HUMANITY’S AFRICAN ROOTS by Pax Romana

PRE-PUBLICATION ELECTRONIC EDITION

Joe Holland, the author, is a Catholic philosopher and theologian from the United States. He is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida, and also President of Pax Romana Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA, as well as a member of the International Council of Pax Romana International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, his field of specialization is Catholic Social Teaching, and he has published 10 other books.

FROM THE BOOK’S INTRODUCTION

H U M A N I T Y ’ S A F R I C A N R O O T S

Remembering the Ancestors’ Wisdom

Joe Holland Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching Washington DC, USA

“This small book is offered as the first in a series of study-books especially for use in forming future young visionary leaders for the new postmodern planetary civilization now being born. It seeks to help these future young leaders to develop a life-giving vision for the future. This book is also for people of all ages. It may be used in college and high-school classes, or in study groups for religious and other community groups. In service of a life-giving vision, this book invites future young leaders, and indeed all people, to work together in healing the great spiritual, ecological, and social crises of the mechanistic-utilitarian cosmology of modern culture. This cosmology constitutes the philosophical root of modern culture’s tendency to promote selfish individualism and destructive materialism. This book is being published by the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching, because its theme is closely linked to the work of the Center. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is a global wisdom tradition that insists that all humans form a single human family guided by the common philosophical-ethical truths that are found in the nature and purpose of everything in the created world. The new scientific evidence that all humans living today have common African ancestors provides a biological and sociological ground for the philosophical claim of CST that all humans are called to follow common ethical truths. Today we speak of these common truths as part of a “global ethics.” For such a philosophical vision, we humans are not separated into radically different “races” that deny our common humanity. Rather, we form one race, the human race, and we seek a common global ethics.”

In loving and grateful memory of J AMES B. M C C ONDUIT and W ALTER T. H UBBARD Past Presidents of the National Office of Black Catholics and courageous leaders in the struggle for justice Permission is temporarily granted to download individual copies for educational purposes,

on behalf of the African-American community and on behalf of unions and working people.

provided the user sends a notice of use by email to pax-romana-cmica-usa@comcast.net

On the Occasion of the Inauguration of B ARACK O BAMA Grandchild of Africa and the First African-American

Pre-Publication Edition 15 December 2008

President of the United States.

May he and his government be brought by the Spirit

to full realization of the need to care for Earth in all its species and bioregions

Any corrections or suggestions for improving this book

and to protect the special dignity of human life in all countries and all its stages.

before it is published in hard copy are most welcome. Please send your recommendations by email to

“”Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets,

pax-romana-cmica-usa@comcast.net

so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint. If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late”. HABAKKUK Chapter 2, Verse 2-3

on behalf of the African-American community and on behalf of unions and working people.

provided the user sends a notice of use by email to pax-romana-cmica-usa@comcast.net

On the Occasion of the Inauguration of B ARACK O BAMA Grandchild of Africa and the First African-American

Pre-Publication Edition 15 December 2008

President of the United States.

May he and his government be brought by the Spirit

to full realization of the need to care for Earth in all its species and bioregions

Any corrections or suggestions for improving this book

and to protect the special dignity of human life in all countries and all its stages.

before it is published in hard copy are most welcome. Please send your recommendations by email to

“”Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets,

pax-romana-cmica-usa@comcast.net

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface by César J. Baldelomar

Acknowledgements

I NTRODUCTION

T HE S PIRITUAL R ENAISSANCE

Bibliography

Pax Romana/Catholic Movement

for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs

The Pax Romana Center for

International Study of Catholic Social Teaching

ROOTS

T HE C REATOR AND C REATION IN

A FRICAN

A NCIENT A FRICAN C ULTURE

T HE E MERGENCE OF THE

H UMAN R ACE IN A NCIENT A FRICA 5.

T HE A FRICAN R OOTS OF

H UMAN C IVILIZATION

T HE G IFTS

W OMEN

AND

M EN

I N A NCIENT A FRICA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface by César J. Baldelomar

Acknowledgements

I NTRODUCTION

T HE S PIRITUAL R ENAISSANCE

Bibliography

Pax Romana/Catholic Movement

for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs

The Pax Romana Center for

International Study of Catholic Social Teaching

ROOTS

T HE C REATOR AND C REATION IN

A FRICAN

A NCIENT A FRICAN C ULTURE

T HE E MERGENCE OF THE

H UMAN R ACE IN A NCIENT A FRICA 5.

T HE A FRICAN R OOTS OF

H UMAN C IVILIZATION

T HE G IFTS

W OMEN

AND

M EN

I N A NCIENT A FRICA

tion.

oung people today are faced with a great challenge: to forge a new global civilization seeking ecological, societal, and spiritual regeneraDESTRUCTIVE MEDIA MESSAGES

This task becomes especially difficult when we consider the plethora of selfdestructive media messages bombarding today’s young people. Such messages, found in so many contemporary movies, songs, and commercials, promise instant gratification through the latest clothes and other consumer goods.

PREFACE

Also, these self-destructive messages explicitly or implicitly encourage young people to engage in promiscuous sex and to abuse drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. Failing to find happiness in such self-destructive experiences, many young people conclude that their existence lacks any spiritual meaning. No wonder, therefore, that during recent decades the suicide rate among young people has dramatically risen. These media messages reflect the crassly materialist ideological vision that guides much of our dominant market culture. It is this false ideological vision that is presently triumphing across our now global village. ECOLOGICAL, SOCIAL,

C É S A R J. B A L D E L O M A R Executive Director Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching

AND

SPIRITUAL CRISES

The catastrophic outcomes of following such a false ideology are the intertwined ecological, social, and spiritual crises now afflicting late modern society, with the resulting spiritual disorientation of many people. On the ecological side, we see rapid destruction of the rainforests, mass extinction of species, global warming with melting of the polar icecaps, and depletion of fossil fuels. As for society, we see multiple wars, a global arms race that steals from the poor, and proliferation of nuclear weapons capable of destroying all life on earth. We see sweatshops that exploit workers by enslaving children and paying unfair wages to others. We see the triumph of economic neoliberalism and its concomitant technocratic market ideology praising only the rich and powerful. We see attacks on the most vulnerable who are unable to produce or consume at an “efficient” level, namely, the unborn, the physically and mentally disabled, and the sick and elderly. In this crisis-ridden late modern cultural context, many teenagers and young adults have lost interest in organized religion. Many of them say that on the religious side they experience rigidity in their churches and lack of opportunities to participate. Many young people also say that they are alienated by the religious support for war found explicitly or implicitly within many faith traditions in our own country and across the world. Further, many young

tion.

oung people today are faced with a great challenge: to forge a new global civilization seeking ecological, societal, and spiritual regeneraDESTRUCTIVE MEDIA MESSAGES

PREFACE

C É S A R J. B A L D E L O M A R Executive Director Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching

AND

SPIRITUAL CRISES

people are seduced by the nihilistic cultural messages promoted by the dominant media. THE MECHANISTIC & UTILITARIAN WORLDVIEW Underlying this ecological, social, and spiritual crisis is the mechanisticutilitarian worldview that arose with the birth of modern culture and that now is prevailing across our world. This vision conceptualizes all creation and humans within it as autonomous parts bearing no relation to other humans, or to the rest of the natural world, or to the Divine. According to this mechanistic-utilitarian ideology, all creation’s worth – including that of humans – is determined by how “useful” or “efficient” a thing or person is for achieving narrow economic objectives. A tree’s worth, for instance, is not measured by how much life it gives and nurtures, but rather for how much paper or how many baseball bats it can yield. Similarly, elderly human beings, as well as our brothers and sisters with disabilities, are worth little to modern mechanistic-utilitarian society. For their economic productivity and consumer value is considerably less than that of a young, healthy human being. This mechanistic-utilitarian ideology now infects large ranges of leading educational, corporate, cultural, governmental, and even religious institutions. Through these institutions, this false ideology undermines the ability of many young people to envision a new and different global society. AN ALTERNATIVE GLOBAL VISION OF HOPE Nonetheless, we also find positive messages that in a profound manner encourage young people to create a fresh global civilization to heal the ecological, social, and spiritual breakdown. One such positive message you now hold in your hands. Titled HUMANITY’S ANCIENT AFRICAN ROOTS: REMEMBERING THE ANCESTORS’ WISDOM, this book seeks to form “young visionary leaders for the new postmodern planetary civilization now being born.” Essential to becoming a young visionary global leader is recognizing that we are all part of one human race with common origins in Africa.

