African Society and Culture

Today we are learning how the Bantu

migration shaped African cultures and how the slave trade

disrupted them

Bantu

• Left the Benue River– Overcrowding?– Soil wore out?– Drifted?

• Migrations– Reason people all across

Africa share common ideas and traditions

Importance of Family

• Extended families – include several generations

• Matrilineal – traced through mothers• Children– Link between the past & future– Could be your ancestor reborn

Education & Community• Families/Villagers/Griots –

were the teachers• Oral History – stories passed

down from one generation to the next.– Taught lessons about living

• Lessons about life given through proverbs as well.– “ A good deed will make a

good neighbor.”

Women

• Rights – men controlled what women did– Women’s jobs – wives/mothers

• Exceptions: some were soldiers, rulers

• Queen Dahia al-Kahina – fought Muslim invasion

• Queen Nzinga – fought Portuguese slave traders for 40 years.

Slavery• Not invented by Europeans• Criminals and POWs were slaves• Freedom was a hope as long as they remained in Africa• Muslims could not be slaves

– Traded horses & cotton for slaves.• Europeans brought a new market to slave trade

– They brought guns which they gave to Africans to gather more slaves• Portugal – the selling of gold was a thing of the past…slaves working as

laborers on Portuguese settlements in the Atlantic raising grapes, cotton, and sugarcane.--- hard labor, no one free wanted to do it.– Africans had farming & toll making skills, they were fed cheaply, and

not paid.• In the late 1400s Europeans set up sugar plantation in the Americas and

need slaves.– They were also used on Tobacco, rice, and cotton plantations.

African culture• African Diaspora – the

spreading of African people/culture around the world

• Earliest African art were cave paintings that show people hunting, dancing, and everyday events.– Art always had religious meaning– Some immortalized leaders,

everyday people, and European explorers

African culture• Music played a part in all aspects of African life– Expressed religious feelings– Help with everyday task – planting a field

• Dance – all danced to celebrate important events.• Storytelling – few recorded their stories, most

retold tales taught by griots– Popular stories told of small animals outsmarting

bigger ones.

Click here to hear traditional African music