Hi Paul -
Since you don't know of a good source let me suggest this one to you:
http://www.clarence-webpage.com/AfricanArts/study.html
Now I'm going to share with you Harry Bourne's old study, which is pretty concise:
WEST AFRICA & THE SEA IN ANTIQUITY
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@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-sail