According to the author, it is our responsibility as one human race to forge together a new global society that is democratically peaceful, socially just, ecologically sustainable, and spiritually meaningful. We can only do this, Holland claims, by recovering our ancient African ancestors’ wisdom. This ancient wisdom, he argues, counters the modern mechanistic-utilitarian worldview that fosters egoism, power, and material possessions as the main purpose of existence. THE ANCIENT AFRICAN WORLDVIEW Over the past several decades and thanks to many scholars, this ancient African worldview has been returning to the light of day. The modern mechanistic-utilitarian ideology would have been repugnant to our ancient African ancestors. For their ancient worldview saw everything as interconnected and interdependent. Flora Wilson Bridges, an African-American scholar of religion, notes in her fine book RESURRECTION SONGS: AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY the major tenets of the traditional African world-view. These are:    

the universe is profoundly religious; heaven and earth are not separate; the universe is circular and moral, and what we do returns to us because God is not ignorant of our behavior; time is a circle or continuity without discrete moments.

Community has had central importance in the African worldview. African elders, for instance, were valued not for their economic production or consumption but for their experience and wisdom, which they would share with the youth of their communities. For this very reason, many traditional cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Americas still revere the elderly. In addition, in the ancient African tradition, religion was not rigidly controlled by elites, and nothing was spiritually more important than maintaining a healthy relationship with God, with others in the community, and with the natural world. This present book explores these and other wise teachings from our ancient African ancestors. CONCLUSION

To help us recover our common African roots, author Joe Holland takes us on a splendid journey from planet Earth’s beginnings over 13 billion years ago, to the emergence and evolution of humans in Africa, to the great migration of our ancestors out of Africa, to the development of many ancient civilizations within Africa.

In concluding, I would like to address both older and younger readers. To older readers, as this book shows us, mentoring is essential in the life of a young person, particularly for a young person who has a difficult family life. And to our younger readers, we hope that you will honor your older mentors, ancestors, and the Divine by transforming our contemporary world from one of death-dealing degeneration to one of regenerating life.

May this book and other life-giving messages provide hope for many young people, especially for those who are tempted with despair in these difficult times.

eep thanks go to the late Walter T. Hubbard and the late James McConduit for being two inspirational figures behind the writing of this small book. Both men, great African-American lay Catholic leaders in society, served as long-term Presidents of the National Office of Black Catholics. Better known as the NOBC, this office stood out for decades as the leading voice of African-American Catholics in the United States. When Walter served as the last Executive Director of the NOBC, he proposed that I do this book. Both men then provided warm personal support throughout the long process of research and writing.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks also go to Bobby William Austin and The Village Foundation as well as to Frederick J. Perella, Jr. and the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities. These foundations and their executive officers helped at various stages to fund the project of which this book was a part. Without their generous help, the book would never have been written. Special thanks go as well to the countless students in my Philosophy classes at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida. With their help over many years, the book was tested, re-tested, and refined again and again. In particular, my deep thanks go to CĂŠsar J. Baldelomar, past student and now Executive Director of the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching. It was his idea that we publish the book through the Center, and he deserves extra thanks for his final and careful editing and layout of the text. Deep gratitude also needs to be expressed to the many thoughtful groups and insightful individuals who have knowingly or unknowingly contributed their wisdom to this text. Their voices came especially from the rich wisdom which I have been blessed to receive from friends in the AfricanAmerican community of the United States, in the rest of the African Diaspora, and also in Africa itself. Lastly, deep gratitude is also due to the growing list of scholars who have done marvelous research on the richness of the ancient African and modern African-American heritage, and on the still living influence of this heritage across the entire human family. Much of what is offered here is at best only a humble summary of their pioneering work.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

The new scientific evidence that all humans living today have common African ancestors provides a biological and sociological ground for the philosophical claim of CST that all humans are called to follow common ethical truths. Today we speak of these common truths as part of a “global ethics.” For such a philosophical vision, we humans are not separated into radically different “races” that deny our common humanity. Rather, we form one race, the human race, and we seek a common global ethics.

his small book is offered as the first in a series of studybooks especially for use in forming future young visionary leaders for the new postmodern planetary civilization now being born. It seeks to help these future young leaders to develop a life-giving vision for the future. This book is also for people of all ages. It may be used in college and high-school classes, or in study groups for religious and other community groups. In service of a life-giving vision, this book invites future young leaders, and indeed all people, to work together in healing the great spiritual, ecological, and social crises of the mechanistic-utilitarian cosmology of modern culture. This cosmology constitutes the philosophical root of modern culture’s tendency to promote selfish individualism and destructive materialism.

REMEMBERING OUR COMMON AFRICAN ROOTS This book is also written from a spiritual perspective. It sees all cultures and indeed all of creation as coming from the one Creator. Since the human race begins in Africa, it should not be surprising that much of humanity’s spiritual as well as cultural wisdom, and even the cultural style of world religions, can all be found to have deep African roots.

This book is being published by the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching, because its theme is closely linked to the work of the Center. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is a global wisdom tradition that insists that all humans form a single human family guided by the common philosophical-ethical truths that are found in the nature and purpose of everything in the created world.

For example, the distinguished Afro-Canadian historian, Professor Albert Raboteau from Princeton University, points out the rich convergences between African religion and the sacramental dimension of 15

INTRODUCTION

of the saints enable the power of the ancestors to help the living. Liturgical ritual in African religions culminates in moments of transparency between the worlds when the divine and the human touch and life is transformed. From this perspective, our society, in general, seems ritually and symbolically impoverished …1

Catholic spirituality. (“Sacramental” means that the spiritual is revealed in and through the material world, as in the use of physical symbols in ritual.) Professor Raboteau’s stepfather had been an ordained Catholic priest who had resigned his ministry because of the racism within the Catholic clergy of his time. Yet both stepfather and stepson continued to be drawn to the deep sacramentalism of Catholicism’s ancient Christian rituals. Thus, he writes:

Sadly in our modern Western culture, and even in sectors of modern Western Christianity, many people have cut themselves off from the spiritual depth found within creation. This alienation from nature is revealed in the tragic ecological destruction resulting from late modern culture’s following the mechanistic-utilitarian cosmology that early modern Western philosophy adopted.

So it was that when I came to investigate the religions that enslaved Africans brought to the Americas, I encountered something that seemed very familiar, a correspondence that Africans themselves had discovered centuries ago between their religions and Roman Catholic Christianity … African Religions seemed familiar because they shared with Catholicism a sacramental vision of the world in which another world, a spiritual world, coinheres with this one. Behind its flat surface, our day-to-day world opens onto depths full of meaning, pattern, and spiritual presence.

In addition to modern Western culture’s ecological alienation from the natural world, modern Western culture carries a tragic alienation from our deepest human roots, namely, the ancient cultural traditions of Africa. (Again, increasingly scientific research concludes that humanity first emerged in Africa, and also that human culture also began in Africa.) To its great loss, much of the human family remains unaware of this important and

Ritual, like a doorway, gives access to this spiritual world. Through ritual we step into a kingdom of divine light, mystery, and wonder. The material objects of ritual not only symbolize spiritual realities, but make them present: incense becomes the fragrance of prayer; the light of the candles becomes the flame of devotion; the images

foundational insight into our common human identity.

ancient wisdom of our common African ancestors.2

As we face the dawn of a fresh global civilization, one foundation stone of this new global culture needs to be the cultural recovery of our common African roots, along with an ecological recovery of our roots in the natural world. In pursuing these two recoveries of our ecological roots in Earth and of our human roots in African, we will make an important contribution to the new global human civilization now being born.

