To Time Empires & Graph Water Routes

Last week I found myself grapping with the delineation of actual and imagined geographic boundaries of ethnic groups because of contestations of citizens and (neo-)colonial forces. This week’s readings seemed to echo similar difficulties in determining the chronology of an empire and expansion of language groups. Following conversations about the role of written versus oral histories, McIntosh & McIntosh’s article explores the dissonance between various accounts of origins of the Mali empire. While European and Arabian accounts tend to pin the time frame no earlier than the 14^th century, local oral history and new archaeological evidences suggests flourishing of the Jenne-Jeno empire as early as the 8^th century. McIntosh & McIntosh propose a few possible explanations as to the disparity in range of historical origins, citing, “It is difficult to know how much of the vague reportage of sub-Saharan Western Sudan by Arab authors stems from genuine ignorance or confusion… and how much is a function of selective reporting.”[1] This question of selective chronicling of history brings to light the possibility of muted history as deliberate strategem. Certainly, for the purpose of European or Arabian historians aiming to establish their own empires as the oldest models of civilization, such tactics seem quite prudent. McIntosh & McIntosh go on to note that some historians would even believe that citizens of the local region create an imagined historical trajectory to construct the illusion of duration in a contested imperial legacy, “Triaud prefers to see Jenne as an artifact of Islam… He dismissed the oral traditions as pure fabrication on the part of the inhabitants of Jenne”[2] Once again, we are aware of the disadvantage of oral societies in Western myths of (others’) origins, and must turn to a reliance on the materiality of history in the form of archaeological remains in order to establish a more cohesive narrative thread. Perhaps it is time, as McIntosh & McIntosh and other suggest, that historians rely on more complex cognitive mappings of history, incorporating oral legacies as guides in the search for material evidence of empires.

            In reference to my region of interest in the ancient Kongo empire, it becomes fundamental to consider the role of water systems in the development of economy and exploration by outsiders. One of the explorers I am beginning to research is Edward Glave, who worked closely under the guidance of Henry M. Stanley in the late 19^th century, and traveled from the Congo river basin bordering the Atlantic Ocean into the interior of the continent beneath Rwanda and Burundi. 

Congo River

The Congo River formed the main route of their journey in the late 1890s, thereby connecting outside explorers as well as ethnic groups spanning across Congo, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In beginning to map Glave’s sojourn, it seems peculiar why he would branch off from this course and follow a (potentially less developed) land route, but perhaps this dimension of the journey is when the narrative of exploration becomes complicated and more compelling.

http://maps.google.com/?mid=1285604329

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[1] Roderick J. McIntosh and Susan Keech McIntosh. “The Inland Niger Delta Before the Empire of Mali: Evidence from Jenne-Jeno,” in The Journal of African History, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1981), pp. 2

[2] McIntosh & McIntosh, pp. 10

Imagined Geographies, Metaphysical Materials

            How does define one the geographical boundaries of a region once delineated by its native residents, later redetermined by imperial forces and, most recently, by contemporary ethnic groups and neo-colonial states? One theme that seems to be emerging in researching the historic Kongo region of Africa is how nebulous the term seems to be in outlining actual nation-states and ethnic communities. Most clearly, the nations that speak Kongo or Kikonogo today are the Democratic Republic of Congo, and parts of Congo and Angola (http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Brazil-to-Congo-Republic-of/Bakongo.html). However, as there remain dispersed peoples who speak various creoles or dialects of the Kongo language, it is possible that bordering nations may also be home to descendants of the former kingdom. To speak generally of the Kongo region’s topography then, it appears to be primarily tropical rainforest and deciduous forest. This would result in essentially hot, humid seasons all year round.

Roughly delineated by nation, the more central parts

of this map including Democratic Republic of

Kongo, Angola and Congo are the regions that

historically made up the Kongo Kingdom.

In considering the geo-political implications of such a climate, what comes to mind is the difficulty in logistics of trade between communities living in dense forest regions. While there would be an abundance of wood for constructing buildings, ritual and functional works, the humidity would have aided in the decomposition much more rapidly than in a savanna, brush or desert region. This leads one to consider other materials employed in the crafting of artifacts, perhaps metallurgy or basketry for instance.

            Metallurgy as a medium can span a range of works in architecture, warfare artillery, domestic retainers, jewelry and ritual articles, as Eugenia W. Herbert explains in great detail in her piece on the importance of copper in ancient West Africa. Particularly in noting the ritual elements in manufacture, Herbert explains that young Zaghawa women were given headdresses of copper for their nuptial affairs, explaining that “aside from its ornamental and status value, copper was also considered to have amuletic or magical properties, in the first case encouraging fertility, in the second warding off danger” (183). She continues by pointing out that while certain metals such as copper may not have proven the most desirable in weaponry for its excessive malleable nature, they were fashioned nonetheless as “weapons made entirely of brass or copper, such as cutlasses, execution swords and axes, appear to have a uniquely ritual function, and belong in the category of kingly regalia and ensigns of power” (185). This discussion of functional materials also possessing inherent metaphysical energies presents a fascinating insight into the complexity of materials chosen in ritual artifacts, something I would like to explore further in researching historic sacred arts of the Kongo.

Research Modalities: Reconsidering Oral and Material Legacies

            As Peter Robertshaw establishes, historians have largely depended upon written history to chronicle an African past—an element that remains challenging in that many repositories of knowledge are transmitted orally in Africa. The hierarchizing of methods in recording history has resulted in a debasing of other narrative structures, as Robertshaw notes, “The first generation of African historians tended to assume that oral traditions were relatively uncomplicated accounts of what had happened in the past…” (273). He goes on to stress the importance of alternate methods of chronicling history, and in reading Schmidt and Walz’s work, we begin to explore how the past is just as much assembled as it is experienced. That is to say, historians determine what is included in a community’s historical narrative, raising the question of responsibility for the representation of any given demographic. If African scholars began to narrate historical trajectories then, would they rely any more upon local oral histories than European and Islamic historians? Or would the tension in balancing the role of material and oral histories persist in the methodology?

            Another element to consider in the importance of historical materiality is what classifies exactly as “material”? Much of the African artwork made of wood, shells, cloth will not have survived decades, much less centuries of weather conditions, which does not leave behind a great deal of resources to study. Does this imply that oral histories serve as the only method of recording a history for African art? Or is it possible to consider newer, more contemporary artworks and trace the legacy of the pieces through conversations with local historians? If we are consider how to re-represent African history, is it enough to challenge methodological training in the discipline of history? Will new modalities of research reconceptualize African histories altogether?