1.
Abomey
–
Abomey is a city in the Zou Department of Benin. Abomey is also the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey, which would later become a French colony, then the Republic of Dahomey. The commune of Abomey covers an area of 142 square kilometres, the Royal Palaces of Abomey are a group of earthen structures built by the Fon people between the mid-17th and late 19th Centuries. One of the most famous and historically significant traditional sites in West Africa, within the walls were villages separated by fields, several royal palaces, a market-place and a large square containing the barracks. In November 1892, Béhanzin, the last independent reigning king of Dahomey, being defeated by French colonial forces, set fire to Abomey, the French colonial administration rebuilt the town and connected it with the coast by a railroad. When UNESCO designated the royal palaces of Abomey as a World Heritage Site in 1985 it stated From 1625 to 1900 twelve kings succeeded one another at the head of the powerful Kingdom of Abomey, the royal palaces of Abomey are a unique reminder of this vanished kingdom. From 1993,50 of the 56 bas-reliefs that formerly decorated the walls of King Glèlè have been located and replaced on the rebuilt structure, the bas-reliefs carry an iconographic program expressing the history and power of the Fon people. Today, the city is of importance, but is still popular with tourists. As reported by UNESCO, the Royal Palaces of Abomey suffered from a fire on 21 January 2009 which destroyed several buildings, the fire was the most recent disaster which has plagued the site, coming after a powerful tornado damaged the site in 1984. The city is twinned with Albi, France, UNESCO assessment of threats to the site, after tornado damage in 1984
Abomey
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Abomey
Abomey
–
Royal Palaces of Abomey
Abomey
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"Important witchdoctors" (1908)
Abomey
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Dance of the Fon chiefs 1908
2.
Benin
–
Benin, officially the Republic of Benin and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, the majority of its population lives on the small southern coastline of the Bight of Benin, part of the Gulf of Guinea in the northernmost tropical portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, Benin covers an area of 114,763 square kilometers and its population in 2015 was estimated to be approximately 10.88 million. Benin is a nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with substantial employment. The official language of Benin is French, however, indigenous languages such as Fon and Yoruba are commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun and this region was referred to as the Slave Coast from as early as the 17th century due to the large number of slaves shipped to the New World during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. After slavery was abolished, France took over the country and renamed it French Dahomey, in 1960, Dahomey gained full independence from France, and had a tumultuous period with many different democratic governments, many military coups and military governments. A Marxist–Leninist state called the Peoples Republic of Benin existed between 1975 and 1990, in 1991, it was replaced by the current multi-party Republic of Benin. During the colonial period and at independence, the country was known as Dahomey, on 30 November 1975 it was renamed to Benin, after the body of water on which the country lies—the Bight of Benin—which, in turn, had been named after the Benin Empire. The country of Benin has no connection to Benin City in modern Nigeria, the form Benin is the result of a Portuguese corruption of the city of Ubinu. The new name, Benin, was chosen for its neutrality, the current country of Benin combines three areas which had different political and ethnic systems prior to French colonial control. Before 1700, there were a few important city states along the coast, the situation changed in the 1600s and early 1700s as the Kingdom of Dahomey, which was of Fon ethnicity, was founded on the Abomey plateau and began taking over areas along the coast. The Dahomey Kingdom was known for its culture and traditions, young boys were often apprenticed to older soldiers, and taught the kingdoms military customs until they were old enough to join the army. This emphasis on preparation and achievement earned Dahomey the nickname of black Sparta from European observers. The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, by about 1750, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling Africans to the European slave-traders. Court protocols, which demanded that a portion of war captives from the many battles be decapitated, decreased the number of enslaved people exported from the area. The number went from 102,000 people per decade in the 1780s to 24,000 per decade by the 1860s, the decline was partly due to the banning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain and other countries. This decline continued until 1885, when the last slave ship departed from the coast of the present-day Benin Republic bound for Brazil, a former Portuguese colony, the capitals name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, meaning New Port
Benin
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1793 map of the Kingdom of Dahomey
Benin
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Flag
Benin
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Dahomey Amazons with the King at their head, going to war, 1793
Benin
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In 1892, the French, led by Colonel
Alfred-Amédée Dodds, a
Senegalese mulatto, invaded Dahomey.
3.
Fon language
–
Fon is part of the Gbe language cluster and belongs to the Volta–Niger branch of the Niger–Congo languages. Fon is spoken mainly in Benin by approximately 1.7 million speakers, like the other Gbe languages, Fon is an analytic language with an SVO basic word order. Capo considers Maxi and Gun to be part of the Fon dialect cluster, however, he does not include Alada or Toli as part of Gun, as classified by Ethnologue, but as Phla–Pherá languages. Fon has seven oral vowel phonemes and five nasal vowel phonemes, /p/ only occurs in linguistic mimesis and loanwords, though often it is replaced by /f/ in the latter, as in cɔ́fù shop. /w/ and /l/ are also nasalized before nasal vowels, /w/ may be assimilated to before /i/. The only consonant clusters in Fon have /l/ or /j/ as the consonant, after alveolars, /l/ is optionally realized as, klɔ́ to wash, wlí to catch. Tone Fon has two tones, HIGH and LOW. High is realized as rising after a voiced consonant, basic disyllabic words have all four possibilities, HIGH–HIGH, HIGH–LOW, LOW–HIGH, and LOW–LOW. In longer phonological words, such as verb and noun phrases, low tones disappear between high tones, but their effect remains as a downstep. Rising tones simplify to HIGH after HIGH and to LOW before HIGH, hwevísatɔ́, é ko hɔ asón we. The fishmonger, she bought two crabs In Ouidah, a rising or falling tone is realized as a mid tone, for example, mǐ we, you, phonemically high-tone /bĩ́/ but phonetically rising because of the voiced consonant, is generally mid-tone in Ouidah. X is used for /x/ in some orthographies, h in others, in many texts ⟨e⟩, ⟨o⟩ are used in nasal contexts, me, Fon. Tone is generally not written except when necessary, a Facebook application to use and learn the Fon language, developed by Jolome. com The first blog totally in Fongbe
Fon language
–
"Welcome" (Kwabɔ) in Fon at a pharmacy at
Cotonou Airport in
Cotonou,
Benin
Fon language
–
Gbe languages
4.
