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*INTRODUCTION*

It is my intention here to look at whether can be said that west Africa
had an ancient maritime tradition. There will be an also an attempt to
trace this on other Atlantic-facing coasts. Most notably, there will be
a brief examination of how supposed European and African material in
America is dealt with by Academia.

The discussion begins with a comparison of what happens in adjacent
areas and this in turn starts with what in conventional Old-World terms
are the Palaeolithic (= Old Stone Age) in its later stages followed by
the Mesolithic (= Middle Stone Age) and Neolithic (= New Stone Age).
After this came the Metal Ages of the Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages.

In terms of chronology, this begins c.8000 B.C. but will take us into
very much later periods. Equally vast will be the area with which
comparisons and/or contrasts can be made and the beginnings of a
sectional approach will be made with the Mediterranean.

* *

*East Mediterranean*

* *

A brief look at any map of Africa reveals a very rough triangle of Cairo
to Cape (of Good Hope)/Cape to Ceuta/Ceuta to Cairo. The latter brings
us to what will be called here the Alexandria (Egypt)/Antakya (=
Antioch, Turkey)/Athens or A/A/A-arc of the east Mediterranean having
its western counterpart in Messina (Sicily)/Marseilles (Med.-facing sth.
France)/Malaga (Med.-facing east Spain) or M/M/M-arc of the west
Mediterranaean.

* *

Some use the sea inside the A/A/A/-arc is proven when the
lake/river-fishing shown by fish-bones and/or fish-hooks of the Natufian
(= Early Mesolithic of much of Israel) was extended to small-scale
sea-fishing. The Natufian is named after a cave-site at el-Natuf
(Israel) but its habitation-sites are better known via its round-houses
on drystone footings with beehive roofs. Given an emphasised entry,
these round-houses take on keyhole-plans sometimes called tholoi (from
the Greek tomb-type called a tholos). Some of the houses have burials
below the house-floors.

* *

Even more use of the sea inside the A/A/A-arc is proven by the Greek
Mesolithic at another cave-site, this time at Francthi Cave (in the
Peloponese). Here were fishbones of the large deep-sea fish called tunny
and some obsidian (a volcanic ?glass? used to make tools throughout,
inc. the ever-smaller geometric or blade/trapeze-shaped microliths of
later strata). The tunny are deep-sea species but do come inshore to
spawn, so could have been caught offshore (as is still done in some
parts of the Med.) and so may not indicate use of boats after all. This
is the case with the obsidian, as it is from the island of Melos (c. 120
miles of open sea away). So getting from Francthi on the Greek mainland
to the Aegean island of Melos definitely proves use of boats.

* *

Paul Johnstone (Seacraft in Prehistory 1980) shows a variety
vessel-types in the Aegean and some of the more primitive in the form of
dugouts may even have been among the famous ?black ships? taking the
Greeks to fight in the Troad (= n/west Anatolia//Asia Minor) against
Troy. This, of course, was the Trojan War. If Christopher Mee (Anatolian
Studies 1978) is correct, it may even be that the true cause of the war
was over marine resources. Mee adverts to the remarks of Aristotle that
mackerel and tunny were in some abundance off the Troad and wants to
connect this to the origin of the Trojan War (but witness the 12th c.
Irish trio of Diarmaid, Devorgilla [his wife], Rory of Connacht &
subsequent events).

*West Mediterranean*

* *

Blade//trapeze-shaped microliths do not only characterise the Mesolithic
of A/A/A/-arc but are also traced across the Mediterranean by Graham
Clark (Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society =PPS 1958). Often found
with these geometric microliths is pottery of the type called Impressed
Ware. This Neolithic pottery is usually the oldest found on most
Mediterranean coasts, occurs on most of the islands of that sea and
increasingly in the west, the impressions naming the ceramic are made
using cardium (= cockle) shells (hence the term of Cardial-Impressed or
Cardial Ware[s]). This discrete distribution across the Mediterranean on
coasts of the M/M/M-arc is repeated by apparently tholos-related
structures. Clark attributed this to seasonal pursuit of tunny.

* *

Bernabo Brea (Sicily 1957) suggested there was an apparent avoidance of
Calabria/Sicily (= s/east Italy) in favour of Apulia (= s/west Italy) by
blade/trapeze industries, Impressed/Cardial Wares, tholos/keyhole-plans,
Mycenaean Greeks, Classical Greeks, etc.

* *

Having seen that one authority has linked the cause of the Trojan War,
messrs Coles & Harding (The Bronze Age 1979) noting Scoglio del Tonno
(s/east Italy). Here is the only place in Europe outside Greece where
Mycenaean and native pottery is in equal amounts. This presumably means
it was some importance to the Mycenaeans and the significance comes home
when it is realised that Scoglio del Tonno means Tunny Place. If this is
correct, it will be obvious that fishing was very attractive to
Mycenaeans east and west of Greece.

*Atlantic-west Europe*

* *

The Late Upper Palaeolithic of most of west Europe is named after Le
Solutre (France). This Solutrian Culture is known in France, Iberia (=
Spain & Portugal) and (acc. to some) outside Europe. This school of
thought points to 17 artifactual comparisons, a ?sail-boat? in Solutrian
cave-art plus use of hide/skin-boats akin to umiaks, kayaks of the
Inuits/Eskimoes, currachs of the Celts , etc.

* *

The Early Mesolithic of most of the west Iberian coasts is named after
findspots in the Spanish province of Asturia. Some writers regard
claimed ?picks? as no more than waste-cores but Suzanne Palmer (The
Mesolithic in Britain 1974) notes that waste-cores fitting into the palm
of the hand could be used as picks when needed. In any case, such
studies of the Asturian Culture as that of Jean Maury ( British
Archaeological Reports = BAR 1974) demonstrate the pick can be a genuine
tool in its own right. The Asturian tools called picks are akin to what
Blake Whelan (Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy =PRIA 1938) regards
as likely boat-building tools. Little fish-bone evidence is known from
Asturian sites but Maury relates Asturian artefacts of notched-pebble
type to fishing-net/line-sinkers used on modern deep-sea
fishing-trawlers for form, size and shape.

* *

More such picks form part of ?The Irish Sea Mesolithic Group? defined by
R. G. Livens (in Prehist. Man in the West & Wales edd. A. Burgess & F.
Lynch 1972), They include sites named after the town of Oban (west
Scot.) and also occurring on adjacent islands. Here are found bones of
deep-sea fish, of seal-breeds basking on skerries usually only from the
sea, guillemots that during moult are usually flightless (so are easily
taken at sea), etc. Graham Clark (Proceedings of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland = PSAS 1954) took this to mean the use of boats
but that the dominance of scraping-tools rather than wood-working tools
means they are likely to have been skin-boats.

* *

This probably means skin-boats more of skin-boats of the Celtic
currach-type rather than those of the Inuit. This has further interest
in that en route to developing a purely Celtic vessel-type, something
very like the west Iberian saviero emerged and even today where these
ancient types of fishing-boats are still used, they have oars resting on
thole-pins. This is attested for the Homeric or Late Bronze Age in
Greece and is exactly what is seen on the Irish currach, again to this
very day.

* *

The connection with fishing is underlined by the presence of a
fishman-god closely resembling a deity called Maa yet to be discussed
but of elsewhere. This god is shown by John Brown (Transactions of the
Philological Society 1968) to attach to the catching of the food-fish
called tunny so large that it gave rise to myths about marine myths.
This west Iberian ?Maa? was apparently the subject of a story in which
he was killed at Gadir//Gades (= Cadiz, Spain). Melkarth (aka Melicertes
& equated by the Greeks with their Heracles//Hercules) was probably the
most important Phoenician deity outside Phoenicia. This is give even
greater emphasis when we read in Strabo (1st c. B.C. Greek) that
Phoenicians from Gadir/Gades sailed to some part of what is now Morocco
for four days to specifically for these enormous tunny.

* *

*East & North Africa*

* *

The Palaeolithic of much of east Africa is named the Olduwan after the
famous type-site at Olduvai (Tanzania). Tools of Olduwan affinity are
found in the Yemen. Whether this indicates use of the sea at so early a
date to some degree matched by Indo/Austral events is uncertain. The
suggested 50,000/40,000 years ago fits with the 40,000 years ago
suggested online at www.allaboutzanzibar that African dugouts were
fishing off east African islands and Whelan showing a Cape to Cairo
spread of rostro-carinate/banjo-shaped tools for the building of
dugout-canoes.

* *

The poor soils of most of these small east African islands/islets does
much to explain why fishing supplemented by trading and not farming was
the economic mainstay. This is also the likely background of the
littoral trade-network of east Africa rather than the suggested
Phoenician sources that also supposedly went on to build Great Zimbabwe
(Zimbabwe) with a parallel on the coasts of west Africa in the
?Northwest Atlantic Culture? defined by Leo Frobenius (The Voice of
Africa 1913). Such writers as Mikey Brass
(www.usersdirectonline.net/archaeology/complex-we-ea) , Felix Chami
(www.news.bbc.co/uk/hienglish/world/africa), etc show this as mainly in
east African hands.

* *

This is not to deny early Semitic traders in east Africa, as Kaseem
Abdullah (www.zanzinet.org.history) cites the Egyptian Arapin and/or
Aamu as used of Semito/Arabs on the Red Sea that Abdullah says is
further seen in the island-name of Lamu (off Kenya) from Aamu via Arabic
al-Amu. This seemingly places such traders on Red Sea coasts by c. 2000
B.C. The more so given that Arapin/Aamu was used apparently of Kin?aan
(= Hebrew for merchant) relating closely to Canaan/Phoenicia.

* *

The opinion that Egypt and the Magreb are rather more of Africa than
extensions of west Asia is followed here, so Egyptian belongs with the
rather later Swahili as African languages on this view. Abdullah also
notes Egyptian fleets under Phoenician command in the reigns of Ramesis
I (13th c. B. C.) and Necho (7th c. B. C.) that respectively reached
Madagascar and all-round-Africa. Egyptian ships of the type found in the
pyramid-complex at Dahshur (Egypt) would have sunk in about five minutes
and from Semitic names in the lists of those recorded in the name-lists
from the Saqqara ship-yards, Phoenicians were building ships for Egypt.
There is also the religious edict banning Egyptians from the ?Great
Green? usually taken to have been the Mediterranean. That this may mean
Egypt little maritime expertise may be considered as confirmed by
?Wen-Amon? (11th c. B. C. Egyptian).

* *

Ships built of short lengths of timber are recorded in Egypt from
Dahshur (c. 2000 B.C.) to Herodotus (4th c. B.C. Greek). This is a very
long time for Egypt not to have learnt how to build ships and not to
have done so successfully. In any case, lengthy maritime contact with
?Punt? (= Somalia/part of Somalia) makes obvious that the tabu against
going to sea was was usually ignored. The more so when we realise that
for some writers the Great Green is some part of the Nile and notions of
religious bans on Egyptians on any part of their own river are clearly
absurd. In like vein would be bans on Nubians in Egypt (yet D. A. Welsby
[The Kingdom of Kush 1996] shows Kusho/Nubians as mainstays of Egyptian
armies) and on eating pork (yet the spade yields pig-bones aplenty) so
such bans could be and were ignored. Douglas Lobley (Ships through the
Ages 1972) saying the amphibious campaigns of Thutmose II of Egypt
brilliantly anticipates those of World War II by millennia; the imagery
of bird-flight by Wen-Amon (11th c. B.C. Egyptian) as ship-movement (&
shown by Zurara to be matched right across Africa); The Punt fleets; the
naval shipyards at Saqqara, those yards usually being under the command
of Pharoah?s eldest son; ?our Ship-harbour? at Tanis; etc. must at the
very least tell for some Egyptian interest in the sea.

R. B. Madison (the Berber Project = www.capitalnet.com) links east
African material from Kenya/Uganda with that of blade/trapeze sites in
the Magreb named after el-Gafsi/Capsi (Tunisia). Others would reverse
the direction and still more would dismiss any connecton. Clark regards
this Capsian as having a coastal form called the Oranian (after Oran,
Algeria.) or Iberomarusian (= Mauritanian) but others would separate the
Oranian and the Iberomarusian. Important here is the recognition that as
Anatolia acts on the Balkans (=s/east Eur.), so that part of Africa that
is the Magreb acts on Iberia (= s/west Eur. = Spain & Port.). This is
implicit in the sources of the Mauritanian/Iberomarusian that despite
the terminology, are actually in the west Magreb but came to affect the
Iberian Early Mesolithic in tandem with the Capsian/Oranian in the
opinion of Clark.

*WEST AFRICA*

*The African Aqualithic*

Easily the most salient factor for the northern third of Africa in for
most of what in Europe would be the period called the Upper Palaeolithic
was what John Sutton (Journal of African History 1974) called the
African Aqualithic. Perhaps it comes as no great surprise there are
debates on just how wet the Aqualithic or Great Wet Phase actually was.
Anyone wanting to dispute Sutton?s concept has to answer what is shown
in the rock- art of the Sahara that came to occupy what had been
?Aqualithia?, as most of this vast region gradually dried out. This
largely coincides with what the Arabs called Bil-as-Sudd (= Land of
Blacks = Sudan but a very considerably larger region than the modern
state, stretching as it did from nth. Ethiopia/Sudan in the far east of
Africa to Mauritania/ Senegal in the far west of Africa).

