Contents | Previous | Next
Date: 01 Nov 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Subject: Re: Ancient wisdom in Africa
Message-ID: <20001101142117.08414.00000039@ng-ci1.aol.com>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
References: <20001026180108.02067.00000009@ng-fv1.aol.com>
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3Dutf-8
Mime-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: alt.religion.orisha
X-Admin: news@aol.com
I want to make use of the paper "Ancient wisdom in Africa", previously po=
sted
to the group, to make some additional points.
In an earlier discussion, two posters maintained that the art of Ifa divi=
nation
was transmitted to the Yoruba by the Arabs. One said the similarities bet=
ween
"sand divination" and Ifa divination were too great to be coincidence, an=
d that
it was "obvious" that Arab traders must have been the conduit through whi=
ch
this transmission took place. It was actually necessary to point out that=
there
were other, purely logical possibilities, namely (1) that the transmissio=
n went
the other way, perhaps even through the very same conduit, and (2) a comm=
on
parent to both traditions; and in order to know which, it is necessary to=
take
a look at the relevant timelines, or chronologies, that is, who knew what=
when.
What, it may be wondered, is the source of the prejudice that leaves some=
commentators to eschew the very logic and "rationality" of which they are=
usually so proud?
The existence of the society, known in Zululand as the Bonaabakulu Abasek=
hemu
(the brotherhood of higher ones of Egypt), the members of which come from=
every
"every tribe and nation throughout this great land [Africa]", and whose o=
rigins
trace back to a priest of Auset from the reign of 4th Dynasty Pharaoh Khu=
fu,
speaks to an African religious tradition dating back at least to ca. 2500=
BC.
Since Abraham, who is patriarch of both Jews and Arabs, isn't even alive =
until
ca. 1700 BC, the inference is clear: not only Jews, but Arabs also cannot=
be
credited with the ancient religious wisdom coming out of the Nile Valley.=
It is
an African creation through and through.
There was another stream of comment also, from the Sabean connection, tha=
t
suggests that Ethiopian civilization is an Arab creation: that Arabs from=
South
Yemen crossed the Red Sea and settled Ethiopia, creating civilization the=
re. It
is again the other way around. The Ethiopian civilization is more ancient=
even
than the Egyptian civilization, and the latter is derivative of the forme=
r, as
the latter acknowledges and the former has always asserted. Since the Ara=
bs as
a people could not have existed before the birth of their famous progenit=
or
Abraham, the Arabs can claim no credit either for Kamit (ancient Egypt) o=
r Kush
(even more ancient Ethiopia).
That said, it must also be said that the people that occupied the souther=
n part
of the Arabian peninsula (South Yemen) prior to Abraham were also a black=
African people, a cultural and racial extension of the African continent.=
The
Sabeans of south Yemen were an extension of Kush, rather than the other w=
ay
around. It is only later that the people that occupy the Arabian peninsul=
a came
to be viewed as a non-African people, being a clear mixture of Caucasian
elements coming south into the region, and the aboriginal Africans among =
whom
were the Sabeans. (Still today, by the way, the people of South Yemen are=
very
black African in appearance. There was no unity between black Arab and
so-called red or Semitic Arab even as late as the appearance of Mohammed,=
in
fact Islam was revolutionary precisely in terms of calling for such unity=
=2E
Islamic conquest and empire-building no doubt contributed to such unity, =
but
still today there are racial and color cleavages in the Arab world.) It i=
s to
be expected therefore that the aboriginal African Arab shared in the cult=
ural
knowledge of ancient Kush and Kamit, as indeed did the forebears of the Y=
oruba,
Wolof, Akan, Zulu, etc. I have previously cited J. Olumide Lucas, Chiekh =
Anta
Diop, and others who have written of the internal migrations within Afric=
a
which led, not alone to cultural, but also to genetic transmission from t=
he
Nile Valley to the rest of Africa, in part as a result of Caucasian and W=
est
Asian incursions into Africa and the ensuing wars and dislocation.
Now, as to when did the art of divination originate, it is clear that it =
is
indeed very ancient, and likely predates by thousands of years the coming=
into
being even of dynastic Egypt. What at the very least is clear is that the=
"higher ones of Khemu" knew the art of divination. Herodotus speaks of th=
e
Oracle of Delphi having been brought to Greece by two black women from Eg=
ypt.
The art of Tarot divination is traced to Egypt through the Tablet of Isis=
(see
http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/seftar.html ). In like vein, Manly =
P.
Hall speculates as follows, referring to the ancient Kamitic priests, and=
the
Tablet of Isis:
=
For example, in order to call down to the world the soul and spirit of=
=
the Universe, they stood before the image shown in the throne in the =
center of our Tablet, wearing the same symbols as that figure and its =
attendants, and offered sacrifices. By these and the accompanying =
singing of hymns they believed that they infallibly drew the God's =
attention to their prayer. And so they did in regard to the other =
regions of the Tablet, believing that of necessity the proper ritual =
properly carried out would evoke the deity desired. That this was the =
origin of the science of the oracles is apparent.
-- see http://www.prs.org/books/book216.htm
We don't know, and I consider it unlikely, that this was the origin, but =
it
certainly speaks to the existence of this art within the civilization of
ancient Khemu. It is also worth remarking that what he describes could as=
easily be applied to priests of traditional African religion down to this=
day.
Far from being "obvious", that the Yoruba, or any other African people le=
arnt
the art of divination from the "Arabs", is supported neither by the relev=
ant
timelines, nor by oral tradition, nor by common sense. More likely, the
diffusion of this art emanated from its original African source - we know=
at
least of its presence in the Nile Valley civilization of Kamit, but its o=
rigins
are more likely tens of thousands of years earlier (the oral tradition of=
which
I am aware certainly claims that) - both to southern Arabia, prior to the=
coming of the progeny of Abraham and the red Arab, as well as to Europe v=
ia the
Greeks and others, and I would hypothesize also to Eastern Asia. In respe=
ct of
the last, it is interesting to remark on the similarity of name of what t=
he
Chinese call the I Ching (pronounced "ee king") and the ikin of the Yorub=
a,
which is the name of the palm kernels used in Ifa divination. That I Chin=
g is a
subset of Ifa divination is also clear, and may be rendered also with
mathematical precision ( http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/ichgene6.h=
tml ).
I feel moved to add that to assert the facts of history in properly ascri=
bing
to Africa that which belongs to her is not to take away from anybody else=
=E2?=A6
unless it is that others have improperly appropriated for themselves that=
which
rather belongs to an African provenance. It was not my intention to recla=
im the
Tarot also for Africa (Tarot is popularly credited today as a European
contribution to the art of divination, which it is not, as the evidence o=
f the
Tablet of Isis demonstrates), but there it is. It is important I believe =
to
resist all forms of cultural appropriation - it hurts the victim, and
ultimately does not aggrandize or ennoble the perpetrator, as they might =
hope,
rather the reverse.
Peace,
Grisso
"Some seek to own the property; others seek to enjoy the landscape." - af=
ter
One-Minute Wisdom
Copyright (2000) is asserted. Permission is given to reproduce freely, wi=
th
attribution, for non-commercial purposes.
--------------347478A32A5435CAE95DC59E--
Contents | Previous | Next
Tips for your pocket: