1. African Kingdoms and Societies, c. 1450-1800

2. African Civilization, c. 1500 CE
Bilad al-Sudan (“Land/country of the blacks”); Sahara Desert;
Sub-Saharan Africa
Africa as origin of the human species (Charles Darwin)
Homo erectus dated as
early as 1.5 million
years ago
Depiction of Homo erectus

3. Human Migration
Map taken from:
Reference given at website: From "Kagaku", Vol. 60, No. 2,1990, by Nei

4. Centers of Origin of Food Production

5. Trade Routes West Africa

6. African Civilization, c. 1500 CE
Geographical isolation and ethnic diversity
Berbers; Abyssinians, Nubians, and Somalis; Bantu-speaking groups; Bushmen or Khoisan; Pygmies
Bantu Expansion (from West Africa to west, south, and east)
Chief agents and beneficiaries of iron-working in Africa
Slavery common in Africa before arrival of Europeans

7. African Kingdoms and Societies
Senegambia (West Africa)
Age-grade system
Forest Kingdom of Benin (Nigeria)
Oba vs. the nobility

8. African Kingdoms and Societies
Kingdoms of the Sudan
*Songhay: Muhammad Toure ( )
*Kanem-Bornu: Idris Alooma ( )
*Hausa
Ethiopia (East African Christian)
Map on left from:
Info on Hausa below from:
Hausa people
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The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. (December 2007) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. Hausa Total population million (Newman 2000, Schuh 2001)
Regions with significant populations Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Chad, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan Languages Hausa Religion Islam The Hausa are a Sahelian people chiefly located in the West African regions of northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger. There are also significant numbers found in regions of Sudan, Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, and Chad and smaller communities scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route across the Sahara Desert and Sahel. Many Hausa have moved to large near coastal cities in West Africa such as Lagos, Accra, Kumasi and Cotonou, as well as to countries such as Libya. However, most Hausa remain in small villages, where they grow crops and raise livestock, including cattle. They speak the Hausa language, a member of the Chadic language group, itself a sub-group of the larger Afro-Asiatic language family.
Contents
[hide]
1 History and culture
2 Religion
3 Clothing
4 Food
5 Population
6 Hausa ethnic flag
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
[edit] History and culture
Kano, Nigeria is considered the center of Hausa trade and culture. In terms of cultural relations to other peoples of West Africa, the Hausa are culturally and historically close to the Fulani, Songhai, Mandé and Tuareg as well as other Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan groups further East in Chad and Sudan. Islamic Shari’a law is loosely the law of the land and is understood by any full time practitioner of Islam, known in Hausa as a Mallam (see Maulana).
Between 500 CE and 700 CE Hausa people, who had been slowly moving west from Nubia and mixing in with the local Northern and Central Nigerian population, established a number of strong states in what is now Northern and Central Nigeria and Eastern Niger. With the decline of the Nok and Sokoto, who had previously controlled Central and Northern Nigeria between 800 BCE and 200 CE, the Hausa were able to emerge as the new power in the region. Closely linked with the Kanuri people of Kanem-Bornu (Lake Chad), the Hausa aristocracy adopted Islam in the 11th century CE.
Near East in 1200 AD, showing Hausa States and neighbors.
By the 12th century CE the Hausa were becoming one of Africa's major powers. The architecture of the Hausa is perhaps one of the least known but most beautiful of the medieval age. Many of their early mosques and palaces are bright and colourful and often include intricate engraving or elaborate symbols designed into the facade. By 1500 CE the Hausa utilized a modified Arabic script known as ajami to record their own language; the Hausa compiled several written histories, the most popular being the Kano Chronicle.
In 1810 the Fulani, another Islamic African ethnic group that spanned across West Africa, invaded the Hausa states. Their cultural similarities however allowed for significant integration between the two groups, who in modern times are often demarcated as "Hausa-Fulani" rather than as individuated groups, and many Fulani in the region do not distinguish themselves from the Hausa.
