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.
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