HOW to Begin to Understand Africa. Some facts, and some excuses

AGES AND AGES AGO (no one knows exactly when), Africa did not need to explain, or to apologize. Then all-of-a-sudden, nature (or was it history), turned everything on its head, so that on the one side all that remain are the anxious backward glances, and on the other, the campaigns and disputes engaged against the facts of history. Some academics like Hugh Trevor-Roper and the philosopher Hegel. even go so far as to deny that Africa could have a history.

EVIDENCE literally set in stone portraying archaetypically obvious facial markings, are routinely attributed to Far Eastern explorers. When, ocassionally, they are grudingly admitted to portray African models, so permanently implanted in Western consciousness has man's most protracted insult to another member of the human race become, that the figures are assumed to portray Africans - but only enslaved Africans -as if the makers would erect figures to commemorate their slaves without any analogous dedications to celebrate their own superiority, So far however, DNA evidence has not been questioned. To proceed even further and maintain that such painstakingly-executed figures were portrayal of strangers assumed by the nativies to have been gods, is dissmissed with derision; because Western systems of value cannot imagine a past for the African beyond that of the congenital drudge or the international figure of fun. .

ARCHITECHTURAL RUINS in the hinterland of south central Africa are attributed to Hanno the Carthaginian or to Portuguese explorers, such as Henry the navigator who in that case would have supervised the work, and executed it in the African style, centuries before the region was 'discovered' and explored by the likes of Burton, Speke, and Stanley,

BUT the exhumation of the African past has always been an embarassment, both to the combatants for recognition and their opponents. The problem is that in both camps, they 'protest too much' and even go beyond the demands of simple logic.

Pre-Columbian Adventurers and Paradigm-Shift

BEFORE THEY WERE SLAVES, the Mandingoes of the Senegal were explorers. At the Congresso international de Americanistas, held in Lima in 1970, evidence was presented to the effect that around 1200 BC, African traders had landed along the Gulf of Mexico; and in the chronicles of the Maya, black-skinned traders are pictured bearing trade goods. Corroboration of the arrival of African traders is forthcoming from even farther afield. Records in Cairo replicate the oral tradition of Mali, and confirm that in 1311, their King Abubakr the Second dispatched an expedition across the Atlantic. The journey began from the coast of the Senegal and followed a route very close to that which was to carry Columbus across the Atlantic centuries later. Its trajectory was determined by the powerful Canaries current, also known as the 'river across the sea, which because it flowed across the Atlantic, was regarded as 'a long but easily accessible and mobile highway.' The outward journey was succesful, but neither of the two fleets were to return.

'AROUND the same time, evidence of contact between West Africans and Mexicans appear in strata in an overwhelming combination of artefacts and cultural parallels. A black-haired, black-bearded figure in white robes, one of the representations of Quetzalcoatl, modelled on a dark-skinned outsider appears in paintings in the valley of Mexico, while the Aztecs began to worship a negroid figure mistaken for their God Tezcatlipoca, because he had the right ceremonial colour. A notable tale is recorded in the Peruvian traditions...of how black men coming from the East had been able to penetrate the Andes mountains.'

Many such expeditions made landfall along the Meso-American coastline, as witness the 40-ton, 9 feet high negro heads sculpted by the Olmec...These have been scientifically dated to around the beginning of the Christian era. Some of them carry facial markings and were modelled in a ceremonial style that suggested their makers regarded the Africans as deities.

'STRANGELY ENOUGH, the facial features were regarded by the American Indians as a sacred face. It was venerated by the Aztecs simply because it was as black as their god Tezcatlipoca.Black gods, and gods with negroid features may still be found among the American Indians. Another black god is the god of jewellers, Naualpilli. The negroid features of this god were sculpted in green stone by the Mexicans, while his kinky hair was sculpted in pure gold. There is also the god of travelling merchants...who enters Mayan mythology in the wake of the Mandingo'.

THE NEXT STEP in rationalizing a place for these strangers within Meso-American culture was to accord them the treatment reserved for deities, by erecting statues in their honor. Contrary to the phenotypical evidence, some commentators maintain that the figures do not depict African models. This debate is of long standing, having been engaged from at least as far back as the nineteenth century.

THE physiognomy of some of the statues is so phenotypically African that of necessity, they had to have been based on authentic models, and the sculptors could not have arrived at these distinctive feature through accidental stylization or by some quirk of the imagination.

THE association of Africans with Godhead, and a black skin with innate superiority was not exclusive to Meso- American tradition. Marco Polo relates a south Indian (Dravidian) tradition according to which, ' when a child is born, they annoint him once a week with oil of sesame, and this makes him grow much darker than when he was born. For I assure you that the darkest man is here the most highly esteemed and considered better than those who are not so dark. Let me tell you that in very truth these people portray and depict their gods and idols black, and their devils white as snow. For they say that God and all the saints are black and the devils are all white.' The name 'Krisha', which designates one of the most powerful gods in the Hindu religion, means 'Black.'

THIS TRADITION was followed along a broad line from China to the Phillipines. Of the Chinese it was said, ..'a black face is considered nobler. Actors wear masks that denote the character's qualities. A predominanttly black face indicates courage, righteousness and incorruptibility. A predominantly white face indicates craftiness, deceit and knavery. Ming Dynasty records even state that Caucasians, especially blondes, are physically unattractive. According to Jonathan Lipman in Familiar Strangers: a History of Muslims in Northwest China (38), In traditional Chinese opera, "Huihui are shaggy with big noses, and Qipchags have light hair and blue eyes. Their appearance is vile and peculiar, so there are those who do not wish to marry them. The distaste for blonds is in stark contrast to the worship of European standards of beauty so prevalent among modern Asians. Today's Chinese boast about their Caucasian sons-in-law or husbands. Instead of attributing the worship of whites, or the vilification of whites for that matter, to "natural'' perceptions of "natural" hierarchy, it should be remembered that standards...shift over time..' and for centuries, Africa has remained a victim of this Paradigm-Change.

Resources

Wiercinski, A. Inter and Intrapopulational racial differentiation of Tlatilco, Cerro de las Messas, Teothuacan, Monte Alban and Yucatan Maya [in] XXIX Congresso International de Americanistas, Lima 1970: vol.1, pp.231-252.