Professor Raboteau again tells us how important this African heritage is for all. As I wrote and taught about African religions, their transmission and transformation in America, I realized that they represented a legacy of wisdom about the nature of the world and people in the world from which we could all benefit … For example, in the personalized world of traditional African religion, the self is conceived as relational. Each person is constituted by a web of interpersonal relationships ... By contrast, the tendency of American culture to overemphasize the individualized self empties life of the communal presence that gives depth and background to our existence.

THE NEED FOR ANCIENT AFRICAN WISDOM Again, science increasingly concludes that all humans and all human civilizations have arisen out of a single African source. Thus, Africa is the mother and father of the whole human race. Today, thanks to the new global networks of the Electronic Revolution, all humans are forming a single yet multicultural planetary civilization. In this new era, we humans are rediscovering our common roots in Africa. Moreover, we also need to learn from the

Similarly a greater appreciation of the self as relational might help us perceive the selfish desire for aggrandizement hiding behind many of our images of success. To achieve at the expense of others, from the perspective of traditional African religion, is witchcraft, pure and simple. And if you choose to move too far outside or too far above your community, you risk becoming bewitched.3

See Malidoma Patrice Somé, The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998.

Albert J. Raboteau, Fire in The Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp. 188-189.

Raboteau, FIRE IN THE BONES, p. 190191.

foundational insight into our common human identity.

ancient wisdom of our common African ancestors.2

See Malidoma Patrice Somé, The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998.

Albert J. Raboteau, Fire in The Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp. 188-189.

Raboteau, FIRE IN THE BONES, p. 190191.

This book seeks to help all of us, especially future young leaders, to retrieve the ancient African wisdom – at once ecological, social, and spiritual – as the deepest root of all human culture.

contemporary advertising try to convince young people that their personal worth depends only on having the possessions with the right brand labels, and that no other values are important.

Advanced technological society, now planetary in scope, is rapidly losing touch with the ecological, societal, and spiritual wisdom, whose foundations were laid originally by our ancient African ancestors. As a result, contemporary global society appears threatened on a broad scale with:

Yet the materialist way of life that has emerged in late modern Western mechanistic-utilitarian civilization, that is, the way of selfish consumerism and over-aggressive competition, is no longer sustainable.  It is not sustainable ecologically.  It is not sustainable socially.  It is not sustainable spiritually.

 ecological erosion of bioregions and of the diversity of species;  sociological erosion of the human bonds of family and community;  spiritual erosion, including addictions, depression, and despair.

Late modern culture’s false philosophical-spiritual teachings are producing terribly destructive effects on so many young people. We need to defend all young people from these poisonous teachings, and to resist the destructive influence of these teachings in the contemporary world.

In particular, certain dimensions of late modern Western culture try to imprison and even to destroy not simply the bodies of our young people but more insidiously their very spirits. For example, poisonous teachings from some sectors of contemporary media try to convince young people that the passage to adulthood comes through the abusive and often addictive use of alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco, and even violence. Similarly poisonous teachings from some sectors of

Thus, it is urgent that we find a fresh and healing postmodern path for all humanity.4 That healing path, we believe, is intimately connected with the cultural and spiritual re-

In his 1998 encyclical FIDES ET RATIO, Pope John Paul II described modern civilization as having lost its way philosophically, as lacking any foundational sense of truth, and consequently as heading toward cultural catastrophe. A copy of the encyclical may be found online at the Vatican website : www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0216/_INDE X.HTM (6 August 2008).

tect the whole planetary community of life, including:

covery of humanity’s common African roots.

 all threatened species and ecosystems;  the marginalized poor whose numbers grow every day;

FORMING YOUNG PLANETARY LEADERS

 the spirits of young people on whom the future depends.

It is not enough to protect our young people. We also need to encourage young leaders to challenge the destructive aspects oflate modern Western civilization, even while expanding its good aspects. We need to support young leaders who will resist the destructive late modern course of deepening spiritual, social, and ecological degeneration by seeking holistic and healing regenerative ways of living with each other and with the rest of the natural world. We need to identify and form young leaders who will strive:

In sum, we hope that this book, and those which follow, will be of service in forming fresh young leaders who will draw on ancient African wisdom to offer a new and lifegiving vision for all youth in the young planetary civilization now emerging in human history. The mission of this youthful leadership will be, we believe, to guide all of us in regenerating the spiritual, ecological, and societal life of our planet. This mission can guide us all in healing the wounds inflicted by late modern civilization on the ecosystem of the planet, on the personal dignity and communitarian fabric of humanity, and on the very souls of young people. We call this mission the path of holistic regeneration. This path seeks to regenerate the whole tree of life – at once ecological, social, and spiritual.

 to rescue the personal and communitarian dignity of humanity;  to defend the biosphere of the entire planet Earth;  to celebrate the spiritual depth found in all of creation. Again, we hope that, by remembering the ancient wisdom of our common African ancestors, we can help new young leaders to heal the fresh planetary civilization now being born. Furthermore, we challenge these young leaders to prepare themselves to nourish and to pro-

Gratefully many young people are already seeking such a healing path. Courageous, visionary, and pioneering young leaders are now exploring how to protect the ecology of our

This book seeks to help all of us, especially future young leaders, to retrieve the ancient African wisdom – at once ecological, social, and spiritual – as the deepest root of all human culture.

contemporary advertising try to convince young people that their personal worth depends only on having the possessions with the right brand labels, and that no other values are important.

Thus, it is urgent that we find a fresh and healing postmodern path for all humanity.4 That healing path, we believe, is intimately connected with the cultural and spiritual re-

tect the whole planetary community of life, including:

covery of humanity’s common African roots.

 all threatened species and ecosystems;  the marginalized poor whose numbers grow every day;

FORMING YOUNG PLANETARY LEADERS

 the spirits of young people on whom the future depends.

Gratefully many young people are already seeking such a healing path. Courageous, visionary, and pioneering young leaders are now exploring how to protect the ecology of our

planet Earth, how to serve people across the globe who are poor and marginalized or whose human dignity is threatened in any way, and how to rediscover the sacred mystery revealed through the depth of creation.

rites of passage, used from time immemorial to guide girls into womanhood and boys into manhood. By adapting these ancient rituals to our contemporary experience, we believe that they can be of great service to all young people, whatever their cultural roots and whatever their religious traditions. These rituals, along with their time of preparation and follow-up, can provide powerful effective means for healing and strengthening the moral character and spiritual depth of young people.

Gratefully many young people of all cultural heritages are working at every level from the local to the global to bring us back into creative communion with nature. They are also working to defend human dignity, to re-grow family life, and to protect the social and ecological life of their communities. And they are working to rediscover God’s mystical presence in all of creation.

Reverend Jim Wallis, the founder of the Christian ecumenical movement known as the Sojourners Community in Washington DC, has recounted many times about what an extraordinary difference mentoring makes for poor youth in the poverty-ridden area where his community lives. In Rev. Wallis’ words, “Even a small bit of mentoring is like a vaccination against drugs, crime, and violence in the lives of these young people.”6

REMEMBERING RITES OF PASSAGE5 Retrieving humanity’s ancient and common Africa roots as part of the task of creating a fresh global civilization, constitutes what may be called the Postmodern African Spiritual Renaissance. Most importantly, this Postmodern African Spiritual Renaissance is retrieving ancient African

Professor Raboteau tells us how, during slave times in the great lowland plantations of Georgia and the

For the classic anthropological study on this theme, see Arnold van Gennep, THE RITES OF PASSAGE, translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960) – originally published in 1908.

From personal conversations with Rev. Jim Wallis. For more on this experience, see his book, THE SOUL OF POLITICS: A PRACTICAL AND PROPHETIC VISION FOR CHANGE (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books 1994).

rejected, the seeker was sent back to seek some more …

Carolinas, young people would be initiated into adult spiritual faith. As part of their initiation, they would “seek” conversion under the guidance of a spiritual mentor. We cite Professor Raboteau’s own words.

In the process, black children endured the pressure of adult expectation, but they also enjoyed the encouragement, guidance, and affirmation of their elders.7

Seeking typically began in adolescence with a spiritual experience that drove a young person to become serious about salvation. Young women would then be directed by the Holy Spirit to a "spiritual mother,” young men to a “spiritual father.”