Ewe language
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Ewe is a Niger–Congo language spoken in southeastern Ghana by over three million people. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, like many African languages, Ewe is tonal. The German Africanist Diedrich Hermann Westermann published many dictionaries and grammars of Ewe, other linguists who have worked on Ewe and closely related languages include Gilbert Ansre, Herbert Stahlke, Nick Clements, Roberto Pazzi, Felix K. Ameka, Alan Stewart Duthie, Hounkpati B. Capo, Enoch Aboh, and Chris Collins, oral history tells of a migration of the Gbe people from Ketu in present-day Benin. It is believed that the Ewes settled first at Notsie in Togo, the Ewe went through several mass exoduses beginning in the 11th century and placing current Ewe peoples in Togo, Ghana, and Benin from 15th to 17th century. The most famous of these is their migration from Notsie under the reign of King Agorkoli I, in the oral stories passed down through storytelling traditions, King Agorkoli was very cruel, as such the Ewe devised a plan to escape. Every night, the women would throw water on the walls of the kingdom which was made of mud, glass, rock, eventually the wall softened and they were able to cut a hole through a section of it and escape during the night. The men soon followed and walked backwards so that their footsteps would seem to lead into the kingdom. Some of the commonly named Ewe dialects are Aŋlɔ, Tɔŋu, Avenor, Agave people, Evedome, Awlan, Gbín, Pekí, Kpándo, Vhlin, Hó, Avɛ́no, Vo, Kpelen, Vɛ́, Danyi, Agu, Fodome, Wancé, Wací, Adángbe. Ethnologue 16 considers Waci and Kpesi to be enough to be considered separate languages. Waci intervenes geographically between Ewe proper and Gen, Kpesi forms a Gbe island in the Kabye area, Ewe is itself a dialect cluster of Gbe. Gbe languages include Gen, Aja, and Xwla and are spoken in an area that spans the southern part of Ghana into Togo, Benin, all Gbe languages share a small degree of intelligibility with one another. Some coastal and southern dialects of Ewe include, Aŋlɔ, Tongu, Avenor, Dzodze, some inland dialects indigenously characterized as Ewedomegbe include, Ho, Kpedze, Hohoe, Peki, Kpando, Fódome, Danyi, and Kpele. Though there are many classifications, distinct variations exist between towns that are just miles away from one another, H is a voiced fricative which has been described as uvular, pharyngeal, or glottal. The nasal consonants are not distinctive, as they appear before nasal vowels. Ewe is therefore said to have no nasal consonants. However, it is economical to argue that nasal /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/ are the underlying form. Occurs before unrounded vowels and before rounded vowels, Ewe is one of the few languages known to contrast vs. and vs
Ewe language
–
Gbe languages
5.
Tone (linguistics)
–
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. Languages that do have this feature are called tonal languages, the tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes /ˈtoʊniːm/. Tonal languages are common in Africa, East Asia, and Mexico. In many tonal African languages, such as most Bantu languages, tones are distinguished by their pitch relative to each other. In multisyllable words, a tone may be carried by the entire word rather than a different tone on each syllable. Often, grammatical information, such as past versus present, I versus you, many words, especially monosyllabic ones, are differentiated solely by tone. In a multisyllabic word, each syllable often carries its own tone, unlike in Bantu systems, tone plays little role in modern Chinese grammar though the tones descend from features in Old Chinese that had morphological significance. Contour systems are typical of languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, including Tai–Kadai, Vietic, the Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in Africa are dominated by register systems. Many languages use tone in a limited way. In Japanese, fewer than half of the words have a drop in pitch, such minimal systems are sometimes called pitch accent since they are reminiscent of stress accent languages, which typically allow one principal stressed syllable per word. However, there is debate over the definition of pitch accent, most languages of Sub-Saharan Africa are members of the Niger-Congo family, which is predominantly tonal, notably excepting Swahili, most languages spoken in the Senegambia, Koyra Chiini and Fulani. The Afroasiatic languages include both tonal and nontonal branches, numerous tonal languages are widely spoken in China and Mainland Southeast Asia. Sino-Tibetan and Tai-Kadai languages are tonal, including Thai, Lao. The Hmong–Mien languages are some of the most tonal languages in the world, Austroasiatic and Austronesian languages are mostly non tonal with the rare exception of Austroasiatic languages like Vietnamese, and Austronesian languages like Cèmuhî and Utsul. Tones in Vietnamese and Utsul may result from heavy Chinese influence on both languages, there were tones in Middle Korean. Other languages represented in the region, such as Mongolian, Uyghur, in Europe, Swedish, Norwegian, Serbo-Croat, Slovene, Lithuanian, Latvian and Luxemburgish have tonal characteristics. Among the Indo-European languages of Asia, three Indo-Aryan languages have tonality, Punjabi, Dogri and Lahnda, although the Austronesian language family has some tonal members such as New Caledonias Cèmuhî language, no tonal languages have been discovered in Australia. A large number of North, South and Central American languages are tonal, including many of the Athabaskan languages of Alaska and the American Southwest, among the Mayan languages, which are mostly non-tonal, Yucatec, Uspantek, and one dialect of Tzotzil have developed tone systems
Tone (linguistics)
–
The tone contours of Standard Chinese. In the convention for Chinese, 1 is low and 5 is high. The corresponding
tone letters are ˥ ˧˥ ˨˩˦ ˥˩.
