Africa Quiz

Early African Culture: Animism and Folk Lore

Animism: • They also developed belief systems that helped them understand and organize information about their world. • Nearly all of these local religions involved a belief in one creator, or god. • They generally also included elements of animism, a religion in which spirits play an important role in regulating daily life. Animists believe that spirits are present in animals, plants, and other natural forces, and also take the form of the souls of their ancestors. Folk lore: • Few African societies had written languages. • Instead they had story tellers who orally shared the history and literature of a culture. In West Africa, for example, these storytellers, or griots, kept this history alive, passing it from parent to child

Africa's Geography: Desert, Rain Forest, Savannah

Desert: • Sahara in the North • Khalahari in the south • Only small part is sand dunes • The rest is grey wasteland of rocks and gravel • Largely inhospitable to human life Rain Forest: • Dense trees • Canopy • Lots of wildlife Savannah: • Covers about 40% of the continent • Grassy Plains • Dry and rainy seasons • Supports agricultural production, although there is often soil issues • The deserts are largely unsuitable for human life and also hamper people's movement to more welcoming climates. The largest deserts are the Saharain the north and the Kalahari in the south. • Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, the Sahara covers an area roughly the size of the United States. • Only a small part of the Sahara consists of sand dunes. The rest is mostly a flat, gray wasteland of scattered rocks and gravel. Each year the desert takes over more and more of the land at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, the Sahel • Another very different but also partly uninhabitable African environment is the rain forest. • Its occasionally called "nature's greenhouse, " because it produces mahogany and teak trees up to 150 feet tall. • Most people in Africa live on the savannas, or grassy plains. Africa's savannas are not just endless plains. • They include mountainous highlands and swampy tropical stretches. Covered with tall grasses and dotted with trees, the savannas cover over 40 percent of the continent.

Kingdom of Aksum

Origins of Aksum: • Zoskales was thought to be the first king of Aksum Aksum controls international trade: • Access to sea trade on the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean helped Aksum become an international trading power. • Traders from Egypt, Arabia, Persia, India, and the Roman Empire crowded Aksum's chief seaport, Adulis, near present-day Massawa • Aksumite merchants traded necessities such as salt and luxuries such as rhinoceros horns, tortoise shells, ivory, emeralds, and gold. • Aksum is present day Ethiopia • Had a monarchy, believed their king was a descendent of God • Believed they could trace their government to Soloman and the Queen of Sheba • Adulis was Aksum's main city, was a trading port A Strong Ruler expands the kingdom: • The kingdom of Aksum reached its height between a.d. 325 and 360, when an exceptionally strong ruler, Ezana, occupied the throne. {4th century C.E.} • Determined to establish and expand his authority, Ezana first conquered the part of the Arabian peninsula that is now Yemen. • Then, in 330, Ezana turned his attention to Kush, which already had begun to decline. In 350, he conquered the Kushites and burned Meroe to the ground • 333 CE: • Believed in spirits, worshipped ancestors, worshipped greek god Ares, Mahrem • 330 CE: {Ezena} • Brings Christianity to Aksum • Ezena's slave taught him about Christianity • 632 CE: { 10 AH} • Aksum is conquered by Islamic empire Aksumite Religion: • The Aksumites, like other ancient Africans, traditionally believed in one god. They called their god Mahrem and believed that their king was directly descended from him. • They were also animists, however, and worshiped the spirits of nature and honored their dead ancestors. • Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire and then to Africa, and eventually to Aksum. Aksum becomes Christian: • When Ezana finally became ruler of Aksum, he converted to Christianity and established it as the kingdom's official religion. • King Ezana's conversion and his devout practice of Christianity strengthened its hold in Aksum. • The establishment of Christianity was the longest lasting achievement of the Aksumites. • Today, the land of Ethiopia, where Aksum was located, is home to millions of Christians. Aksumite Innovations: • The inscription on Ezana's stele is written in Ge'ez, the language brought to Aksum by its early Arab inhabitants. • Aside from Egypt and Meroe , Aksum was the only ancient African kingdom known to have developed a written language. • It was also the first state south of the Sahara to mint its own coins. • In addition to these cultural achievements, the Aksumites adapted creatively to their rugged, hilly environment. They created a new method of agriculture, terrace farming. This enabled them to greatly increase the productivity of their land. • Civilization where there is no currency is called bartering Islamic Invaders: • Between 632 and 750 Islamic invaders conquered vast territories in the Mediterranean world, spreading their religion as they went. • In 710 they destroyed Adulis. This conquest cut Aksum off from the major ports along both the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. • As a result, the kingdom declined as an international trading power. But it was not only Aksum's political power that weakened. Its spiritual identity and environment were also endangered. Aksum Isolated: • As the invaders spread Islam to the lands they conquered, Aksum became isolated from other Christian settlements. • To escape the advancing wave of Islam, Aksum's rulers moved their capital over the mountains into what is now northern Ethiopia. • Aksum's new geographic isolation along with depletion of the forests and soil erosion led to its decline as a world power.

Types of Migration: push, pull, economic factors, political factors, and environmental factors

Push/pull factors: • When looking at migration, historians and geographers speak of push-pull factors. • Environmental, political { religion included} , economic were the three most common push-pull factors • These factors can either push people out of an area or pull them into an area. Economic push factors: high taxation in certain areas, lack of employment, slavery , ex: Tommy left SC and moved to Texas because the taxes there are lower Economic pull factors: Employment opportunities, Ex: John moved from Pennsylvania to NJ because there was a higher paying position for his job. Political push Factors: religious, ethnic, or political persecution, war, Ex: A couple moved out of their country because they were being discriminated/ persecuted because of their religious belief Political pull factors: political/ religious freedom, Ex: Joe moved to Bulgaria because they had religious freedom Environmental push Factors: climate changes, no resources, earthquakes, volcanoes, drought/famine, infertile land, Ex: Infertile land in California forces a farmer to move to NC. Environmental pull factors: abundant land, new resources, good climate, Ex: Kate moved from Maine to Florida because of new reasources.

djenne djenno

• In the region south of the Sahel, most Africans lived in small villages. • Earliest known civilization of south of Sahara • Knew how to create iron • Made cities, art, technology, that would mark their history • However, cities began to develop sometime between 600 B. C. and 200 B. C. Usually they were in areas along rivers or at an oasis. One of these cities was Djenn -Djeno. • Djenn -Djeno or ancient Djenn , was uncovered by archaeologists in 1977. • Djenn -Djeno is located on a tributary of the Niger River in West Africa. • The city was abandoned sometime after A. D. 1400. • At its height, Djenn -Djeno had some 50,000 residents. They lived in round reed huts plastered with mud. Later, they built enclosed houses made of mud bricks. • By the third century B. C., they had learned how to smelt iron. Djenn -Djeno also became a bustling trading center linked to other towns not only by the Niger, but also by overland camel routes.

Bantu Language: How it shows patterns of migration

• One way experts can trace the patterns of movement of people over time is by studying the spread of languages. • Languages, like the people who speak them, are living things that evolve and change in predictable ways. If two languages have similar words for a particular object or idea, for example, it is likely that the people who spoke those languages probably had close contact at one time

Nok

• West Africa's earliest known culture was that of the Nok people. They lived in what is now Nigeria between 500 BC and AD 200. • Their name came from the village where the first artifacts from their culture were discovered. Nok artifacts have been found in an area stretching for 300 miles between the Niger and Benue rivers. • They were the first West African people known to smelt iron. • They used Iron, made tools for farming, hunting , and war