Lecture 7

When one begins to think in epic terms, one begins to think about remote history of which we have only signal posts about everyday life at the time this epoch was happening.  By now you should have enough information about world view and not allow your thinking to be guided only by western culture.

 

http://www.archaeology.org/9807/abstracts/africa.html

The images to the left are from the great Zimbabwe, which was the culture that built this structure from the eleventh century until the fourteenth century, when it reached its apex. The Shona people are descendants of these people, who arrange their living structures upon large granite outcroppings. Placement of structures has significant spiritual meaning today for the Shona today. The images I have included were the site of political and cultural life of medieval southeastern Africa. 

I am bringing this to your attention so that your reading of Sundiata by D.T. Niane has an African context beyond the thirteenth century of Mali. However there is more to Sundiata than just a story of a king. I want to focus on Djenne and the mosque there because it is made from mud on a stop along the Sahara trail that the Arabs took to the western coast of Africa. They had sailed to the deepwater harbor on the eastern coast of the continent. The growth of the Sahara made artisans who sculpted from mud invented a firing method. This method involved intense heat, like that of the sun. However, the signal posts indicate that Africans before the cultures of Asia Minor arrived had a cultural practice involving building with mud that adapted over time to the changing climate of that epoch.

 The thirteenth century in West Africa was a period of change due to conversion to Islam. We read Mhudi earlier and we have the mfecane as a place to anchor the changes largely due to European trade and the stress of populations who were pastoralists and nascent farmers.  The terra cottas that are on display in Atlanta, Georgia have been dated as 1,000 B.C. So as you begin reading in Sundiata, keep in mind that King Sundiata Keita was born around the time, when those early Arab trade routes were established.

Study Skills

1.       Do not forget the three c’s, conversion, commerce, and civilization.  How are these three terms defined? From an Islamic world view, a Christian world view, an economic world view?

2.       You must consider whether or not these three activities have an impact on cultural production. (Here you need to think about written languages and the privilege written languages are given when one discusses culture. Sundiata is a spoken poem, like The Iliad. Go to: http://www.high.org/main.taf?p=2,1,3,13 and look at the Terra Cottas and watch the link to The Future of Mud on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vkxju6aoZw). Not only will Sundiata mean more, but so will Great Zimbabwe.