* *

This Saharan rock-art shows hippopotami, elephants, crocodiles,
reed-marshes, boats made of reeds, men in those reed-boats using
fish-nets, etc. This is reinforced by finds of leisters or fish-spears
and the finding of such as the dugout-canoe at Dufuna (Nigeria), close
to Lake Chad. The Dufuna canoe presumably links us with what was said
about the tools used for dugout-building in the rest of Africa and its
carbon-14 date is c.8000 B.C. This C14-date closely matches the
8000/7000 B.C. of the boats of papyrus or reed form .

* *

With the demise of the Aqualithic due to the gradual decline in rainfall
and the growth of what became the Sahara (Arabic for desert), certain
things started to happen. One was the adoption of stock-raising, firstly
of sheep then cattle at dates perhaps equal in date to that of west Asia
and anterior to that of Europe (see below). There was also migration. It
is of interest that the origin-myths of most of the tribes in east
Africa look to the north and west, in Egypt looking south/southwest to
?Sudan?, in west Africa north and east. If so, somewhere in what is now
the south-mid Sahara is harked to and we are unlikely to be very far
from the cradle of most African proto-tribes. The more so given that the
term of Maa apparently occurs in the names of the Masai (=? Speakers of
the language of M.) in east Africa and Mande (=? People of M.) in west
Africa. It is tempting to see the sea-borne moves of the Mauritanian
Culture as yet another expression of this migration.

* *

Maa seems to have been a particularly popular deity across northern
Africa according to Clyde Winters (homepage.edu/cwinters/r12). Winters
attaches him to the benign fishing-based economy of Aqualithia that as
seen was to gradually disappear. However, the demise of Aqualithia
should not be taken as showing that west African fishing also vanished
(see below).

* *

*The west African ?empire?*

* *

The arguments of Frobenius about a coastwise empire the length of
Atlantic-facing Africa of have come under several serious attacks. A
good example is that of Donald Harden (Antiquity 1941). Harden dismissed
the Frobenius theories as fantasies. Also Frobenius stands to be
challenged on the grounds of wanting to attribute this to Phoenicians
and/or Etruscans. Even if the dubious dates derived via literary sources
are accepted, the oldest date of c. 1100 B. C. for the Phoenician cities
in the west, as at Gadir/Gades (s/west Iberia/Spain), Lixos (Morocco),
etc. are far too late to have a bearing on something Frobenius says
belongs between 1500/1200 B. C. This becomes even more so if the dates
for these western Phoenician settlements are set archaeologically. This
would mean dates of c. 800/700 B. C.

* *

The cities of Yorubaland (Nigeria) so impressed Frobenius that he wanted
to regard it as part of Atlantis and also cited the Yoruba tales of
golden cities offshore linked to the ?Great Flood? myths locally having
Olokun (= Lord Of the Sea) flooding the world. Frobenius would have been
even more impressed had he known more about the Eredo-type walls of part
of Yorubaland being revealed by Patrick Darling
(news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid- 607000 / 607382).
Whatever else is being shown by these walls, it becomes very obvious a
very organised society that built these structures in ancient Nigeria.

* *

Frobenius cannot prove the basic proofs of the political unity
underlying the Northwest Atlantic Culture but can point to Yoruba
12-month voyages (presumably) servicing something akin to the east
African pattern outlined above and in more detail by Brass plus others.
This will be called the West-African Atlantic Complex (= W-AAC) here.
Something that is in accord with what is said by Frobenius is that
Yoruba towns arise from dealing with large amounts of local agricultural
produce and Brass says the same of the towns of what archaeologists term
the Dhar Tichitt Tradition (= the late prehistory of sth. Mauretania &
adjacent parts of Mali/Senegal).

* *

A feature of the Tichitt Tradition are houses inside stone villages that
are ancestral to the ksours. They also had ordered street-plans. On the
given dates of 1200-1100/300 B. C.), they arose at about the same time
as the attacks on Egypt by ?Peoples/Folks of the Sea?. Although called
the Sea-Folks, there were some land-attacks via Palestine/Sinai and from
the Rebu/Lebu, Meshwesh, etc, of Libya. Whether the defeats of the
invaders in Egypt led to attention being turned elsewhere is uncertain
but Brass does connect Libyco/Berber raids to the increasing number of
proto-ksours enclosed by stone walls. Certainly, it seems the rise of
transSaharan trade could provide resources that could lead to such as
these enclosed proto-ksours, the rise of Jenne-Jeno (Mali), of Ghana
(ProtoGhana = c. 300 B.C./400 A.D, Ghana 400/1100 A.D.), etc, might well
attract unwelcome Libyco/Berber attention.

* *

The rise of the Ghana Empire was attributed to the Soninke by Brass and
to the Garamantes by Frobenius. Herodotus says the Garamantes were a
numerous people. Frobenius says that as the Jaramas they reached the
River Niger. The little known about the Garamantes comes from Herodotos.
He tells us the Garamantes had chariots and that in them, they chased
Ethiopians called Troglodytes (= Rock/Cave-dwellers) of local mountains
that could run very fast. The chariots are part of Saharan rock-art and
Hanno speaks of Ethiopians near the Lixitae that could outrun horses.
This suggests the Libyco/Berber slave-raiding passed to the Garamantes,
so reinforces those suggesting the Garamantes and the Lixitae were Berbers.

* *

Livio Stecchini (www.metrum.org.) compared Herodotus (5th c. B.C. Greek
?Father of History?) and al-Idrissi (12th c. Tunisian ?Father of Social
History?). This was on the distinction of the Mauri/Moors (=
Ethiopians/Blacks) and Berbers/Arabs, so means such divisions lasted for
millenia. Herodotus adding that the fierce Ethiopian-chasing Garamantes
could not defend themselves means something here does not square. Henry
Parker (Journ. of the Royal Anthropological Institute = JRAI 1923) noted
Wanguru/Wangalurru as east Bantu tribenames and Wangara as a Sudanic
term for the Mande. Besides Gara and Mante/Mande combine in Gara-mandes.
Winters cites Ptolemy (2nd c. A.D. Greek) saying a Garamante slave was
black and there are Latin words meaning black/very dark confirming this.

* *

This makes it more than a little likely that if the Lixitae and
Garamantes are close-kin, they were more likely to be more black than
anything else. Nor can it be objected that the sources cited by Winters
are too late to be relevant. The fact that almost identical tribe-names
appear on nearly opposite sides of Africa takes us back to ancestral or
proto-tribe stages that decidedly antedate any thing written by even the
earliest Greek or Roman writer. What little we have about the Lixitae is
from Hanno of Carthage (c. 500 B.C.). What seems to be his
distinguishing between Lixitae and Ethiopians has great interest when
read that for Hecateus of Miletus (slightly older than Her.), Lixos was
an African not a Phoenician foundation. This is accepted online at
www.sflac.org/phoenicians saying the Lixitae were African friends of Hanno.

* *

This online site is dedicated to Phoenicia and its colonies (most
important at Carthage = Poeni/Puni in Lat., hence Punic). Hanno says the
Lixitae were pastoralists and Parker says they were fishermen. The
latter should be borne in mind when it is recalled that the major
economic activity of many Africans for millenia was fishing. Moreover,
Ptolemy can again be cited as showing that this continued with the
Ichtyophagi (= Fish-eaters) and should presumably be added to what has
just been said about the Lixitae. This would mean that the maritime
expertise tapped by Hanno on behalf of his Phoenico/Punic fleet was that
of west Africans, the more so given what is about said to be about the
Mauri of west Magreb.

* *

The Mauri named Mauretania (the ancient nation), Mauritania (the modern
republic), Morocco (via Marrakesh), etc. Mauri is shown by Frank Snowden
( Blacks in Antiquity 1971) to come from Greek mauros/Latin maurus and
is but one of several such Greco/Latin words for Black Africans. Easily
the most famous of these ancient terms is Ethiopians (= Burnt-faces =
Blacks & hence Ethiopia). It was not confined to east Africa and neither
was Habasha (also used of Blacks in east and west Africa & hence
Abyssinia). When to this is added other Arabic words of zanj, sudd, etc,
the point again is made that there are many words for blacks.

* *

So words for blacks that are Africa-wide include Mauri, the more so
given that east African juba (= king) matches that of the most famous of
the Mauri king-names, Juba (the names of Juba I & Juba II). The Mauri
and Garamantes thus also have in common, words that are also
Africa-wide. Also the Mauri and the Garamantes were ruled by Juba II.
Pliny (1st c. A.D. Roman) wrote about the African-trips of Hanno,
Polybius (2nd c. Greek) and Juba II (1st c. B.C. African). Of the first
much has been written, about the second very little is known but that of
Juba II is said by Pliny to have reached the ?Fortunate Isles? usually
accepted as the Canary Isles (90/10 miles off west Magreb). Some writers
state that Juba kept in touch with Senegal by sea. This would be
appropiate, as Senegalese are claimed to have fished up to several
hundred miles out to sea. Others would attach the Mauri fleet to the
curious site in the U.S.A. called Burrow?s Cave (Illinois), so saying it
could have crossed the Atlantic.

* *

What this means is that west African proto-urbanism owes nothing to
outside nor is it likely that it is coincidence that along almost the
length of the west African coasts there are ancient maritime nations.
What this should not do is cause us to overlook that this involves ships
as well as dugouts. Nor have the critics of Frobenius answered what
arises from the several traits that Frobenius traced even into the 20th c.

* *

Space precludes attempting anything more than a short discussion of
these traits here. They include sand-divination, hand not treadle looms,
bows with frontal stringing contrasting with those of adjacent inland
areas, arrowheads that being feathered and socketed also contrast with
inland ones that mainly are not. What will be shown below about the
circled-cross in west Africa also belongs here. This is nicely
underlined by what is said by Roger Smith in the ?The Canoe in West
African History? (JAH 1970) about west African dugout -canoes.

*Some African Gods of the Sea*

* *

It is not my intention to attempt a full listing of gods of the sea in
west Africa but some reference to them seems relevant. One of them is
Kalunga. He is the Creator-god of the Luba people from parts of Angola,
Congo (= Zaire) and Zambia but was also seen by them as their god of the
sea and there is a very similar word used for bodies of water in the
Congo. Equally telling must be that in the British Academy translation
of the Pieter de Marees account of doings on the ?Guinea? coast, messrs.
van Dantzig & Jones quote him as saying that a word variously spelt as
lungu/lunga/longo occurs to as far north as Gabon and that it means
dugout-canoe.

* *

Something of the same may have occurred in Nigeria. Here what was once a
major, if not the major, deity of the Yorubas. He was called Olokun (=
Lord of the Sea). His connection with large bodies of water comes with
his becoming irate at the lack of reverence towards him by his human
worshippers and flooded most of the world before the other gods stopped
him. Frobenius equated him with the main Greek god of the sea called
Poseidon. To this can be added that one of the golden lands under the
sea was seen as lying off Yorubaland and was one of the factors leading
to claims that here was Atlantis. If we have to believe in Atlantis, it
may as well be seen as having been here. This after all is close to
where Plato (5th c. B. C. Greek) placed it and makes more sense than
some of the perverse misinterpretations putting it in Cuba, Bolivia,
Antarctica or even on Saturn.

* *

The days of the week for the Bini (naming Benin, Nigeria) are marked by
Okuo (= north), Eken (= east & the day of rest), Aho (= south) and Orie
(= west). Claudia Zaslavsky (Africa Counts: Number & Pattern in African
Society 1999) shows the Igbo names were Nkwo(= north), Eke (= east), Afo
(= south) and Oyo (= west). The Yoruba terms are Obatala (= north),
Shango (= east), Oduduwa (= south) and Orunmila (= west). J.O.Lucas
(Rel. of Yor. 1949) shows the latter names also connect with the four
heads of the god named Olori Merin (= Lord of the Four Heads). They were
shown as roundels in images of Olori Merin set on hills and the like in
Yoruba towns marking the four quarters of the compass. This is the kind
of way-finding that at sea returns us to the cross-shaped devices seen
above as the Sailors?Cross.

* *

David Henderson-Quartey (The Ga of Ghana 2001) shows a number of tribes
as migrants in Ghana (= the mod. republic = ex-Gold Coast), thus the
Lateh, Akra, Obutu, Mowure, Ga, etc. Henderson-Quartey (= DHQ of
elsewhere in these pages) shows that ?coming from the sea? was a common
phrase relating to these migrations. Making it unlikely that this is
just cliché is that DHQ shows failed Ga kings ?went back home? (= went
into the sea). DHQ notes such existing tribes of Ghana as the Guan
merged with ProtoGa to form the Ga. It may be something similar saw a
merging of the cults of Onyeni and Nai in the manner of ?Maa? replaced
by Melkarth at Gades/Cadiz. The second day of the Yoruba week was shown
by A. B. Ellis (The Yoruba Speaking Peoples 1896) to be the ?Sabbath? of
Yoruba fishermen and honouring Olokun (= Lord of the Sea). De Marees
(18th c. Dutch) shows that in ?Guinea? (= Ghana) too the second day of
the week was the rest-day of fishermen and dedicated to the (unnamed)
god of the sea.

* *

A deity of the sea that is named is Agwe. ?He? is a goddess on the
coasts of west Africa (esp. at Benin, Nigeria). There is rather less
ambiguity in the Voodoo cults of across the Atlantic Ocean. Here Agwe is
definitely a male deity as both god of the sea and honoured by
specifically by fishermen of especially the Caribbean and adjacent parts
of Meso and South America. Lucas (Religion of the Yorubas 1948) shows an
Agwe-like festival in Nigeria. This apparently the ?Barque of Agwe? that
was loaded with all kinds of offerings and sent out on to the Caribbean
Sea in his honour to ensure good catches of fish. This west
African-derived cult does something to strengthen the suggested west
African ?Ships of the Dead? myths (see below).