The Hausa remain preeminent in Niger and Northern Nigeria. Their impact in Nigeria is paramount, as the Hausa-Fulani amalgamation has controlled Nigerian politics for much of its independent history. They remain one of the largest and most historically grounded civilizations in West Africa.
[edit] Religion
Hausa have an ancient culture that had an extensive coverage area, and long ties to the Arabs and other Islamized peoples in West Africa, such as the Mandé, Fulani and even the Wolof of Senegambia, through extended long distance trade. Islam has been present in Hausaland since the 14th century, but it was largely restricted to the region's rulers and their courts. Rural areas generally retained their animist beliefs and their urban leaders thus drew on both Islamic and African traditions to legitimise their rule. Muslim scholars of the early nineteenth century disapproved of the hybrid religion practised in royal courts, and a desire for reform was a major motive behind the formation of the Sokoto Caliphate.[1] It was after the formation of this state that Islam became firmly entrenched in rural areas. The Hausa people have been an important factor for the spread of Islam in West Africa.
Maguzawa, the animist religion, was practiced extensively before Islam. In the more remote areas of Hausaland Maguzawa has remained fully intact, but as one gets closer to more urban areas it almost totally disappears. It often includes the sacrifice of animals for personal ends, it is thought of as illegitimate to practice Maguzawa magic for harm. What remains in more populous areas is a “cult of spirit possession” known as Bori which still holds the old religion's elements of animism and magic.[2]
[edit] Clothing
The Hausa people have a very restricted dressing code due to the fact of religious beliefs. The men are easily recognizable because of their elaborate dress which is a large flowing gown known as gare and babban riga. These large flowing gowns usually feature some elaborate embroidery designs around the neck. (See Boubou for more information). Men also wear colorful embroidered caps known as hulla. The females can be identified by their dressing codes in which they wear wrap-around rope made with colorful cloth with a matching blouse, head tie and shawl.
[edit] Food
The most common food that the Hausa people prepare consist of grains such as sorghum millet, or rice and maize which are grounded into flour for a variety of different kinds of food.The food is popularly known as tuwo in Hausa language Usually, breakfast consist of cakes made from grounded beans which is then fried known as kosai or wheat flour soaked for a day then fried and serve with sugar known as funkaso. Both of these cakes can be served with porridge and sugar known as koko. Lunch or dinner are usually served as heavy porridge with soup and stew known as tuwo da miya. The soup and stew are usually prepared with ground or chopped tomatoes, onions, and pepperlocal sauce or daddawa. While preparing the soup, most of the times spices and other vegetables such as spinach, pumpkin, or okra are added to the soup. The stew is prepared with meat which ranges from goat to cow meat with the exclusion of pork due to Islamic religion restrictions. Beans, peanuts, and milk are also served as a complimentary protein diet for the Hausa people.
[edit] Population
Table of Hausa population by country[citation needed]
Country   Population, 1000s    Algeria 9  Benin 34  Burkina Faso 2  Cameroon 238  Central African Republic 29  Chad 158  Congo 8.1  Côte d'Ivoire 108  Equatorial Guinea 11  Gabon 8.4  Gambia 7.3  Ghana 202  Niger 5,598  Nigeria 27,000  Sudan 550  Togo 14
[edit] Hausa ethnic flag
The Hausa ethnic flag is a banner with five horizontal stripes--from top to bottom they are red, yellow, black, green, and brown. [3]
[edit] See also
Hausa-Fulani
Bayajidda
[edit] References
^ Robinson, David, Muslim Societies in African History (Cambridge, 2004), p141
^ Adeline Masquelier. Prayer Has Spoiled Everything: Possession, Power, and Identity in an Islamic Town of Niger. Duke University Press (2001) ISBN
^ Hausa ethnic flag:
[edit] External links
Hausa.info
Hausa Information at Art and Life in Africa Online
[1]

