Ancient Ghana ("Wagadu"/"Ouagadou") - Notes
GEOGRAPHY
Ancient Sudan
Sahara Desert
Rain Forests
The Magreb
Ancient Ghana
Senegal River
Niger River
Kuombi (Kumbi) Saleh
El Ghaba
Wangara (was it Bambuk? Bure?)
Taghaza
Wagadu-bida
ECONOMICS
Specialization: clan (sisse, kante)
Iron smelters: Mungo Park 1796
Camel
Salt - Taghaza (Berbers)
Gold in Wangara
al-Idrisi: 30 lb. nugget that tethers king's (Tunka Manin’s) horse
al-Bakri: gold dog collars
Geographic location: Trade and Taxes
Slave markets
Wells
Mud/wood houses and mosques
Crops: millet, sorghum, nuts, cotton, rice, okra, pumpkins, sesame, peas, watermelon
Herds of cattle
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
Clans (groups of families)
Griots
Language = Mande/Mende/Malinke
Monarchy: Patriarchal with matrilineal descent
RELIGION
Polytheistic: Nyama
Energy and spirit
Charms
Change offended the gods
Ancestors revered
Ibn Yacin (an imam) founded fundamentalist Islamic ribat in Morocco (the Almoravids);
two groups sent out in jihad: one to Spain and one to Ghana
Mosques
Burial mounds
POLITICS
c.750 CE: Soninke tribe ousts Berbers
Griot's story: Dyabe from the east founds Kumbi with his four chiefs
descendents - "Wago" (Soninke ruling elite of the Sisse clan)
Wagadu kingdom
OR: Wagadu was founded by an agreement: Dyabe of the Soninke and Wagadu Bida of
Kumbi
Wagadu Bida
annual sacrifical virgin
Sia
Amadou Safedokote
drought and decline; 7 or 8 heads land on the gold fields (no water or gold for 7
years, 7 months and 7 days)
Monarchy: Patriarchal with matrilineal descent
capital = Kumbi Saleh (found in 1914)
Princes
Provinces
900-1100 height of empire
1070 Abu Bakr I (the Almoravids) defeats Tunka Manin (per Arab historian al-Bakri)
1087 Almoravids withdraw after Abu Bakr's death
1180 Soninke from Sosso conquer Ghana
Sumanguru of the Kante clan
Kumbi falls in 1203