* *

Many reading this will have some knowledge of the ancient report of an
attempt at rounding Africa c.500 B. C. This in effect is the logbook of
the ship(s) on that expedition. It was seen above to have been led by
someone from the Phoenician colony at Carthage (called Poeni/Puni in
Latin, hence Punic). This Phoenico/Punic fleet is generally held to have
reached Sierra Leone but some regard it as very possible that Hanno got
further south.

* *

What immediately concerns us here is the dedication made by Hanno to an
unknown god of the sea that in the Greek translation was equated with
Poseidon in the normal Greco/Roman practice of equating and/or
assimilating non-Classical deities with and into their own pantheons of
deities.

* *

Reference has been made above to Melkarth as probably the most important
of the Phoenico/Punic gods and as god of commerce and the deity to whom
the Periplus (= logbook) of Hanno was dedicated at Carthage, is
mentioned already. In any case, the Greeks equated him with their Kronos
not Poseidon. Yamm is the Phoenician sea-god for some and Hadad is for
others yet in many Phoenician god-lists, they are very conspicuous by
their absence. That so maritime-minded a people as the Phoenicians had a
sea-god is expected but this degree of confusion is surprising. It also
raises the very real possibility that the unknown deity of Hanno?s
dedication is African. Certainly, sea-gods in west Africa were hardly
confined to places visited by Hanno.

* *

With this latter point in mind, it is perhaps worth returning to what is
said by Winters about Maa. It will be recalled that this was once a very
popular deity across northern Africa and very closely identified with
sea-fishing in the west Magreb. Winter also adverts to the Poteidan (=
Wooden Mountain =? Ark-like) aspect of Maa. Directly relevant here are
that Poseidon (father of Atlas) and Atlas were so closely identified
with both the sea, astronomy/ astrology/ navigation that they might be
seen as hypostatic doublets. The maritime connection seems confirmed by
the Pleaides. These stars are used calendrically and/or navigationally
the world over. In Greek myth they are seen as the daughters of Atlas
and very firmly attached to west Magrebi parts of Africa. The links of
Maa and the Atlas dynasty are a further indication of the African
connection.

*Fishing & Sailing in Ancient west Africa*

* *

There is a nice correlation of Angola to Morocco for what is said by
both by Frobenius and Smith. It was shown that lungu/lunga from Angola,
the Congo and Zambia means not only dugout-canoe but also occurs in as
words akin to those for large bodies of water but also for the gods of
the sea of peoples in those countries. Voyages for trading/fishing
purposes lasting 4/5 months and several hundred miles are known for
Sulawesi/Australia, ?Arabia?/east Africa and ?Guinea?/Angola. Those
reaching Angola did so in dugout-canoes going against the prevailing
winds and currents. This calls for an expertise confirmed when Smith
cites Jean Barbot (17th c. French). Barbot also shows these west
Africans baked a special biscuit.

* *

How did these west Africans gain their expertise? Much of it will have
been gained over several millenia of largely unrecorded fishing that as
will be seen often occurred at some distance from the nearest land.
Fishing according to Smith led to the Yoruba title of Aromire(= Friend
of the Waters) but he saw it as indicating as no more than the best
fisherman. However, Samuel Johnstone (Hist. of the Yorubas 1921 & 1998)
saw it suggesting some kind of Admiral and it has a near-identical
cognate in the Songhay political figure called a Hari-Forma (= Chief of
the Waters). Frobenius further seems to have regarded the 12-month
voyages of the Yorubas as also linked to the politics of the littoral
communities of Guinea to Angola.

* *

The Yorubas were also seen as having some of the clearest evidence of a
sea-god in all west Africa. With religion in mind, it is worth noting A.
B. Ellis (Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast 1894) recording
that Bda-da was the 2nd day of the Yoruba week, was the sabbath of the
fishermen and honoured Olokun seen as the god of the sea. Yet another
god was Olori Merin (=Lord of the Four Heads). He was symbolised by an
equal-armed cross with heads or roundels marking those arms that bore
the Yoruba words for the north, east, south and west winds. In turn,
this closely resembles the basic 4-point compass/wind-rose that inside a
circle is variously called the circled-cross, wheeled-cross, Atlantis
cross, etc.

* *

However, the most telling term used of these early compass-forms is the
Sailor?s cross. West Africa is oft-seen as a repository of matters very
ancient. A difficulty is just how far back in time that traits only
being recorded by Europeans from the 15th c. onwards can be projected.
However, in the case of the circled-cross, John Morwood (in Celtic
Vision edd. J. de C. Ireland & D. C. Sheehy 1985) and Crichton Miller (
The Golden Thread of Time 2000) demonstrate its use on Atlantic-facing
coasts of the Old World from the time of the Bronze Age onwards. This
date matches what Frobenius gave for what is called here the
West-African Atlantic Complex (= W-AAC) for reasons that are hopefully
obvious.

* *

The early Europeans referred to used the term of ?Guinea? very loosely
according to J. D. Hargreaves (in Africa & the Sea ed. J. C. Stone
1985). It could describe the whole coast covered by what has been called
just the W-AAC. It still has some validity to describe west Africa from
north of the Congo to south of the Bulge. west Africa from the Niger
Delta (Nigeria) to Cape Three Points (Ghana); etc. Somewhere near
midpoint of west Africa, the first west African pilot/interpreters
stopped being useful to Hanno of Carthage. They were replaced by new
pilot/navigators. Jona Lenderer (www.livius. org/hanno/02) says they
will have been of the west Africans called Kru.

* *

If small 1/ 2-men canoes can truly be linked to the Kru, the famous ?the
Kru Canoes of Sierra Leone? by James Hornell (Mariner?s Mirror = MM
1923) is misnamed as the Kru are rather more of Ivory Coast and Liberia
than Sierra Leone. Of the many early European pictorial maps, that of
west Africa in the Ramusio Atlas (15th c. Italian) shows European ships,
west African dugouts plus large fish on the open sea in close proximity.
The size of the fish return us to the monster-myths of the Brown article
(see above). The canoe-size was labelled by Hornell as Kru. Hornell says
this type was specifically for fishing. Elizabeth Tonkin (in Stone ib.)
also says the Kru were known as the Fishmen or Mena. The last seen as
the boldest of west African sailors.

* *

Most past maritime nations had ?Ship of the Dead? ship(s) tied
ship/boat-burial. China had simple punt-like boat-coffins and Europe had
the more famous Viking longship-burials. The sipak (= funerary-barge) in
Egypt could range from the humble dugout to the large ships of
pyramid-complexes. P. A. Talbot (Southern Nigeria 1926) shows dugouts
used for burials. Richard Nunoo (African Arts 1974) and Nichola O? Neill
(ib) show the same in Ghana, where DHQ notes oath-taking over chiefly
coffins. There is enough here to illustrate strands of something in west
Africa either shared or comparable with the great nautical powers of the
past (see also above re. Agwe).

* *

Canoes/boats used for burial is an idea that could be revived anywhere
and in the case of Ghana has occurred. However, Nai Nii-Tete
(asafoatse1 at hotmail.com) says Egyptian Book of the Dead motifs are part
of Ghanaian canoe-out. Nunoo shows some the designs are definitely
Pre1930s and often pictorialise basic Akan proverbs. So though the jury
may still out on west African ?Ships of the Dead? but they just cannot
be dimissed out of hand. This is the context in which to place
moon-&-stars designs of Ghanaian canoes. West Africa has already been
seen to attest the association of stars and dugouts. The relevance of
this for navigation is known, the more so, perhaps when we realise birds
figure here too.

* *

Two of the great names of maritime history of seas washing east African
shores are George Hourani (Arab Seafaring 1951 & 1995) and G. R.
Tibbetts (Arab Navigation 1971). The latter cites Ahmad ibn-Majid (16th
c. Arab) on differences between Indian Ocean and Mediterranean
navigational methods. Hourani cites four Arabic tales of ?Buzurg? type.
One has sitting in a mityal (= canoe) distinguished from the dunij (=
dinghy) in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The differences seems to mean
the ?canoe? was probably a dugout that being on the Indian Ocean must
mean the dugout-canoe was seen as not just as sea-going as ocean-going,
as in west Africa.

* *

Dugouts were but one ancient form fishing off Indian coasts and were
virtually all that fished off west Africa. P. C. Chakravarti (Indian
Hist. Quarterly 1930) notes millennia of vast Indian fleets and even of
a bridge of ships between south India and Sri Lanka/Ceylon. Harold
Lawrence (in Af. Presence in Early Amer. 1992) lists the 3000 vessels
raised by Askia Ishaq, 2000 by Abubakri, several hundred by Sunni Ali,
several hundred by Mansa Musa, etc. According to Lawrence there is even
a west African version of ?the bridge of vessels? in that across the
Niger so that the victorious troops of Sonni Ali ?would not get their
feet wet?. To this can be added the 700/800 vessels that fished off west
Africa according de Marees.

* *

De Marees depicts shows these dugouts in the woodcuts of his book. He
shows many were masted. Some fishing occurred at night but then starlit
navigation has been shown above several times. Nobody should regard the
Pacific prau (= sailing-canoe) as equalled in west Africa. Yet as the
prau was thrice as fast as European ships (even in full rig), so a
Kru-type dugout with just a single occupant could outspeed Europeans in
calm seas. The special baking to an ancient recipe given by the Cairo
Museum to the as part of traditional foods on the Ra crossings of the
Atlantic seems matched on Guinea to Angola voyages. On the latter, a
particular type of biscuit was taken ?as it would not spoil?.

* *

Other long voyages were those from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi (=
Celebes) to ?Marege? (= north/ northwest Australia), from the
vaguely-defined ?Arabia? to east Africa, etc. They all lasted for
several months, were of several hundred miles in duration and were for
fishing and/or trading and this was also the case for those from Guinea
to Angola. Arabia to east Africa movements were based on the mausim (=
winds = monsoon) from the northeast to the ?Sabaean Lane? (=Aden/Red
Sea) then east Africa. The return was made months later using the
reverse monsoons. Smith says Guinea to Angola runs counter to the
prevailing tides and currents. This was coped with very capably.

* *

Yet another current is that uniting the Cape Verde and Canary Islands.
This is the Canarian Current flowing south from the Canaries. Just west
of the Cape Verdes, it veers to the west and becomes the North
Equatorial Current. Allied to Northern Trades Winds, this could whisk
unwary crews off on?Guinea to Guyana? routes (to the Caribbean & Sth.
Amer.). It seems the Cape Verde Islands were not permanently much before
the Europeans. This is oft-put to an African lack of interest in or even
fear of the sea. This has to be seriously modified, as Roy Bridges (in
Stone ib.) notes east African islands facing the Indian Ocean more in
touch with each other than with the coast.

* *

Also facing the Indian Ocean were the Malay ancestors of the Polynesians
apparently knowing of islands but shown by Peter Buck (Vikings of the
Pacific 1967) to have bypassed them for other islands. West-going Malays
appear to have known of but missed the Andamans, Nicobars, Sri Lanka,
Mauritius, Seychelles, etc, by going straight for Madagascar. Farley
Mowat (West Viking 1973) tied the ?Thule? of the ?Cronian? Sea (as per
Pliny, 1st c. A.D.) to Iceland in the Greenland Sea yet it was cenuries
before Faroe and Icelans were permanently settled. So it need no be a
great surprise that west Africans knew of islands that they did not
settle on.

* *

There are no real problems linking Austronesia (= with ProtoMalaya) with
Proto/Early Polynesia (consider Java & Buck?s Havai?iki[= Little Java =
Homeland). Thus Havai?iki (in mid Poly.), Avai?iki (Cook Islands),
Hawai?iki (New Zealand), Havai?i (Society Islands), Hawai?i (nth.
Poly.), Savai?i (Samoa), etc. The fact that on fishing/coasting trips,
Polynesians could acquire knowledge of places perfectly suitable for
colonisation that were then apparently ignored in favour of other
islands and settled later is but one of numerous shared Pacifico/west
African traits. Particularly notable is that of canoes and this
amplified by what is to be said about Senegal.

* *

As to ancient peoples supposedly scared of the sea, this includes Hindus
who ceased to be when at sea, Hebrews/Jews (acc. to anc. epigraphy),
Egyptians banned by religious edict from the ?Great Green?, parts of
west Africa, etc. As to India, Thomas Rattray (17th c. Eng. cited by
Johnstone) shows Indians on ootsol fishing swimming around their ancient
boat-types. De Marees also shows fishermen swimming their ancient
boat-form that too was an ancient boat-form. Online historians of early
surfing argue that this was Peru, Polynesia (esp. Hawai?i) and west
Africa. M. S. Grant states that this arises from where people were in
intimate contact with the sea.

* *

That the Indian fishermen and did not stop being Hindus by going to sea
is discussed online at coolatlanta.com/greatpages/sudheer/book. Rafael
Patai (The Children of Noah 2000) and Steve Collins
(www.equinox-project.com/ dhrts) argue strongly for a Hebrew/Jewish
maritime tradition. There may have been ancient religious bans and
Egyptian sailors may have been confined to the Red and Med. Seas but
they clearly sailed on the Great Green. West Africans depicted as
swimming around their fishing-craft and/or surfing on boards, hardly
suggests any great fear of the sea, the more so given that they stood a
very good chance of being taken by sharks.