9. Image and info below on Bornu accessed in Sept 2008 at: http://en
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Bornu Empire
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Contents
The Bornu Empire ( ) was a medieval African state of Niger from 1389 to It was a continuation of the great Kanem Empire founded centuries earlier by the Sayfawa Dynasty. In time it would become even larger than Kanem incorporating areas that are today parts of Chad, Nigeria and Cameroon.
Kanembu warriors and their mounted chief in an illustration from H. Barth's Travels and Discoveries Vol III, 1857.
1 Exile from Kanem
[hide]
3 Kanem-Bornu Period
2 Early Rule
4 Decline and Fall
3.1 Idris Aluma
4.1 Fulani Jihad
5 See Also
4.3 Post Sayfawa
4.2 Muhammad al-Kanem
8 External Links
7 Sources
6 References
After decades of internal conflict, rebellions and outright invasion from the Bulala, the once strong Sayfawa Dynasty was forced out of Kanem and back into the nomadic lifestyle they had abandoned nearly 600 years ago. Around 1396, the Kanembu finally overcame attacks from their neighbors (Arabs, Berbers and Hausa) to found a new state in Bornu. Over time, the intermarriage of the Kanembu and Bornu peoples created a new people and language, the Kanuri.
[edit] Exile from Kanem
But even in Bornu, the Sayfawa Dynasty's troubles persisted. During the first three-quarters of the 15th century, for example, fifteen mais occupied the throne. Then, around 1472 Mai Ali Dunamami defeated his rivals and began the consolidation of Bornu. He built a fortified capital at Ngazargamu, to the west of Lake Chad (in present-day Niger), the first permanent home a Sayfawa mai had enjoyed in a century. So successful was the Sayfawa rejuvenation that by the early 16th century Mai Ali Gaji (1497–1515) was able to defeat the Bulala and retake Njimi, the former capital. The empire's leaders, however, remained at Ngazargamu because its lands were more productive agriculturally and better suited to the raising of cattle.
[edit] Early Rule
[edit] Idris Aluma
With control over both capitals, the Sayfawa dynasty became more powerful than ever. The two states were merged, but political authority still rested in Bornu. Kanem-Bornu peaked during the reign of the outstanding statesman Mai Idris Aluma (c. 1571–1603).
[edit] Kanem-Bornu Period
Aluma is remembered for his military skills, administrative reforms, and Islamic piety. His main adversaries were the Hausa to the west, the Tuareg and Toubou to the north, and the Bulala to the east. One epic poem extols his victories in 330 wars and more than 1,000 battles. His innovations included the employment of fixed military camps (with walls); permanent sieges and "scorched earth" tactics, where soldiers burned everything in their path; armored horses and riders; and the use of Berber camelry, Kotoko boatmen, and iron-helmeted musketeers trained by Turkish military advisers. His active diplomacy featured relations with Tripoli, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire, which sent a 200-member ambassadorial party across the desert to Aluma's court at Ngazargamu. Aluma also signed what was probably the first written treaty or cease-fire in Chadian history (like many cease-fires negotiated in the 1970s and 1980s, it was promptly broken).
Aluma introduced a number of legal and administrative reforms based on his religious beliefs and Islamic law (sharia). He sponsored the construction of numerous mosques and made a pilgrimage to Mecca (see hajj), where he arranged for the establishment of a hostel to be used by pilgrims from his empire. As with other dynamic politicians, Aluma's reformist goals led him to seek loyal and competent advisers and allies, and he frequently relied on slaves who had been educated in noble homes. Aluma regularly sought advice from a council composed of heads of the most important clans. He required major political figures to live at the court, and he reinforced political alliances through appropriate marriages (Aluma himself was the son of a Kanuri father and a Bulala mother).
Kanem-Bornu under Aluma was strong and wealthy. Government revenue came from tribute (or booty, if the recalcitrant people had to be conquered), sales of slaves, and duties on and participation in trans-Saharan trade. Unlike West Africa, the Chadian region did not have gold. Still, it was central to one of the most convenient trans-Saharan routes. Between Lake Chad and Fezzan lay a sequence of well-spaced wells and oases, and from Fezzan there were easy connections to North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. Many products were sent north, including natron (sodium carbonate), cotton, kola nuts, ivory, ostrich feathers, perfume, wax, and hides, but the most important of all were slaves. Imports included salt, horses, silks, glass, muskets, and copper.
Aluma took a keen interest in trade and other economic matters. He is credited with having the roads cleared, designing better boats for Lake Chad, introducing standard units of measure for grain, and moving farmers into new lands. In addition, he improved the ease and security of transit through the empire with the goal of making it so safe that "a lone woman clad in gold might walk with none to fear but God."
The administrative reforms and military brilliance of Aluma sustained the empire until the mid-1600s, when its power began to fade. By the late 1700s, Bornu rule extended only westward, into the land of the Hausa of modern Nigeria. The empire was still ruled by the mai who was advised by his councillors (kokenawa) in the state council or "nokena".[1]
[edit] Decline and Fall
Around that time, Fulani people, invading from the west, were able to make major inroads into Bornu. By the early 19th century, Kanem-Bornu was clearly an empire in decline, and in 1808 Fulani warriors conquered Ngazargamu. Usman dan Fodio led the Fulani thrust and proclaimed a holy war (the Fulani War) on the allegedly irreligious Muslims of the area. His campaign eventually affected Kanem-Bornu and inspired a trend toward Islamic orthodoxy, but a Muslim scholar turned statesman, Muhammad al-Kanem, contested the Fulani advance.
[edit] Fulani Jihad
Muhammad al-Kanem was a Muslim scholar and non-Sayfawa commander who had put together an alliance of Shuwa Arabs, Kanembu, and other seminomadic peoples. He eventually built in 1814 a capital at Kukawa (in present-day Nigeria). Sayfawa mais remained titular monarchs until In that year, the last mai, in league with the Ouaddai Empire, precipitated a civil war. It was at that point that Kanem's son, Umar, became king, thus ending one of the longest dynastic reigns in regional history.
[edit] Muhammad al-Kanem
[edit] Post Sayfawa
Although the dynasty ended, the kingdom of Kanem-Bornu survived. Umar eschewed the title mai for the simpler designation shehu (from the Arabic shaykh), could not match his father's vitality and gradually allowed the kingdom to be ruled by advisers (wazirs). Bornu began a further decline as a result of administrative disorganization, regional particularism, and attacks by the militant Ouaddai Empire to the east. The decline continued under Umar's sons. In 1893, Rabih az-Zubayr leading an invading army from eastern Sudan, conquered Bornu.
Kanem Empire
[edit] See Also
^ Taher, page 727
[edit] References
History of Niger
[edit] External Links
Taher, Mohamed (1997). Encyclopedic Survey of Islamic Dynasties A Continuing Series. New Delhi: Anmol Publications PVT. LTD., 857 Pages. ISBN  
[edit] Sources
Retrieved from "
The Story of Africa: Kanem-Borno — BBC World Service
Kanembu warriors and their mounted chief in an illustration from H. Barth's Travels and Discoveries Vol III, 1857

