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Root A platform on Ecology, African History and Culture. Feed your minds with enthusiasm and willingness to learn as we time travel.

Celebrating my 5th year on Facebook. Thank you for your continuing support. I could never have made it without you. 🙏🤗🎉 ...
12/04/2025

Celebrating my 5th year on Facebook. Thank you for your continuing support. I could never have made it without you. 🙏🤗🎉

The Mursi undergo various rites of passage, educational or disciplinary processes. Lip plates are a well known aspect of...
08/04/2025

The Mursi undergo various rites of passage, educational or disciplinary processes. Lip plates are a well known aspect of the Mursi and Surma, who are probably the last groups in Africa amongst whom it is still the norm for women to wear large pottery, wooden discs, or ‘plates’, in their lower lips. Girls’ lips are pierced at the age of 15 or 16.
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Photo Credit:
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Turton, David (2004). “Lip-plates and ‘the people who take photographs’: Uneasy encounters between Mursi and tourists in southern Ethiopia”. Anthropology Today. 20 (3): 3–8.

At least 450,000 Yao people live in Mozambique. They largely occupy the eastern and northern part of Niassa province and...
08/04/2025

At least 450,000 Yao people live in Mozambique. They largely occupy the eastern and northern part of Niassa province and form about 40% of the population of Lichinga, the province capital. They keep a number of traditions alive, including partnering with wild greater honeyguides to find honey. The Yao use tools like axes and smoke to harvest the honey and leave behind the wax for the honeyguides, which can digest it. A 2016 study of the Yao honey-hunters in northern Mozambique showed that the honeyguides responded to the traditional brrrr-hmm call of the honey-hunters. Hunters learn the call from their fathers and pass it to their sons.
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Saha, Purbita; Spottiswoode, Claire (2016-08-22). “Meet the Greater Honeyguide, the Bird That Understands Humans”. National Audubon Society.

Any global perspective on the future of science must include Africa, home of 1.3 billion people and some of the planet’s...
03/04/2025

Any global perspective on the future of science must include Africa, home of 1.3 billion people and some of the planet’s most abundant resources, both physical and intellectual.

In the article, “Meeting the challenges of research across Africa” by the journal nature. Nature spoke to seven African researchers about their careers and their vision for science on the continent. Some had attended the inaugural Young African Scientists in Europe conference in Toulouse, France, July 2018. As well as the first Young African Scientists in North America event in Montreal, in May 2020. The African scientists highlighted the importance of science to the African continent, as a tool for innovation and understanding of the world around them.

Science is one of the important channels of knowledge. It has a specific role, as well as a variety of functions for the benefit of our society.
Discovering new knowledge, improving education, driving the economy forward, and increasing the quality of our lives. Science must respond to societal needs and global challenges that we face.

Astronomy Phd student Salma Sylla Mbaye hopes to support and advance astronomy research in Senegal.
Photo Credit: Omar Ouchaou

Nature 572, 143-145 (2019)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02311-2

The Kanuri people (Kanouri, Kanowri, also Yerwa, Bare Bari and several subgroups names) are an African ethnic group livi...
03/04/2025

The Kanuri people (Kanouri, Kanowri, also Yerwa, Bare Bari and several subgroups names) are an African ethnic group living largely in the lands of the former Kanem and Bornu empires in Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Libya, and Cameroon. The above picture is of a Ceremonial bodyguard of the Sheikh of Bornou in his full regalia, after a drawing by a British visitor in the 1820s. The mounted knight was central to the Bornu state, and many Kanuri people still value horsemanship and horses.

Traditionally, the San were an egalitarian society. Although they had hereditary chiefs, their authority was limited. Th...
01/04/2025

Traditionally, the San were an egalitarian society. Although they had hereditary chiefs, their authority was limited. The San made decisions among themselves by consensus, with women treated as equals. San economy was a gift economy, based on giving each other gifts regularly rather than on trading or purchasing goods and services. Most San are monogamous, but if a hunter is skilled enough to get a lot of food, he can afford to have a second wife as well.
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Shostak, Marjorie (1983). Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. New York: Vintage Books.

Hunting and gathering was humanity’s first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human histor...
01/04/2025

Hunting and gathering was humanity’s first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history. Following the invention of agriculture, hunters-gatherers who did not change their traditional practices have been displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. However the division between the two is no longer presumed to be a fundamental marker in human history, and their is not necessarily a hierarchy which places agriculture and industry at the top as a goal to be reached. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their foraging activity with horticulture or pastoralism. Contrary to common misconception, hunter-gatherers are mostly well-fed, rather than starving.
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Stephens, Lucas; Fuller, Dorian; Boivin, Nichole; Rick, Torben; Gauthier, Nicholas; Kay, Andrea; Marwick, Ben; Armstrong, Chelsey Geralds; Barton, C. Michael ( 2019-08-30). “Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use”. Science. 365(6456): 897-902.