* *

Sir James Alexander is cited online at
www.soul-surfer.com/surfing-origin. As showing west African surfing from
Ghana to Senegal. Michael S. Grant (www.metroactive.com/papers/
metro/08.15.96 surfbook-9633) was shown just above to have stated that
this arises from close intimacy with the sea. This also tells against
the supposed disinterest in and/or fear of the sea. From Mauretania (the
modern nation-state) to the Cape Verde Islands is 450/500 miles and from
Senegal to the Cape Verde Islands is 300/350 miles. Bradley cites
Pacheco Periera (15th c. Portugese) as saying that west Africans ?fished
up to 100 leagues (= c. 300/350 miles)? from the nearest shores and it
seems that they were mainly from Senegal.

* *

* *

Moreover, it is here that the Venetian exploring on behalf of the
Portugese named Alvise da Cadamosto (14th c.) found the enormous
40/60-man dugout-canoes called almadias. Here there appears to be almost
a return to the cliched piety and/or steadfastness that as Cheka Anta
Diop (The African Origins of Civilization 1974) says came to affect the
folklore and/or mythology of many countries outside Africa. Good
examples is the Bible and ?the leopard not changing his spots, nor the
Ethiopian his skin? cited by Walter MacRay (The Black Presence in the
Bible 2000) and the connecting of Ethiopians with piety towards the gods
that is at least as old as Homer (?9th c.B.C. Greek).

* *

Certainly, there would be times when only muscles could provide the
surge of power needed. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten
that some dugouts also had sails. Van Sertima (They Came Before Columbus
1975) comments on this efficient and almost Polynesian-like combination
of muscle and sail. Another Pacifico/Polynesian linkage may be Hornell?s
comparison of some Pacific and west African paddles for elongation and
pointed-shape. Johnstone notes the claim for Chinese sources for the
guara. For Heyerdal (The Ra Voyages 1971) and Bradley, more likely
ancestors would be in the steering-oars of African craft and O?Neill
records west African use of the lee-board closely related to the guara.

* *

The importance of the variously called lee/guara/centre-boards is that
they allow for much safer sailing in bad weather. It is the elongated
and pointed paddles that took the Heyerdal/Bradley attention. Here it is
worth reminding ourselves skills needed to avoid adverse tides and/or
currents seen for Angola, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia
and now for Senegalese not wanting to go to the Caribbean and
geographically near parts of South America. Of the greatest interest
here is Diop pointing out that the Djahi (= Place of Navigation) used in
Egyptian of Phoenicia is matched used in Wolof of Senegal (also note
Senegal from Wolof sunugal = our dugout-canoe).

* *

A major feature Senegambian archaeology are megaliths (= large stones)
of stone-ring type that are associated with ?Great Flood? myths
according to ?Stories from Senegambia? by Florence O?Mahoney (1974).
This has it that they are the stone footings of PreFlood houses, so
connect with the tundi-taro (= stone houses) of rather further east in
Continental Africa (so stressing yet again the African sources for what
occurs in west Africa). Even further east is set the story of Wen-Amon
(11th c. B.C. Egyptian). He is pictured in Lebanon as watching birds
returning home and wishing that he too was going home but by ship.
Coming back to west Africa there is Gomes Zurara (16th c.) saying birds
and stars were part of land and sea navigation.

* *

Stone rings are associated with sky-watching for reasons of astronomy
and/or astrology, after all, this is what is suggested for the most
famous stone circle in the world, Stonehenge (Wilts, Eng). Closely,
allied to this could be sky-watching the purpose of maritime navigation.
Having seen that there are Great Flood myths in west Africa, it is as
well to remember that this often involves direction-finding birds (as
per Noah & the Ark). However, though Great Flood myths appear in west
Africa, they are seen to be separate there. On the other hand, Africa is
seen from Wen-Amon (Egypt) to Zurara (west Africa), the principle of
using birds by land-seeking sailors is proven. It is further both
world-wide and extremely sensible.

* *

The involvement of Egypt and Israel must caution against the much-quoted
comments of Pliny (1st c. A. D. Roman) that in Taprobane (= Ceylon = Sri
Lanka) birds as navigational aids indicates that mathematics were
lacking. This hardly applied to either Egypt or Israel. Nor was high
culture exactly missing from ancient Sri Lanka. Also, in a
pre-instrumental age every method of getting home on
out-of-the-sight-of-land (= ootsol) voyages would be used. As already
stated, it would have been eminently sensible for this to have occurred.
Helping this in west Africa is the knowledge of the star-systems of such
as Sirius, the Pleaides plus other systems. As part of this was the firm
tying of Atlas and his family to west Africa in Greek myth.

* *

Poseidon was seen as the Greek god of the sea, arose from the depths of
the sea and as founder of Atlantis. Atlas (his son) was seen as a great
astronomer, as naming Atlantis and the Atlantic and ?knew the depths of
the sea?. Arab writers are cited by Van Sertima as showing Abubakri
having called on the intellectual cream of the western Islam of his day.
The great empire in this case was that of Mali ruled by Abubakri and the
great fleet were those he raised for exploration of ?Lands Beyond? tales
to the west. Malian knowledge of the ?great deep? seems shown by the
recording of the ?underwater? stream (= North Equatorial Current) in
Abubakri legends.

* *

Abubakri ruled a vast empire based in mainly in what today are Mali,
Mauretania and Senegal. The most famous example of knowledge of Sirius
(= the Dog Star) in Africa is in Egypt (as Sothis) and the Dogons of
Mali (as Sigi Tolo). Rod Ewins (www.justpacific.com/fijianart/ cliffart/
cliffpaintings.) suggests Sirius is depicted as being sailed towards by
a sailing-canoe in Fijian cave-art and just such a combination occurs in
Nigeria as the Yoruba Irawa-oko (=Sirius Canoe-star). Rudolph Vilaverde
(guam. org. gu/starcave) argues for a Chamorro (Guam) version of the
star-maps of Micronesian fishermen matched in turn by west African
navigation using the Pleiades.

* *

Fishing was also seen as the economic mainstay of the African
Aqualithic. Of the several groups of Aithiopes (seen above to indicate
blacks) labelled as Ichthyophagi, They are placed on ?the African shores
of the western (Atlantic) Ocean? by that most eminent of Greek
geographers, Ptolemy (1st c. A.D.). An absence of fish-bone evidence has
been shown that it does not need indicate fishing did not take place.
Nor can the fact that the dietary habits of one specific west African
group came to the notice of the Classical writers of Greece and Rome be
taken to indicate there was only the one fishing-culture in the whole of
west Africa. Nevertheless, Ptolemy is particularly welcome for
confirming ancient west African fishing.

* *

Moreover, the deity demonstrated by Clyde Winters as widespread in the
Aqualithic of northern Africa called Maa also has close connections with
fishing. Nor was this confined to lakes and rivers, as he was seen to
possess close maritime associations. His major characteristic was the
one that for Winters tied him with the family of Atlas. This family were
seen to include the Pleaides as the seven daughters of Atlas and
Pleoine. This connects the Pleaides very closely with the part of west
Africa that is west Magreb. The Pleaides were noticed above as part of
very extensive maritime navigation. This has been particularly proven
for the Pacific and by the Pleiades (?) originally meaning Sailing Stars
in Greek myth tied to Atlas in west Africa.

* *

The Ark-like character of Poteidan helps to give a maritime framework
for the economy based on fishing in the Aqualithic of Africa that in
turn was seen to be given a sound basis by what is said by Ptolemy about
the Ichthyophagi as Fish-eating Ethiopians on the Atlantic-facing shores
of west Africa. Their location was probably somewhere in what is now the
modern republic of Mauritania. If it is correct that the ancient
territory of what is now called Senegal was in touch with the Mauretania
of antiquity, then the wooden ships implied by the Poteidan connection
are very relevant. They at least, suggest that there was more to west
African water-craft than dugouts, as further shown by what we know of
the ships of the Mauri.

* *

It was seen that the origin-tales of the ancestors of most east
Africans, Egyptians and west Africans lead us to conclude that they
started their migrations in some part of what is now the south Sahara.
It was suggested above that part of this migration may have sea-borne.
This would help to explain both the W-AAC traits along west African
coasts and the Mauritanian/Iberomarusian in Iberia. This must be the
context against which to place the occurrence of Maa being slain by
Melkarth at Gadir/Gades. This surely has the smack of one leading god
symbolically replaced by the leading deity of the new power in the land.
If that new dominance was Phoenician, we should also recall that they
succeeded to the tunny-fishing too.

* *

*West African Craft & Sailors: some international comparisons.*

* *

It is perhaps something of a surprise that so excellent a survey of
non-European vessel-types as ?The Sea-craft of Prehistory? by Paul
Johnstone (1980) has so little about the African forms but this omission
is rectified by others. Thus James Hornell (MM 1923 & 1946), Robert
Dick-Read (Sanamu: Adventures in Search of African Art 1964), Roger
Smith (JAH 1970), Stuart Malloy (in Blacks in Science: Anc. & Mod. ed.
Van Sertima 1983), Ivan Van Sertima (see below), Michael Bradley (Black
Discovery of America 1992), Gunnar Thompson (Discovery of America 1994),
Nichola O? Neill ( The Coastal Fishing Canoes of Ghana 1996), etc. The
last being a University thesis is particularly detailed.

* *

Smith pointed out that a specific ship-type had emerged on Atlantic
coasts. Johnstone and Craig Weatherill (Cornish Archaeology 1985)
demonstrate that this was the Celtic ponto peaking in those of the Celts
of that part of Gaul (= most of mod. France) called Armorica (= mainly
Brittany). These Celts were the Veneti. Weatherill and George Little (
Brendan the Navigator 1947) suggest these Venetic are shown in Britain
and Ireland by pictorial and modelled reconstructions respectively.
Bradley and Thompson have attempted equally hypothetical reconstructions
for west African ships that at least take us away from looking purely at
dugout-canoes.

* *

Van Sertima further lists log-rafts, reed-boats, Arab-like dhows,
Polynesian-type double-canoes. Malloy shows short lengths of trunk sewn
together to form longer vessels and Bradley allows for something like
this for wider craft. Harold Lawrence (aka Kofi Wangara; In Af. Pres. In
Early Amer. 1983) also says that falsas (= extra planks fixed to the
sides of the vessel) would also have added space. Some canoes are also
known to have had structure/cabins amidships. Bradley also noted masted
canoes on the Rivers Congo and Niger and Pieter de Marees (17th c.
Dutch) says the same of the ?Guinea? coast (= mainly the modern state of
Ghana).

* *

Comparisons between Egypt are easier when such as Hornell (MM 1923),
Herodotus (4th c. B.C. Greek) Heyerdal (The Ra Voyages 1971) are
combined re. dugout, sewn-plank and reed-boats in Egypt. All have close
west African matches. Ra 1 was a reed-boat that had a broken
steering-oar replaced by oars thrust through the reeds to act in almost
guara-style. Elongation of paddles in Egypt and west Africa can lead to
ineffective paddling, so may not have been solely for paddling. These
long paddles may have been used as centre/guara-boards allowing relative
progress into strong winds, as apparently known on both sides of Africa.
Both the papyri/reed-boat and dugout forms are among types successfully
taken across the Atlantic.

* *

Herodotus also says Phoenicians founded Utica (Tunisia) c.1100 B. C.,
Lixos (Morocco) plus Gadir/Gades (Iberia/Spain), Carthage
(nr.Utica),etc. After the Babylonian conquest of the city-states called
?Phoenicia?, Carthage became the most important of the Phoenico/Punic
states. Strabo (1st c. B. C. Greek) says Phoenico/Punic crews from came
in hippoi from Gadir fished off parts of Morocco. The Gades hippos was a
small vessel akin to the Kru-type for size. Although the fishing
function of the hippos was not its only one, it becomes obvious from
Strabo (1st c. B. C.) that these Gaditanian crews came to Morocco to
fish for tunny. Here they would have met Africans that Ptolemy called
Ichthyophagi (= Fisheaters).

* *

The grouping of littoral communities known in ?Phoenicia?, ?Greece?,
east Africa, etc., appear to offer better analogies for west Africa than
does the ?empire? defined in west Africa by Frobenius. The dates
suggested by Frobenius antedates the c.1100 B. C. just seen for the
first Phoenicians in the west, so rules out any direct linkage. Bjorn
Landstrom (The Ships of the Phoenicians 1970) thought it likely some
Greek craft sent to fight against the Trojans were actually dugouts.
This, of course, means that many of the ?grand black ships? in ? The
Catalogue of Ships? of the Iliad by Homer (9th c. B. C. Greek) were not
quite so splendid after all. This shows that the west African dugout
would be the close cousin of some of these Greek ?ships?.

* *

This should not prompt dismissal of the dugout, as those of the
Northwest Coastal Culture (= NCC) of much of western North America coped
with some of the fiercest seas in the world. An NCC canoe of Haida type
was rigged as a schooner by Capt. John Voss and is said by Philip
Banbury (Man & the Sea 1975) to have survived a circumnavigation of the
of the world in the early 1900s. The NCC was a (a) grouping of ancient
coastal peoples, as was the W-AAC in west Africa; (b) the NCC had a
range of canoe-forms, as did west Africa; (c) the NCC went several miles
out to sea, as west African fishermen were seen to do; (d) NCC
dugout-canoes were usually paddled over long distances, as were west
African dugout-canoes.

