The Bantu:

·  The one linguistically based group that most resembles a common cultural source in sub-Saharan Africa is the Bantu.

·  Bantu-speaking peoples emerged in the Niger River basin of west central Africa.

·  Around 1000 B.C.E., Bantu groups began to migrate throughout the continent.

·  By 1000 C.E., descendants of those groups had spread to southern and eastern ends of Africa.

·  It is impossible to say that the Bantu provided Africa with a single cultural heritage.

·  It can be argued, however, that, of all the many peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Bantu played the greatest role in shaping the region’s cultural, ethnic, and linguistic character.

·  It is believed that Bantu-speaking tribes spread the knowledge of agriculture and ironworking to many parts of eastern and southern Africa.

·  They transformed an area that had earlier been sparsely populated by groups of hunters and gatherers to one that was more densely populated and dominated by farming communities.

·  All Bantu-speaking groups of southern and eastern Africa – including the Swazi, the Sotho, the Tswana, the Shona, the Ndebele, the Venda, the Xhosa, and the Zulu – came to depend on the wealth of cattle as the foundation of their economic and political systems.

·  The amount of cattle one possessed determined one’s access to land and one’s political authority.

Nubia:

·  Not counting Egypt, the first major civilizations in Africa appeared in Nubia and Ghana.

·  Nubia is a thousand-mile region south of Egypt that links sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean coast.

·  With the Nile running through it, Nubia became an important corridor for trade between north and south.

·  A particularly valuable commodity was gold.

·  Nubia was settled around 3000 B.C.E., more advanced societies appeared about 2300 B.C.E., and a powerful kingdom known as Kush emerged in approximately 1750 B.C.E.

·  For 500 years, the Egyptian New Kingdom dominated Nubia, but its control gradually faded.

·  A new Nubian kingdom rose during the eighth century B.C.E.

·  From the fourth century B.C.E. to the fourth century C.E., that kingdom was centered at the large and prosperous city of Meroë, the southernmost point of Egyptian civilization.

·  Meroë, surrounded on three sides by rivers, offered its inhabitants sufficient rainfall for irrigated cultivation and nearby grasslands to retain livestock herds.

·  It also contained large deposits of iron ore and the hardwood timber needed for smelting.

·  The sale of iron production in Nubia was once large, and various kinds of iron weapons and tools have been recovered.

·  Meroë collapsed in the second century C.E., as a result of changing trade patterns in the Red Sea area and, most notably, because of erosion of the topsoil, caused by heavy deforestation.

Nara and Heian Japan:

·  The origins of civilization on the Japanese islands remain cloudy.

·  Various communities gathered together during the Stone Age.

·  As early as the 300s and 200s B.C.E., tightly knit societies were appearing, but the mountainous terrain of the home islands kept settlements relatively isolated.

·  Although tradition and myth trace the ancestry of the Japanese imperial family back to the 600s B.C.E., there is no evidence of organized Japanese government before the 300s or 400s C.E.

·  The Nara State: the first imperial state

1.  The Yamato regime was established during the 300s and 400s C.E.

2.  The Yamato state was headquartered at the city of Nara, which, until the late 700s, served as Japan’s capital.

3.  During the Nara Period (ca. 300-794 C.E.), the foundations of the Japanese state were laid.

4.  Japan also came into contact with Korea and China.

5.  The Chinese had a tremendous influence on the development of Japanese art, architecture, literature, and religion.

6.  It was from China (and Korea) that faiths like Confucianism, and, especially Buddhism arrived in Japan.

7.  Nara became famous throughout East Asia as a center of Buddhist scholarship.

8.  By the late 700s, the imperial family wished to escape the political influence of the Buddhist priesthood in Nara.

·  The Heian Period:

1.  In 794, the emperor shifted the capital to the city of Heian (present-day Kyoto).

2.  Most of the Heian period (794-1185 C.E.) was marked by peace, prosperity, and cultural splendor.

3.  Imperial politics was dominated by the Fujiwara clan.

4.  Art and culture thrived, giving birth to one of Japan’s literary masterpieces, The Tale of the Genji, by Lady Murasaki.

5.  In 1000 C.E., the Heian regime was at its high points.

6.  These years are remembered as a golden age in premodern Japanese history.

7.  However, by the late 1000s and early 1100s, the Heian state began to decline, primarily as a result of decadence and weak leadership.

8.  It would be swept away altogether in 1185.

Léopold Sedar Senghor, “Prayer to the Masks”

Masks! O Masks!

Black mask red mask you white-and-black masks,

Masks at the four points the Spirit breathes from,

I salute you in silence!

And not you last, lion-headed Ancestor,

You guard this place from any woman’s laughter, any fading smile,

Distilling this eternal air in which I breathe my Forebears.

Masks of maskless faces, stripped of every dimple as of every wrinkle,

You who have arranged this portrait, this face of mine bent above this altar of white paper

In your image, hear me!

Now dies the Africa of empires – the dying of a pitiable princess

And Europe’s too, to whom we’re linked by the umbilicus.

Fix your immutable eyes on your subjugated children,

Who relinquish their lives as the poor their last garments.

May we answer present at the world’s rebirth,

Like the yeast white flour needs.

For who would teach rhythm to a dead world of cannons and machines?

Who would give the shout of joy at dawn to wake the dead and orphaned?

Tell me, who would restore the memory of life to men whose hopes are disemboweled?

They call us men of cotton, coffee, oil.

They call us men of death.

We are men of dance, whose feet take on new strength from stamping the hard ground.