6.
Ewe people
–
The Ewe people are an African ethnic group. They are the largest ethnic group in Togo, the third largest ethnic group in Ghana and they speak the Ewe language which belongs to the Niger-Congo family of languages. They are related to other speakers of Gbe languages, such as, the Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, and the Aja people of Togo and Benin. Ewe people are located primarily in the regions of West Africa, in the region south and east of the Volta River to around the Mono River at Togo. They are particularly found in southern Togo, Volta Region in southeastern Ghana, the Ewe region is sometimes referred to as the Eweland or Eʋedukɔ́ region. The Ewe people have a presence in Accra. They are also found in Ivory Coast and Yorubaland in Nigeria and they consist of four groups based on their dialect and geographic concentration, the Anlo Ewe, the Mina, the Wtyi and the Ewe proper. The literary language has been the Anlo sub-branch, the ancient history of the Ewe people is unknown. The origin of the Ewe people is believed to be the region that is now the border between Benin and Nigeria. The invasions and wars of the 17th century triggered them to migrate into their current location, archaeological evidence suggests that the Ewe people likely had some presence in their current homelands at least earlier than the 13th century. This evidence dates their dynamism to an earlier period than previously believed. However, other evidence suggests a period of turmoil, particularly when Yoruba warriors of Oyo Empire ruled the region. Their own oral tradition describes the brutal king Agokoli of Notse ruled from Kpalimé in 17th century and they share a history with people who speak Gbe languages. These speakers occupied the area between Akanland and Yorubaland, the Ewe people had cordial relations with colonial era European traders. However, in 1784, they warred with Danish colonial interests as Denmark attempted to establish forts in Ewe regions for its officials. The Ewes were both victims of raiding and trade, as well slave sellers to European slave merchants. Politically structured as chiefdoms, the Ewe people were frequently at war with other, raided other clans within the Ewe people as well as in Ashantiland. After slavery was abolished and slave trade brought to a halt, after World War I, the British Togoland and French Togoland were respectively renamed Volta Region and Togo
Ewe people
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Flight Lieutenant Rawlings
Ewe people
–
Kofi Awoonor
Ewe people
–
Ewe
kente cloth
Ewe people
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Traditional Ewe dancers performing the bɔbɔbɔ
7.
Ghana
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Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a unitary presidential constitutional democracy, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Spanning a land mass of 238,535 km², Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east, Ghana means Warrior King in the Soninke language. The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for a millennium, numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti. Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, following over a century of native resistance, Ghanas current borders were established by the 1900s as the British Gold Coast. On 6 March 1957, it became the first sub-Saharan African nation to become independent of European colonisation, a multicultural nation, Ghana has a population of approximately 27 million, spanning a variety of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. Five percent of the population practices traditional faiths,71. 2% adhere to Christianity and 17. 6% are Muslim and its diverse geography and ecology ranges from coastal savannahs to tropical jungles. Ghana is a country led by a president who is both head of state and head of the government. Ghanas economy is one of the strongest and most diversified in Africa, following a century of relative stability. Ghanas growing economic prosperity and democratic political system have made it a power in West Africa. It is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, Group of 24, Ghana was already recognized as one of the great kingdoms in Bilad el-Sudan by the ninth century. Ghana was inhabited in the Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms in the Southern and this included the Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Mankessim Kingdom. Until the 11th century, the majority of modern Ghanas territorial area was unoccupied and uninhabited by humans. Although the area of present-day Ghana in West Africa has experienced many population movements, by the early 11th century, the Akans were firmly established in the Akan state called Bonoman, for which the Brong-Ahafo Region is named. From the 13th century, Akans emerged from what is believed to have been the Bonoman area, to create several Akan states of Ghana and these states included Bonoman, Ashanti, Denkyira, Mankessim Kingdom, and Akwamu Eastern region. By the 19th century, the territory of the part of Ghana was included in the Kingdom of Ashanti. The Kingdom of Ashanti government operated first as a loose network, prior to Akan contact with Europeans, the Akan Ashanti people created an advanced economy based on principally gold and gold bar commodities then traded with the states of Africa. The earliest known kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana were the Mole-Dagbani states, the Mole-Dagombas came on horseback from present-day Burkina Faso under a single leader, Naa Gbewaa. The death of Naa Gbewaa caused civil war among his children, some of whom broke off and founded separate states including Dagbon, Mamprugu, Mossi, Nanumba, Akan trade with European states began after contact with Portuguese in the 15th century
Ghana
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1925 map of pre–existing Ghana
Ghana
Ghana
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16th – 17th century
Akan Terracotta,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ghana
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A 1850 map showing the
Akan Kingdom of Ashanti within the
Guinea region and surrounding regions in West Africa.
8.