The piercing and stretching of earlobes are common among the Maasai as with other tribes, and both men and women were me...
27/03/2025

The piercing and stretching of earlobes are common among the Maasai as with other tribes, and both men and women were metal hoops on their stretched earlobes. Various materials have been used to both pierce and stretch the lobes, including thorns for piercings, twigs, bundles of twigs, stones, the cross-section of elephant tusks and empty film canisters. Women wear various forms of beaded ornaments in both the ear lobe and smaller piercings at the top of the ear.
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Reference:
Neal Sobania. 2003. Greenwood Press. page 91.

Mandinka are subsistence farmers who rely on peanuts, rice, millet, maize and small-scale husbandry for their livelihood...
27/03/2025

Mandinka are subsistence farmers who rely on peanuts, rice, millet, maize and small-scale husbandry for their livelihood. During the wet season, men plant peanuts as their main cash crop. Men also grow millet and women grow rice (traditionally, African rice), tending the plants by hand
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Between the 16th and 19th centuries, many Muslim and non-Muslim Mandinka people, along with numerous other African ethnic groups, were captured, enslaved and shipped to the Americas. While in the Western Hemisphere Mandinka people intermixed with other enslaved ethnicities, creating a Creole culture. The Mandinka people significantly influenced the African heritage of descended peoples now found in Brazil, the Southern United States and, to a lesser extent, the Caribbean.
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Matt Schaffer (2005). “Bound to Africa: The Mandingo Legacy in the New World”. History in Africa. 32: 321-369. doi:10.1353/hia.2005.0021. S2CID 52045769.

The Chewa are a Bantu ethnic group native to central and southern africa and the largest ethnic group in Malawi 🇲🇼. The ...
17/03/2025

The Chewa are a Bantu ethnic group native to central and southern africa and the largest ethnic group in Malawi 🇲🇼. The Chewa are closely related to people in surrounding regions such as the Tumbuka and Nsenga. They are historically also related to the Bemba, with whom they share a similar origin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. An alternative name, often used interchangeably with Chewa, is Nyanja. Their language is called Chichewa. Intentionally, the Chewa are mainly known for their masks and their secret societies, called Nyau, as well as their agricultural techniques.
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Photo of: Late 20th-century wood, paint, feathers, metal and wool mask from the Chewa people in Malawi in the British Museum.
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Phiri, Isabel Apawo (2007). Women, Presbyterianism and Patriarchy. Religious Experience of Chewa women in Central Malawi. African Books Collective. pp. , 23-26.

Inhabiting many countries, Fulani mainly live in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa but also in South Suda...
17/03/2025

Inhabiting many countries, Fulani mainly live in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa but also in South Sudan, Sudan, and regions near the Red Sea coast. The approximate number of Fula people is unknown due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity; various estimates put the figure 35 to 45 million worldwide. The earliest evidence that shed more light on the pre-historic Fulani culture can be found in the Tassili n’Ajjer rock art, which seems to depict the early life of the people dating back to 6000 BCE). Examination of these rocks paintings suggests the presence of proto-Fulani cultural traits in the region by at least the 4th millennium BCE. Tassili N’Ajjer in Algeria is one of the most famous North African sites of rock painting.
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Felicity Crowe (2010). Modern Muslim Societies. Marshall Cavendish. p. 262.

According to the oral tradition, a moiety of Bonos emerged out of a hole called Awowi cave due to earthquake at Pinihini...
11/03/2025

According to the oral tradition, a moiety of Bonos emerged out of a hole called Awowi cave due to earthquake at Pinihini near Fiema in Nkoransa state, and converged with the former group at thither. With the leader being Ohene Asaman in consultation with his god (Bosom buru/ bossomuru) for guidance, the gods advised him to build towns or states. The god therefore got his laudatory name Biakuru, meaning “he who builds towns”. Bonos then proceeded to build a town called Yefiri (literally “we are coming out of the cave”). Ohene Asaman of the falcon clan Ayoko and the Bonohemaa Ameyaa Kesse, as an extension built another town and named it Bono Manso which became a capital to Bonoman with a confederation of seven powerful clans.
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A Bono dancer from Côte d’Ivoire.
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Brempong, Owusu (1978). Attacking Deviation from the Norm: Insults in Bono -Ghana. Indiana University.

The Gweagal, a clan of the Dharawal people were known as the ‘Fire Clan’. The Gweagal are noted to be the first indigeno...
11/03/2025

The Gweagal, a clan of the Dharawal people were known as the ‘Fire Clan’. The Gweagal are noted to be the first indigenous people of Australia to first make contact with Captain Cook. The artist Sydney Parkinson, one of the Endeavour’s crew members, wrote in his journals that the indigenous people threatened them shouting words he transcribed as warra warra wai, which is glossed to signify ’Go Away’. According to spokesmen of the contemporary Dharawal community, the meaning was rather ‘You are all dead’. Since warra is a root in the Dharawal language meaning ’wither’, ‘white’ or ‘dead’. As Cook’s ship hove to near the foreshore, it appeared to the Dharwal to be a white-low lying cloud, and its crew ‘dead’ people whine they warned off from returning to the country.
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Higgins, Isabella; Collard, Sarah (2020). “Captain James Cook’s landing and the 0indigenous first words contested by Aboriginal leaders”. Dictionary of Sydney.

