Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories
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Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories propose direct contact or actual migrations by peoples from the continent of Africa with the indigenous peoples of the Americas at some stage during the pre-Columbian history of the Americas– that is, earlier than the late 15th century.
These claims generally contend that one or more expeditions or migrations from Africa crossed the Atlantic to arrive somewhere in the Americas, where their African cultures combined with or influenced the indigenous pre-Columbian cultures. The proponents of these theories claim to detect evidence of this African cultural influence among a variety of artefacts, historical documents, native mythologies and supposed linguistic similiarities.
Less commonly, theories concern contact or influence going in the other direction, from the New World to African civilizations (such as Ancient Egypt).
In either case, the majority scientific consensus on these claims has been and remains that there is no evidence, compelling or even reasonably suggestive, that such trans-Atlantic contacts ever took place, and there has not been a single find of a provenanced African artefact or site in the Americas (and vice-versa) to demonstrate there had been any pre-Columbian interactions between the peoples of these two continents. Nonetheless a minority of proponents maintain their convictions in the historicity of these exchanges, while the general scientific community remains highly sceptical.
[edit] Olmec Sculptures
The Olmec civilization of Central America, based along the Gulf Coast of south-central Mexico, existed roughly from 1200 to 400 BC. Some Olmec sculptures appear to represent faces with Negroid features.
More than seventeen monumental basalt stone heads, each weighing ten to forty tons, have been unearthed in Olmec sites along the Mexican Gulf Coast[citation needed]. One of the first European-American scientists to comment on the Olmec heads, archaeologist Mathew Stirling, described their facial features as "amazingly African."[citation needed]
[edit] African presence in Central America
During his third voyage, Columbus recorded that when he reached Haiti, the natives told him that Black men from the south and southeast had come before him to the island.[citation needed] In 1513, Balboa found a colony of Black men on his arrival in Darien, Panama.[1]
[edit] Evidence of early African Presence
In the book, They Came Before Columbus, Professor Ivan Van Sertima of Rutgers University assembled what he viewed as a large array of evidence that supported a pre-Columbian African presence in the Americas. His research has not found acceptance in mainstream historical or archaeological communities, but remains widely popular among proponents of afrocentric contact models. Claims made in his book include:
The first evidence of a black presence in the America was given to Columbus by the Natives, who gave concrete proof to the Spanish that they were trading with black people. [2] Columbus later recorded that “The Indians of this Española said there had come to Española a black people who have the tops of their spears made of a metal which they called gua-nin". Columbus sent samples of this to Spain to have them examined.[2] It was later found that of 32 parts, 18 were of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of copper; all being of West African origin.[2] The origin of the word gua-nin can be tracked down in the Mande languages of West Africa, through Mandigo, Kabunga, Toronka, Kankanka, Banbara, Mande and Vei. In Vei, there is the form of the word ka-ni which, transliterated into native phonetics, would give the word gua-nin.” [2][1]
In his De Orbe Novo, Peter Martyr d'Anghiera mentions the presence of Blacks likes those from Africa in Panama. His theory is that these were “negro pirates of [Africa who] established themselves after the wreck of their ships in these mountains.”[3]
In 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa, another Spaniard, came upon a group of African war captives in an Indian settlement.[2] He was told that they were captured during war with an African settlement nearby. A priest, Fray Gregoria Garcia wrote an account of another encounter in a book that was silenced by the Inquisition: “Here we found prisoners of war - Negroes- who were the first our people saw in the Indies.”[2]
[edit] Archaeological Evidence
Besides these sightings, there is also a large amount of archeological evidence[citation needed] of an African presence before Columbus. This is found in the form of figurines of Negro-Africans in clay, gold, and stone unearthed in pre-Colombian strata in Central and South America.[citation needed]
[edit] Oral History
The oral history of the two peoples also reflects this pre-Columbus contact.[citation needed] The Griots, traditional historians and masters of orature (Oral Literature) in Mali, have stories about their King, Abubakari II, grandson of Sundiata, the founder of the Mali Empire, who set out on a great expedition to explore the Atlantic Ocean in 1311, as recorded by the 14th century historian Chihab Al-Umari. None of the boats returned to Mali, around this time evidence of contact between West Africans and Mesoamerican civilization appear in strata in Central America in an overwhelming combination of artifacts and cultural parallels.[citation needed] A black-haired, black-bearded figure in white robes, one of the representations of Quetzalcoatl, modeled on a dark-skinned outsider, appears in paintings in the valley of Mexico.[citation needed] Around this time, the Aztecs begin to worship a Negroid figure mistaken for their god Tezcatlipoca because he had the right ceremonial color.[citation needed] Negroid skeletons are also found in this time stratum in the Caribbean.[citation needed] An excerpt quoted from the book, They Came Before Columbus, states that ‘A notable tale is recorded in the Peruvian traditions ... of how black men coming from the east had been able to penetrate the Andes Mountains.’[citation needed]
[edit] Emperor Abubakari II's Voyage
Emperor Abubakari II gave up all power and gold in the pursuit of knowledge and discovery.[4] Abubakari's ambition was to explore whether the Atlantic Ocean, like the great River Niger that swept through Mali, had another 'bank'.
