tribal Group


Foraging:

  
Pygmies are primary hunters and gatherers. They rely on food sources from nature.



A short video of how some African Hunters used their hunting skills to track down their prey.

Camel Herders: Are located on the Sahara Desert and on Northern part of Africa.

          



Herding: Mostly tribes from the East Africa are herders
          





Agriculture: Large group of farmers in Central Africa

 . There are three groups of farmer,Grain Crops, Root Crops and Tree Crops　

Chapter 2 'The African Continent'

                                                Climate and Vegetation

Do you know that Africa is immense? It's about three times the size of the contiguous forty-eight states of the United States. I thought that since one third of Africa is desert (the Sahara Desert, the Ogaden Desert, the Namib and Kalahari Deserts), there was no economic activity, but I was completely wrong . Desert dwelling peoples are not homogeneous; they engage in a variety of economic activities like long distance trading, herding of camels, sheep, goats, and even fruit cultivation at oases. Only about 15% of Africa's surface is comprised of tropical rainforests (jungles). People who live here engage in economic activities including hunting, gathering, lumbering, rubber tapping, production of palm products, and cultivation of primarily root crops such as yams and cassava.

                                                       Soil and Agriculture

I also found very interesting in this chapter about the explanation of African soil. I wouldn't ever guess that tropical soil means that the nutrients and minerals are washed out of them and flow away after the rains , and either go into the subsoil or into the sea. So it is very obvious that soils are easily exhausted, so they can only be worked for short periods of time, unless expensive and tedious steps are taken to maintain them.

                                                               Mineral

Guess where the largest mineral industries in the world are? Of course, in Africa. For many African countries, mineral exploration and production constitute significant parts of their economies and remain keys to future economic growth. Gold mining is Africa’s main mining resource. Africa is richly endowed with mineral reserves and ranks first or second in quantity of world reserves of bauxite, cobalt, industrial diamond, phosphate rock, platinum, and zirconium.

                                                            Diseases

Every year, more than half a million women die from complications in pregnancy or childbirth. (This wouldn't happen if they had access to a doctor or emergency care for women.)

 In 2003, 26.6 million people were living with HIV and 3.2 million people became infected.
AIDS killed 2.3 million.
Is very sad to find out that such a rich continent with such a vast culture, is so poor and hundreds of people die every day do to poverty.

Chapter 6 'Land and Labor'

In this chapter of the book we learn about land and labor. I chose to speak about land in this blog. Land in Africa compared to the Western world was viewed in two totally different ways. You had the West using precise measuring equipment to divide up their land and they use a property system. But then you have the way the Africans divide up their land and it is based on a number of things. There is a system called, "minimal lineage", it is associated with a territory. It is based off of how many hundred of males you have derived from a single ancestor, who wives and daughters live them. The Tiv of central Nigeria do this and this process of lineage continues backwards genealogically for several generations, until all Tia are included. Then a two hundred miles in diameter is seen as a linage area. The Tia map is constantly changing unlike the Western word. It seems to me that both ways worked for both "worlds". You had the people of the West that need to make up boundaries and set up farms and start up permit city's, that they weren't going to be changing. But then you had the African that had their system that worked for them that they would be changing and moving around based off of what they needed to survive.