10.
Info below, with my edits, found at same site:
These cavaliers of the Bornu tribe were reknowned for their skill in battle, and used as knights for the Mali and Songhay empires. The two present were one of the largest and wealthiest nations on the planet during their time. They flourished under the trans -Saharan trade in which salt and other goods from the north were traded for gold in the great trading cities of Timbuktu and Gao. Two Islamic kingdoms and one African kingdom arose from this trade route, all of which had origins going back to Roman times: Mali, Songhay, and Ghana.

14. African Civilization, c. 1500 CE
Swahili City-States (east African coast—14th century and after)
Example: Mogadishu (modern-day Somalia)
Great Zimbabwe (inland city in southeast): late 1400s

15. Conical tower at Great Zimbabwe
Image and info from:
The first well known site of early urbanisation in Africa must be the ruins known as Great Zimbabwe. This site stands as a symbol for indigenous realisation of state level social organisation and as such it is a source of African pride illustrated by the way in which its name has been adopted for the modern nation of this region. It is also typical of African urbanisation in that much about the society that built Great Zimbabwe is mysterious while it has been seen as something of an aberration. Europeans have found it difficult to believe that it could be of genuinely African origin and this has spawned all sorts of theories involving the lost tribe of Israel and the like. The view that there were no indigenous movements towards urbanisation and state formation is as misguided in its application to Great Zimbabwe as it is to Africa in general. Thus, the site of Great Zimbabwe was entirely a local African development and was occupied from the end of the first millennium AD. The stone buildings which are left today were constructed over the period 1250 to 1450 with the time of greatest prosperity in the middle of these dates. Its wealth was drawn in part from a central position in the gold trade of the region. It had a population of 18,000 justifying its designation as a city and there is evidence for a state with an administration and social hierarchy. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the gold trade seems to have declined and Great Zimbabwe came to a rather abrupt end. It had already been abandoned and was in ruins by the time that the Portuguese came to hear of it in the early sixteenth century.

16. E
Great Zimbabwe Ruins

17. Aerial View Great Zimbabwe

18. The End
El Fin
Fin
Ha-Sof
Al-Had