Are there any other members here who have lived in the West African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay?
Ever since I learned about them in school when I was 13, I've been absolutely fascinated by them. Plus, I love African art and music. So it was no surprise when I learned that I have lived in the Ghana empire.
A while back, while watching a sunset, all of a sudden, I relived a scene in the African savanna, where I was a woman about the same age as I am now (23), cuddling with a younger boy (he looked about 16 or 17) on some kind of woven blanket, watching a sunset just like the one my present self was seeing. I don't really remember much else about that life, except that my husband divorced me for being unable to have babies (later research has shown that such a thing was not only perfectly legal, but commonly done) and then I went to live with a friend and helped her raise her kids. I know it was in the Ghana empire, though, and that it was taken over by the Mali kingdom while I was alive (so I lived in the early 13th century, by the Western calendar).
I wish I could find a book on everyday life in that culture; everything I can find focuses on the military history or the mythology. I've never really cared much about either when learning about a country; I want to know how the people lived. I have the book The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay, which tells me only a little bit of what I want to know, and a children's picture book called African Beginnings, which has a bunch of hazy pictures that seem to have been done by an artist who can't draw people very well--and only a couple of pictures of scenes from Ghana. Can anyone recommend a book on everyday life in the West African kingdoms?
Ever since I learned about them in school when I was 13, I've been absolutely fascinated by them. Plus, I love African art and music. So it was no surprise when I learned that I have lived in the Ghana empire.
A while back, while watching a sunset, all of a sudden, I relived a scene in the African savanna, where I was a woman about the same age as I am now (23), cuddling with a younger boy (he looked about 16 or 17) on some kind of woven blanket, watching a sunset just like the one my present self was seeing. I don't really remember much else about that life, except that my husband divorced me for being unable to have babies (later research has shown that such a thing was not only perfectly legal, but commonly done) and then I went to live with a friend and helped her raise her kids. I know it was in the Ghana empire, though, and that it was taken over by the Mali kingdom while I was alive (so I lived in the early 13th century, by the Western calendar).
I wish I could find a book on everyday life in that culture; everything I can find focuses on the military history or the mythology. I've never really cared much about either when learning about a country; I want to know how the people lived. I have the book The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay, which tells me only a little bit of what I want to know, and a children's picture book called African Beginnings, which has a bunch of hazy pictures that seem to have been done by an artist who can't draw people very well--and only a couple of pictures of scenes from Ghana. Can anyone recommend a book on everyday life in the West African kingdoms?