THREE PROJECTED BOOKS

The spiritual mother or father, who typically had already been informed by the Holy Spirit to expect a seeker, agreed to act as a guide over the weeks or even months that the process might last. These elders, experienced in the ways of the Lord, interpreted the dreams and visions of seekers, offered instruction and support, and finally informed them when they were ready to go before the church to render an account of God’s action and their response.

This present book is hopefully the first in a series of three designed to serve especially the formation of young leaders for a fresh planetary civilization through study of African and African-American influence in human culture. The three books are proposed as having the following themes.

The inner experience of the seeker typically involved visions and dream travel. Required to pray at dawn, noon, sunset, and midnight, often in the midst of a wood or thicket, seekers were supposed to follow wherever the Spirit led and to report all dreams and visions to their guide.

This book, the one now published, helps us to remember the common African cultural foundation upon which God created the whole human race. It helps us to learn from Africa’s ancient wisdom, particularly its profound spiritual awareness of the Mystery sacramentally revealed in all creation, its profound ecological awareness about the sacred character of nature, and its profound human awareness about

1. Humanity’s African Roots.

When the spiritual mother or father deemed that the time was right, the seeker appeared before the elders of the congregation, and if the testimony was accepted, the young person was given the right hand of fellowship as a sign of welcome to membership in the church. If the testimony was

Raboteau, FIRE IN THE BONES, p. 156.

Professor Raboteau tells us how, during slave times in the great lowland plantations of Georgia and the

From personal conversations with Rev. Jim Wallis. For more on this experience, see his book, THE SOUL OF POLITICS: A PRACTICAL AND PROPHETIC VISION FOR CHANGE (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books 1994).

rejected, the seeker was sent back to seek some more …

In the process, black children endured the pressure of adult expectation, but they also enjoyed the encouragement, guidance, and affirmation of their elders.7

THREE PROJECTED BOOKS

1. Humanity’s African Roots.

Raboteau, FIRE IN THE BONES, p. 156.

the web of natural and communal relationships within which we all live.

the ecological, social, and spiritual roots of the tree of life. In two ways, African-Americans are unique among other citizens of the world. First, apart from those humans still in Africa, they are closest culturally to the still living African spiritual-cultural roots of all humans. Second, as part of the socalled “new world” of the Americas, they have historical ties to the ancient Native Peoples of the Americas and also to the many other peoples whose forbearers later migrated to this region of the world. Hence, they have a special call to build healing postmodern bridges between our common African roots and the modern heritage in service of a postmodern planetary civilization.

2. The River of Life This book, not yet published, will tell about the deep AfricanAmerican8 spiritual love of justice and truth, as seen in the great historic struggle against the modern Atlantic system of human slavery. This struggle has been at the heart of healing the spiritual sickness of modern selfish individualism and destructive materialism. 3. A New Global Civilization This book, also not yet published, will review the great struggle against the racist discrimination that has continued in the wake of slavery. It will also help us to imagine and explore where the human race needs to go to heal the great ecological, societal, and spiritual sickness of late modern culture. In particular, this book will propose that the spiritual-cultural energy of AfricanAmericans is a special gift given to all humans to aid in regenerating

In particular, young AfricanAmericans, hand in hand with their sisters and brothers of all cultural traditions, have a unique opportunity to be heralds of the new planetary civilization. They have a unique opportunity to be youthful prophetic leaders in the spiritual return of all humanity to the ancient wisdom of its African roots, and at the same time to be servants of the regeneration of the tree of life across the planet. Returning to the ancient wisdom of our common African roots and opening the path for a fresh planetary civilization means:

While the phrase “African American” sometimes is used here narrowly to refer to members of the African Diaspora within the United States, it more generally refers to members of the African Diaspora across the Americas, including Canada, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

 Rebuilding respect for human dignity and for the social bonds of family and community in solidarity with the poor across the human family;

world. We believe it is also the spiritual center. May the ancient spiritual wisdom of Africa guide us in healing what some have called the late modern “culture of death.” May this ancient African wisdom also guide us in birthing a fresh planetary “civilization of life.”

 Recovering our wider ecological communion with the rest of the natural world;  Drinking deeply of the Creator’s presence within all of creation. In discovering this path, we can celebrate our authentic diversity in unity as one human family. We can reject the false teachings of separate “races” and the consequent bitter racial-ethnic fear and hatred so deeply rooted in the human journey and still found in wars and violence across the planet. Further, in the discovery of this healing path, we humans can begin to form a fresh economic unity, which will heal the economic marginalization of the growing global underclass, now emerging so rapidly across the planet. Finally, in this return to our African roots, we can truly recover our roots in nature, for it was in Africa that we were brought forth from mother Earth and sustained by her abundant nourishment. In conclusion, we are learning today, from careful scholarly research, that Africa is truly the geological, biological, and cultural center of the 23

the web of natural and communal relationships within which we all live.

 Rebuilding respect for human dignity and for the social bonds of family and community in solidarity with the poor across the human family;

W 2

THE SPIRITUAL RENAISSANCE OF

    

e live during the birth of a new planetary civilization. All across the world, the modern nationalist era, began approximately 500 years ago in Europe and the Americas, is now declining, though not without violence and suffering.

But it also brought: 

At the same time a new postmodern planetary civilization is now emerging. This new civilization is precipitated by the Electronic Revolution, which is transforming the entire world into a global network. We believe that this new planetary civilization needs to find spiritual healing by returning to humanity’s ancient African roots.

   

enslavement of millions of Africans; genocidal attacks on native peoples; colonization of the global south; creation of a vast global underclass; undermining of Earth’s precious ecology.

The modern nationalist era lasted in round numbers from 1500 CE to 2000 CE. The beginning of the new postmodern global era is symbolized by the third millennium of the Common Era, also the third millennium of Christianity. Now in the 21st century, visionary leaders in the new postmodern planetary era are searching for a global path based on:

AFRICAN ROOTS A HEALING VISION FOR NEW CIVILIZATION

THE

The modern Western era was first European, and then EuropeanAmerican. It came to dominate the planet through industrialism and commerce, and through military colonialism and neocolonialism. Despite its abiding rich gifts, major aspects of late modern culture have become spiritually, socially, and ecologically destructive.

     

This modern era brought many important human contributions, including:

printed books; an explosion of literacy; nation-states; the birth of democracy; great material progress.

electronic communications; multicultural diversity; global-local interactions; ecological sustainability; human community; spiritual foundations.

We believe that the great spiritual hunger of this new global civilization needs to be nourished by ancient African wisdom. We believe 25

W 2

THE SPIRITUAL RENAISSANCE OF

    

But it also brought: 

   

enslavement of millions of Africans; genocidal attacks on native peoples; colonization of the global south; creation of a vast global underclass; undermining of Earth’s precious ecology.

AFRICAN ROOTS A HEALING VISION FOR NEW CIVILIZATION

THE

     

This modern era brought many important human contributions, including:

printed books; an explosion of literacy; nation-states; the birth of democracy; great material progress.

electronic communications; multicultural diversity; global-local interactions; ecological sustainability; human community; spiritual foundations.

We believe that the great spiritual hunger of this new global civilization needs to be nourished by ancient African wisdom. We believe 25

So an African-rooted spiritual vision need not reject anything that is good from any human culture, including from modern European or European-American culture. Rather it can seek to blend all good things with the spiritual values of ancient African wisdom.

that a postmodern planetary spiritual vision rooted in humanity’s ancient African wisdom can lead all humans toward the holistic regeneration of:   

ecological community with Earth; social community with all humanity; spiritual community with the Creator.

Further, since all human creativity is ultimately rooted in the single African source, nothing human is foreign to our common African heritage.

BLENDING OLD AND NEW CULTURES HUMANITY AND CIVILIZATION COME FROM AFRICA1

The decline of the modern era and the birth of a postmodern era need not mean that we reject all that was good in the former era. As Professor Cornel West, an AfricanAmerican philosopher at Princeton University has pointed out, the encounter of Africa and Europe produced many good and creative contributions, which we need to preserve.

