₦airaland Forum

Thanks.

^
I get what you're saying, and I'll respond later. But for now, can you remove that image? It's not that the images or comments we post have to all be wholesome and family friendly or anything, but that image is explicit and it doesn't really fit the topic of the thread.

pleep: hmmmm.......

lol, so you're still on this "phallic looking structures = promiscuity" stuff?

I still think it's more likely that that they were religious pillars and birds had some spiritual significance in the worldview of the Shona of that area. I'm not saying that it's impossible that it's a phallic structure or that it can't be both, but it seems unlikely to me. If you have any strong supporting evidence for your conjecture, feel free to present it.

And were those other cultures that did have phallic symbols renowned for their promiscuity? Do their descendants have problems with promiscuity today?

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/6/4/34726_images_image_6451_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1905. Hall, R. N. and W.G. Seal. Great Zimbabwe. Mashonaland, Rhodesia. An Account of Two Years' Examination Work in 1902-4 on Behalf of the Government of Rhodesia.

Caption: Soapstone Beams with Birds, Zimbabwe. South African Museum, Capetown.

Illustration technique: b/w context photograph

Publication plate/figure: figure

Keywords:
• Great Zimbabwe (Country, region, place)
• soapstone (Materials and techniques)
• birds (Notable features)
• figurated finial (Notable features)
• vultures (Notable features)
• pole (Object name, type)
• beam (Object name, type)
• pedestal (Object name, type)
• Ndebele (Style, culture group)
• Shona (Style, culture group)

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/2/7/91394_images_image_2749_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1897. Christol, Frédéric. Au Sud de l'Afrique.

Original language: French

Caption translation: Fragments of sculptures found at Zimbabié (Cape Museum)

Text translation: "These ruins are situated in the country of the Matabélés, not far from Fort-Victoria, between the Limpopo and the Zambèze, and occupy considerable space. In Zimbabié, where the most significant remains are to be found, stands a massive stone tower, with very thick walls…”(p. 302)

Illustrator: Frédéric Christol, author of volume

Illustration technique: studio engraving

Keywords:
• Great Zimbabwe (Country, region, place)
• stone (Materials and techniques)
• elephant (Notable features)
• man (Notable features)
• zebra (Notable features)
• animal (Notable features)
• quadruped (Notable features)
• bas-relief (Object name, type)
• frieze fragment (Object name, type)
• Shona (Style, culture group)
• Ndebele (Style, culture group)

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/6/4/89894_images_image_6450_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1905. Hall, R. N. and W.G. Seal. Great Zimbabwe. Mashonaland, Rhodesia. An Account of Two Years' Examination Work in 1902-4 on Behalf of the Government of Rhodesia.

Caption: "Fuko-ya-nebandge: the Mashonaland relic, discovered near Zimbabwe. (Fig. 5).

Illustration technique: b/w studio photograph

Keywords:
• Great Zimbabwe (Country, region, place)
• pigment (Materials and techniques)
• clay (Materials and techniques)
• quadruped (Notable features)
• striped (Notable features)
• neck spout (Notable features)
• pitcher (Object name, type)
• zoomorphic vessel (Object name, type)
• Ndebele (Style, culture group)
• Shona (Style, culture group)

@ pleep, I am not familiar with what it is exactly that vultures or other types of birds represented in Shona mythology or traditional religion, but in the absence of evidence that there was some sort of s3xual connotation to them, doesn't it seem a bit presumptuous to assume that the soapstone bird pillars were phallic? You could be right, and it could be phallic, but then again, your assumption could be completely wrong. Maybe you should try and get some supporting evidence.

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/2/0/91090_images_image_2090_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1899. Schlichter, Henry. "Travels and Researches in Rhodesia." The Geographical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4, April.


Caption: Zimbabye Dish, Showing a number of zodiacal and other astronomical signs. Measurements: Diameter, right to left, 14 3/4 inches; diameter, top to bottom, 13 inches; outside depth, 5 3/4 inches; inside depth, near centre, 2 1/2 inches. 1. Gemini 2. Empty Space Standing for Cancer (Constellation introduced at a later period of antiquity) 3. Leo (?) 4. Virgo 5. Libra 6. Scorpio 7. Milky Way (Sagittarius) 8. Capricornus (fish-tailed goat) 9. Aquarius 10. Sun Image 11. Orion (Hunter) 12. Taurus. The Crocodile is taken to indicate the northern circumpolar constellation (Compare Lockyer, "Dawn of Astronomy," 1894, p. 150)

Keywords:
• Zimbabwe (Country, region, place)
• wood (Materials and techniques)
• carved (Materials and techniques)
• astonomical symbols (Notable features)
• crocodile (Notable features)
• reptile (Notable features)
• zodiac signs (Notable features)
• bowl (Object name, type)
• divination dish (Object name, type)
• Shona (Style, culture group)

shymexx: Cape Coast and Bornu looked great as well - how the mighty has fallen!!

