How Anansi gave us stories – Leopard and Hornets
Anansi catches the leopard Anansi catches the leopard So now Anansi the spider had the snake to give to the god Nyame. But he still needed the other three creatures. So [...]
Anansi catches the leopard Anansi catches the leopard So now Anansi the spider had the snake to give to the god Nyame. But he still needed the other three creatures. So [...]
A West African story Long, long ago, according to this West African story, the sky god Nyame kept all the stories locked up in a wooden box, up high in the sky, [...]
Seated woman (Djenne, about 1200 AD) Anansi makes a deal So this is a story about how Anansi happened to bring sickness into the world. So one day Anansi went to the [...]
Anansi learns to farm: Women hoeing fields (Uganda) An African story This is a story people in Africa tell about how Anansi the spider taught people how to farm. In [...]
Anansi the Spider: A spider mask from West Africa (but only fifty or a hundred years old) When were Anansi stories written? African storytellers tell stories about a clever spider named Anansi. [...]
Ibn Battuta in China - on his travels Continuing travels of Ibn Battuta Ibn Battuta had already traveled much more than most people did! But even after visiting East Africa he [...]
Mosque at Djenne, Mali, built about 1200 AD (around the time of the Epic of Sundiata) Was Sundiata a real person? Nobody knows exactly how long the storytellers of West [...]
Medieval African art: Two men riding an elephant, in an Indian style (Asbi, Ethiopia, ca. 1000-1200 AD) African art got even better in the Middle Ages, after about 400 AD. [...]
History of gold: Gold bust of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamon (ca. 1300 BC) People have been using gold to make jewelry since the Stone Age. You can find it just [...]
Han Dynasty Chinese tile showing people mining salt underground and then processing it. See the bamboo pipe? Mining salt in antiquity The salt trade, already important in the Bronze Age, [...]