Since we know that the human race began in Africa, this means that all humans and all human creativity have African roots. So the concept of “race” has no deep biological justification. All the so-called “races” are all ultimately African in origin, including:   

For example, Professor West notes that jazz has roots in African music but it is played with European instruments. Also, as Dr. Bobby Austin has pointed out, the music itself is African in sensibility but American in form. It is much richer than anything produced by either Africa or America alone. Hence it is truly African-American.

Native Americans; Asians; Europeans.

For a fine review of the major new scholarship on humanity’s African origins, the origin of civilization in Africa, and the history of Africa, see John Reader, AFRICA: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE CONTINENT (New York: Alfred A. Knopp, 1998). 1

We humans will all come home to each other when we remember our common African roots, when we remember that Africa is the mother and father of all humanity.

was directly or indirectly nourished by the ancient African source. We believe that the newly emerging planetary civilization of the postmodern electronic era needs to drink deeply again from this common African source. Indeed, we believe that the very viability of the human race, in this time of great world-historical crisis, depends on returning for spiritual nourishment to our ancient African cultural roots, as well as to our roots in God’s Earth.

Further, there is growing scholarly evidence that human civilization also began in Africa. African cultures emerged and grew with great beauty and technological achievement in:   

Egypt; Ethiopia; Nubia.

Later other ancient African civilizations emerged in:   

Ghana; Mali and Songay; Zimbabwe and Moytomotapa.

TEMPTATIONS RAGE & DESPAIR

We believe that this spiritual return to Africa is especially important for young people. The crisis of late modern civilization threatens to destroy so many youth, both physically and spiritually, and especially many poor youth. As a result, many young people today feel trapped between rage and despair.

Some of these civilizations then spread their influence to other human regions, perhaps even to the Americas.2 Africans moved across great distances in sailing ships and by camel caravans as merchants, sailors, explorers – East and West, North and South. Thus, as is increasingly being recognized, every past and present human civilization

This is especially true in North America, but the same negative pattern is spreading across the world.3 More and more young

For the hypothesis that Africans regularly sailed to the Americas long before Columbus (as did the Norse and Irish), see Ivan Van Sertima, THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS (New York: Random House, 1976). 2

That many young people are tempted by rage and despair is a frequent theme of the Harvard-based African-American philosopher, Cornell West. See, for example, his fine

that a postmodern planetary spiritual vision rooted in humanity’s ancient African wisdom can lead all humans toward the holistic regeneration of:   

ecological community with Earth; social community with all humanity; spiritual community with the Creator.

Further, since all human creativity is ultimately rooted in the single African source, nothing human is foreign to our common African heritage.

BLENDING OLD AND NEW CULTURES HUMANITY AND CIVILIZATION COME FROM AFRICA1

Native Americans; Asians; Europeans.

We humans will all come home to each other when we remember our common African roots, when we remember that Africa is the mother and father of all humanity.

Further, there is growing scholarly evidence that human civilization also began in Africa. African cultures emerged and grew with great beauty and technological achievement in:   

Egypt; Ethiopia; Nubia.

Later other ancient African civilizations emerged in:   

Ghana; Mali and Songay; Zimbabwe and Moytomotapa.

TEMPTATIONS RAGE & DESPAIR

This is especially true in North America, but the same negative pattern is spreading across the world.3 More and more young

For the hypothesis that Africans regularly sailed to the Americas long before Columbus (as did the Norse and Irish), see Ivan Van Sertima, THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS (New York: Random House, 1976). 2

That many young people are tempted by rage and despair is a frequent theme of the Harvard-based African-American philosopher, Cornell West. See, for example, his fine

people now suffer rage and despair because they see late modern civilization as:     

marginalizing the poor; poisoning the Earth; not providing adequate work; promoting consumerist materialism; undermining community;



suppressing spiritual meaning.

But rage and despair are not from the life-giving spirituality of ancient African roots. They do not represent the manly or womanly wisdom of ancient spiritual mothers and fathers. How important, therefore, that we all once again reconnect with Africa’s ancient roots and drink of Africa’s ancient wisdom.

To suppress spiritual-psychic pain generated by this reality, some beloved young people tragically:    



community-builders who are recreating African-style institutions; ritualists who are designing healing rites of passage for youth.

RECOVERY OF

ANCIENT AFRICAN WISDOM

become addicted to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and sex; attack the weak, elderly, and women; kill their own brothers and sisters; take their own lives.

Gratefully, there is hope. For some time now, there has been emerging a renaissance of ancient African wisdom:   

in Africa; in the African Diaspora; in academic scholarship.

It is being created by 

DEVASTATION OF AFRICA ITSELF



Even in Africa itself, as late modern civilization breaks down and with it the legacy of modern colonialism, we have seen increasing rage and despair, especially in the form of ethnic violence, and also the tragic ravages of the plague of HIV/AIDS.



 

book, RACE MATTERS (NY: Vintage, 1994).

historians who have researched the most ancient truths of Africa; scholars who have exposed the modern lies about the African heritage; philosophers who are recovering the ethical teachings of ancient Africa; novelists who are probing the soul of the African heritage; artists who awaken our thirst for African beauty and imagination; 29

people now suffer rage and despair because they see late modern civilization as:     

marginalizing the poor; poisoning the Earth; not providing adequate work; promoting consumerist materialism; undermining community;



suppressing spiritual meaning.

To suppress spiritual-psychic pain generated by this reality, some beloved young people tragically:    



community-builders who are recreating African-style institutions; ritualists who are designing healing rites of passage for youth.

RECOVERY OF

ANCIENT AFRICAN WISDOM

become addicted to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and sex; attack the weak, elderly, and women; kill their own brothers and sisters; take their own lives.

Gratefully, there is hope. For some time now, there has been emerging a renaissance of ancient African wisdom:   

in Africa; in the African Diaspora; in academic scholarship.

It is being created by 

DEVASTATION OF AFRICA ITSELF



 

book, RACE MATTERS (NY: Vintage, 1994).

T H E C R E A T O R AND

These religious truths, originally discovered in Africa, form the deep roots of most world religions. Thus, most world religions are spiritually indebted to the ancient wisdom of Africa.1

he peoples of Africa and of the African Diaspora have always been known for deep faith in God. So it is only fitting that we emphasize God, who is the Creator of all, the one who now is, who always has been, and who will be forever. From time immemorial, the peoples of Africa have known God. Various tribes gave God different names. Some of these names, like     

CREATION IN ANCIENT AFRICAN CULTURE

CREATION The first human scientists were Africans in Egypt. These scientists were often also priests. Thus, in ancient Africa, religion and science were not divided, as in the modern way. We propose that were these scientists alive today, they would rejoice at the modern discovery of evolution. They would rejoice to discover that:

Chiuta, Jok, Mulungu, Nyame, Nzambi,

are common to many African languages. So they have a very ancient origin. The stories of Africa tell us that God is:        



  

Creator of all things; Sustainer of all creation; One who provides for all creation; One who guides the universe; Mother and Father; Friend, even Great Friend; good, merciful, and holy; One who is all-powerful, allknowing, and present everywhere; One who is limitless, selfexistent, and the first cause of all; One who is spirit, never changes, and is a mystery.

the universe is evolving; planet Earth is evolving; humanity is evolving.

But they would not understand evolution in the modern secular way as:   

simply materialistic; devoid of spiritual meaning; the product of only random interaction (atomistic forces).

For this section, I am especially indebted to Theologian John Mbiti. See his fine work INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN RELIGION (Oxford, England: Heinemann Publishers, 1991).

T H E C R E A T O R AND

These religious truths, originally discovered in Africa, form the deep roots of most world religions. Thus, most world religions are spiritually indebted to the ancient wisdom of Africa.1

CREATION IN ANCIENT AFRICAN CULTURE

Chiuta, Jok, Mulungu, Nyame, Nzambi,

are common to many African languages. So they have a very ancient origin. The stories of Africa tell us that God is:        



  

the universe is evolving; planet Earth is evolving; humanity is evolving.

But they would not understand evolution in the modern secular way as:   

simply materialistic; devoid of spiritual meaning; the product of only random interaction (atomistic forces).

