Africa - Community college
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Transcript Africa - Community college
Geography
Desert
Mountains
Bandiagara
Mali, West Africa
Tellem ruins
Tsodilo Hills
World Heritage Site,
famous for its
Bushman rock art
estimated more than
5 000 individual
paintings of between
800 and over 2 000
years old.
Giza Pyramid
Nile River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6gSBrqKpyo&feature=related
Niger River, Mali
Most of the country is desert; the Niger river is its
lifeblood.
After the rains have come, between June and
September, the small tributaries of the river
Niger join to form larger rivers.
In the dry season, this evaporates into
unconnected lakes and ponds, in which the
catfish that were spawned in the river emerge.
The other lakes are fished the year round, but
Antogo has a particular significance.
Legend has it that the lake was discovered in
ancient times by a young girl from Bamba village.
She told her sister in the neighboring village of
Yanda about the profusion of fish, and her
brother-in-law claimed the lake for Yanda.
But her father staked a claim on it too, and tribal
war broke out. Eventually her father and his
fellow tribesmen won the battle, and even today
only Bamba men can take part in the great
fishing ceremony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lpsOFSKuL
E&feature=related
Zambezi River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbSxZV73AvU
Lake Malawi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVVKQDIkkks&feature=related
Sahara Desert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QRYtBeQo7Q
Namib Desert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y6TVCGr9rk
Kalahari Desert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rOB2pJ2olk
The word “Kalahari” comes from a Tswana word
meaning “the great thirst.”
The desert, itself, covers 70% of Botswana and extends
south into South Africa, west into Namibia, and north
into Angola and Zambia.
More a semi—arid zone than a true desert, one of the
essential features of this region is a geological formation
known as a "pan," a round mostly hard, gray clay
formation.
Pans are hollow shallows which gleam in the sunlight
from the salt in them; these salt deposits are important
to the animals in the area.
During the rainy season in March and April, large
migrating herds of animals come for the water that
collects in the pans.
During this rainy season, the Okavango delta, a
significant wetland system north of the Kahalari, attracts
an incredible number of birds; including cranes, egrets,
herons, and a variety of raptors.
Kilimanjaro 19340 ft
Highest point in Africa Location: Northern
Tanzania, near Kenya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig8Cf6tvEQk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OLdRcHPpPM
Mount Kenya
17058 ft Highest point in Kenya .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxN1ChH-Y7M&feature=related
To the local Kikuyu tribe, Mt. Kenya is the
home of their God, Ngai, and the location
of their creation mythology.
The Mt Kenya Forest is considered a
sacred area where medicinal plants are
grown and healing rituals conducted.
Mount Stanley
16763 ft Highest point in
Congo and Uganda
Mount Cameroon (Mont Cameroun)
13435 ft Highest point in Cameroon .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMHJmZd5X98
Pico del Teide
12198 ft . Location: Tenerife in the Canary
Islands, NW of Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEJF54fKHRI
Jebel Toubkal
13665 ft Highest point in Morocco
Atlas Mountains, south of Marrakech, Morocco
Jebel Siroua
10843 ft Between Atlas and Anti-Atlas
Mountains,
south of Marrakech, Morocco
Lake Victoria
Its original name was Nalubale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jvrKUp7ymI
the cave, the paintings and the
surrounding area retain
powers in the traditions of the
Abasuba.
The Wasamo clan, who live
around the cave, are the rain
makers of the Abasuba, and
the elders agree that the
paintings have been used for
rain making ceremonies, with
the red paintings representing
the moon and the white ones
representing the sun.
Giza Pyramid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X7h5h-oy6U
Tsodilo Hills
World Heritage Site,
famous for its
Bushman rock art
estimated more than
5 000 individual
paintings of between
800 and over 2 000
years old.
Bandiagara
Mali, West Africa
Tellem ruins
Bandiagara Escarpment
(Cliffs of Bandiagara)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg_irEmwHic
Cliff of Bandiagara
The Dogon of Bandiagara in Mali,
West Africa.
the Toloy culture of the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC,
and the Tellem culture of the 11th to 15th
centuries AD were early inhabitants
Dogon religion is defined primarily through the
worship of the ancestors and the spirits called
Nommo
There are three principal religious societies
among the Dogon; the Awa, Lebe and Binu
The Awa is associated with
the spiritual realm whose
purpose is to reorder the
spiritual forces disturbed by
the death of Nommo, a
mythological ancestor of the
Dogon.
The awa dance with ornate
carved and painted masks
during both funeral and death
anniversary ceremonies.
There are 78 different types of
ritual masks among the
Dogon focus on religion and
philosophy.
The society of Lebe, the
Earth God, is primarily
concerned with the
agricultural cycle and its
chief priest is called a
Hogon.
All Dogon villages have a
Lebe shrine whose altars
have bits of earth
incorporated into them to
encourage the continued
fertility of the land.
The god Lebe visits the hogons every
night in the form of a serpent and licks
their skins in order to purify them and
infuse them with life force.
The hogons are responsible for guarding
the purity of the soil and therefore
officiate at many agricultural ceremonies.
The society of Binu is a totemic practice
and it has complex associations with the
Dogon's sacred places used for ancestor
worship, spirit communication and
agricultural sacrifices.
major Dogon sacred sites are related to
episodes in the Dogon myth of the
creation of the world, in particular to a
deity named Nommo.
Binu Shrine
Binu shrines house spirits
of mythic ancestors who
lived in the legendary era
before the appearance of
death among mankind.
Binu spirits often make
themselves known to
their descendants in the
form of an animal that
interceded on behalf of
the clan during its
founding or migration,
thus becoming the clan's
totem.
The priests of each Binu maintain the shrine.
Sacrifices of blood and millet porridge the
primary crop of the Dogon are made at the Binu
shrines at sowing time and whenever the
intercession of the immortal ancestor is desired.
Through such rituals, the Dogon believe that the
benevolent force of the ancestor is transmitted
to them.
diviner draws a questions in the sand for the sacred fox to answer
The Dogon people believe the fox has supernatural powers.
The Dogon may ask questions and n the morning, the diviner will read
the fox prints on the sand and make interpretations.
Astronomy
The Dogon are famous for their
astronomical knowledge taught through
oral tradition, dating back thousands of
years, referencing the star system, Sirius,
the dog star.
Their oral traditions say this knowledge
was given to them by the Nommo.
The Dogon priests claimed that Sirius had a
companion star that was invisible to the human
eye.
They also stated that the star moved in a 50year elliptical orbit around Sirius, that it was
small and incredibly heavy, and that it rotated on
its axis.
This was verified in 1862 by Alvan Clark who
“discovered” the second star making Sirius a
binary star system (two stars).
The earliest Egyptians believed Sirius - 'Sothis' was the home of souls that have crossed over. It
is the brightest star in our night sky. This belief
is also shared with the Dogon.
The Dogons have described perfectly the DNA
pattern made by an elliptical orbit created by the
two stars of Sirius as they rotate make around
each other. They believe Sirius to be the axis of
the universe, and from it all matter and all souls
are produced in a great spiral motion.