Soup joumou (soupe au giraumon) is a soup native to Haitian culture. In 2021, soup joumou was added to the UNESCO intang...
08/03/2025

Soup joumou (soupe au giraumon) is a soup native to Haitian culture. In 2021, soup joumou was added to the UNESCO intangible Cultural Heritage List.
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Soup joumou commemorates Haiti’s liberation from French colonial rule on January 1, 1804. During enslavement in Haiti, French colonial masters and plantation owners were allowed to enjoy the delicacy, which was prepared by the enslaved Haitians.
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After the revolution, the free Haitians were finally able to eat this soup 🍜 and it came to represent freedom, emancipation and independence.
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On January 1, Haitians both at home and in the diaspora eat this soup to celebrate the first successful slave rebellion that transferred political power to its freed enslaved majority.
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University, Tracey Nicholls, Soka (2012-03-09). An Ethics of Improvisation: Aesthetic Possibilities for a Political Future. Lexington Books.

“Dehghan, Saeed Kamali (December 17, 2021). “Culture in a bowl: Haiti’s joumou soup awarded protected status by Unesco”. www.theguardian.com.

The Cap-Vert peninsula was settled no later than the 15th century, by the Lebou people, an aquacultural ethnic group rel...
08/03/2025

The Cap-Vert peninsula was settled no later than the 15th century, by the Lebou people, an aquacultural ethnic group related to the neighboring Wolof and Serer. The original villages Ouakam, Ngor, Yoff and Hann still constitute distinctively Lebou neighborhoods of the city today.
In 1444, the Portuguese reached the bay of Dakar, initially a slave-raiders. Soon after in 1456 a bay was established by Diogo Gomes, and the bay was subsequently referred to as the “Angra de Bezeguiche” (after the name of the local ruler). The bay of “Bezeguiche” would go on to serve as a critical stop of Portuguese India Armadas of the early 16th century, where large fleets would routinely stop, both on their outward and return journeys from India, to repair, collect fresh water from the rivulets and wells along the Cap-Vert shore and trade for provisions with the local people for their remaining voyage.
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Photo Credit: Possibly Jean Benyoumoff (Senegalese, active ca. 1907-20). Publisher: Jean Benyoumoff. Date: ca 1900-1920.
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B.W. Diffie and G.D Winius (1977) Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580 Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp.83-85

April 2020 you started a solo Pan African movement, revealing true stories about African History, Culture, Ecology, Trad...
06/03/2025

April 2020 you started a solo Pan African movement, revealing true stories about African History, Culture, Ecology, Tradition, and today nearly five years later you have successfully engaged with Africans and Non-Africans from various parts of the world, your exponential growth on this Platform is admirable. As you celebrate your new age, we sincerely appreciate you and hope that your fuel never runs dry. May your passion for Africa and its People, Cultures and Traditions keeps growing. Keep feeding us our bibliophile ✍️

Happy birthday Sir!
Ps: This is your only picture we have 😆

From the 15th century to the 19th century (and possibly even earlier), the Akan people dominated gold mining and trading...
03/09/2024

From the 15th century to the 19th century (and possibly even earlier), the Akan people dominated gold mining and trading in the region; from the 17th century on, they were among the most powerful groups in Africa.
The Akan goldfields, according to Peter Bakewell, were the “highly auriferous area in the forest country between the Komoe and Volta rivers. “The Akan goldfield was one of the three principle goldfields in the region, along with the Bambuk goldfield, and the Bure goldfield.
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Wilks, Ivor (1997). “Wangara, Akan, and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries”. In Bakewell, Peter (ed.). Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas. Aldershot: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing Limited. p. 4.

Dancing and singing, including praise-singing, are prominent in Swazi culture. Pottery and carving were minor arts. Swaz...
03/09/2024

Dancing and singing, including praise-singing, are prominent in Swazi culture. Pottery and carving were minor arts. Swazi marriage is called umtsimba, it is usually on a weekend in dry season (June to August). Bride and her relatives go to groom’s homestead on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, the bridal sit by nearby river, eat goat or cow meat offered by groom’s family; in the afternoon, they dance in the groom’s homestead.
On Sunday morning, the bride, with her female relatives, stabs ground with a spear in man’s cattle kraal, later she is smeared with red ochre. The smearing is the high point of marriage: no woman can be smeared twice. Bride presents gifts to husband and his relatives Umhlanga is one of the well known cultural events in Eswatini held in August/September for young unmarried girls to pay homage to the Ndlovukati. Icwala is another Swazi cultural events held in December/January depending on the phases of the moon. This ceremony also known as the “First Fruits” ceremony marks the King’s tasting of the new harvest.
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“CULTURAL RESOURCES: Swazi Culture. The Incwala or Kingship Ceremony”. Sntc.org.sz.

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