There are some even better images of the 19th century Ashanti architecture that I found on this blog that I visit occassionally:

http://exploring-africa..com/2010/03/before-ruins.html

^^^

The only errors in that post are that he takes the image of Loango from Dapper's publication as being a totally accurate representation (it was from the engraver's imagination based on Dapper's description) and when he misidentifies a sketch of the architecture of a building in Timbuktu (by R. Caillié, which I posted earlier in this thread) as being "an undated sketch of the City of Kano architecture." Other than that, it's a good post.

Also he actually doesn't mention some places in west and central Africa that we know from centuries old writings and from archaeology had impressive architectural structures. They were probably not mentioned because there is a lack of available pictures and drawings (that blog post does focus on images) which properly highlight the architecture of those places.

shymexx: Great job, brother Physics...

Thanks.

Ishilove: It seems pyguru has arrested PhysicsMHD and QED

esere826: Not to worry dear
Seun will soon pardon him

I'm back.

Odumchi undid what the spambot did, so I'll be posting some more images in this thread today and then I'll return to the thread a while from now when I come across some more interesting images.

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/1/3/74035_images_image_1355_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1914. Thorbecke, Marie Pauline. Auf der Savanne: Tagebuch einer Kamerun-Reise.

Original language: German

Caption translation: Entrance hall in the chief's court of Bamum

Caption: Empfangshalle im Häuptlingsgehöst zu Bamum

Text translation: “The more we approach the chief’s square, the closer homesteads and houses stand together. At last there are actual streets, narrow and shadowy like Italian ones. This is the city of the chief’s women, in which each woman occupies one house on her own. Then the huge palace of the chief stands on its own on the wide square. Many, many quadratic houses are built next to one another and the pitched roofs are connected like saddles, forming a coherent, rectangular complex of buildings. The narrow side with four big entrance gates shows carved posts as support columns, a couple of huge drums can be seen in the dark doorways.” (p. 49) „The huge building is indeed noble and of royal beauty. Inside large courtyards span among the high dim rooms and dark, pitch-dark corridors. The sun shines in friendly; an open access balcony runs around whose roof is supported by carved columns; trees are shadowing grey old gravestones in the middle. Here the chief welcomes visitors, here he administers the law.” (p. 52)

Text: „Je näher wir dem Häuptlingsplatz kommen, um so dichter liegen Gehöfte und Häuser beisammen, zuletzt sind es richtige Strassen, eng und schattig, wie italienische. Das ist die Frauenstadt des Häuptlings, in der jedes Weib ein Haus für sich allein bewohnt. Und dann steht der riesige Häuptlingspalast allein auf weitem Platz. Viele, viele einzelne, quadratische Häuser sind dicht an einander gebaut, die spitzen Dächer sattelartig verbunden, so einen zusammenhängenden, rechteckigen Gebäudekomplex bildend. Die Schmalseite mit vier großen Eingangstoren, zeigt als Dachstützen lauter geschnitzte Pfosten, ein paar riesige Trommeln sind in den dunklen Torgängen zu sehen.“ [Transcribed from German Fraktur] (p. 49) „Der riesige Bau ist wirklich vornehm und fürstlich schön. Im Inneren dehnen sich weite Höfe aus zwischen den hohen, dämmrigen Räumen und dunklen, stockfinsteren Gängen. Die Sonne scheint freundlich herein; ein offener Laubengang, dessen Dach durch geschnitzte Säulen getragen wird, läuft ringsum; Bäume beschatten in der Mitte graue, alte Grabsteine. Hier empfängt der Häuptling Besuch, hier spricht er Recht.“ [Transcribed from German Fraktur] (p. 52)

Illustrator: Marie Pauline Thorbecke, signed "MP. T."

