West Africa History Letter Writing Piece

For history everyone chose a different ancient civilization, I chose ancient West Africa. We each had to write two different writing pieces about our civilization. My First writing is a letter wrote in the view of Professor Ahmed Baba living in Songhai.

Picture from:
http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/a/Africa.htm
Map of the Songhai Empire

Dear People of the Future,

I am live in Songhai, West Africa. There are three main kingdoms in West Africa: Ghana, Mali and Songhai. Trading is a prolific part of our culture. We barter an eclectic amount of items from salt to slaves. Ghana is growing rich from trading gold, salt and iron tools. Mali, commonly trades salt as well as copper and is also growing rich. Songhai, however, is known for trading slaves and Kola nuts. Our dwelling consists of a lavish amount of various items. It depends on what region you live in to decide what materials you can use to build a hut or structure. Some of the materials used frequently are mud, mud brick, sticks or wood, rammed earth and stone. Our primary jobs consist of gathering plants and hunting. Women do the majority of gathering and preparing food, while the men work together to hunt larger animals with spears, bows and arrows as well as poisons. All parts of an animal that is hunted is used. All of the kingdoms are divided into districts. A district leader guides each district. Each of the kingdoms have some bureaucratic rules.

Storytelling and playing the game Oware are just a few ways we have fun here. The griots are the storytellers. Children don’t go to school to get educated. Instead, people collect in the evening to hear the stories of the griots who are responsible for perpetuating the stories and traditions, from generation to generation. Oware is an abstract strategy game played throughout West Africa. Oware is considered the national game of Ghana. The object of the game is to capture more seeds than one's opponent. Since the game has only 48 seeds, capturing 25 is sufficient to accomplish this. Since there is an even number of seeds, it is possible for the game to end in a draw, where each player has captured 24. The typical formal attire worn here in West Africa is a knee to ankle-length flowing Boubou robe, dashiki and Senegalese kaftan, which has its origin in the clothing of nobility of various West African empires in the 12th century. Our main religion is Islam since 1064 and Christianity. Ghana is a great military power. Rumor has it that the king could order 200,000 warriors and 40,000 with bows and arrows. In North America, about 200 BC, Carthaginian soldiers killed people with iron spears and stone balls shot from catapults.

Picture from:
http://africanastudiesrb.blogspot.com
Picture of Ahmed Baba

We wear masks during celebrations and religious rituals as part of our culture. Each African tribe has its own unique style of mask. There are masks worn for all special occasions. When masks are created for a ceremony, the face is formed as a mythical hero or human spirit of a deceased ancestor. Masks are worn for harvesting, weddings and initiation celebrations. We also wear masks when we engage in war. The mask holds a moral lesson to the young and when there is death in the village, we wear masks at the funeral. We are very proud of our masks; they hold a significant value to our culture. Our cuisine contains fish (especially along the coast), meat, vegetables and fruits. Most of the food is boiled or fried. Rice is also a staple food throughout the region. As for alcohol drinks, palm wine is a common beverage made from the fermented sap of various types of palm trees and is usually sold in sweet or sour varieties    
I’ve lived in Songhai, West Africa for the majority of my life. For twelve years, I was detained in Morocco for complaining about the lack of Sultan’s manner and collecting a private library of 1600 books.  Eventually I made it back to Songhai. I’m commonly known as “The Unique Pearl of his Time”. There are so many interesting aspects of West Africa. Our society and culture is truly unique. I personally wanted to address this information, therefore people like you can read this in the future and know about the true history of West Africa.

                                                 Sincerely,

Professor Ahmed Baba