Togo
–
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital Lomé is located, Togo covers 57,000 square kilometres, making it one of the smallest countries in Africa, with a population of approximately 7.5 million. From the 11th to the 16th century, various tribes entered the region from all directions. From the 16th century to the 18th century, the region was a major trading center for Europeans to search for slaves, earning Togo. In 1884, Germany declared Togoland a protectorate, after World War I, rule over Togo was transferred to France. Togo gained its independence from France in 1960, in 1967, Gnassingbé Eyadéma led a successful military coup détat after which he became president. At the time of his death in 2005, Gnassingbé was the leader in modern African history. In 2005, his son Faure Gnassingbé was elected president, Togo is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with a climate that provides good growing seasons. The official language is French, with other languages spoken in Togo. The largest religious group in Togo consists of those with indigenous beliefs, Togo is a member of the United Nations, African Union, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie and Economic Community of West African States. Archaeological finds indicate that ancient tribes were able to produce pottery and that name Togo is translated from Ewe language language as land where lagoons lie. Not much is known of the period before arrival of the Portuguese in 1490, during the period from the 11th century to the 16th century, various tribes entered the region from all directions, the Ewé from the east, and the Mina and Guin from the west. Most of them settled in coastal areas, in 1884, a treaty was signed at Togoville with the King Mlapa III, whereby Germany claimed a protectorate over a stretch of territory along the coast and gradually extended its control inland. Its borders were defined after the capture of hinterland by German forces and signing agreements with France, in 1905, this became the German colony of Togoland. The local population was forced to work, cultivate cotton, coffee and cocoa, a railway and the port of Lomé were built for export of agricultural products. The Germans introduced modern techniques of cultivation of cocoa, coffee and cotton, during the First World War, Togoland was invaded by Britain and France, proclaiming the Anglo-French condominium. On 7 December 1916 the condominium collapsed and Togo was divided into British,20 July 1922 Great Britain received the League of Nations mandate to govern the western part of Togo and France to govern the eastern part. In 1945, the received the right to send three representatives to the French parliament
Togo
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Togoland (
R. Hellgrewe, 1908)
Togo
Togo
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Gnassingbé Eyadéma ruled Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005
Togo
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Togolese women in
Sokodé.
9.
Fon people
–
The Fon people, also called Fon nu, Agadja or Dahomey, are a major West African ethnic and linguistic group. They are the largest ethnic group in Benin found particularly in its region, they are also found in southwest Nigeria. Their total population is estimated to be about 3,500,000 people, and they speak the Fon language, a member of the Niger-Congo language group. The history of the Fon people is linked to the Dahomey kingdom, the Fon people traditionally were a culture of an oral tradition and had a well developed polytheistic religious system. Most Fon today live in villages and small towns in mud houses with corrugated iron gable roofs, cities built by the Fon include Abomey, the historical capital city of Dahomey, and Ouidah on what was historically referred to by Europeans as the Slave Coast. These cities became major centres for the slave trade. The Fon people, like neighboring ethnic groups in West Africa, remained an oral tradition society through late medieval era. According to these histories and legends, the Fon people originated in present day Togo from the Ewe people and were originally a part of Aja kingdom. The Aja people had a dispute, one group broke up. The Fon people have settled there since, while the kingdom of Dahomey expanded in southeast Benin by conquering neighboring kingdoms. Another theory, suggested by Lombard in 1967, attributes the origins of the Fon people from the intermarrying between Oyo Kingdom and those of Allada and these memoirs mention Ouidah or Abomey. Modern era scholars have questioned the objectivity and accuracy of Dalzel, the Fon people did not invent slavery in West Africa, nor did they have a monopoly on slavery nor exclusive slave trading activity. The institution of slavery long pre-dates the origins of the Fon people in Aja kingdom, by the 15th-century, Songhay Empire rulers to the immediate north of Fon people, in the Niger River valley, were already using thousands of captured slaves for agriculture. The demand for labor to produce sugarcane, cotton, palm oil, tobacco. The Bight of Benin was already shipping slaves in late 17th-century, the Fon rulers and merchants whose powers were established on the Atlantic coast between 1700 to 1740, entered this market. The Fon people were divided on how to respond to the slave demand, the kingdom of Dahomey, along with its neighbors kingdom of Benin and Oyo Empire, raided for slaves and sold their captives into transatlantic slavery. The competition for captives, slaves and government revenues, amongst the African kingdoms, escalated the mutual justification, the captives were sold as slaves to the Europeans from the Bight of Benin, from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. The Fon people were victims and also ones who victimized other ethnic groups
Fon people
–
Fon recade, or
scepter
Fon people
–
The
Gbe language area. Map of the location of the Fon and Aja and others related ethnic groups. Since the seventeenth century, the Fon, originating from Benin, expanded his kingdom to the South-western part of Nigeria which borders the present-day Benin. The descendants of these Dahomean Fons still live between Benin and a Nigeria´s little part, as can be seen on the map. Violets spots are languages of the Fon cluster according to Capo (1988).
10.