Illustration technique: field engraving

Publication page: 53

Publication plate/figure: figure

Related images: This scene appears 3 times in 1912 & 1914: #s 597, 609, 660 Other views of the palace, search: Bamum palace

Keywords:
• Cameroon (Country, region, place)
• Fumban (Country, region, place)
• Grassfields (Country, region, place)
• carved wood (Materials and techniques)
• architecture (Notable features)
• court (Notable features)
• figurative (Notable features)
• Njoya (Notable features)
• paired (Notable features)
• palace (Notable features)
• reception hall (Notable features)
• column (Object name, type)
• Bamum (Style, culture group)

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/1/3/50079_images_image_1300_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1910. Eine Reise durch die Deutschen Kolonien, Vol. II.

Original language: German

Caption translation: Pictures from Bamum

Caption: Bilder von Bamum

Illustration technique: b/w field photograph

Keywords:
• Cameroon (Country, region, place)
• Fumban (Country, region, place)
• thatch (Notable features)
• paired posts (Notable features)
• two-headed serpent (Notable features)
• house (Object name, type)
• architecture (Object name, type)
• Bamum (Style, culture group)

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/6/7/68630_images_image_6705_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1890. Wissman, Hermann. Unter deutscher Flagge quer durch Afrika von West nach Ost.

Original language: German

Caption translation: House of the chief of Tupende.

Caption: Häuptlingshaus der Tupende.

Illustration technique: field engraving

Keywords:
• Congo-Kinshasa (Country, region, place)
• carved wood (Materials and techniques)
• animal (Notable features)
• headdress (Notable features)
• architecture (Notable features)
• caryatid (Notable features)
• chief's house (Notable features)
• standing figure (Notable features)
• finial (Object name, type)
• roof ornament (Object name, type)
• sculpture (Object name, type)
• Pende (Style, culture group)

[img]http://raai.library.yale.edu/web/art/6/3/34460_images_image_6343_medium.jpg[/img]

Publication: 1917 (?). Angoulvant, G. Guide du commerce et de la colonisation à la Côte d'Ivoire.

Original language: French

Caption translation: Fetish house in Bas Cavally.

Caption: Case fétiche dans le Bas Cavally.

Text translation: "The religion of the peoples of the lagoons is fetishism. They still believe in the existence of spirits who serve as intermediaries between humans and the divinity." (p. 22)

Text: “La religion des peuplades des lagunes est le fétichisme. Elles croient encore à l’existence de génies qui servent d’intermédiaries entre les humains et la divinité.” (p. 22)

Illustration technique: b/w field photograph

Keywords:
• Bas Cavally (Country, region, place)
• Cote d'Ivoire (Country, region, place)
• Lagoon (Country, region, place)
• architecture (Object name, type)
• ritual house (Object name, type)
• roof ornament (Object name, type)
• shrine (Object name, type)
• Kru (Style, culture group)


[The comment from the writer that I highlighted in bold above is ironic considering that Christianity requires basically the same thing (the 'Holy Spirit').]

pleep: Victorian sexual conservatism was all about clothing. Covering the ankles,the ears and sometimes hair... African cultures attiudes about nudity were completely different.

Africa was/is hot. Victorian era Britain was not, and was often cold. The weather difference is significant as far as clothing choices.

Clothing in Africa, except for the Muslim areas that probably absorbed some Islamic religious ideas about dressing, was mostly really about style/fashion, religion, and utility.

Inferring what a group's s3xual mores were from their dressing could also be misleading not only because of the heat issue, but because some groups could have been in cultures where a woman's b.reasts or a man's nak.edness were viewed innocently as just nak.edness, and not really as something s3xually explicit or some kind of s.exual exhibitionism.

This is not to say that the opposite could not have been true as well - there could have been groups that celebrated phallic or other s3xual imagery out of a deliberate desire to appreciate or promote s3xuality.

But in the case of those pillars I originally posted, they do seem to be purely religious/spiritual. Comparable objects (physically, not necessarily culturally) that are also non-s3xual but also have a phallic shape would probably be totem poles in non-African cultures.

Ishilove: I concur. The pre-colonial African society, if anything were almost Victorian in issues related to s.ex and sexual explicitness was disallowed in many societies.

I'm pretty sure different groups probably had different attitudes to s.ex. Since there was cultural variation in other aspects, there was probably cultural variation across different groups with regard to promiscuity and s3xually explicit imagery.

Ishilove: The drawing of that punt seems exaggerated. It would have taken more than two men to row a water vessel of that size.

