African Literature

The History,
Geography
Culture of Africa
Some of the famous Authors and Writers of Africa includes:
 GEOGRAPHY OF AFRICA

The origin of the name “Africa” is greatly

disputed by scholars. Most believe it stems from
words used by the Phoenicians, Greeks, and
Romans. Important words include the Egyptian
word Afru-ika, meaning “Motherland”; the Greek
word aphrike, meaning “without cold”; and the
Latin word aprica, meaning “sunny.”
Africa is sometimes nicknamed the "Mother
Continent" due to its being the oldest inhabited
continent on Earth. Humans and human ancestors
have lived in Africa for more than 5 million years.
Africa, the second-largest continent, is bounded by
the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Indian
Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is divided in half
almost equally by the Equator.
Africa has eight major physical regions: The Sahara,
the Sahel, the Ethiopian Highlands, the savanna,
the Swahili Coast, the rain forest, the African Great
Lakes, and Southern Africa.
Sahara
 The Sahara is the world’s largest hot
desert, covering 8.5 million square
kilometers (3.3 million square miles),
about the size of the South American
country of Brazil.
 Defining Africa's northern bulge, the
Sahara makes up 25 percent of the
continent. The Sahara has a number of
distinct physical features, including
ergs, regs, hamadas, and oases.
 Ergs, which cover 20 percent of the Sahara, are sand dunes that stretch for hundreds of
kilometers at heights of more than 300 meters (1,000 feet). Ergs can contain large
quantities of salt, which is sold for industrial and food use.
 Regs are plains of sand and gravel that make up 70 percent of the Sahara. The gravel can
be black, red, or white. Regs are the remains of prehistoric seabeds and riverbeds, but are
now nearly waterless.
 Hamadas are elevated plateaus of rock and stone that reach heights of 3,353 meters
(11,000 feet). They include the Atlas Mountains, which stretch from southwestern
Morocco to northeastern Tunisia; the Tibesti Mountains of southern Libya and northern
Chad; and the Ahaggar Mountains in southern Algeria.
 An oasis is a hub of water in the desert, often in the form of springs, wells, or irrigation
systems. About 75 percent of the Saharas population lives in oases, which make up only
2,071 square kilometers (800 square miles) of the deserts vast area.
Sahel
 The Sahel is a narrow band of semi-arid land that
forms a transition zone between the Sahara to the
north and the savannas to the south. It is made up
of flat, barren plains that stretch roughly 5,400
kilometers (3,300 miles) across Africa, from
Senegal to Sudan.
 The Sahel contains the fertile delta of the Niger,
one of Africas longest rivers. Unfortunately, the
Sahels fertile land is rapidly becoming desert as
a result of drought, deforestation, and intensive
agriculture. This process is known as
desertification.
Ethiopian Highlands
 The Ethiopian Highlands began to rise 75
million years ago, as magma from Earth’s
mantle uplifted a broad dome of ancient
rock. This dome was later split as Africa's
continental crust pulled apart, creating the
Great Rift Valley system. The Ethiopian
Highlands are home to 80 percent of
Africa’s tallest mountains.
Savanna
 Savannas, or grasslands, cover
almost half of Africa, more than 13
million square kilometers (5
million square miles). These
grasslands make up most of central
Africa, beginning south of the
Sahara and the Sahel and ending
north of the continents southern
tip.
Swahili Coast
 The Swahili Coast stretches about
1,610 kilometers (1,000 miles) along
the Indian Ocean, from Somalia to
Mozambique. The nearby coral reefs
and barrier islands protect the coast
from severe weather. There is not a lot
of animal life on the sandy Swahili
Coast. The golden-rumped elephant
shrew, an insect-eating rodent with a
long snout, is common.
Rain Forest
 Most of Africas native rain forest has been destroyed by
development, agriculture, and forestry. Today, 80 percent of
Africas rain forest is concentrated in central Africa, along the
Congo River basin.
 Africas rain forests have a rich variety of animal life; a 6-
kilometer (4-mile) patch could contain up to 400 bird species,
150 butterfly species, and 60 species of amphibians.
Important mammals include African forest elephants, gorillas,
the black colobus monkey, and the okapi, a donkey-like
giraffe.
African Great Lakes
 The Great Lakes are located in nine countries that surround the
Great Rift Valley. As the African continent separated from Saudi
Arabia, large, deep cracks were created in the Earths surface. These
cracks were later filled with water. This geologic process created
some of the largest and deepest lakes in the world.
 There are seven major African Great Lakes: Lake Albert, Lake
Edward, Lake Kivu, Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, Lake
Turkana, and Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria, the largest lake in
Africa, is the southern source of the Nile River, the longest river in
the world.
Southern Africa
 The region of Southern Africa is dominated by the Kaapvaal craton, a
shelf of bedrock that is more than 2.6 billion years old. Rocky features of
Southern Africa include plateaus and mountains, such as the Drakensberg
range.
 Southern Africa is the epicenter of Africas well-known reserves, which
protect animal species such as lions, elephants, baboons, white rhinos, and
Burchells zebras. Other important animal species include the impala, a type
of deer, and the springbok, a type of gazelle that can spring several feet into
the air to avoid predators.
BRIEF HISTORY OF AFRICA