* *

Long paddles also appear in the Marquesan sector of French Polynesia and
are compared for elegance of design with those of west Africa by
Hornell. As Polynesians settled ever-remoter Pacific islands, their
stock-list got ever smaller until only pigs, dogs and chickens were
left. This will be seen to resemble what has been suggested to have been
borne westwards by west Africans in the way of pigs, dogs and cats.
Paddling in Polynesia was supplemented by use of the sail, as was also
seen for parts of west Africa. Canoes in the Pacific range from
40/80-man almadia/war-types to 1/2-man or smaller (=? fishing) canoes.
This greatly resembles what was said about west Africa. This
particularly means Polynesian and west African navigation.

* *

The Chinese contribution to world culture is well shown in the
multi-volumed Science & Technology in China by Sir Joseph Needham. Among
the maritime achievements claimed are invention of the rudder,
lee/guara-board, compass,etc. Johnstone shows a near-complete sequence
from Huang-ti?s (c. 2900 B. C.) comments re. about ?boats dug out from
logs? to the sampan (= three planks). Bradley makes out a good case for
Africa and the guara. Johnstone cites Chinese sources re. 12-month and
shorter voyages. Those of 12 months reached as far west as India and in
the time of Cheng-Ho (14th c.), Chinese ships got to east Africa. The
very long distances this marks, must cause us what lay behind the
12-month west African voyages.

* *

Indonesia probably provides the ancestral stages of Polynesian skills.
Here was 1mill./half mill. years ago, Australia had been reached by
c.50,000 B.C., the astonishing Java to Madagascar migration of c. 100 B.
C./ 100 A. D., etc. Shorter were Sulawesi to Australia trade-trips.
Polynesia and Sulawesi also feature in myths of birds as sailing-aids
that from Sulawesi westwards frequently attach to ?Great Floods? myths.
Hornell (MM 1923, Antiquity 1946) not only compared the paddles in
Polynesia and west Africa for also cited several of these birds-as-aids
tales in India and Sri Lanka. More such stories were shown to appear
right across Africa from Egypt to west Africa.

* *

India has (a) a claimed dock-area would be the oldest known anywhere;
(b) may have invented the compass; (c) the Cola Empire (8th c. A. D.
sth. India). The Colas are said by J. C. Chakravarti (Indian Historical
Quarterly 1930) to have taken religion and culture complex as their
ships conquered large parts of southeast Asia. A sea-borne
religio/cultural complex is also argued for west Africa (see below).
Hourani cites the Buzurg tales of the Indian Ocean seperating the dunij
(= dinghy) from the mityal (= canoe). This means the canoe was seen not
just as sea-going but as ocean-going, as again west Africa. Tibbetts
demonstrates Sirius was important in the navigation of the Indian Ocean
and as much was seen of west Africa too.

* *

Semitic groups were seen to have dominated much of the early east
African trade but that beyond the Red Sea, Africans did so. Paralleling
this on the west African littoral would have been the W-AAC from Angola
to Morocco. The best works in English known to me about Arab sailing are
G.F. Hourani (Arab Seafaring in Anc. & Early Med. Times in the Indian
Ocean 1948 & 1995) and G. R. Tibbetts (Arab Nav. in the Indian Ocean
1971). We add ?The Sindbad Voyage? by Tim Severin (1982) showing Sohar
(a reconstructed ancient type, the dhow) taken across the Indian Ocean.
Another transoceanic voyage was that by Hannes Lindemann (Alone at Sea
1956 & 1999) in a dugout more akin to the Kru type to the almadias.

* *

A ship excavated at Nydam (Schleswig-Holstein, Ger.) probably attests
the type of ship bringing the Germanic ancestors of the
Anglo-Saxons/English across the North Sea to raid Late Roman/Early
PostRoman Britain. John Heywood (Dark Age Naval Power 1991 & 1999) shows
the Nydam ship was probably both paddled and rowed, so comes near
Polynesia and west Africa on this count. The paddle scores over the oar
on seaborne raids, in that the intended target could be approached very
much more quietly. Heywood recalled this from his British Army
experience and this would not have been lost on those launching such
raids, as where they were a way of life, as in Polynesia, west Africa
and North Sea-facing Europe.

* *

Probably one of the most distinctive ancient ship-types was the Viking
Drakarr (= dragon-ship). Colin Martin (The Sea Remembers ed. P.
Throckmorton 1996) saw a Hjortspring/Nydam/Kvalsund//Oseberg/Gokstad
sequence for them. Percy Blandford (An Ill. Hist. of Small Boats 1974)
cites the captain of the Gokstad replica crossing the Atlantic in 1891
as saying the hull ?worked? a lot. The fact the ?hull worked quite a
lot? is held to indicate seaworthiness but the longship does not have
the strength of the dugout because the latter is usually one-piece
construction. Moreover, Bradley shows many west African dugouts have the
strength of yachts of the modern 5-ton Virtue class taken on several
Round-world and Transatlantic trips.

* *

Messrs. Morwood and Miller were seen to regard the circled-cross as an
early sailor?s aid. It occurs in the Atlantic Bronze Age of west Europe
from Iberia via Ireland to Scandinavia and in west Africa from Nigeria
to Mali/Senegal. Atlantic Europe was also seen to have had a very
distinctive ship-type peaking in the ponti of the Venetic Celts (anc.
Gaul/mod. France). The pictorial reconstruction of a ponto by Weatherill
was seen to have been done by Thompson, Bradley plus others for west
African ships. The other typically Celtic form is that called the
currach. It differs from the dugout in terms of material but the dugout
and the currach do share being very archaic yet decidedly seaworthy
types that are still extant in the 21st c.

* *

That such skin/hide-boats as currachs/umiaks/kayaks are very seaworthy
is not to be gainsaid and this has been seen to be equally true of Kru
and almadia types. The currach called Brendan was taken by Nicholas
Severin and crew across the Atlantic in two legs. On the first leg they
ate modern foods and on the second ate traditional Medieval Irish food
(? as shown in the 10th c. Irish poem called Aisling Meicc Con Glinne =
Vision of Mac Con Glinne). The papyri/reed-forms called Ra1/Ra 2 taken
over the Atlantic by Heyerdal plus crew ate only in the ancient
Berber/Arab manner (& baked as per Cairo -see elsewhere). The all-fish
diet naming the Ichthyophagi was followed on the Bombard/Lindemann
crossings of the Atlantic.

* *

The west Iberian saviero/xavega seems to be a close relative of the
Venetic ponto. They were rowed with oars on thole-pins not in rowlocks.
This is shared with the Irish currach that as a very ancient form gives
some hints of age, the more so given that ramh (= oar) is one of the few
PreNorse words to do with matters maritime that came down from
Old-Irish. The implied long antiquity also relates to the emergence of
the great size and height of Venetic ponti, ?their bolts as thick as a
man?s thumb?, massive cross-beams, rawhide (not cloth) sails, chains
(not ropes) for anchors, etc. This should mean that paddling vs. rowing
as an indication of progress is pointless; note too the long distances
paddled in west Africa and Polynesian dugouts.

* *

Barbot is cited by Hargreaves (in Stone, as above) re. the Portugese
sources of of west African sails. Sails in west-facing Europe were seen
to be one of many traits evolving on Atlantic coasts owing little to
elsewhere. Those in Egypt emerge from Nile Valley conditions and those
of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2350- 2280 B.C.) bear some likeness to west
African forms but are not identical. Elsewhere in this work, the west
African dugout was seen as basically a riverine form with some sea-going
capacity. This should mean it and its traits owe very little to outside
and in this way, the African matting-sails that are very unlike
Portugese ones in form and material should be significant. Moreover,
African stiff-edge sails allied with long paddles led to guaras.

*More international comparisons*

* *

That the west African dugout-canoe evolved on rivers there but could
take to the sea has further interest in that navigation on both inland
and maritime waterways shows great similarity. Stephen Renshaw & Saora
Isara (Archaeoastronomy & Ethnoastronomy News = AEN 1996) attest some
fishermen in Japan used the Pleiades to decide when to fish. T. A. Bass
is cited by J.C. Holbrook (AEN 1998) as showing the Bozos of Mali in
west Africa do much the same and above it was seen that the same stars
connect very directly with fishing at sea off parts of west Africa.

* *

Knowledge of Sirius (= the Dog Star) was also widespread and in Egypt
was known as Sothis. In ancient Egyptian, Sirius also relates to Siris
(= the Nile) and occurs in (O)siris (the Egyptian god of the
Underworld). The Nile on earth supposedly reflected the Milky Way
towards which went the barque of Osiris (? taking the dead souls to the
Underworld). Such tribes in Mali as the Dogons, Bozos, etc, also knew
about Osiris. Numerous New-age writers regard the
astronomical/astrological knowledge of the Dogons as rather more
complete than it actually is. Yet they do appear to have possessed
considerable information about Sirius, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, etc, on a
level only relatively recently available.

* *

It seems to me that like most outside influences on west Africa, that of
Egypt is a hand that has been somewhat overplayed but for both the
Dogons, Bozos, etc, Sirius was the Eye of Osiris. The identification of
Osiris with a river may have other echoes, in that the Bozos fished on
the River Niger itself called a variety of names by Arab writers, thus
Nile of the Blacks, Black Nile, Nile of the Negroes, etc. However,
nowhere is the combination of Sirius and navigation better shown in west
Africa than in Nigeria by the Yoruba term of Irawo-oko (= Canoe-star).
In tandem with this must surely go the 12-month voyages of the Yorubas
apparently helping to hold together the W-AAC of almost the length of
Atlantic-facing Africa.

* *

Information gathered about winds, tides and currents led to Pacific and
Indo/Austral wind-roses (= early compass-forms). The Muallim (The
Sea-Pilot; 1st/5th cs. Sanskrit text) says the same kind of knowledge
was required of sea-going pilots. Semitic science was first used at sea
by the Phoenicians (acc. to Pliny) and as wind-roses passed to Greeks of
Ionia/Miletus (now part of west Turkey). This route is further shown by
Ionic Apeliotes (= East Wind) not the Apheliotes of Attic forms of Greek
reaching mainland Greece (acc. to Stecchini). It became the 4-pointer of
Homer (? 9th c. B. C. Greek), the 8-pointer of Aristotle (4th c. B. C.
Greek), 12-pointer of Timosthenes (3rd c. B. C. Greek), etc. Persian
words in Arabic wind-roses probably attest similar borrowings reaching
the Erythraean (= Eritrian) Sea (= western Indian Ocean). The same kind
of information was seen in west African from Nigeria to west Magreb and
the de Canestris Map (14th c. Italian) symbolises Africa by a wind-rose.
Celtic wind-roses seem shown in Iberia by Orosius (as Baumgarten
[Peritia 1985] as a 4th c. A. D. Latinised Iberian Celt); in Gaul by
Mathew of Paris (12th c. English), etc. Nordic Europe has them proven by
the Viking/Norse sagas and a Greenland remnant.

* *

Captain James Cook (18th c. English) famously wrote ?that Polynesia
steered by the sun by day & the stars by night?, with an especial
stressing of the Pleiades (= Huihui = Makali). Bright
Pacifico/Indo/Austral night-skies meant the compass was long delayed
because it was felt not to be needed. Star-lore and sea-lore seemingly
combine when we read of Molem Kana whose name is said by Tibbets to
apparently combine Indian canaque (= astrologer) and muallim (=
sea-pilot). Messrs. Ballard (MM 1923), Dimmock (1944), Hourani (ib),
Taylor (The Haven-finding Art 1957), Tibbetts (ib.), etc., all attest
considerable Arab astronomical/navigational expertise. Aratus of Soli
(4th c. B. C. Greek) says Phoenicia took position at night by the Pole
Star called Phoenike (= Phoenician) by the Greeks (so confirms where
they learnt their navigation). West African knowledge of the stars from
Angola to the west Magreb indicates starlit navigation itself part of
what happened from west Africa to Scandinavia. Oral star-lore in west
Europe is held by Sean McGrail (Anc. Boats in N/west Eur. 1998) to ally
closely with navigation, as shown for Iberian Celts (?via Pellitus) by
Geofrey of Monmouth (12th c. Brit.) and Gaulish Celts by Julius Caesar
(12th c.). Norse sagas record more night-time navigation at sea.

* *

Polynesians also apparently followed migratory birds to such remote
parts of the Pacific as New Zealand, Hawaii, Easter Island, etc, and
their myths oft-link this to ?Great Flood? tales that can also appear as
separate strands. More such birds attach to Great Flood myths in
Sulawesi (= Celebes, Indonesia) according to James Fraser (Antiquity
1946) cites Indian texts of c. 500 B.C. noting observation of migratory
birds for maritime purposes. Semitic Flood myths in Akkadia (= Babylonia
= sth. Iraq) have Ziusudra (the Sumero/south Semitic Noah) sending out a
swallow, dove and raven and in Israel have the more famous Noah sending
out a dove and a raven to espy land. Pytheas (4th c. B. C. Greek) of
Massilia (= Marseilles) was thought by C. Hawkes (Pytheas: Europe & the
Greek Explorers = 8th Annual Myres Lecture 1975) to possibly have been
guided to Iceland by hooper swans. Flood-tale strands in Africa include
Senegalese stone rings ?explained? locally as the footings of PreFlood
houses, ?Wen-Amon? has home-going birds in ship-imagery, Zurara-type
tied to Ababakri tales, etc. Hornell and G. F. Marcus (The Northern
Conquest of the Atlantic 1980) shows this in west Europe when noting
Celts settled Brito/Irish islands marking the route of migratory birds.
Hornell also alludes to the rediscovery of Iceland by Floki (10th c.
Viking) sending out three ravens and on the third bird not returning,
followed its flight-path and rediscovered the island of Iceland.