That does seem true. Of the written references to large African canoes that I've come across, they almost always mention there being many rowers.

esere826: @Physicsqed

The tappered ends of the paddles in the uploaded pix seem to indicate that:
1) they were used in shallow waters ie stab at the river bed and used to push the boat along the waters
2) used in tsabbing at sea animals
3) used to multitask as weapons of defence

Is this the case?

They probably were used in shallow waters, but could also have been used in deeper lagoons. I've read about the widespread use of canoes in lagoons in west Africa and in the Niger Delta of Nigeria so they probably could have been used there as well.

Maybe they could have been used to stab at animals and possibly could have been used for defense as a last resort, but that doesn't seem likely considering that the paddles were entirely of wood, without any metal. Written descriptions of West Africans in canoes sometimes mention them carrying real weapons on board with them, so it's unlikely that they would have needed to use the paddles as weapons. But you're right that the pointed ends do suggest that they might have been used to fend off threatening animals or something like that.

Thanks

Hey pleep, could you edit your earlier post to remove that blue shaft?

coYah: interesting post...the paddles look to have wing creatures on the top. Can anyone tell me what they symbolize?

I don't have any idea what they symbolize. But the RAAI website has comments from one of the authors that published images of the paddles. According to the comments on the paddles by Joseph Marquart (from his 1913 publication), the handle of each paddle is a crocodile's head when viewed from above and immediately below this is a lizard climbing upward:

“15th ser. 1165 no. 1. Paddle of brown hardwood with carved decorations on both sides, double blade with open work and round handle with open work in two places. See pl, IX fig. 1 and 6. (Front and back sides). Jaarverslag R.E.M. 1897/8 PL IX fig. 23a, and 23a, a. The upper end of the handle is flattened and expanded into a horizontal rectangle with a triangular tip, which is then open worked and decorated to an equal degree on both sides, as in the comb ser. 1355 no. 2. The point depicts a stylized crocodile head, as in PR 33, 256; the two side openings indicate the eyes, which appear in PR 33, 256 as concave semicircles. Behind this comes, in side view, a lizard climbing upwards in a rectangular frame with vertical notches on the top and diagonal notches on the bottom and the sides. Towards the bottom the rectangle gradually fades into a cylindrical bar. In the middle of this a horizontal cube is left open, which, broken through on all four sides, forms four rectangular arrows, which are each either notched horizontally on the opposite sides or decorated with cut zigzag ridges.

The blade is uniquely formed. The shaft appears to immediately split into two flattened branches, which penetrate into the reverse side of the two blades as middle ribs and gradually flatten and expand; they seem to be reinforced just below the end of the shaft by a wide horizontal ridge. The horseshoe-shape piece this forms is crooked, with vertical notches on the horizontal ridge.

The blades are divided into three zones by wide, smooth horizontal strips. The uppermost zone, in which the blades are still undivided, is heart-shaped and decorated on the front with two stripes of four diamond rows each, beginning on both sides of the branches and converging diagonally after the horizontal ridge. On the reverse side are similar stripes, diagonally notched, while the ends of the two branches are diamond-patterned. Only from the second zone on do the two completely symmetrical blades divide; each blade here has openwork lengthwise and has the same decoration on both sides: a lizard creeping upwards with a horizontally-notched tail and diagonally-notched body between wide diamond-patterned side ridges.

The third zone tapers into a point and is decorated on the front with two stripes of three rows of diamonds each going out from the middle of the horizontal ridge and diverging towards the edges. On the reverse side we see two diamond-patterned equilateral triangles standing next to each other, whose base is formed by the horizontal ridge. [p. 74]

Length 1.755 m, length of the handle .90 m, width of the decorated end .07 m, diameter of the handle .032 m. Width of the double blade .18 m.” (pp. 74-75)

lol, nwando/babyosisi got totally bludgeoned and owned on this thread and ran out with her tail between her legs. She went out of her way to derail the thread with her bullsh1t but she's nowhere to be found now. She can't even do something as simple as use a search engine, but later some clowns on this site will say this poor excuse for a woman, nwando, is actually intelligent because she makes sarcastic comments.

Doesn't she (nwando) work in the health care field as well? That would explain the petty jealousy and the desperate attempt to tear down this woman.

RIP

c.fours:
abeg leave the models alone jare. at least they all look african. unlike the so called black actresses and "models" promoted by black men. where 2/3 of them are mixed or don't even look black at all!

You shouldn't base your idea of what black men like on the kind of women that make it in Hollywood. Black people don't control Hollywood.

c.fours:
^ well, the topic does say that "the white manz perception of black beauty is diffeent from the black manz"
I personally side more with the white man's perspective. because well, I just find those kind of women more attractive looking.

