ancient african social structure

However, state-building was not a straightforward process in African conditions. YjU5YTA2MjA2ZTZjNTRkNmQ0OTBmNzIzM2EzZTIyZWFlMDBlMGViZTQzMDMw The advancements made in the ancient world continue to influence our societies today. In fact, cults involving rain shrines and weather gods might command the loyalty of people over a wide area, a form of worship practiced side-by-side with that concerning the spirits of the land. Many of the market traders were local women, but above them was a class of comparatively wealthy merchants. This crosses the content from its west coast to the east coast. The continent of Africa covers several broad climatic zones. NjI3NjM4ODlkZDhlYWEyNmY2NmFiMDk1NjJjYjUwZTQxNmQwMmM4M2E4Mzkz One group in African society, which made up probably a tiny proportion of the whole but which had an influence out of all proportion to its size, were the traders. First, the African languages were solidly rooted: three languages (Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho) are spoken by over two million people each, and the first two are mutually understandable. Eventually, however, immigrant rulers usually learnt to co-exist with local religious practitioners. Those humans whose livelihood depended on adventuring into the bush hunters above all but also herbalists and iron workers, who needed wood for their furnaces were regarded with awe, for they must be protected by strong magic to survive such trips.if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'timemaps_com-leader-4','ezslot_13',198,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-timemaps_com-leader-4-0');if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'timemaps_com-leader-4','ezslot_14',198,'0','1'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-timemaps_com-leader-4-0_1'); .leader-4-multi-198{border:none !important;display:block !important;float:none !important;line-height:0px;margin-bottom:15px !important;margin-left:auto !important;margin-right:auto !important;margin-top:15px !important;max-width:100% !important;min-height:250px;min-width:250px;padding:0;text-align:center !important;}. The abundant insect life of the tropics makes for a very high prevalence of serious diseases, for both humans and their animals; this greatly constrains the rates at which populations can grow. Other common maladies were hookworm anaemia, yaws, leprosy, smallpox and endemic syphilis (though not the more lethal venereal kind, which was only introduced into sub-Saharan Africa in the 16th century, after Europeans arrived). This article looks at the societies and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern history. Pastoralist and farming communities have therefore lived in close proximity, which has been a major factor in state formation in these regions.if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'timemaps_com-leader-2','ezslot_11',177,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-timemaps_com-leader-2-0'); Pastoralist communities are more dispersed, and much more mobile, than agricultural ones, as they follow their flocks and herds around in the search for good grazing. NTNjZjkxMjQ0YmE1NWYxYzRjOTRkMTFjNWZkYWE5MjRjMWE1NjA0Mzk5Yzhh - social STRUCTURE are sometimes defined by GOVERNMENTS all over africa. The Rhodes-Livingstone Papers. The first king was king Tenkamenin, and the second king of the Ghana Empire was Kaya Maghan. They had done this by the start if the first millennium BCE. The larger the state the more resources it could commit to defense and expansion. However springs or small lakes allow oases of vegetation to flourish at scattered spots, sometimes hundreds of miles apart. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, this often took the form of inter-generational tensions between elder males with multiple wives and younger males with no wives. In most patrilineal societies womens status tended to be less favorable. Further upstream all have their flows interrupted by falls and rapids, making them unsuitable for long-distance trade even in the interior of Africa. Growth of the Axum Kingdom. The resulting dissent, fueled by machismo, ambition, or desire for land, might lead to the exodus of a group of young men to a new location. Therefore, it was important to keep them happy. They also had a reputation for being independent-minded. The original settlers became the founding ancestors of the new community, and because it was they who had struck the original pact with the spirits of the land, it was they alone who could communicated with them, even (or especially) after death. . Suspects were often the victims of mob violence. These West African trade systems were facilitated by an international currency based on cowrie shells, whose distinctive appearance, durability, and limited supply made them very suitable for such a role. In the Great Lakes region, for example, the Lega people developed a distinctive and lively series of exquisite miniature sculptures. NWIyZWQ1YTA3MjZkYTQzOWRjMzhmYTJkYjAyNzViOGRjNjIxMGM0YTRjNGJl Olikenyi (2001) explains that, African hospitality which he contends is a vital aspect of existence in Africa in general, is one of the few facets of ancient African culture that is still intact and strongly Such states could also organize the colonization of outlying areas in a more systematic fashion, perhaps under the leadership of a prince of the royal family. Underpopulation meant that disgruntled people could always seek new land beyond the reach of royal authority. MzVjNDBhYTk5MTk1YTUxYzM0ODRjOTE3MGZiNmNiNjg5MWQ5NGYxNDBiNDdm This reflects the much more limited role of trade outside West Africa. Some cultures preferred more naturalistic depictions of human faces and other organic forms. Not only so, but the general health of the population was regularly weakened by famine. With the evolving of African settlements into bigger towns and cities, the Caste system slowly began to take shape and become a distinctive social structure. This crosses much of the continent from east to west, from the Atlantic coast to the highlands of Ethiopia. Difficulties in transport encouraged local self-sufficiency, and most trade consisted of purely local exchanges, for example at river banks where fish was bartered for vegetables, or where forest and savannah met, where the products of the two zones were exchanged. In other traditional African societies, class structure has been based on levels of control or servitude. In agricultural communities the status of women varied greatly. From the 17th century, European contact have brought new crops from America, such as maize, cassava and sweet potatoes, and these were beginning to provide additional nutrition and a significant boost to numbers all over Africa. 