For this section, I am especially indebted to Theologian John Mbiti. See his fine work INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN RELIGION (Oxford, England: Heinemann Publishers, 1991).

iverse. Even today, the Universe is still expanding. 2

Rather they would insist that the splendor of matter reveals the beauty of the Creator, that all of the universe is full of spiritual energy, and that everything existing reveals God’s unfolding plan. In spiritual response to creation, the ancient African peoples composed lovely spiritual songs, and moving spiritual dances – to celebrate the beauty of creation and to praise the mystery of God.

Some 12-10 billion years ago, the young Universe began:      

Let us now summarize what we have recently learned from science about the most probable theory of the unfolding of creation.

to form primal nuclei; to create hydrogen and helium; to seed the early galaxies; to break them into galactic clouds; then to form supernovas; and finally to birth multiple generations of stars.

Some 5-4 billion years ago a cloud took shape in our galaxy which we call the “Milky-Way.” Then a supernova appeared which we call Timat, and next our Sun and the planets around our Sun, including our garden-planet Earth. At this very moment, we humans are standing on the small sphere of Earth, in our solar system, in our galaxy, flying through expanding space and time.

NEW STORY OF COSMIC EVOLUTION According to recent scientific studies, the story seems fairly clear. The Universe began some 13 billion years ago. It suddenly emerged like a great cosmic radiance, like a cosmic flaring forth, or like a cosmic big bang. In no time and no space, a point of energy appeared which contained within itself all time and all space. Like an unfolding flower, that point began to expand, in the process creating the structures of time and space. In its expansion, this opening cosmic egg formed the enormity which is the present Un-

As Pope John Paul II made clear, Catholic Christians may accept the scientific theory of evolution, provided they see God as the Creator of evolution. For a more extended narrative of the scientific understanding of the evolution of the universe, of life, and of humanity, see Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, THE UNIVERSE STORY: FROM THE PRIMAL FLARING FORTH TO THE ECOZOIC ERA (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1997). Berry is a Catholic priest and theologian, and Swimme is an astro-physicist. The narrating of the cosmic story here draws on their extraordinary work..

CREATIVITY

mited to the making of exact copies. Biologists sometimes call this process “mother-daughter cloning.” In this non-sexual reproduction, identical copies emerge from the “mother” cell. Later, the biological creation of sexuality, which we might say added the “male principle,” made possible the creative diversity of life.

LIFE

Some 3.8 billion years ago, a remarkable series of events began to unfold on our planet. Earth produced life, first in simple one-cell organisms, then in multiple cells, including sexual reproduction with the male and female dyad.

Thus, speaking metaphorically, we may say that life was originally “feminine.” From the feminine principle came the power to reproduce. But this principle lacked the power to diversify. Again speaking metaphorically, with the emergence of the “male principle,” life began to produce what biologists call “genetic recombination.”

During the past 4 billion years, advanced forms of life have been continuing to unfold with the progressive emergence of:       

invertebrate marine life; vertebrate animals; endless species of insects; countless trees and plants; land reptiles; dinosaurs; mammals.

So in the evolution of biology, again speaking metaphorically, we may say that the feminine has been the source of life itself, and maleness has been the source of diversity within life.

Mammals are warm-blooded creatures whose young nurse at their mother’s breast. From these mammals, and eventually from the primates, God brought forth us humans.

MASCULINE & FEMININE IN THE HUMAN FEMALE & MALE CO-CREATIVITY

Perhaps this is why still today many young human males are often drawn

In the earliest forms of life, long before the animals came, simple cellular reproduction had been li-

 

to adventure, to challenge,

iverse. Even today, the Universe is still expanding. 2

Some 12-10 billion years ago, the young Universe began:      

Let us now summarize what we have recently learned from science about the most probable theory of the unfolding of creation.

to form primal nuclei; to create hydrogen and helium; to seed the early galaxies; to break them into galactic clouds; then to form supernovas; and finally to birth multiple generations of stars.

CREATIVITY

LIFE

During the past 4 billion years, advanced forms of life have been continuing to unfold with the progressive emergence of:       

invertebrate marine life; vertebrate animals; endless species of insects; countless trees and plants; land reptiles; dinosaurs; mammals.

So in the evolution of biology, again speaking metaphorically, we may say that the feminine has been the source of life itself, and maleness has been the source of diversity within life.

Mammals are warm-blooded creatures whose young nurse at their mother’s breast. From these mammals, and eventually from the primates, God brought forth us humans.

MASCULINE & FEMININE IN THE HUMAN FEMALE & MALE CO-CREATIVITY

Perhaps this is why still today many young human males are often drawn

In the earliest forms of life, long before the animals came, simple cellular reproduction had been li-

 

to adventure, to challenge,



and to new things

Of course, many young females are also drawn to the same attractions.

This may also be the reason why human males are biologically more fragile, for they represent a mutation of the original feminine model. Statistically speaking, human males:    

die more often as children; die earlier than women; suffer more disease; are more prone to violence.

So while the male gift seems to be creative diversity, it is a fragile and even dangerous gift. Therefore, it must be carefully protected, and wisely guided, lest it prove destructive to itself and to others. But to learn more about humans, we must turn first to the African continent which brought them forth



and to new things

Of course, many young females are also drawn to the same attractions.

This may also be the reason why human males are biologically more fragile, for they represent a mutation of the original feminine model. Statistically speaking, human males:    

die more often as children; die earlier than women; suffer more disease; are more prone to violence.

A 4

s we have seen already, it now appears that the human process first developed in Africa. Thus, Africa is the mother and father of the human race. Let us now look in more detail at humanity’s ancient African story.1

have retained playful infantile characteristics from our primate ancestors. The children of all mammalian species are very playful. We humans are a species that has never stopped playing. This playfulness is the source of our artistic and technological creativity. Creative playfulness is the richest way that we reveal the creative image of God.

ROOTS IN GREAT APES

The story of the evolution of humanity, largely within Africa, is beginning to be formulated into a significant scientific theory. Every year we learn new things about our evolutionary origins, so the theory is still being developed.

THE

THE EMERGENCE OF THE HUMAN RACE IN ANCIENT AFRICA

Some 40-30 million years ago, quite late in the unfolding of the universe, the primates began to appear. They began with monkeys and eventually included the great apes, who emerged between 14 and 6 million years ago.

Let us begin the human story by reviewing some major landmarks of human emergence, according to the best of contemporary scientific research.

So close are we to the great apes that we share some 98% of DNA, that is, of genetic material, with today’s chimpanzees. Genetically speaking, the chimpanzees are closer to us than they are to the great gorillas. Yet we have not descended from chimps; rather we share a common ancestor.

APPEARANCE OF EARLY HOMINIDS

In our descent from the great apes, we humans have developed a special evolutionary characteristic. We

Some 5-4 million years ago, early hominids emerged, that is, humanlike species brought forth by God from within the family of great apes. Remains of these early hominids have been found in the African region of today’s Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.

For the story of African civilizations, I am especially indebted to the well researched and exceptional works of John Reader, whose three main works are listed in the Bibliography.

A 4

ROOTS IN GREAT APES

THE

THE EMERGENCE OF THE HUMAN RACE IN ANCIENT AFRICA

Let us begin the human story by reviewing some major landmarks of human emergence, according to the best of contemporary scientific research.

APPEARANCE OF EARLY HOMINIDS

In our descent from the great apes, we humans have developed a special evolutionary characteristic. We

For the story of African civilizations, I am especially indebted to the well researched and exceptional works of John Reader, whose three main works are listed in the Bibliography.

But it appears that these early human migrants did not survive and were later replaced by a new group of humans.

These early hominids had larger brains than the other apes, and walked sometimes in upright posture. Although still spending time in trees, they lived also on the grassy plains. Apparently they were mostly vegetarians. One famous early female specimen has been nicknamed “Lucy.”

More than 200,000 years ago, there appeared Archaic Homo Sapiens, perhaps our immediate forbearers. At least 100,000 years ago they created rituals for the dead and carefully buried their bodies. This was something no other mammal ever did. Thus, they began to be religious.

EVOLUTION EARLY HUMANS

By at least 50,000 years ago, less than an instant in Universe time, there appeared in Africa what anthropologists call “Modern Homo Sapiens,” or “Homo Sapiens Sapiens.” This is the evolutionary human group to which we belong.