Lagos
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Lagos /ˈleɪɡɒs/ is a city in the Nigerian state of Lagos. The city, with its conurbation, is the largest in Nigeria. It is one of the fastest growing in the world, Lagos is a major financial centre in Africa, the megacity has the highest GDP, and also houses one of the largest and busiest ports on the continent. Due to rapid urbanization, the city expanded to the west of the lagoon to include areas in the present day Lagos Mainland, Ajeromi-Ifelodun and Surulere. This led to the classification of Lagos into two main areas - the Island, which was the city of Lagos, before it expanded into the area known as the Mainland. Lagos, the capital of Nigeria since its amalgamation in 1914, however, the state capital was later moved to Ikeja in 1976, while the federal capital also moved to Abuja in 1991. This conurbation makes up 37% of Lagos States total land area, the exact population of Metropolitan Lagos is disputed, In the 2006 federal census data, the conurbation had a population of about 8 million people. However, the figure was disputed by the Lagos State Government, Lagos was originally inhabited by the Awori subgroup of the Yoruba people in the 15th century, who called it Oko. Under the leadership of the Oloye Olofin, the Awori moved to an island now called Iddo and then to the larger Lagos Island. In the 16th century, the Awori settlement was conquered by the Benin Empire and the became a Benin war-camp called Eko under Oba Orhogba. Eko is still the name for Lagos. Lagos, which means lakes, was a given to the settlement by the Portuguese. The present-day Lagos state has a percentage of Awori, who migrated to the area from Isheri along the Ogun river. Throughout history, it was home to a number of warring ethnic groups who had settled in the area. Following its early settlement by the Awori nobility, and its conquest by the Bini warlords of Benin, Portuguese explorer Rui de Sequeira visited the area in 1472, naming the area around the city Lago de Curamo. Another explanation is that Lagos was named for Lagos, Portugal—a maritime town which, in 1849, Britain appointed John Beecroft Consul of the Bights of Benin and Biafra, a position he held until his death in 1854. John Duncan was appointed Vice Consul and was located at Wydah, at the time of Beecrofts appointment, the Kingdom of Lagos was in the western part of the Consulate of the Bights of Benin and Biafra and was a key slave trading port. Oba Akitoye then signed the Treaty between Great Britain and Lagos abolishing slavery, the signing of the 1852 treaty ushered in the Consular Period in Lagos history wherein Britain provided military protection to Lagos
Lagos
–
Clockwise from top:
Victoria Island skyline from the Gulf of Guinea,
Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge,
Apapa Port,
National Arts Theatre, Iganmu,
The Ikeja City Mall, and
The Lagos Island CBD.
Lagos
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Lagos Marina.
Lagos
–
Shopping in Lagos.
Lagos
–
The
National Arts Theatre.
11.
Gbe languages
–
The Gbe languages form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million, the most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe, followed by Fon. The Gbe languages were placed in the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo languages. They include five major clusters, Ewe, Fon, Aja, Gen. Most of the Gbe peoples have come from the east to their present dwelling-places in several migrations between the tenth and the fifteenth century, around 1840, German missionaries started linguistic research into the Gbe languages. In the first half of the century, the Africanist Diedrich Hermann Westermann was one of the most prolific contributors to the study of Gbe. The first internal classification of the Gbe languages was published in 1988 by H. B, Capo, followed by a comparative phonology in 1991. The Gbe languages are tonal, isolating languages and the word order is subject–verb–object. The Gbe language area is bordered to the west and east by the Volta River in Ghana, the northern border is between 6 and 8 degrees latitude and the southern border is the Atlantic coast. The area is neighbored mainly by other Kwa languages, except for the east and north-east, to the west, Ga–Dangme, Guang and Akan are spoken. To the north, it is bordered by Adele, Aguna, Akpafu, Lolobi, estimates of the total number of speakers of Gbe languages vary considerably. Capo gives a modest estimate of four million, while SILs Ethnologue gives eight million, the most widely spoken Gbe languages are Ewe and Fon at four million and 3 million speakers, respectively. Ewe is a language of education for secondary schools and universities in Ghana. In Benin, Aja and Fon were two of the six languages selected by the government for adult education in 1992. Greenberg, following Westermann, placed the Gbe languages in the Kwa family of the Niger–Congo languages, the extent of the Kwa branch has fluctuated through the years, and Roger Blench places the Gbe languages in a Volta–Niger branch with former East Kwa languages to their east. Based on comparative research, Capo divides it into five clusters, the borders between the clusters are not always distinct. The five clusters are, Angela Kluge proposes that the Gbe languages consist of a continuum that can be split into three large clusters. Other writers have called the Gbe languages as a whole Aja, however, use of this single languages name for the language cluster as a whole was not only not acceptable to all speakers but also rather confusing
Gbe languages
–
Map showing the distribution of the major Gbe dialect areas (after Capo 1988, 1991).
12.
Traditional African religions
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The traditional beliefs and practices of African people include various traditional religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural, include belief in a creator, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural, afro-American religions are practiced in the Americas such as Candomblé, Santería, and Haitian Vodou. One religious ceremony practiced in Gabon and Cameroon is the Okuyi, when this trance-like state is witnessed and understood, practitioners are privy to a way of contemplating the pure or symbolic embodiment of a particular mindset or frame of reference. This builds skills at separating the feelings elicited by this mindset from their situational manifestations in daily life, such separation and subsequent contemplation of the nature and sources of pure energy or feelings serves to help participants manage and accept them when they arise in mundane contexts. This facilitates better control and transformation of these energies into positive, culturally appropriate behavior, thought, followers of traditional African religions pray to various spirits as well as to their ancestors. These secondary spirits serve as intermediaries between humans and the primary God, most African societies believe in a single Supreme Creator God. Some recognize a dual God and Goddess such as Mawu-Lisa, there are more similarities than differences in all traditional African religions. Often, the supreme God is worshiped through consultation or communion with lesser deities, the deities and spirits are honored through libation, sacrifice. The will of God is sought by the believer also through consultation of oracular deities, in many traditional African religions, there is a belief in a cyclical nature of reality. The living stand between their ancestors and the unborn, Traditional African religions embrace natural phenomena – ebb and tide, waxing and waning moon, rain and drought – and the rhythmic pattern of agriculture. According to Gottlieb and Mbiti, The environment and nature are infused in every aspect of traditional African religions and this is largely because cosmology and beliefs are intricately intertwined with the natural phenomena and environment. All aspects of weather, thunder, lightning, rain, day, moon, sun, stars, natural phenomena are responsible for providing people with their daily needs. For example, in the Serer religion, one of the most sacred stars in the cosmos is called Yoonir the, since Africa is a large continent with many ethnic groups and cultures, there is not one single technique of casting divination. The practice of casting may be done with small objects, such as bones, cowrie shells, stones, strips of leather, some castings are done using sacred divination plates made of wood or performed on the ground. In traditional African societies, many people seek out diviners on a regular basis, there are generally no prohibitions against the practice. Those who divine for a living are also sought for their wisdom as counselors in life, virtue in traditional African religion is often connected with carrying out obligations of the communal aspect of life. Examples include social behaviors such as the respect for parents and elders, raising children appropriately, providing hospitality, and being honest, trustworthy, in some traditional African religions, morality is associated with obedience or disobedience to God regarding the way a person or a community lives
Traditional African religions
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An early 20th century
Igbo medicine man in
Nigeria, West Africa
Traditional African religions
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BaKongo masks from the
Kongo Central region
Traditional African religions
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Early 20th century
Yoruba divination board
13.