*Africans in early Europe?*

* *

It might be thought that anything said here would be superfluous in the
light of Martin Bernal?s Black Athena volumes showing African influences
on Europe. The Bernal study is of a differing nature to this, nor is his
needlessly confrontational attitude mine. Nor can my article hope to
match the massive scale of Bernal?s books or the range of intellect
demonstrated by Bernal.

* *

It seems reasonably obvious that fishing was the first and foremost
economic activity in Aqualithia. Closely related must be the occurrence
of a god in Iberia seen to have been killed at Gadir/Gades by the
leading Phoenician deity called Melkarth. This has the smack of an
earlier deity being replaced by a new leading god, with that earlier
deity apparently the African Maa shown already to closely attach to
fishing and possibly to sea-borne migration from west Africa to Iberia.

* *

Over most of the African Aqualithic, fishing came to be replaced by
economic activities more appropiate to the climatic deterioration that
was to lead to the rise of the Sahara Desert. Over most of this area was
the ram-as-lightning symbolism held to attest the growing preponderance
of sheep in the economy. Frobenius cites German opinion as saying that
African influence led to sheep being the domesticated animals in the
European Neolithic (= New Stone Age).

* *

Some of the Saharan rock-art of very early date shows Blacks herding
cattle and some attach this to Fulani herders still in the general
region. Also widespread in Africa are kraal-type cattle-enclosures. Jane
Grigson (Journ. of African History 1994) has shown an African origin for
African cattle. Since Frobenius wrote, excavation has shown that the
earliest domesticated stock in most of the European Neolithic were
cattle. However, Ruth Whitehouse (in The Origins of Europe ed. D.
Collins 1975) argued that the African kraal-type structures were
ancestral to those of Europe variously called Smilcik (west Balkans),
trincerati (Italy), El Garcel (Iberia), etc. The Italian trincerati have
dates satisfactorily earlier than those of the people of midEurope
called Linearbandkeramik (= LBK). This may mean that what was said about
the Latin/middle/Nordic route for sheep may again be so for cattle.

* *

Smaller domesticates are dogs. Ivan Van Sertima (1975) notes an early
African breed was the Basenji. It was/is widespread across Africa and
may have been the prototype of the head of the canine-headed deity of
Egypt called Anubis. Online articles attest that this breed seems to
have spread across the Mediterranean Sea from the Canaan Hound of
Palestine/Israel to the Ibizan Hound (& related breeds). This is more or
less the case with the domestication of small felines.

* *

East Africa has very good claims for very early feline domestication and
here Kings of Kush include Shabako (=Great Cat), Shabakto (= Great
Tom-cat). The Royal linkage is known in Egypt and Nigerian folklore
shows kings of Calabar had cats guarding his grain. Words for cat are
surprisingly common in west African tongues from what Lucas says, thus
ologbo (Yoruba), nwon-bo (Ibo), ologbosi (Ijaw), ologbi (Igala Isoko),
etc. Lucas also says the name of Bast (=Bubastis =Pasht; the Egyptian
Cat-goddess) occurs too in west Africa. This seemingly means that cats
were as common in Africa as dogs but get less attention and it seems the
Nubian kadis (=cat) occurs across the Mediterranean as Numidian (=
Algeria/Morocco) kadiska, Greek kottos, Latin cattus (hence cat in most
Eur. tongues).

* *

It is uncertain whether ?The Prehistoric Movement of Plants between
Africa and India? by Roger Blench (2000) applies to Latin Europe. The
more so given that the climatic worsening of the Magreb occurs in
Andalusia (= south Iberia) but in milder form but further contact seems
shown by trade.

* *

There are several studies of long-distance trade inside Africa but to my
knowledge, that between west Africa/west Magreb and Iberia has not been
so thoroughly since that of messrs. Harrison & Gilman (in Anc. Eur. &
the Med. ed. V. Markotic 1977). They focussed on the part of Africa that
is the west Magreb and Iberia during the Copper/Bronze Ages. To this can
be added what is said by Stephen Arts
(www.anomalist.com/features/tartessos), about such trade continuing into
what is formally (in European terminology), the Iron Age but does so in
terms of Atlantis.

* *

Of three German attempts at identifying where Atlantis was, that of
Frobenius put it in Yorubaland (Nigeria), that of Paul Borchardt (cited
by Stecchini) with the west Magreb and that of Adolph Schulten (cited by
Arts) with Tartessos (= s/west Iberia). As said above, if we have to
believe in Atlantis, it may seen as of here, as this is close to where
Plato placed it. Schulten and Arts take this further when identifying
Tartessos with the Tarshish of the Biblical story of Solomonic trade
between Tarshish and Israel, so at one go would settle where Atlantis
and Tarshish were.

* *

That the drying-out of the Magreb has a milder parallel in Andalusia (=
south Iberia) brings us to this apparently being described by al-Makary
(10th c.Arab). He is said by Van Sertima to be the unacknowledged source
of many Ibero/Spaniards also reporting on such conditions. Also
mentioned by al-Makary is someone called Tarraco that Van Sertima says
has had his position usurped by ?Batrikus?. It is not hard to recognise
the Latin patricius (= noble/leader) in Batrikus (see the useful
discussion on this point by Nicholas Fuentes, Wandsworth Historian
1991). Van Sertima identifies Tarraco with Taharquo of the Kusho/Nubian
(= 25th) Dynasty of Egyptian Pharoahs.

* *

After several disasters, namely where the superior Assyrian iron weapons
of defeated Kusho/Nubia bronze ones, the ousting of Taharquo from Egypt,
the floods mentioned by al-Masudi (10th c, Arab), etc, Nubians are said
to ?have gone east? and the Kushites to ?have gone west?. On this count,
there are such as the apparent revival of Egyptian-like traits of
pyramid-building in Kush with west African echoes. Also the reverance
for cats in Egypt at Royal and religious level (inc.burials) seems known
in Kush (see above) and west Africa (so Lucas cited just above).

* *

The latter seems well shown by the various spellings of Bast, Bubastis,
Pasht (= the Egyptian Cat-goddess), etc, as Bau/Ba (= cat and/or soul)
in various west African tongues that appear almost Thai/Siamese in
concept. There are also west African folktales about cats. To this we
add west Magreb and/or Iberia. Here the Kushites/Cushites successfully
invaded led by Taharquo/Tarraco. Thus Taharko/Tarraco and Batrikus (=
Leader) are not so contradictory after all. There are the normal caveats
about this but it does give us (?) another Africo/Iberian linkage.

* *

Yet more come via the lengthy extracts given by R.R.Maddern (PRIA1861-4)
from some of the Ibero/Spanish writers cited by Van Sertima but he does
so in showing Ibero/Irish links. Then there is the much-discussed
African-as-Giant theme, the Ibero/Irish war-god named Net/Neit plus
Land?s End and Mizen Head. The Celtic names for Land?s End Cornwall) and
Mizen Head (west Cork) respectively are Belerion (= Gk. Bolerion/Lat.
Bolerium) and Carn Ui Neit (=The Cairn of N?s Grandson; as this
particular grandson of N. was Balar, this was the Cairn of Balar).

* *

In short, the southernmost points of Britain and Ireland respectively
were marked by Beler/Balar-names and Balar was of the Fomoire. DHQ tells
us about various west African peoples as ?coming from the sea? and one
suggested meaning of Fomoire is ?from the sea?. The Fomoire Afraic (= F.
from Africa) were seen as African giants that had brought the ? Giant?s
Dance? (see below) from Africa to Ireland. The giant size occurs again
in the head of Balar, as it took four men to open his one baleful eye
(witness further the likenesses with ?giant blond Celts? led across the
River Sperchios led by Bren[nos] to invade Greece; British Celts led
across the Irish Sea by the wading giant Bran & the Celtic Druids as
?The most just of men?).

* *

Several writers have regarded west Africa as a place where traits that
had died out elsewhere survived. This very long survival is directly
relevant for what will be seen to have been written by Bradley. This may
also be when Basil Davidson plus others compare Nok (Nigeria) figurines
with some of the peoples of modern Nigeria (esp. the Yorubas, the
largest ethnic grouping in mod. Nig.).

* *

Yet another ethnic grouping in Nigeria are the Bini. Their tradition
holds that their first Obi (= King) and first metal-workers were Yoruba.
A much-seen figurine of a Bini Obi holds ?shamanic? objects appearing to
be of very ancient symbolism but is, in fact, of the 14th c. The Bini
naming Benin are clearly important for maritime and Delta matters. Not
only do the Bini bring this to the coast but probably played no small
part in the rise in the use of the manilla as currency along the River
Niger (esp. the Delta) and near-coastal parts. They are of gold, have
expanded terminals, are usually U-shaped, etc. Seamus MacCall (So Began
the Irish Nation 1935) depicts an African female wearing many items
relevant for the Late Bronze (= LBA)/ Early Iron (= EIA) Ages in Ireland.

* *

Most notable are the pennanular brooches oft-having the decoration of
terminals of the gold gorgets with shared antecedents in Iberia and
Ireland, as with many other items but this discussion belongs elsewhere.
Matching the being of gold, expanded terminals, not being quite closed
rings, etc. of Irish ?dress-fasteners?, ?sleeve-fasteners?, the manilla
currency function seems that of the so-called ?ring-money? of Ireland
(esp. as some are not quite closed).

* *

The once neat picture of Irish goldwork has become somewhat complicated
of late. Analyses of some of the Irish ?sun-discs? shows they are of
Iberian Group-S gold; the gold of the Broighter (the most famous of the
Irish EIA gold-hoards) is of German PC-gold; Irish legend has Credne
going to Iberia for gold; the Latin or (= gold) occurs as Old-Irish oir;
British gold is now being said to appear in Ireland, etc. It makes us
wonder how Ireland was ever called a prehistoric Eldorado. So adding a
possible west African component to this becomes less problematical. The
more so given that the circled-cross occurs along the west African
coasts and that it too occurs in gold in the form of the above-noted
?sun-discs? of Atlantic-facing Europe, so continues the distribution up
to Iberia/Ireland/Scandinavia.

* *

This is even more so when it is realised the circled-cross is attached
to sailing on the Atlantic by Van Sertima (see below). Nor is the metals
unconnected with the metals-trade, indeed the very title of Weatherill?s
above-noted article is ?Ships of the Veneti ? A fresh look at the Iron
Age tin ships?. The Venetic ponto also occurs in Britain and Ireland
(acc. to messrs. Weatherill & Little ? see above). When noting the
possible sails of west African canoes, it was shown Smith noted Atlantic
sails by late centuries B. C. as those of the Celtic ponto (esp. those
of the Veneti). This seems confirmed by the sail and mast of the most
famous of the objects in the Broighter (Derry, Ire.) gold-hoard, the
gold boat dated to about the same period as the Venetic ponto. In fact,
John de Courcy Ireland (Ire.& the Irish in Maritime History 1985) wishes
to identify the Venetic ponto with the Broighter gold boat.

* *

Bradley wants to somewhat over-egg the pudding when giving an African
origin to the script in the Book of Ballymote (14th c. Irish) called
Ogam. There are, of course, disputed claims for this peculiar script.
They usually emphasise non-Irish sources (esp. Latin) but nobody has
satisfactorily explained the change from the very handy Latin alphabet
to the cumbersome Ogams.

* *

However, in passing, we can observe the following. Such British sources
as Nennius(9th c. British), Giraldus Cambrensis (12th c. British),
Geofrey of Monmouth (12th c. British), etc, talk of African sources for
the Irish race and the last about African giants bringing the Giant?s
Dance (=? Stonehenge) to Kildare (Ire.) that in turn were later brought
to Salisbury Plain (Wilts., Eng. & the site of Stonehenge). There also
are the small dark men that supposedly built Callanish (Isle of Lewis,
Scot. & oft-claimed as the Scottish Stonehenge) and also appear in the
?Popular Tales of the West Highlands? by John Campbell (1860 & 1985). In
at least one of them, a small dark man is seen as the King of Spain. Are
these more Africo/Iberian links?

*AFRICANS IN THE AMERICAS?*

* *

*Background*

* *

Probably even more controversial than ?The African Presence in Early
Europe? is ?The African Presence in Early America? (ed. Van Sertima 1983).

* *

Among the oldest skulls in South America are those called the Luzia
type. Their Australoid/African look has been attributed to ?Pacific
Crossings? (see below). In like vein are giant stone balls sculpted into
heads of Olmec-dated Mexico oft-cited by Van Sertima but denied by many
others. The latter are explained as being baby-faced, being were-cats or
from use of blunt tools. Nigel Davies (Voyagers to the New World 1975)
noted that Polynesians unwittingly took rats to remote parts of the
Pacific and wondered where were the rats brought in PreColumbian ships
reaching the Americas? Tony West
(www.angelfire.com/zine/meso/meso/diffusionprob) asked where were the
PreColumbian diseases of the type that so devastated PostColumbian
Amerinds? Also what was missing from the extensive transAfrican networks
that had to be met by transAtlantic trade? Another question to be posed
in tandem in with this is where are the harbours if there are claimed
fleets of African ships? West further says blacks in the Americas could
not have become leaders/rulers, the more so given that Frank Joseph
(Ancient American undated but No. 8) points to blacks as bound captives
of Olmecs (an early dominant Amerindian people in PreColumbian Mexico).
Mahatma Randy (www.i-pocalypse.net/mahatmarandy.) asked where are the
tales about tales about Africans sailing to new lands?