In around 1311, he abdicated the throne of the Mali Empire, one of the richest and largest in history; spanning over nearly all of West Africa. Power was given to his brother, Kankou Moussa, as he set off on his expedition.
Abubakari left with around 2,000 large boats.[5][1] Abubakari's fleet of pirogues, loaded with men, women, livestock, food, and drinking water, departed from what is now the coast of present-day Gambia. The voyage of Abubakari II was made possible by ocean currents stretching across the Atlantic from Equatorial Africa to South America, those same currents were used by Thor Heyerdahl.
Although he never returned to his empire, there is concrete evidence[citation needed] that he and his fleet landed in Brazil in around 1312, in the place now called Recife. The Purnanbuco, which is an aberration of the Mande name for the rich gold fields that accounted for much of the wealth of the Mali Empire.[citation needed]
[edit] Transcontinental Transfer of Foods
Banana, yam, beans and gourd are Old World plants that predates Columbus in the Americas.[citation needed] While the last [gourd] could have been transported by the ocean currents, the first three cannot survive such prolonged exposure[citation needed]. “The African word for banana runs right through these American languages.”[citation needed]
[edit] African Traditions and Language in the Americas
Pipe smoking was another African pastime that found its way into the Americas.[citation needed] “The Malinke words meaning to smoke are dyamba and dyemba. These can account for South American smoke words such as the Guipinavi, dema; Traiana, iema; Maypures, jema; Guahiba, sema; Caberi, scema; Baniva, djeema; and so on. The Mandigo word duli (to smoke) which also occurs in the same form in Toma and Bambara, and in its variant forms nduli and luli in Mende, can be found among the American languages Carb, Arawak, Chavantes, Baniva, Acroamirin, and Goajira.” There were several citations of ethnic American names duplicated only among the Berbers, and nowhere else in the world.[citation needed]
There is also the Bambara werewolf cult whose head is known as amantigi (heads of faith) appeared in Mexican rituals as amanteca.[citation needed] The ceremonies accompanying these rituals are too identical to have been independently evolved among peoples who have had no previous encounter.[citation needed] Talking devil is called Hore in Mandigo, and Haure in Carib.[citation needed] In the American language of Nahuatl a waistcloth is called maxtli, in Malinke it's masiti.[citation needed] The female loincloth is nagua in Mexico, it is nagba in Mande.[citation needed]
[edit] Miscellaneous
Native legends of the Americas abound with the exploits of early Black people.[citation needed] In the Southwest Indian story of the Emergence, a story that is as important in the region as the Book of Genesis is to Christians, the First World is called the Black World[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] External Links and Sources:
- Africans in America Before Columbus
- BBC Article on Abubakari II
- Pre- Columbus African Presence
- African Prescence in the Americas
- Harvard Article: They Came Before Columbus
- Islam in America Before Columbus
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c African Presence in Early America, Ivan Van Sertima, Transaction Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0887387152
- ^ a b c d e f They Came Before Columbus, Ivan Van Sertima, Random House Trade, 2003. ISBN 0812968174
- ^ De Orbe Novo, Volume 1, The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera, Project Gutenberg. D'Anghiera uses the term Ethiopia to refer to Africa south of Sahara
- ^ Blacks Before America, Mark Hyman, Xlibris Corporatio, 2003. ISBN 1413400116
- ^ The Saga of Abubakari II, Gaoussou Diawara