Haitian Vodou
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Haitian Vodou is a syncretic religion practiced chiefly in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. Practitioners are called vodouists or servants of the spirits, Vodouists believe in a distant and unknowable Supreme Creator, Bondye. According to Vodouists, Bondye does not intercede in human affairs, religious practices of contemporary Vodou are descended from, and closely related to, West African Vodun as practiced by the Fon and Ewe. In Haiti, whereas a small number of Roman Catholics combine their faith with aspects of Vodou. Vodou is a Haitian Creole word that referred to only a small subset of Haitian rituals. Two of the major speaking populations of Ayizo are the Ewe and these two peoples composed a sizable number of the early enslaved population in St Dominique. These terms also refer to the religion as a whole, outside of Haiti, the term Vodou refers to the entirety of traditional Haitian religious practice. Originally written as vodun, it is first recorded in Doctrina Christiana, in the following centuries, Vodou was eventually taken up by non-Haitians as a generic descriptive term for traditional Haitian religion. There are many used orthographies for this word, today, the spelling Vodou is the most commonly accepted orthography in English. The spelling voodoo, once common, is now generally avoided by Haitian practitioners and scholars when referring to the Haitian religion. Vodou is popularly described as not simply a religion, but rather an experience that ties body, the concept of tying that exists in Haitian religious culture is derived from the Congolese tradition of kanga, the practice of tying ones soul to something tangible. This tying of soul is evident in many Haitian Vodou practices that are still exercised today, Vodouisants believe in a Supreme God called Bondye, from the French bon good + Dieu God. When it came in contact with Roman Catholicism, the Supreme Creator was associated with the Christian God, since Bondye is considered unreachable, Vodouisants aim their prayers to lesser entities, the spirits known as loa, or mistè. The most notable loa include Papa Legba, Erzulie Freda, Simbi, Kouzin Zaka and these loa can be divided into 21 nations, which include the Petro, Rada, Congo, and Nago. Each of the loa is associated with a particular Roman Catholic saint, for example, Legba is associated with St. Anthony the Hermit, and Damballa is associated with St. Patrick. The loa also fall into groups who share a surname, such as Ogou, Ezili. For instance, Ezili is a family, Ezili Danto and Ezili Freda are two individual spirits in that family, vodous moral code focuses on the vices of dishonor and greed. There is also a notion of relative propriety—and what is appropriate to someone with Dambala Wedo as their head may be different from someone with Ogou Feray as their head, for example, one spirit is very cool and the other is very hot
Haitian Vodou
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Vodou altar during a celebration for
Papa Guédé in
Boston. This altar has offerings to three nations (nanchons) of
loa: at top right are offerings to
Rada spirits; at top left are those for the
Petwo family; and those at bottom are for
Guédé.
Haitian Vodou
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Vodou paraphernalia,
Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Haitian Vodou
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A large sequined Vodou "drapo" or flag by the artist George Valris, depicting the
veve, or symbol, of the loa Loko Atison.
Haitian Vodou
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Vodou ceremony,
Jacmel,
Haiti.
14.
Louisiana Voodoo
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Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of spiritual folkways developed from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a form of the Afro-American religions developed by enslaved West. Voodoo is one of many incarnations of African-based spiritual folkways rooted in West African Dahomeyan Vodun and its liturgical language is Louisiana Creole French, the language of the Louisiana Creole people. Voodoo became syncretized with the Catholic and Francophone culture of New Orleans as a result of the African cultural oppression in the region resulting from the Atlantic slave trade, Louisiana Voodoo is often confused with—but is not completely separable from—Haitian Vodoo and Deep Southern Hoodoo. It differs from Haitian Vodoo in its emphasis upon gris-gris, Voodoo queens, use of Hoodoo paraphernalia and it was through Louisiana Voodoo that such terms as gris-gris and Voodoo dolls were introduced into the American lexicon. Voodoo was brought to French Louisiana during the period by enslaved Africans from West Africa. Many Fon were also taken as slaves to the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean Sea, Louisiana vodoo has existed since the early 1700s. The enslaved community quickly outnumbered white European colonists, the French colony was not a stable society when the enslaved Africans arrived, and the newly arrived Africans dominated the slave community. According to a census of 1731-1732, the ratio of enslaved Africans to European settlers was more than two to one. As a relatively small number of colonists were planters and slaveholders, the Africans were held in large groups, under the French code and the influence of Catholicism, officials nominally recognized family groups, prohibiting the sale of slave children away from their families if younger than age fourteen. They promoted the legend of wake tuko of the enslaved population. The high mortality of the trade brought its survivors together with a sense of solidarity and initiation. ”The practice of making and wearing charms and amulets for protection, healing. The Ouanga, a used to poison an enemy, contained the toxic roots of the figuier maudit tree, brought from Africa. The ground-up root was combined with elements, such as bones, nails, roots, holy water, holy candles, holy incense, holy bread. The administrator of the ritual frequently evoked protection from Jehovah and Jesus Christ and this openness of African belief allowed for the adoption of Catholic practices into Louisiana Voodoo. Another component of Louisiana Voodoo brought from West Africa was the veneration of ancestors, for this reason, the rate of survival among elderly enslaved peoples was high, further Africanizing Louisiana Creole culture. Embargo Act of 1808 ended all importation of African slaves to the United States, Voodoo queens were known to exercise great power in their communities, and had the role of leading many of the ceremonial meetings and ritual dances. These drew crowds of hundreds and thousands of people and their power and influence were widespread and largely incontestable, recognized by journalists, judges, criminals, and citizens alike
Louisiana Voodoo
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Voodoo ritual in St. John's Bayou, New Orleans
Louisiana Voodoo
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Gris-gris by Charles Gandolfo
Louisiana Voodoo
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Tomb of Marie Laveau
Louisiana Voodoo
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New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum
15.