* *

More of the same could fill these pages but the reader will get the
general point. The objection that appeals to me the most is one about
blacks ending up in Amerind cooking-pots as the plat-de-jour. This is
not said solely about blacks but mainly relates to them. Those of black
origin will no doubt be delighted that our putative cannibals were so
discerning. Plainly, some of these objections are more rather surreal
than substantial.

* *

There seems to be six main theories about the oldest groups reaching the
Americas. They are (a) east Siberia/Bering Sea/Alaska (& an overland
spread); Pacific Coasts (& a spread via coastal refugia [= ice-free
pockets in icefields] along west Amer. Coasts); (c) Pacific Crossings
between Australia and the west coasts of south America; (d) crossings
between north Atlantic refugia and a claimed 17 matches of Solutrian
(see above) and PreClovis/Clovis artifacts; (e) mid Atlantic or Guinea
(w/Afr.) to Guyana (Sth. Amer.); (f) combinations of all or any of the
foregoing.

* *

That Academia prefers ProtoPolynesians in the Pacific is instructive but
no great surprise. What this means is that voyages of c.8000 miles of
purposeful type at dates in the Late Palaeolithic are being accepted.
When the deliberate voyages of the Polynesians are looked at, they
rarely were more than 500 miles at one go and those of c.2000 miles are
rarer still. So any purposeful trips of c.8000 miles at a single go of
so early a date that were successful would truly be the stuff of songs
and legends around the old camp-fire. Given that most of the Luzia-type
skulls appear in northeast South America, this calls for a trek across
the north of South America, so makes this an even more heroic as a feat.

* *

Also surely being overlooked here is the contrast of the c. 8000 miles
between Australia and South America and yet only 1500/1600 miles between
?Guinea? (= most of west Africa) and ?Guyana? (n/east South America).
Nor should the so-called ?conveyor-belt? currents of the middle Atlantic
be overlooked. These demonstrate that the Canarian Current flowing along
west Magrebi coasts to the Cape Verde Islands turn west to become the
North Equatorial Current that allied with the Northeast Trades Wind
could whisk unwary crews west to the Caribbean. Knowledge of these
currents in west Africa have been noted above.

* *

Crossings of the north Atlantic dated to the Solutrian (= a Late Upper
Palaeolithic of much of parts of west Europe) are increasingly accepted.
This is based on progress via ice-free areas in the icefields across the
north Atlantic in skinboats of kayak/currach type. As the Solutrians
were hunter/gatherers, fishing can be allowed as part of their economy
but for Solutrian skinboats, to my knowledge, there is no evidence (&
the ?sailboats? in Solutrian cave-art are best forgotten). What does
emerge from this is that it is not long-distance voyages in the Stone
Age or even the specific ones on the north Atlantic that are being
doubted, only those from west Africa. It is the latter that provide the
most plausible ancestry for Luzia-type skulls.

* *

The theory of Davies plus others requires that Africoids were among the
PalaeoAmerinds/PalaeoIniuts. They were submerged but remerged on the far
side of the Americas. This is just possible but extremely unlikely.

* *

Davies/West doubts re. the devastating diseases brought in the wake of
Columbus and his European successors can be voiced again but applied to
somewhat earlier. In the light of the Inuits/Aleuts just simply never
stopped crossing the Bering Sea and Norse sagas telling of several
voyages across the north Atlantic that are given respectability by
excavation, yes where is the evidence for the devatating diseases
brought in from outside. How long non-American bacteria and/or viruses
in the Americas survive is unknown to me but do we assume that Viking
ships arrived disease-free and/or rat-free? Nor are we told if Inuit
(=Eskimo)/Aleut plus Norse/Viking voyages form part of West?s
?diffusionprobs?, or again is it only the African voyages that are being
objected to?

* *

The settlement at L?Anse-aux-Meadows (Newfoundland, Canada) has
house-sites and artefacts differing radically from those of their coeval
neighbours. They most closely marry with those from Norse sites in
Iceland, so do much to confirm what the Viking stories say about
settlement in North America. However, what if the Ingstad excavations
there had occurred under the circumstance of the appalling
digging-techniques consequent on the treasure-seeking that passed for
archaeology in the 19th c. (& still with us in the metal-detector brigade)?

* *

The longhouses would have been described as of Five-Nations affinity at
best. More probable is that that they would probably have placed
alongside such as the Kensington Stone, the Davenport copper-plate, etc.
and dismissed as fantasies. Van Sertima, some years ago commented that
L?Anse-aux-Meadows was a single setllement. Despite years of diligent
searching around the nearby Epaves Bay it remains so and before going on
to the next sub-section it is worth noting what is happening here.

* *

Quite simply, on the strength of a single settlement, all that is said
in the Viking sagas about crossings of the north Atlantic is now held to
be proven. Previously, the Norse/Viking tales were at best thought to be
fairy stories. The African evidence to be looked at is not confined to
one site or to one category of evidence. For the later phases, the
accounts by Islamic writers must be at least as reliable as the Viking
sources we are now being told can be taken at face value.

*Evidence for Blacks?*

* *

Attempts at reconstructing ships that had emerged from largely Atlantic
conditions were shown above. They were largely theoretical but for the
Celtic form(s) there is some archaeological evidence and for the African
ships there is the figure of Maa. He was noted as having a Poteidan
aspect relating to the Greek Poseidon. It also apparently means Wooden
Mountain and may attest an Ark-like vessel, so indicates wooden ships
comparable to those of Egypt and/or Greece in west Africa. To this has
to be added what is said about the fleets of Mauretania by Classical
writers. For many this would have some confirmation provided by such as
Burrows Cave (U. S.).

* *

On the other hand, the vessel-form that most clearly marks west Africa
is the dugout. A pertinent comparison is made by Richard Mac Cullagh
(The Irish Currach Folk 1993) of currachs surviving storms when more
modern wooden types were being destroyed. This matter of supposedly
archaic forms matching or even surpassing even more recent types was
also made when comparing modern yachts of Virtue class with dugouts for
strength. The point is particularly made when it is realised the Virtue
yachts have a growing number of circumnavigations round the world and
numerous transAtlantic crossings to its credit. The dugout has also been
taken across the Atlantic. Here we find Mande ku[lu] (= canoe) as Mayan
[zu]ku (= dugout-canoe) in MesoAmerica. The dugout was part of what
Egypt called the sipak (= funerary-barge), was used for burial in Ghana
(acc. to Nii Nai-tete [as above]) and Nigeria (acc. to P. A. Talbot [as
above]) and matched for near-identical name, identical function and
Royal linkage by the Mexican sipac. Diop adds Wolof (Senegal) loto (=
canoe) with the same meaning in the Amerindian tongues of Sara and
Baguirmian.

* *

Much of any discussion about west Africa lacking harbours can really
only do so by detaching west Magreb from the rest of Africa. If nothing
else, the admittedly brief description of west Morocco contained in
?Facing the Ocean? by Barry Cunliffe (2001) gives the lie to such views.
In any case, safe anchorages were among the things that attracted both
the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian descendants. Nor are such safe
havens confined to northwest Africa but are noted to as far as the Congo.

* *

Moreover, questions about the absence of harbours do rather tend to
overlook the very nature of the dugout-canoe. Quite simply, it can be
beached almost anywhere but if evidence of something more permanent is
required, reference may be made to admiring British Army comments cited
in the Roger Smith article (see above) regarding the Lagos canoe-ports.
Also large fleets of them could be assembled, thus c. 2000 by Abubakri,
several hundred by Mansa Musa, several hundred by Sonni Ali, c. 3000 by
Askia Ishaq (acc. to Lawrence in Van Sertima 1992), the 700/800 of the
fishing-fleets reported by de Marees,etc.

* *

Bradley has written that for cultural diffusion from the Old World to
the Americas at a stage of formative culture(s) certain things are
needed. It is probably useful to indicate somewhere that combines
literary and archaeological proofs. It was seen above that there is
literary testimony about migration from mid-east Africa (esp.
Kush/Nubia) westwards in Africa. Further to this are suggestions
house-forms that had become archaic in Egypt appear in west Africa. The
pyramid-building that had died out in Egypt long before the rise of the
Kushite Pharoahs of Egypt was revived in Kush/Nubia and appear in
mudbrick/adobe in west Africa stepped-forms. The using of bronze but
minimal iron by Kushites seen above is also a decided feature of west
Africa. Domestication plus weaving of cotton is known in Egypt,
Kush/Nubia and west Africa. To this can be added use of reed-boats and
dugout forms of water-craft.

* *

There is the very real difficulty that comes with such as the proven
destruction of the griotic (= oral-historical) tradition in west Africa
by millenia of wholesale slave-raiding by Africans (preying on other
Africans), Arabs and Europeans. At the American end of things, the
Spanish burning of thousands of Amerind documents was equally
devastating. However, in the case of house-forms, there are the
?roof?-combs as another long-lived feature in west Africa and even
allowing for the destruction of the American evidence and much
excavation still to happen, this finds good analogies in the Americas in
the form of the Moche domestic architecture.

* *

West African religio/funerary architecture also good parallels
throughout the Americas but especially in the La Venta (Mex.)
tomb/temple pyramid-complex of the Olmec (?1500-500 B. C.) period. The
much-delayed west African ?Iron Age? seems to have meant that bronze
remained very much the major metalwork form there. This meant parts of
west Africa remained bronze-using for considerably longer than the rest
of Africa and this again is directly comparable what occurs in
Mexico/MesoAmerica and the rest of the New World. Bradley says a
particular development in west Africa and the Americas was that bronze
was usually for ornament rather than tools and/or weapons and that this
contrasted with the Mediterranean; as there bronze was mainly for weapons.

* *

Copper was common in west Africa but other metals that could be alloyed
with copper to form were relatively scarce, so most of their weapons,
tools and artifacts were of a wide variety of materials. West African
wooden vessels with angled legs are very possibly ancestral to ceramic
vessels of multiple bent-leg form(s) that are again widespread in the
New World. The long paddles of west Africa were seen as the probable
origin of the guara-boards and allowed for safer sailing in windy
conditions. The crossed-circle was/is frequent in west and also occurs
in the Americas (on vessels that are sea-going too).

* *

Dogs were an early domesticate and an early African breed was the
Basenji. It seems its head was the model of the canine-headed god called
Anubis (an Egyptian god) and the basis of breeds of across the
Mediterranean from the Canaan Hound of Israel to the Ibizan Hound (& its
relatives) of Iberia. Burial of animals in Egyptian tombs was
commonplace but that of horses only part of this, whereas in Kush/Nubia
horses plus chariots were buried in high-status graves. In these graves,
the dog-headed Anubis occurs as a decorative component and dogs are
shown by R. R. Dennett (At the back of the Black Man?s Mind: Notes on
the Kingly Office in West Africa 1906) to have adorned the box-carts of
chiefly graves in parts of west Africa. Van Sertima shows that dogs plus
wheeled-vehicles fused into one object are often found in Mexican tombs
and that Basenji-like models appear in several Peruvian graves.

* *

The domesticate with perhaps the best claim for maritime dispersal is
the cat. East Africa has probably the best claim for consideration for
feline domestication (see Feline History Group Newsletters 1990-2002 &
above). Cats were seen right across Africa with religio/royal links
proven from Kush and Egypt. Ellis and Dennett suggest the same in west
Africa. Davies re. blacks in the Americas looks like very like Michael
Pollard (Ency. of the Cat.) re. New World ?Hairless? cats (akin to the
Sphinx breed) in terms of saying they are relict populations. These
American cats are reported from South America, Mexico (where the linkage
is with Aztec Princesses) and North America, so if this is correct, the
Royal link continues on the far side of the Atlantic.

* *

Yet another domesticate that may have travelled was the pig. A major
African breed was the Guinea Hog (= Red River Pig = Potamuschoeris
porcus). Thompson noted some of them in Brazil but cannot state that
they were there before the 18th c. It can be said that the peccary is
the pig native to South America and there are some similarities with
what Van Sertima says about of the banana and the plantain in South
America, namely that they proliferate before the beginning of the 15th
c. Also that this was far too early for this not to have been
PreColumbian. The similarities of small animals borne in dugout-canoes
that were sailed and paddled over long distances in Polynesia and west
Africa will be obvious.

* *

West African ships have been briefly touched on and the major west
African sea-going vessel that is the dugout-canoe has also been
discussed. Its ocean-going properties have been proven by practical
experiment. Also comparison with other proven ocean-going craft
demonstrate just how strong it was/is shown. Those in funerary use
across Africa from Egypt to west Africa were seen to have had links both
Royal and/or religious and in Egypt such a coffin was a sipak. This word
is virtually identical with the Mexican cibac/sibac. The Royal linkage
and funerary function is identical. Winters says Mande (widespread in
w/Af.) zu[ku] (= canoe) appears as Mayan ku[lu] in MesoAmerica. Diop
says the same of Wolof (the main language of Sen.) loto (= canoe)
occurring in some of the Amerind tongues of North America, notably Sara,
Baguirmian, etc.

* *

The Poteidan or ?Wooden Mountain? aspects of apparently Ark-like vessels
from west Africa take us to the ?seven caves & seven canyons?that are
wooden galleys? described in several American texts. The main ancient
American sources are those collected by Bernardo de Sahagun (16th c.
Spanish collector of Mex. native folklore), Ixtlilchotl (18th c. Aztec
noble), Popol Vuh (the origin-myths of the Quiche Maya), etc. The
African and American texts are so alike that they demand a linkage.

