African Culture

​Early Communities

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​Nuclear vs Extended Family

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​Patrilineal vs Matrilineal

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​What is lineage?

• ​Shared Power

  • ​Consensus

  • ​Kongo: Divided into districts and provinces governed by officials appointed by the king

    • ​Each village had a chief, chosen on basis of mother's family

    • ​King chosen by board of electors

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​King Alvaro II making trade agreements with the Dutch

• ​Traditional Beliefs

  • ​Single unknown god above other gods and goddesses

• ​Christianity and Islam

  • ​Associated God with their supreme god

  • ​Led to absorption of African practices into Islam and Christianity

• ​Jewish faith in Africa since ancient times

  • ​were protected "People of the Book"

• Christians and Jews sometimes advisors in the court of early Islamic Caliphs

• ​Visual Arts

  • ​Gold, ivory, wood, bronze, & cloth

  • ​Woven cloth, inscribed jugs and bowls, jewelry, decorative textiles, baskets, swords

  ​Literature

  • ​written and oral lit & records from Axum, Nubia, and Egypt

  • ​Arabic provided a common written language

    • ​written documents provided evidence on law, religion and history

• ​Griots: professional storytellers reciting ancient stories

​Sirige, a mask carved from a single tree; used to communicate with ancestors

​A Kente cloth was often woven from bright colors of silk and cotton