is in this region and among these Bafur, undoubtedly already ramified, that the immigrants of the Semitic race treated in the last chapter probably settled, as they pass for having colonised particularly the Massina and the Wagadu, and for having founded the kingdom and the city of Ghana. As we have seen, these immigrants probably also included farmers and shepherds. However considerable their number, it was certainly very inferior to that of the Negroes in the midst of whom they settled and over whom they established their domination. There must have been, from the very beginning, a number of unions between the whites and the blacks and of these unions were born, it seems, two very important populations, each of which, in turn, was to play a role of the first order in the history of the western and central Sudan and in the development of its civilisation.
Even in Ghana, in the Wagadu, in the Massina, and at still other places, the union of the Semites, for the most part sedentary, with the Wangara, who were considerably more numerous than the former, probably engendered the people who give themselves the name of Sarakolle, that is to say, “white men”, in memory of one of their ancestors. They are called by several Sudanese tribes Soninke, by the Moors Assuanik; the Bambara denominate them Mara-ka or Marka (people of the Mara or Wagadu) and the Arab authors and the Songhoy of Timbuktu designate them by the term Wakore. These people spoke a language closely related to that of the Wangara; it became the customary language of Ghana and is still today that of the Sarakolle of the Sahel and of Senegal, of the sedentary inhabitants of the black race called Azer or Ahl-Masine (people of the Massina), of certain oases such as Tichit, and finally of some tribes who have either adopted the errant habits of their Moorish neighbours or conserved those of their white ancestors, for example, the Guirganke shepherds and also, it is believed, of the Nemadi hunters.
To the west of Ghana, in the region of the Termes pastures, the mixture of the nomadic Semites with the Serers and especially the long cohabitation of these Semites in the midst of the Serers must have given birth to the Fulani or Fulbe people, who speak a language quite near to that of the Serers and who later swarmed towards the Massina and, on the other side, towards the Tagant and the Futa-Toro. They later sent forth groups to the southwest into the Futa-Jallon, to the east and to the southeast in the bend of the Niger, to Hausaland, Adamawa, and other countries neighbouring Lake Chad.
However, in Ghana itself, after a succession of princes of the white race who, according to the Tarikh es-Sudon, must have numbered 44, of whom 22 came before the Hegira and 22 after it, but of whom the last, according to the Tarikh el-Fettach, was contemporary with Mohammed, the power passed to the Sarakolle dynasty of the Sisse which perhaps, as its present descendants claim, was related to the dynasty of the white race and, in a way, constituted only a continuation of it, more or less mixed with Negro blood. However that be, it is under the reign of these Sisse, whom Masudi and other Arab authors formally claim to have been Negroes, that the State of Ghana attained its apogee. In the testimony of Bekri, of Yakut and of Ibn-Khaldoun, its power made itself felt from the 9th century over the Zenaga or Sanhaja Berbers (Lemtuna, Goddala or Jeddala, Messufa, Lemta, etc.) who had shortly before pushed their southern advance-guards as far as the Hodh and into what is now Mauritania. Howdaghost, the capital of these Berbers, undoubtedly situated to the southwest and not far from Tichit, was vassal to the Negro king of Ghana and paid tribute to him; an attempt at independence on the part of the chief of the Lemtuna led, about 990, to an expedition of the king of Ghana, who captured Howdaghost and reaffirmed his authority over the sedentary Berbers and over the “veiled Zenaga” of the desert, as several Arab authors express themselves.
To the south, the dependencies of Ghana stretched to the other side of the Senegal river and as far as the gold mines of the Faleme and of the Bambuk, whose product fed the treasury of the Sisse and served to operate fruitful exchanges with Moroccan caravans coming from Tafilalit and from the Dara; they extended even as far as Manding, on the upper Niger. Towards the east, the limits of the kingdom reached nearly to the region of the lakes situated to the west of Timbuktu. To the north, its influence was felt in the very heart of the Sahara and its renown had penetrated as far as Cairo and Baghdad.
However, at the beginning of the 11th century, Islam began to penetrate the Berbers of the Sahara and the edge of Sudan, the majority of whom until then seem to have practiced a religion which was a mixture of Christianity and paganism. Towards 1040, a movement of Islamic propaganda took birth among portions of the Lemtuna tribe, which principally inhabited the Tagant and the district of Howdaghost, and that of the Goddala or Jeddala, who led a nomadic life between the Mauritanian Adrar and the Atlantic and formed a sort of federation with the former. From a monastery situated on an island of the lower Senegal or in the proximity of its outlet, the famous sect of the Almoravides (al-morabetine, the “marabouts”, etymologically “those who close themselves up in a ribbat or monastery”), set out to preach Islam and to wage war from Sudan to Spain.
Zoomorphic head, 8th-9th century.
Central Angola.
Wood, 50.5 × 15.5 cm.
Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium.
Representing an animal with a snout, eyes, and small round ears, this is probably the oldest wooden sculpture of central Africa, if not sub-Saharan Africa. While reminiscent of an aardvark, the figure could also represent a zebra, warthog, hippopotamus, or a composite of an imaginary animal. The two small holes on top of the head and at the end of the tail, likely bored with a red-hot iron, were likely filled with hair-like fibres. Overall, it may have been used as a horizontal mask or headdress.
If this, in fact, represents an aardvark, it would not be surprising to learn that the figure had been buried purposefully, as the burrowing abilities are revered.
Statuettes (Djenné), 12th-15th century.
Terracotta, height of the horsemen: 44 cm, height of the kneeling figure: 36 cm.
Private collection.
Very rare and of a high quality, these figures appear to represent horsemen, one on a horse and the other on a buffalo. The bearded horseman on the horse likely represents a chief, while the other, holding a bow, is probably a soldier. It is impossible to know what function these statues served.
The kneeling man is a common archetype in Djenné art. His hieratic position and specific detailing point out the sophistication and refinement of this civilisation, which we can only learn about based on artistic artefacts.
Anthropomorphic mask (Wum).
North-Western Province, Cameroon.
Wood, 24 × 21 × 33 cm.
Charles and Kent Davis.
This mask is a beautiful example of the stylistic area in the west, between Wum and Fungom. For each festival, a large number of masks, juju, are used to celebrate the dry season’s sorghum harvest, the great December festival, or the funerals of noble people. More reminiscent of the Wum style, the compact, geometrical shape, its wide open mouth, dilated nostrils, and bulging, emotionally devoid eyes are carved from a very hard wood.
The Almoravide Movement
Under the direction of the fiery preacher Abdallah ben Yassine, a Berber of North African origin, as fierce a religious reformer as an indefatigable warrior, and under the nominal command of Yahia ben Ibrahim, chief of the Goddala, then of Yahia ben Omar of the Lemtuna tribe, a movement occurred which affected only ephemeral political results among the Negroes but which had very durable
