Lecturer: Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu Contact Information: … · 2019-02-24 · •Shamba Bolongongo...

College of Education

School of Continuing and Distance Education 2014/2015 – 2016/2017

Lecturer: Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu Contact Information: [email protected]

Session Overview

Africa is a compact land mass but with a great deal of similarities and differences among its inhabitants. The similarities and the differences are determined by the similarities and cultures of the various inhabitants of the continent particularly south of the Sahara desert usually referred to as sub-Saharan Africa. This session discusses a general outlook of the people of sub-Saharan Africa pointing out their convergent and divergent cultural factors in summary.

Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu, Dpt. of Sociology, Legon. Slide 2

Session Outline

The topic under discussion has been segmented under the following:

• Africa before and during European expansion

• The pastoral Africa

• Agricultural Africa

• Fundamental patterns and cultural adjustments


Objectives

At the end of the session, students should be able to:

• describe the cultural characteristics of sub-Saharan Africa before European expansionist policy on the continent

• identify the economic characteristics of sub-Saharan Africa

• outline the area’s adaptation to external influence


Reading List

• Ottenberg, S & Ottenberg, P. (1960), Cultures and Societies of Africa, New York: Random House

• Herskovits, M. J. (1955) “Peoples and Cultures in sub-Saharan Africa” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Contemporary Trends and Issues, Vol 298 pp11-20.

(http://www.jstor.org/stable/i242907)


Introduction

• Although sub-Saharan Africa is a compact land mass, it has varied natural environments and inhabited by different people with different cultural orientations.

• Despite the variability of the peoples and their cultures, there have been similarities as well.

• However, through European expansion in Africa, the unique cultures of the people became affected as they lost their uniqueness although retaining some identities.


Sub-Saharan Africa: Before and During European Expansion

• Africa had similar cultural elements which were continental in their distribution

• These continental distributions gave Africa its distinctive characteristics from those of other major world regions examples are the Niger-Congo language, kinship systems and traditional religion.

• There were also those cultural elements, although not widely spread were found concentrated in specific areas giving sub-Saharan Africa its major cultural types such as ethnic groups, their agriculture and pastoralism.



• Africa before European expansion were demarcated on ethnic lines.

• These demarcations were, however, disregarded in the partitioning of the continent.

• Irrespective of these distortions in the demarcations, the basic patterns that determine the similarities and differentiations of the sub-Saharan Africa are still in force.



• The effect of European contact of Africa affected the Khoisan area very significantly

• The San known for their simplest life now exist as a few surviving bands in south-west Africa and Angola

• They neither developed agriculture nor pastoralism and struggle to survive the rigours of the desert environment.

• The Khoi-Khoi who were herders and practiced small scale agriculture used the animals only for consumption also became farm workers for the whites and later wage labourers



• Absorbed into the coloured population of South Africa the Khoi-Khoi lost their culture except with a few small groupings

• Elsewhere, the basic cultural orientation of the people survived the over several decades of years of contact with people with different languages holding positions of power and prestige although the general African culture has been affected.


The Pastoral Africa

• There were the pastoral societies of eastern Africa

• The herds occupy special position in their culture dictating the cultural complex nature of the people

• Cattle is to the east, camel and horses to the north giving the prestige system of the area

• These animals transcend the economic, social, religious and political life of the people

• Smaller animals are also reared – sheep, goats and donkeys – mostly within the cattle absent tsetsefly areas


The Pastoral Africa

• Agricultural practices also existed for the purpose of subsistence and families are self-sufficient in this regard

• The subsistent nature of the people enabled the widely scattered nature of the population leading to the absence of markets for exchange of goods

• The region believes in ancestral cult with the family head as its priest (detailed description of the area will be discussed in the next topic)


Agricultural Africa

• While herding is associated with the high dry plains, the lower-lying forest zone such as the Congo Basin and western Africa are culturally agricultural as a logical adaptation to environmental demands

• Agriculture here is associated with high population which it can support

• There is art work in these areas such as textiles, pottery, art as Ife and Benin bronzes, Ashanti gold weights, Dahomean and Cameroons brass figures and Congo throwing knives;

• Carvings and paintings adore houses and temples of gods, also are masks and statuettes and other carvings


Agricultural Africa

• This specialization has led to trade and markets and development of monetary units of value

• This also led to commercialization of the area hence cultural contacts and diffusion of cultural patterns

• Stratification and class structure also developed as stable kingdoms emerged

• Priesthood was encouraged to manipulate the supernatural entities


Fundamental Patterns and Cultural Adjustments

• Common cultural elements abound in Africa before and after European contact

• Some are unilateral descent systems, ancestral religious system even where ancestor worship does not exist

• Respect for age as is evident in seniority in groups everywhere

• Age grades and puberty school serving as the basis for formal training in literacy



• Land tenure system as ownership is vested in the community

• The control over land by the individual is only during its occupancy and use

• The sanctions of land tenure is, however, supernatural

• There is pluralistic world view in that there is belief in manipulatable forces at hand

• This has made way for receptivity of Christianity and Islam



• The position of women, the actual as against the institutional is similar everywhere, such institutional roles often remain unrecognized by outsiders in tribal policy determination

• Social control using satirical lyrics and magic persists even where industrialization and modernity are advanced

• Old ways persist even under the current new conditions



• African cultures are receptive to innovations allowing the new to exist alongside the old

• The receptivity of the African to innovation occurred very early (1600 AD) on the continent before the arrival of Emil Torday and Thomas Athol Joyce (British writers) among the Bushongo of Congo

• Shamba Bolongongo a Bushongo King travelled widely to Bapende and Bakalai where he brought to his people innovations



• From Bapende in the south western DR Congo, he brought techniques of weaving raffia fibre

• From Bakalai in the French Congo (Zaire) the King brought to his people embroidery of raffia, planting of tobacco and the game of mancala; its equivalence is oware (Akan)

• He instituted the hierarchy of the court by appointing representatives of trades to office

• Reformed the military by abolishing arrows and throwing knives and instead instituted the sword and charged his soldiers to also act as police



• To this example, if we also add the outcomes of migrations, conquests mixing up of people in sub-Saharan Africa, then we can say that cultural change is nothing new to the area under study – sub-Saharan Africa

• Africans know how to maintain their old ways in the face of cultural borrowing and contact


Summary

• Sub-Saharan Africa is a compact land mass but with different cultural orientations

• These different cultures, however have similar elements which are basic to them

• With European contact, innovations were introduced affecting the old cultures

• Nonetheless, the old ways have been retained as they are receptive to the innovations

• The old and the new live side by side.


Sample Questions

• On what basis can sub-Saharan Africa be described as a social unit?

• Identify and explain four distinctive features of sub-Saharan Africa that may prevent the area from being considered as a social unit.


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Lecturer: Dr. Kodzovi Akpabli-Honu Contact Information: … · 2019-02-24 · •Shamba Bolongongo...

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