The African continent has a unique place in

human history. Widely believed to be the
“cradle of humankind,” Africa is the only
continent with fossil evidence of human beings
(Homo sapiens) and their ancestors through
each key stage of their evolution. These include
the Australopithecines, our earliest ancestors;
Homo habilis, our tool-making ancestors; and
Homo erectus, a more robust and advanced
relative to Homo habilis that was able to walk
upright.
These ancestors were the first to develop
stone tools, to move out of trees and walk
upright, and, most importantly, to explore
and migrate.
While fossils of Australopithecines and
Homo habilis have only been found in
Africa, examples of Homo erectus have been
found in the Far East, and their tools have
been excavated throughout Asia and Europe.
This evidence supports the idea that the
species of Homo erectus that originated in
Africa was the first to successfully migrate
and populate the rest of the world.
 This human movement, or migration, plays
a key role in the cultural landscape of Africa.
Geographers are especially interested in
migration as it relates to the way goods,
services, social and cultural practices, and
knowledge are spread throughout the world.
Two other migration patterns, the Bantu
Migration and the African slave trade, help
define the cultural geography of the
continent.
The Bantu Migration was a massive migration of people
across Africa about 2,000 years ago. The Bantu Migration is
the most important human migration to have occurred since
the first human ancestors left Africa more than a million
years ago. Lasting for 1,500 years, the Bantu Migration
involved the movement of people whose language belonged
to the Kongo-Niger language group. The common Kongo-
Niger word for human being is bantu.
The Bantu Migration had an enormous impact on Africa’s economic,
cultural, and political practices. Bantu migrants introduced many new
skills into the communities they interacted with, including sophisticated
farming and industry. These skills included growing crops and forging
tools and weapons from metal.
These skills allowed Africans to cultivate new areas of land that had a
wide variety of physical and climatic features. Many hunter-gatherer
communities were assimilated, or adopted, into the more technologically
advanced Bantu culture. In turn, Bantu people adopted skills from the
communities they encountered, including animal husbandry, or raising
animals for food.
The third massive human migration in
Africa was the African slave trade.
Between the 15th and 19th centuries,
more than 15 million Africans were
transported across the Atlantic Ocean to
be sold as slaves in North and South
America. Millions of slaves were also
transported within the continent, usually
from Central Africa and Madagascar to
North Africa and the European colony of
South Africa.
Millions of Africans died in the slave
trade. Most slaves were taken from the
isolated interior of the continent. They
were sold in the urban areas on the
West African coast. Thousands died in
the brutal process of their capture, and
thousands more died on the forced
migration to trading centers. Even
more lost their lives on the treacherous
voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
The impacts of slavery on Africa are widespread and diverse.
Computerized calculations have projected that if there had been
no slave trade, the population of Africa would have been 50
million instead of 25 million in 1850. Evidence also suggests that
the slave trade contributed to the long-term colonization and
exploitation of Africa. Communities and infrastructure were so
damaged by the slave trade that they could not be rebuilt and
strengthened before the arrival of European colonizers in the
19th century.
AFRICAN CULTURE

 Africa is gigantic continent, with deserts, rivers,

mountains. Grasslands and jungles separating
peoples and ideas. There is no one common culture
in Africa.
 Differences in Religion and language often mean
even a single nation may have several cultures
within it. This has often lead to the use of a
European language as the language of the
government.
African Languages
 There are thousands of indigenous languages
and dialects spoken in Africa. Languages
spoken estimated at between 800 and 1,700.
 Every African country has its own languages,
even the smaller countries. However due to the
fact that many African countries were once part
of European colonies, many people are able to
speak Creole or Pidgin versions of English,
Portuguese of French.
 In Northern Africa Arabic is spoken, whereas in
East Africa Swahili is the dominant language.
African Food
 Many people living in Eastern,
Western and Southern African
villages are farmers. They live
almost entirely off the food they
grow themselves. Traditional
African food is also sold at outdoor
markets.
 In countries like Morocco and
Algeria couscous is a popular dish
served with meat and vegetables.
 In Western Africa it is common for people to
grow and eat cassava, maize, mille and
plantains. When visiting African countries, you
will find that they are very traditional, with most
woman and girls carrying out the task of
cooking meals.
 Colonization has also affected the food and
drink served in some parts of Africa such as
Kenya where it is common for people to drink
tea. Ethiopia claims to have invented coffee
drinking. They have coffee ceremony that’s
similar to the Japanese Tea Ceremony, in
purpose and preparation.
Family Life
Elders play important role in families.
Mother have large roles in African
Families.
The good of community is more
important than the individual.
A child is born in Africa and the
family celebrates the occasion with a
feast. Kids are given names based on
the family history or anticipated
future.
Grandmother and father are heads of
the families.
Dads provide for families and Arrange
marriages for daughters.
Moms rule the home. Kids help and
support the family.
Uncles and aunts help provide for
kids, arrange marriages and help settle
disputes between other family
members. Uncles are often called
Junior Fathers.
 
Marriage
 
In Ethiopia, some people tattoo the
bride’s stomach for good luck.
With the Massai people in kenya, the
bride packs her belongings and is
dressed in jewelry. The father of the
bride spits on her head and breast as a
blessing and then she leaves to her
new home. She will never look back,
fearing that she will turn to stone.
The Himba people of Namibia
kidnap a bride before the
ceremony and dress her in
marriage heddress. After the
ceremony she is brought into the
house where the family tells what
her responsibilities will be as the
wife and then anoint her with
butterfat from cows. This shows
that she has been accepted into
the family.
The Wodabee of Niger court their
cousins for marriage. The male
cousins wear powerful amulets
which are supposed to heighten
their attractiveness to the girl. If
there are two cousins who desire
the same girl, the girl choses the
one she wishes and the other man
is welcomed into the home of the
couple.
The Neur people of southern sudan, the groom
must pay 20 – 40 cattle, the marriage is
completed only after the wife has born 2
children. If the wife only bears one child, and
the husband asks for a divorce he can also ask
for either for the return of the cattle or the first
child. Divorce therefore ids very difficult.
Another interesting fact is that if a husband
dies then the husband’s family must provide a
brother to the widow and any children born to
the brother are considered the deceased’s
children.