Some 2.5 million years ago, an instant in Universe time, more advanced hominids emerged. These have been called by scientists “Homo Habilis,” in reference to their capacity to make stone tools. Specimens of Homo Habilis have been found in the Turkana region of Northwest Kenya.

Again, where did all this begin? In Africa, the mother and father of the whole human race. All the energy of God’s sacred creation, which has been unfolding

 By 30,000 years ago, they had revealed their genius in art, through mystical cave paintings.

 

 By 20,000 years ago, they had fabricated new tools for hunting and war, namely spears, bows, and arrows.



Modern Homo Sapiens began the ultimately successful great human migration into the Eurasian continent and eventually into the Americas. Modern Homo Sapiens quickly began to develop what we call human culture.

the Arabian Peninsula; Europe; Asia as far as China.



in the expanding Universe, in the galactic revolution of stars, in the biological revolution of life,

came to a special and creative expression here on planet Earth with the emergence of the humans on the continent of Africa. Again, Africa is the original home, the mother and father continent, of the whole human race.

 More than 11,000 years ago, they began taming wild animals like sheep, goats, and cattle, and they also began to domesticate plants to create sedentary agricultural life.

SPREAD & CULTURE OF MODERN HUMANS

Some 1.5 million years ago, there appeared a form of humans whom we call today “Homo Erectus.” These true humans walked upright only. They were nomadic hunters and gatherers, or perhaps scavengers. Homo Erectus apparently began the first great human migration out of Africa into:   

 By 32,000 years ago, they had invented musical instruments.

By 35,000 years ago, it appears that they had spread all over the Earth, including to the Americas.

But it appears that these early human migrants did not survive and were later replaced by a new group of humans.

EVOLUTION EARLY HUMANS

Again, where did all this begin? In Africa, the mother and father of the whole human race. All the energy of God’s sacred creation, which has been unfolding

 By 30,000 years ago, they had revealed their genius in art, through mystical cave paintings.

 

 By 20,000 years ago, they had fabricated new tools for hunting and war, namely spears, bows, and arrows.



the Arabian Peninsula; Europe; Asia as far as China.



in the expanding Universe, in the galactic revolution of stars, in the biological revolution of life,

 More than 11,000 years ago, they began taming wild animals like sheep, goats, and cattle, and they also began to domesticate plants to create sedentary agricultural life.

SPREAD & CULTURE OF MODERN HUMANS

 By 32,000 years ago, they had invented musical instruments.

By 35,000 years ago, it appears that they had spread all over the Earth, including to the Americas.

“SCIENTIFIC” LIES ABOUT AFRICA

THE AFRICAN ROOTS OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION

AFRICA’S ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

n earlier modern times, European and European American scholars, including philosophers, theologians, and later natural and social scientists, developed what were eventually called “scientific” theories of race.

Early in the Twentieth Century, pioneering thinkers like W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey retrieved the truth about Africa’s ancient genius. Their work is an important root of the African Spiritual Renaissance.

But these theories were really racist falsehoods used to degrade the dignity of many people, especially Africans, Asians, Native Americans, and also Jews. These “scientific theories” falsely taught that Africa was always a place of savagery and barbarism, without learning or culture, and without civilization.

Scientific evidence currently indicates that humanity first took shape in East Africa’s long Rift Valley. As early humans increased, they spread out in search of food and land. They spread all over Africa, and later they spread all over the world. As they spread, they learned many new things and developed creative new ways, which eventually became human civilization.

Early modern elites used these racist doctrines to justify their mercantile Atlantic slave system and their conquest of the Americas, with its rape, murder, and exploitation of both Native American and African peoples. Later modern elites used these racist doctrines also to justify their industrial colonial plunder of the global south.

“Civilization” means a way of life linked to cities. The Latin word “civitas,” from which we get the word civilization, simply means “city.” The city is founded on knowledge, originally the achievement of scholars and priests. Central to this knowledge was the working of metal, for with metal came powerful tools:

The claim that Africa had no civilization was a lie. As noted, Africa had great ancient civilizations and some scholars today even argue that African civilization stands at the root of all human civilizations.

  

to cut stone and trees for cities; to plow land for farming; to make weapons for war.

“SCIENTIFIC” LIES ABOUT AFRICA

THE AFRICAN ROOTS OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION

AFRICA’S ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

  

to cut stone and trees for cities; to plow land for farming; to make weapons for war.

   

EGYPT, ETHIOPIA, & NUBIA,

Egypt in its original splendor was first an African creation.

The earliest human civilizations apparently emerged in East Africa as early as 5,000 years ago, or perhaps even earlier. They emerged not far from where humanity was born, in the regions later called:   

In ancient times, the entire Mediterranean world knew of the splendor and wisdom of Egypt. Indeed ancient philosophers and scientists from all around the Mediterranean Sea came to Egypt to study with its ancient philosophers, priests, and scientists.

Egypt, Ethiopia; Nubia.

These regions were also called by other ancient names like:   

Semites and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Islamic Arabs, Christian Europeans.

Spreading far and wide along the Nile River, but south of the Nile Delta, ancient Nubia also became an early source of many achievements in later Egyptian civilization. Ancient Nubia, or Kush, was especially known for:

Abyssinia; Kush; Kemet.

The civilization of Ethiopia is famous even from the Hebrew Scriptures. In recent times, we have also learned much about ancient Nubia, which was closely linked with Egypt and whose pharaohs at one time ruled both kingdoms. And, of course, we have long known a great deal about ancient Egypt.

   

the beauty of its art; the power of its warriors; its building of pyramids; other great monuments.

In their early and broad trade, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nubia, reached:

In modern times, some European scholars denied that Egypt was created by Africans. But ancient Europeans saw Egypt originally as black African and the source of human civilization. Today, once again, it increasingly appears that, well before the invasions by

   

down the Nile to the Mediterranean; up the Nile to central Africa; out through the Red Sea to Arabia and India; across the Sahara to West Africa.

In later times, Egypt was conquered by outside invaders who did not always cooperate with the Africans leaders, as the Phoenicians had done earlier. These included:

Again, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nubia stand out as rich early human civilization. They were also the original creation of Africans. As can been seen from Egyptian sculpture and paintings, the most ancient pharaohs – again, some of whom were Nubians –were clearly African with dark skin, woolly hair, broad noses, and full lips. The Great Sphinx, with clearly African features, is believed by many scholars to represent an ancient black African Pharaoh.

     

first the Hyksos; next the Persians; then Greeks then Romans; then Arab Moslems; then European Christians.

During ancient times, amidst foreign invasions, Nubia to the south,   

Along the North African coast, and certainly in the Nile Delta, African civilization also received nonAfrican immigrants, particularly Phoenicians. These were famous sailors and navigators who early on served the black Pharaohs.

so strong in military power, so skilled in art and technology, so tied in trade and culture to central Africa,

remained steadfastly African. Until the medieval Arab Islamic and modern European Christian invasions, it maintained itself as a great center of African civilization.

Some have plausibly proposed that Egyptian ships with Phoenician navigators even reached the Americas. For in places like Mexico archeologists have found ancient skeletons of Africans and other nonNative people, probably Phoenicians, buried together as early as 2,700 years ago.

CENTRAL & WEST AFRICAN EMPIRES Further down on the east coast of Africa, there also developed another center of African civilization. It took shape in today’s Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. This civilization opened out to the great Indian Ocean and became for centuries a center of vigorous sea-going trade with:

The Phoenicians were a Semitic people, and they contributed much to North Africa, including helping to found the civilization of Carthage. But they were few in number within Africa, often intermarried with Africans. 43

   

EGYPT, ETHIOPIA, & NUBIA,

Egypt in its original splendor was first an African creation.

Egypt, Ethiopia; Nubia.

These regions were also called by other ancient names like:   

Semites and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Islamic Arabs, Christian Europeans.

Abyssinia; Kush; Kemet.

   

the beauty of its art; the power of its warriors; its building of pyramids; other great monuments.

In their early and broad trade, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nubia, reached:

   

down the Nile to the Mediterranean; up the Nile to central Africa; out through the Red Sea to Arabia and India; across the Sahara to West Africa.