Fetishism
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A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent value or powers to an object. William Pietz, who conducted an extensive study of the fetish. According to Pietz, the concept of fetish emerged from the encounter between Europeans and Africans in a very specific historical context and in response to African material culture. Stallybrass concludes that Pietz shows that the fetish as a concept was elaborated to demonize the supposedly arbitrary attachment of West Africans to material objects, the European subject was constituted in opposition to a demonized fetishism, through the disavowal of the object. Initially, the Portuguese developed the concept of the fetish to refer to the used in religious cults by West African natives. The concept was popularized in Europe circa 1757, when Charles de Brosses used it in comparing West African religion to the aspects of ancient Egyptian religion. Later, Auguste Comte employed the concept in his theory of the evolution of religion, wherein he posited fetishism as the earliest stage, however, ethnography and anthropology would classify some artifacts of monotheistic religions as fetishes. For example, the Holy Cross and the consecrated host or tokens of communion found in forms of Christianity, are here regarded as examples of fetishism. The theory of fetishism was consecrated at the end of the century by G. W. F Hegel in Lectures on the Philosophy of History. This they saw as a problem historically and sociologically. for a particular. In refusing to see his mothers lack of penis, the boy disavows what he sees and this compromise results in a substitute. It remains a token of triumph over the threat of castration, the use of the concept in the study of religion derives from studies of traditional West African religious beliefs, as well as from Voodoo, which in turn derives from those beliefs. Fetishes were commonly used in Native American religion and practices, the bear represented the shaman, the buffalo was the provider, the mountain lion was the warrior, and the wolf was the pathfinder. Made and used by the BaKongo people of western Zaire, a nkisi is an object that provides a local habitation for a spiritual personality. As Europeans tend to think of spirits as objects of worship, in this way, Europeans regarded minkisi as idols on the basis of false assumptions. Europeans often called nkisi fetishes and sometimes idols because they are rendered in human form. Modern anthropology has generally referred to these objects either as objects or as charms
Fetishism
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Teenage girls being initiated into the
Sande society,
Sierra Leone,
West Africa. Text: "The dancers all wore fetishes peculiar to the order, each having special significance. These consisted of several ropes of cane cut into beads and of rows of seeds which had been bored and filled with Bundu (Sande) medicine".
Fetishism
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A voodoo fetish market in
Lomé,
Togo, 2008
16.
Religious cosmology
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A religious cosmology is a way of explaining the origin, the history and the evolution of the cosmos or universe based on the religious mythology of a specific tradition. Religious cosmologies usually include an act or process of creation by a deity or a larger pantheon. The universe of the ancient Israelites was made up of a flat disc-shaped earth floating on water, heaven above, underworld below. In this period too the older three-level cosmology was widely replaced by the Greek concept of a spherical earth suspended in space at the centre of a number of concentric heavens. Around the time of Jesus or an earlier, the Greek idea that God had actually created matter replaced the older idea that matter had always existed. This concept, called creatio ex nihilo, is now the accepted orthodoxy of most denominations of Judaism, most denominations of Christianity and Judaism claim that a single, uncreated God was responsible for the creation of the cosmos. The Earths creation, according to Mormon scripture, was not ex nihilo, according to the King Follett discourse, God the Father himself once passed through mortality like Jesus did, but how, when, or where that took place is unclear. The prevailing view among Mormons is that God once lived on a planet, in Buddhism, the universe comes into existence dependent upon the actions of its inhabitants. The beings in these worlds are all coming into existence or being born, a world comes into existence when the first being in it is born, and ceases to exist, as such, when the last being in it dies. Other universes, however, also exist, and there are planes of existence which are never destroyed, though beings that live in them also come into. Islam teaches that God created the universe, including Earths physical environment, below here there are some other citations from the Quran on cosmology. And the heavens We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are expander,51,47 Sahih International Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together, before We clove them asunder. We made from water every living thing, the Rig Veda questions the origin of the cosmos in, Neither being nor non-being was as yet. And in whose protection. …Who really knows, whence was it born, and whence came this creation. The devas were born later than this worlds creation, so who knows from where it came into existence, none can know from where creation has arisen, and whether he has or has not produced it. He who surveys it in the highest heavens, he alone knows-or perhaps does not know. The Rig Vedas view of the cosmos also sees one true divine principle self-projecting as the word, Vaak, birthing the cosmos that we know. The Hiranyagarbha is alternatively viewed as Brahma, the creator who was in turn created by God, the creation begins anew after billions of years of non-existence
Religious cosmology
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Large scale structure of the Universe according to one Hindu cosmology.