I prefer this:
[img]http://4.bp..com/-Jj59el32hHE/Tp3HHk5d5aI/AAAAAAAACs0/UHac3KH_8_k/s320/Kiara+Kabukuru+4.jpg[/img]

to this (most black men's preferences):
[img]http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BODM2ODYwODQ2NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODMxNDcxNw@@._V1._SX140_CR0,0,140,209_.jpg[/img]
full list here:
http://www.imdb.com/list/NWozs28qSNw/

Your second picture didn't show up. But I looked at the imdb list. Mostly light skinned African American Hollywood actresses.

That's not my idea of what the most beautiful black women look like. But that's my personal preference and there may indeed be a lot of black men in America or elsewhere who think of that as their ideal.

I was agreeing with Sybellah, more than I was with Royal. Some of the African women featured as models aren't really gorgeous facially and I think it's deliberate.

Boricua:Negro:
The Post by c four...above the ugly white lady
For One...West and Central African Women have Prominent Protruding Jawlines.

Boricua:Negro:
Do the Neka Twins not have protruding jaws?

Does Nuella Njigbo Not have a Protruding Jaw?

Boricua:Negro:
West and Central Africans...especially Nigerians...are known for Protruding Jaws.

"Protuding jaws" and strong jawlines are two completely different things.

Sybellah: royal got a point, some of these african models they use are very unattractive, and the weird thing some afrocentrics folks will throw u a stone for calling Alek Wek ugly

I have to agree with this. I've thought the same thing. I still don't understand what's going on there.

c.fours:
she looks very akata is what I meant to say.

She doesn't look particularly un-African if that's what you meant by "she looks very akata". I don't know what particular features she has that you think can't be found in Africans.

In fact, does anyone know if she really is African American and not directly from Africa, since there's no name to go with the picture?

It took me about 2 minutes of searching online to find African women who somewhat resemble the woman in that wedding photo.

https://d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/image_cache/1352863966211257.jpg

^

These two Nigerian women resemble her in some ways:

https://img003.picture2life.net/12243885/201626_10150159483442085_45164_web-large_medium.jpg

https://cdn.bellanaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/n616819324_1906354_8179.jpg

(Of course they don't exactly look like her - it's not like I can find a "twin" of her.)

PAPA AFRICA: do you have any info/pictures of boats and things relating to them in the kingdom of benin?

The Edo were not a seafaring people. There were some West African groups that were seafarers and made real sailing voyages along the African coast - some groups from the Gold Coast (now Ghana) sailed to Angola centuries ago, for example - but the Edo are not one of them. The identification of the sea as a passage that led to the spirit world in Edo religious belief may have played a part in that. The Edo believed in the past that people journeyed over the sea when going from the spiritual world to the physical world (or vice versa). I don't think many of us still believe in that nowadays though.

Rivers, lagoons, and other inland waterways were used for transportation for trade or to transport soldiers but that was it. There is an 1857 report from a British writer which states that before that time (1857) Benin previously possessed "fleets of large canoes capable of carrying from fifty to one hundred armed men" but there are no images of these boats. The same archaeologist mentioned earlier (P. J. Darling) also published an article in 1980 about the remains of a port that Benin used (to send boats out for trade or to ferry soldiers along the inland waterways) in the past.

Anybody who denies that Nigeria is seriously lagging behind in science is simply delusional or ignorant or both. It's not even debatable.

Rossikk: What amazes me is the way people simply accept whatever these fly-by-night, mom and pop foreign organizations announce in their 'newsletters'.

Who are they?

Nobody asks.

Oyibo has declared. So God himself has spoken. No need to question.


[size=20pt]PATHETIC.[/size]

Apparently you didn't bother to ask who they are either, for you to say "oyibo has declared."

Here's a clue for you, since you're badly in need of a clue: they aren't "oyibos."

Try and actually do some searching for answers yourself before making silly comments.

TWAS was founded by people from developing countries (the so-called 'Third World') and exists chiefly to assist scientists from the developing world in transforming and improving the scientific capacity of their home countries. Incidentally, a Nigerian medical researcher (Thomas Adeoye Lambo) was among the founding members of the organization. The founding executive director of the organization is Mohamed H. A. Hassan (who is also a former president of African Academy of Science), a Sudanese physicist. "Oyibo" indeed.