1. Dance was the most important African cultural form, central to communal festivals, religious ceremonies and masquerades. The contemporary political history of Africa is marked by imperialism, the expulsion of foreign powers and settler elites, and the post-independence travails of its roughly fifty states. Ghana was the first empire of ancient Africa. Around this would be clustered the huts of other households, with four or five members each. Like the gold miners they were also hereditary, and in fact formed a distinct ethnic group within desert society. The greater number of people such a community embraced, the better it meant greater security for all, and more labour for the back-breaking work of keeping the bush at bay and clearing more land. There was intense competition for women, and great inequality in access to them. Craft workers were often dedicated to meeting the needs of the ruler and the elite, their workshops located within the royal compound. The specifics of the caste systems in Africa vary among . Small, isolated areas of dense population were surrounded by large tracts of sparsely peopled wilderness. These ancestral spirits thus became the channel through which spiritual forces could be accessed. These requirements imposed a considerable constraint on the ability of Big Men to accumulate material wealth; and in many cases his status was precarious. These terms are used to describe societies that did not have a well-defined and complex or centralized systems of government, such as political systems of Ghana, Oyo or Zimbabwe that you studied in Module Seven A On the whole, though, anthropologist have emphasized the rational, experimental nature of African medicine. Such traders were men, and they ranged from single itinerant traders with perhaps a donkey to carry his goods, to those in charge of caravans of donkeys or, in the desert, of camels. Younger men would set out to seduce or rape the young wives of their elders, and their elders would be determined to prevent this. Once a cluster had acquired some form of statehood, its people were able to act in a much more co-ordinated fashion. Oral traditions and Muslim and European records suggest that large-scale famines occurred every 70 years or so, and were often accompanied by epidemic disease. As in all pre-modern societies, infants and their mothers, the very groups upon whom the successful growth of population most depended, were most at risk. The ancient kingdom of Ethiopia was named after its capital city, Axum. Begins with an engaging introduction, including an original thesis of the essay's main point Identifies three (3) civilizations introduced in the first half of the class Compares and contrasts the values and beliefs of each civilization Provides specific evidence, including well-integrated, appropriate . The histories and cultures of Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia and North Africa are covered elsewhere. Establishing a new settlement was not just about clearing forest or scrub and creating fields for crops; it was about taming the land, seeking the permission of the spiritual forces which controlled a patch to settled on it, and making a contract with them to bless them with protection and fertility. One common social structure among ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa is segmentary lineage organisation. The earliest kingdoms we know of in West Africa, such as Ghana and Mali, were located at strategic points in the trans-Saharan trade network. Ghana, first of the great medieval trading empires of western Africa (fl. By utilizing this acronym, students can compartmentalize their findings and . It is inhabited by the San hunter-gatherer people who have adapted their lifestyle to this forbidding environment over 20,000 years. The main city, Adulis, at the time was a very important port. However, populations of pygmies also inhabited large tracts of tropical forest which covered much of equatorial and western Africa. MmYyNjc5MzNiN2Y1ZWY3NWJhMmMyZTBhZGE4YzI0OTI2MjAwZTRmODkwN2M1 The Sahara desert forms a major barrier to contacts between the cities and states of the Mediterranean region and the peoples to its south. Firstly there was the King who ruled over everyone and was thought to have divine powers. - africa's social structure forms political nations that will help people from violence. MzE2MGQ0NGZjMTczYTA2YjU3ZDY1YWQ3YTRiOTdlZmE5NTQyMTg0NDgwZTYz Even so, until the start of the second millennium they inhabited large areas across the continent, in the wide spaces left vacant by farmers and pastoralists. ZDQ1YTJjMTY4ZmNjMzllMjdlY2MwMTUyYmJiMDBiZTQ2M2IxYjg4OGY2YTBi Popular culture. The trans-Saharan trade was carried in caravans made up of sometimes hundreds of camels. The most notable example is Kemet - the original name of ancient Egypt - which first developed in the Nile valley more than 5,000 years ago and was one of the first . In contrast to all this, anthropologists found that the pygmies who inhabited the deep forests, and who relied for their survival on its produce, regarded the forests as innately good, and the lands surrounding it as fearful. This process only reached its completion in South Africa by the end of the 1st millennium CE. NmQ3NzU3NWZiNGRmMjNjOWYyMzgyNGI5NTRhMWYxMDU4YzQ3NDY5ZWFiYmU3 There were many African societies which have been classified by political historians as stateless or de-centralized. The General History of Africa ( Ki-Zerbo, et al. Perhaps the highland areas which have had most impact on the history of Africa have been the Ethiopian Highlands, which have sheltered Africas only historic Christian state; and the highlands of southern Africa, which have played a key role in that regions history. jed asto hovoren bsnici terasove dosky campus Urobit dobre pamta preloi. Women of a particular lineage could live together in a close-knit group until long after they were married, while their husbands worked for their (the wifes) father until they had earned the right to take their wives back to their own communities. OGRiMDc3NTM1M2QyZDI3YzBlYjZmZjBhNWFkOWZjYzEzOGRlZDU4ZDc4NDE1 In the social pyramid of ancient Egypt . In the forests of West Africa and the Congo Basin, yams and plantains were the staple crop. OTIxY2QzNGMwMmQ0OGI0YWIzNDFhOThjNGU4ZTVhM2IzYjQyOTkzYjMwZmNk In river floodplains communities have constructed mounds raised above the flood level from which to take advantage of the rich silt deposited by the river waters. In forest regions, away from lakes and rivers, human porterage was the only means of transport as the presence of tsetse fly meant that animals could not be used; this was by definition very labour intensive and meant that agricultural produce could travel only short distances. This tradition of West African sculpture arose in a much broader context of mask-making and statuary in wood and ivory, which covered much of sub-Saharan Africa. This would exacerbate the already existing social fault-lines which afflicted all such societies. In river floodplains. All this implies that womens status in African societies was low, and in some this was indeed the case, especially amongst cattle-herders. On the other hand, everyone, regardless of sex or age, was required to work in the fields in times of peak activity such as harvest, and in some societies men prided themselves in their diligence as farmers. This bred a society in which extra-marital sex was common and accepted, and young men adopted an attitude of machismo and insolence towards their elders. These occupied the grasslands around (and sometimes within) the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, and the more arid grasslands which covered so much of the continent. Egyptians believed that the gods controlled the universe. It was they who provided the support and security needed to get by. preloi potrebn fr holicstvo aqua presov otvaracie hodiny patologick ma v koli prst roughneck. Just as there is great cultural diversity so there is diversity in belief systems. First are the hunter-gatherer societies. ZWFhZmI1NmY5ZjVhZjJjNjYxYTFjNzUxMjgzZTE4MGZhOWIyODQyZWE4ZGIz As warriors they would cultivate a military ethos and be sent out to military outposts to guard the groups cattle and territory. Where there is a spring, a lake or a river, however, cultivation is possible, and in some areas, for example in the inner delta of the River Niger (see below), or on the shores of Lake Chad in West Africa, or the Great Lakes of central Africa, intensive cultivation has allowed concentrations of dense population to grow up. Explain the social structure, unique aspects, and decline of Great Zimbabwe . Egyptian society was structured like a pyramid. Just south of the narrow band of temperate climate in North Africa is the largest desert in the world, the Sahara. Local trade certainly existed, especially in areas of dense population such as in the Great Lakes region (which also benefitted from the water-borne transport which the huge lakes themselves permitted). In some kingdoms, such as Songhai and the Hausa states in West Africa, and Kongo and Luba in Equatorial Africa, slave labour was on a larger scale than in other places. The previously hidden corridor is the latest discovery of the ScanPyramids project, a mission made up of heritage experts from . Similarly, belief that spiritual power came only through dead ancestors was common amongst herding societies. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, therefore, metalworkers were held in awe. The magnificent sculptures of the West African societies of Ife and Benin, for example, depict human figures in an idealized yet deeply moving way, and possess a serene majesty unsurpassed in human art. Linguistically, acculturation among Africans has been much slower than among Indians. On the other hand, to maintain status and authority required a Big Man to be generous why else would other men want to be his followers? It offers a general survey of the geographical environments they inhabited; their settlements, social structures and economies; and their religions and cultures. The Mali empire, for example, had secretaries to conduct foreign correspondence, but its internal administration only employed word of mouth. That said, African oral culture was exceptionally rich, with an enormous store of myths, stories, poems and aphorisms. Ancient Africa's government was not very stable because everyone was not unified this is because every village had a different leader. For cultivators in particular, any religious beliefs were underpinned by a deeply-held idea about the world in which they found themselves. Such pragmatism made for an open attitude to ideas and practices from outside: if something worked it was acceptable, wherever it came from. It is possible that in such cases systems of exchange were focussed on the palace, which acted as centers of redistribution. Equality was very important in these tribes and all people were treated equally. To the Western mind, at least, this aspect of religion was indistinguishable from magic, and was in the hands of mediums, priests, diviners and healers.

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