17.
Intercession of saints
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Intercession of the saints is a doctrine held by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. The practice of praying to saints can be found in Christian writings from the 3rd century onwards, the 4th-century Apostles Creed states belief in the communion of saints, which certain Christian churches interpret as supporting the intercession of saints. As in Christianity, this practice is controversial in Judaism and Islam, advocates of the doctrine say that Jesus parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, 19–31 indicates the ability of the dead to pray for the living. Aquinas quotes Revelation 8,4, And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel, both those for and against the intercession of saints quote Job 5,1. Roman Catholic Church doctrine supports intercessory prayer to saints, intercessory prayer to saints also plays an important role in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. Also some Anglo-Catholics believe in saintly intercession and this practice is an application of the Catholic doctrine of the Communion of Saints. It is understood that some of the basis for this was the belief that martyrs passed immediately into the presence of God. A further reinforcement, of the idea, was derived from the cult of the angels. The Catholic doctrine of intercession and invocation is set forth by the Council of Trent, with the exception of a few early Protestant churches, most modern Protestant churches strongly reject all saintly intercession, which they believe is contrary to biblical teaching. However, the Thirty-Nine Articles condemn the invocation of saints as a thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture. The bishop William Forbes termed the Anglican practice advocation of the saints, meaning asking for the saints to pray with them and on their behalf, however, they strongly reject invoking or asking help of saints. The Augsburg Confession emphasizes that Christ is the mediator between God and man, and that he is the one to address prayers to. Like the Lutheran churches, the Calvinist and other Reformed churches understand the communion of saints mentioned in the Apostles Creed to comprise all believers, invocation of saints is considered to be a transgression of the First Commandment. The Methodist Articles of Religion from 1784, in their XIV, in ancient Judaism, it was also popular to pray for intercession from Michael in spite of the rabbinical prohibition against appealing to angels as intermediaries between God and his people. There were two prayers written beseeching him as the prince of mercy to intercede in favor of Israel, one composed by Eliezer ha-Kalir, and those who oppose this practice feel that to God alone may prayers be offered. In modern times one of the greatest divisions in Jewish theology is over the issue of one can beseech the help of a tzadik – an extremely righteous individual. The main conflict is over a practice of beseeching a tzadik who has died to make intercession before the Almighty. This practice is mainly among Chasidic Jews, but also found in varying degrees among other usually Chareidi communities
Intercession of saints
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"As we celebrate with our festive gatherings the birthday of this great man, the Lord’s forerunner, the
blessed John, let us ask for the help of his prayers. Because he is the friend of the
bridegroom, you see, he can also obtain for us that we can belong to the bridegroom, that we may be thought worthy to obtain his grace." –
St. Augustine.
18.
Catholicism
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The use of terms catholicism and catholicity is closely related to the use of term Catholic Church. The earliest evidence of the use of term is the Letter to the Smyrnaeans that Ignatius of Antioch wrote in about 108 to Christians in Smyrna. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I limited use of the term Catholic Christian exclusively to those who followed the faith as Pope Damasus I of Rome. Numerous other early writers including Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine of Hippo further developed the use of the term catholic in relation to Christianity. In Christian theology, and specially in ecclesiology, terms Catholicism, when used with small c, terms catholicism and catholicity generally designate theological doctrine of the catholicity of the Church without denominational connotations. A common belief in Catholicism is institutional continuity with the early Christian church founded by Jesus Christ, many churches or communions of churches identify singularly or collectively as the authentic church. The Bishop of Rome was also considered to have the right to convene ecumenical councils, when the Imperial capital moved to Constantinople, Romes influence was sometimes challenged. The first great rupture in the Church followed this Council and they are often called Ancient Oriental Churches. The next major break was after the Council of Chalcedon and this Council repudiated Eutychian Monophysitism which stated that the divine nature completely subsumed the human nature in Christ. This Council declared that Christ, though one person, exhibited two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation and thus is both fully God and fully human, the next great rift within Christianity was in the 11th century. This division between the Western Church and the Eastern Church is called the East–West Schism, several eastern churches reunited, constituting some of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Liturgical and canonical practices vary between all these particular Churches constituting the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, in all these cases the beliefs and practices of Catholicism would be identical with the beliefs and practices of the Church in question. However, in Roman Catholicism, the term catholic is understood as to cover those who recognize and are in standing with the Magisterium. The sense given to the word by those who use it to distinguish their position from a Calvinistic or Puritan form of Protestantism. It is then meaningful to attempt to draw up a list of common characteristic beliefs, the Roman Catholic Church includes the 23 rites who recognize the Magisterium. Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the belief that Christ is made manifest in the elements of Holy Communion, possession of the threefold ordained ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Belief that the Church is the vessel and deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Jesus and this teaching is preserved in both written scripture and in unwritten tradition, neither being independent of the other. A belief in the necessity and efficacy of sacraments, liturgical and personal use of the Sign of the Cross The use of sacred images, candles, vestments and music, and often incense and water, in worship
Catholicism
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Ruins of gothic Catholic church in
Liptovská Mara (
Slovakia).
Catholicism
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Ancient statue of
Saint Peter in the Basilica dedicated to him in the
Vatican.
Catholicism
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An
Italian priest during the sacrament of
Baptism