* *

The ?seven caves, seven canyons ?that are wooden vessels? are frequently
taken to refer to Spanish galleons. Not only did birds lead to a (?)
Greek, PreNorse Irish and Norse/Vikings to Iceland but also led the
Portugese to the Azores (1432)and Brazil (1503). Shortly after this,
maps setting parts of South America in correct longitude and latitude
appear. It is generally felt this came via Spain. The Aztec and Mayan
texts record the figure had a leader of new arrivals variously named as
Gucuzman, Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl. His cross-adorned cloak makes him
sound very like a Christian bishop, the more so given that his party are
oft-seen as whites. He also had a snakeskin-boat. This might be
reinforced by claims that the ?12 ways & seven ships? of Amerind texts
are also carved on Stone No. 5 at Izapa (Mex.) that on turning not to be
so, do not support non-European elements.

* *

Vessels in the Americas include the Gran Chaco and pelota types of
skin-boat of South America. Bradley noted a possible in a Mayan mural
and those from Ireland, Norway, Canada, etc, shown by Johnstone that in
certain conditions of sunlight to look glass-like must surely resemble
the snakeskin one of Quetzalcoatl. Canada also has the more famous
skin-boats of umiak plus kayak forms. This means that wooden vessels are
not the only craft being recorded in the Amerind sources, as skin-boats
are hardly Spanish galleons. In any case, the very Christian look of
Quetzalcoatl has the smack of Spanish interpolation(s) to justify their
invasion of what became Latin America.

* *

As to accurate maps by Europeans, George Stokes (Ire. & the Celtic
Church 1886) long ago pointed up the laughable knowledge of John Malalas
(the leading Byzantine geographer of the 8th/9th cs. A. D.). Medieval
tendencies were wont to fill in gaps with ?here be monsters?. Nor were
things always greatly improved by the time of Jonathan Swift?s (18th c.
Irish) satire on this (cited in Essays on Africa by J. V. Tooley 1963),
thus ?So Geographers in Afric maps, with savage pictures fill their
gaps, And oe?r inhospitable downs, place elephants for want of towns?.
In short, European geographers filled gaps in their knowledge with
imagination and did so for centuries, if not millenia. Nor should it be
forgotten that Europeans could not set longitude accurately much before
the work of John Harrison in the 18th c.

* *

From the above, it will be immediately obvious that mapmakers from any
country in Europe are not the source of the accurate mapping of parts of
South America. Joan Covey? s (in Van Sertima 1983) ?African Sea-Kings in
America? are more likely candidates for this information. It should also
be borne in mind that Europeans have consistently underrated the
intellectual prowess of Africans. The volumes in the History of
Cartography mainly edited by messrs. Hartley & Woodward show how many
times Africans have drawn maps for Europeans at almost the drop of a hat
that were usually filled with salient topography not whimsy.

* *

Most Europeans would regard the Zulus as very black Africans yet they
call themselves Abantsundu (the Brown folk) and several Europeans report
a range of skin-shades wthin the same African ethnic grouping. This does
something to disturb preconceptions, the more so given that Amerind
texts record a similar mix among ?those coming from the sunrise? landing
at Panco (= Panuco, Huasteca Prov., Mex.), so means the pale-skinned and
bishop-like Quetzalcoatl was not so unique after all. Nor should it be
overlooked that he is not always depicted as white/pale-skinned and his
bird-feather cloak with all the bright colours of the quetzal-bird does
not sound particularly Christian.

* *

The bright colours of rainbows also feature among the snake-gods
worshipped by Australian Aborigines according to Bradley. However, this
is hardly confined to Australia, especially as Bradley notes east
African awe for the python shown by the twirling snakes at some Kushite
temples. He says the veldt of southern Africa is python-free and the
concept taken by the Bantu was transferred to the yellow cobra. Bunzi is
a goddess of the Congo invoked as a brilliant snake, Abuk was the first
Dinka woman and was also a snake and there is the Ewe (Ghana) myth about
Anyiewo as a great snake having a rainbow as his reflection. The concept
is known in Egypt and across the Atlantic, where the latter is part of a
snake/feline/bird trinity. Part of this was a merging of snake plus bird
in the feathered-serpent or Quetzalcoatl cult. The bird was the quetzal
of the Guatemalan highlands having brilliant colouring but the
feathered-serpent occurs early in lowland Mexico, as when shown as a
mural at the La Venta (Mex.) temple-platform of Olmec date.

* *

Nor do birds only combine with snakes, as Winters (www.geocities com/
athens/academy/8919) shows someone being initiated into the Kuno-tigi (=
humano/avian cult) of shamans (= witch-doctors/medicine-men) as forms of
were-creatures (= part-beast/part-man) by a shaman. Both figures are
wearing the conical hats attesting the religious in west Africa and the
Americas and all occurs on board a ship going west. This is again
depicted on Stone No. 5 at Izapa (of slightly later than the true Olmec
Culture in Mexico). Winters relates this to Si/Sye (used of the Mande by
themselves) to the Zuiva (=? Loyal Ones)/Tutul Xiu said by the Yucatec
Maya to have brought writing to them. Linguists hypothesise past but now
non-existent words by asterisks and reinforcing the above is Mande
*se?be (= writing) as Mayan c?ib/ch?ib plus Mande amankye (= teacher) as
Mayan amoxaque.

* *

Another were-cult has shamans turning into were-felines, lions in east
Africa/Egypt, leopards in west Africa, jaguars in MesoAmerica, etc.
Winters holds that another scene carved on Izapa No. 5 is of someone
being initiated into this were-cult, as all occurs under a jaguar-glyph.
Bini tradition was seen not only to show movements within west Africa
but also to bring cultic practices to the west African coasts and of
great interest is that the cultic objects held by the above-noted Oni of
Benin greatly resemble those held by a shaman-cum-jaguar carving at San
Augustin (type-site of the PostChavin San Augustin Culture, Columbia).
As the Chavins (Peru) are mountain-folks, it is to be expected the local
big cat to be worshipped was the puma/mountain-lion. Instead, the main
temple at Chavin de Huantar (naming the Chavin Culture) is of
jaguar-plan, so parallels the Olmec processional way of jaguar -mosaics
at La Venta (the Olmec site of Mexico).

* *

Anyone with knowledge of Greek history will know that the earliest
written Greek is that called Mycenaean or Linear-B script that
apparently vanished with the collapse of Mycenaean/Achaean Greece and
when Greece revived, a new type of alphabet that Greek tradition holds
came from Phoenicia pertained. Amerind sources that we saw were tapped
into tell us those that were seen came as ?coming from the east? came as
teachers but left for points south and in doing so, left so little of
their civilisation behind that virtually all had to be reinvented.
Clearly, Greece offers a very real parallel here for the Mexican
situation and this is probably not confined to Greece or Mexico. This
lessening of numbers and influence over time also emerges from the
Wiercinsky studies of Olmec skeletons showing Africans as c. 15% of the
population in the Early Olmec but only c.5% in later periods. Such
studies build on those of messrs. Hooton and Vargas Guadarama (as Van
Sertima 1983).

* *

Blacks as giants stories abound in Africa from Egypt as part of the
Ramessid statues of Pharoah(s) as giants but also those among the giant
heads of prisoners at Tanis (Egypt) to those mentioned by Diop as
occurring in west Africa. Diop also says they appear outside Africa and
in the case of the Fomoire of Ireland not only was a claim of African
giants made but heads of colossi size were also shown above. More
colossi are those of African look at Olmec sites. Nor should Van Sertima
be overlooked when quoting Mexican folklore about Black giants and that
Africans could be up to 18 inches taller than Mexican Amerindians.

* *

These were originally spheroids of basalt that were carved into giant
heads. They can appear as far as c. 50/80 miles from source(s), be up to
8/9 feet in height and be between 10/50 tons in weight. Their transport
and carving clearly represent substantial communal investment in time
and effort yet also signal elites in command of considerable resources.
The prominent positions of these heads at Olmec temple-sites seemingly
confirms the god-king/priest-king status of these elites. Such rulers
are most unlikely to tolerate being portrayed as ?baby-faced?. Any
sculptors blaming blemishes on poor tools and/or too-hard stone would
also get short shrift, as their short careers would be most likely
terminated with their becoming the very next sacrifices atoning for the
perceived insult to the gods via their earthly repesentatives.

* *

Nor are the facial traits confined to statuary. They are repeated in
terracotta and Von Wuthenau (in Van Sertima1983) adds another in
rock-art. This includes colour, thick lips, scarification, tattooing,
tightly-curled hair, hair-styles (inc. braided-locks), wide noses,
headscarves, compound earrings, etc. Unless it be assumed that the
sculptors, potters, rock-artists and gold-workers doing the same thing
are all incompetent, this seems to add up to a convincing picture to me.

* *

The notion of Africans as prisoners is an interesting one. This was
touched on in connection with those among the heads at Tanis. So
frequently were Kusho/Nubians seen as the bound prisoners of Egypt that
in Kusho/Nubian eyes they came to symbolise Kusho/Nubians and there are
also the above-noted bans on Nubians entering Egypt. Yet Kusho/Nubian
princesses became the mothers and wives of Pharoahs and Kusho/Nubians
oft-served in Egyptian armies (esp. as archers). Kush was seen to appear
in the name of Kashta/Kushtu (founder of the 25th or Kushite Dynasty of
Pharoahs) and Nubian in the title of ?The Black Pharoahs: Egypt?s Nubian
Rulers? by R. Morkot (2000). Several writers have discussed depictions
of blacks as bound prisoners of Amerinds (esp. in Panama & Ecuador) yet
Africans could and did become rulers of large chunks of those countries
and elsewhere in the Americas. As to their being prisoners, surely the
Old Testament?s ?how are the mighty fallen? says it all. In short, the
joys and snags of going to war.

* *

On what was said already, the arrivals at Panco (Mex.) ?came from the
rising sun? (= the east) and the colossal heads of Africans at La Venta
(Mex.) also face the east. The pyramid at La Venta seems to have been
built on a north/south orientation apparently unknown in the Americas
before the rise of the Olmecs and relevant here must be that on the very
platform of this temple were the African colossi just noted.

* *

It is extremely unlikely that this can be taken to mean west Africa
provided the Americas with its civilisation but that what have been
called the mother-cultures of South America and North America, the
Chavin and Olmec Cultures respectively came under extensive African
influence(s). This it should be observed was at crucial times for these
Amerind cultures.

* *

Nor should we overlook that Ekchuah of the Mayas is usually depicted as
black. As his name apparently means Black Calabash, this may mean that
to the African animals suggested to have been taken to the New World are
to be added west African plants. Trade using laden canoes traded west of
Africa according to Bartolome de las Casas (16th c. Spaniard on the 3rd
Voyage of Columbus). Harold Lawrence (in Van Sertima 1983) notes stories
of black traders on the Caribbean side of the Atlantic and the black
god, Ekchuah, was the Mayan god of trade.

* *

If the point needs making, the only land-mass west of Africa are the
Americas. Harold Lawrence (in Van Sertima 1983) points out that fleets
involved in trade across the Atlantic means something very purposeful.
Lawrence wrote that there are accounts of a type of cloth widespread in
west Africa called almaizor. Its method of manufacture plus the garments
made from it are known in both west Africa and in the Caribbean and
adjacent parts of the South American continent.

* *

Lawrence also adverts to an alloy with an apparently very long history
behind it in west Africa. It was mainly of ?18 parts gold, six parts
silver & eight parts copper?. This was the famous guanin used there for
both ornaments and weapons and led to the terms of both Guinea and
Ghana. When Columbus came across spearheads in the Caribbean/nearby
South America, he collected some and sent them to Spain for analysis
that proved they too were of a comparison identical to that of the west
African guanin. Lawrence further shows a number of place and/or tribe
names in parts of South America adjacent to the Caribbean relate closely
to the west African guanin and also the objects made from it.

* *

So in answer to the question what was it that was not being met via the
transSaharan trade that prompted Africans to trade across the Atlantic
is largely unknown. Especially at early dates but the peculiar results
on certain Egyptian mummies may yet show this. Given that evidence from
a variety of international sources has been used here to illustrate
certain points, another may go amiss here, namely that all too often
trade-goods going one way are known in some detail but for the other
side, educated hypotheses are resorted to. In short, guesswork.

*Conclusion*

* *

Before finally closing, it is worth recalling the differing treatment of
claimed European and African crossings of PreColumbian date. Those of
Europe are probably most definite during Norse/Viking times and they
indicate they were quite numerous. The archaeological respectability
given to this by the L?Anse-aux-Meadows excavations has been touched on.
It still remains a single settlement. Now contrast the corresponding
west African material.

* *

The latter covers several sites and many categories of evidence but is
the subject of routine denials by Academia. It is to be hoped that there
will soon be a serious study of the Abubakri material (? on the lines of
the Penguin Classics in the U.K.) but the documentary sources supporting
later African voyages are both wider and earlier than anything to do
with Abubakri. These Islamic texts must be at least as reliable as any
of the Norse/Viking tales.

* *

Finally, even if this article can only be taken something as a
preliminary study, something that has emerged from these pages is that
even if only half the above is correct, there is rather more maritime
history in west Africa than might be supposed. Equally, from the
international parallels, it seems that west Africa was not found wanting
in comparisons with some of the great maritime nations of the past.

* *

*Harry Bourne <mailto:Harry.Bourne at defra.gsi.gov.uk>*

* *

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