In later times, Egypt was conquered by outside invaders who did not always cooperate with the Africans leaders, as the Phoenicians had done earlier. These included:

     

first the Hyksos; next the Persians; then Greeks then Romans; then Arab Moslems; then European Christians.

During ancient times, amidst foreign invasions, Nubia to the south,   

so strong in military power, so skilled in art and technology, so tied in trade and culture to central Africa,

remained steadfastly African. Until the medieval Arab Islamic and modern European Christian invasions, it maintained itself as a great center of African civilization.

  

Also, the people of West Africa may have originally migrated from Egypt. Those who founded the western empires may have come fleeing the early foreign invasions of Egypt and bringing with them all the skills and art and even the religion of Egypt itself.

Arabs; Indians; Chinese.

It is perhaps from this African civilization that we receive the legends of the great Queen of Sheba. This civilization was closely tied to great cities in central Africa, especially to Zimbabwe, the once great stone center, so rich in gold mines and so powerful in iron-smelting.

SUMER AN ANCIENT AFRICAN COLONY?

Similarly later in West Africa, there also developed great civilizations, particularly along the great rivers. In the north, there emerged empires like:    

The influence of early African civilization, like the migration of early Africans, also reached well beyond Africa, into much of the world. African civilization may have first spread into the Arabian Peninsula and eventually along the river Euphrates, where the first Middle Eastern civilization, that of Sumer, is claimed by some to have been an African colony.

Ghana; Malil Songhay; Kanem-Bornu.

Just as the east African civilizations produced great centers of learning, like the temples of the Egyptian priests, these West African empires formed their own centers of wisdom. Perhaps the most famous was the university city of Timbuktu. A great center of learning, this city may have been a contributor to the rebirth of learning in medieval Europe. It may be that from Timbuktu, and from North and West Africa in general, came part of the new knowledge which would awaken Europe from ignorance in its “dark ages.”

AFRICAN INFLUENCE ON GREECE African civilization also reached into the Mediterranean Sea, to the Island of Crete and to Greece, where Africans seem to have planted the early roots of those classical civilizations. For example,

Plato reports in his dialogue called the Timaeus that Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, was the same as the African goddess Neith in the Egyptian city of Sais in the Nile Delta.

The dark-skinned Dravidian people, in contrast to the northern Aryans, share with most African cultures what we will later see is a matrifocal style. Also, their culture is not individualistic and competitive, but rather communal and cooperative.

Plato also tells a story about the visit of Solon, the ancient Athenian lawgiver, to the ancient African priests of Egypt. According to Plato, Solon was told by Egyptian priests that “neither he nor any other Hellene [meaning Greek] knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old.”

AFRICANS IN THE AMERICAS? Did Africans also journey in ancient times to the Americas? The story is persuasively argued by Ivan Van Sertima that Africans, from Egypt or Nubia and later from West Africa, frequently sailed to and from the Americas. His books, listed in the bibliography at the end of this text, make fascinating reading.

Referring to Greek ignorance of history, Plato says that one of the Egyptian priests cried out, “O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.”1

AFRICANS

Some Africans, Van Sertima proposes, may even have become priests in Mexico among the ancient Olmec culture. Today in Mexico one can still see giant Nubian-like heads carved in massive stone, left from the Olmecs approximately 2,700 years ago. Indications of ancient African presences may also be found, Van Sertima argues, in:

INDIA

The power of Africa’s children also reached over to southern India, where the ancient Dravidian people and their ancient civilization also seem to have had African roots.

  

The quotations are taken from The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters. Edited by Edith Hamilton & Harington Cairns. Translated by Lane Cooper. Princeton University Press, 2005.

Panama; Peru; Ecuador.

Could it be that the tradition in Mexico, and Central and South

  

Arabs; Indians; Chinese.

SUMER AN ANCIENT AFRICAN COLONY?

Similarly later in West Africa, there also developed great civilizations, particularly along the great rivers. In the north, there emerged empires like:    

Ghana; Malil Songhay; Kanem-Bornu.

Plato reports in his dialogue called the Timaeus that Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, was the same as the African goddess Neith in the Egyptian city of Sais in the Nile Delta.

AFRICANS

INDIA

The power of Africa’s children also reached over to southern India, where the ancient Dravidian people and their ancient civilization also seem to have had African roots.

  

The quotations are taken from The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters. Edited by Edith Hamilton & Harington Cairns. Translated by Lane Cooper. Princeton University Press, 2005.

Panama; Peru; Ecuador.

Could it be that the tradition in Mexico, and Central and South

and even beyond it, one can still find in Catholic churches ancient figures of the Black Madonna and her Black Male Son.

America of building great stone pyramids had some links to Egypt and to ancient African explorers? It is claimed that there are no American pyramids older than certain African skeletons found in the Americas.

In Christian theology, the symbolism was reversed. The child came to represent the Creator, and the mother came to represent the creature. Thus, ancient Christianity accepted this old African image of mother and son and employed it to symbolize Mary and her son Jesus.

Ancient vessels from West Africa, says Van Sertima, regularly made passage to the Americas for trade and exploration. These were enormous canoes, approximately 100 feet in length, with swift speed powered by strong rowers. Columbus, the so-called “discoverer” of America, reportedly knew of such African voyages.

One scholarly book on the Black Madonna provides over one hundred pages listing European Catholic churches, and Catholic churches beyond Europe, where one still finds flourishing this ancient African image. Perhaps the most famous European site is the Polish image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the patroness of Poland, in the ancient Jasna Gora monastery, where Pope John Paul II went to pray for Poland in the struggle against Soviet communism.

BLACK MADONNAS IN EUROPE Africans also had major religious influence on European civilization. One of the great African religious images was the figure of the black mother goddess and her black male child. Originally the mother-figure may have represented the Creator, while the child-figure may have represented her creation.

Could it be that in the Americas we also have perhaps an echo of the ancient African devotion to the mother figure, namely the Catholic figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. Linked to a native mother goddess by the name of Tonansin, Guadalupe is a dark woman, called by the native people la morenita, meaning “the little dark one.”

We first know this imagery from Egypt as the goddess Isis with her son Horus. The image was an African symbol of the loving maternal relationship between the Creator and creation. All across Europe, 46

Though all were not the same in appearance, they were all African.

It is also interesting to note that several early Catholic popes were Africans. And Christianity itself was originally heavily African before it became heavily European. The Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament tells us that one of the first non-Jewish believers after the death of Jesus was an important court official from the nation of Ethiopia, who happened to be in Jerusalem at the time.

In regard to skin shade, the original Africans’ dark skin, so rich in melanin, was an important defense against the burning sun with its dangerous ultra-violet radiation. Traditionally in Africa when children were born as albinos, they would not live long. At a young age, skin-cancer would take their lives. Today, as “development” has destroyed significant parts of planet Earth’s ozone shield, lighterskinned people all over the world have become critically vulnerable to a new plague of skin cancer. But darker skinned people are more protected by their richer melanin.

HUMANITY’S DIVERSITY The ancient African humans, though they were all darker-skinned than northern Europeans, were nonetheless of different physical types with varied skin shades. Thus, Africa included:   

As we saw, very early on African peoples colonized much of the warm areas of the planet by reaching out across:

“Pygmy” types who were short; “Bantu” types who were larger; “Nilotic” types who were very tall with thinner features.

   

They thus created a great belt of darker-skinned humans reaching beyond Africa:

And there were mixtures in between. People’s size and shape and color may have originally depended on where they lived:   

the Atlantic Ocean; the Indian Ocean; the Mediterranean Sea; the Pacific Ocean.

    

in the forests; or in the plains; or in the mountains.

across the Arabian peninsula; to southern India; to China and the Pacific Island; to southern Europe; also to the Americas.

and even beyond it, one can still find in Catholic churches ancient figures of the Black Madonna and her Black Male Son.

Though all were not the same in appearance, they were all African.

As we saw, very early on African peoples colonized much of the warm areas of the planet by reaching out across:

“Pygmy” types who were short; “Bantu” types who were larger; “Nilotic” types who were very tall with thinner features.

   

They thus created a great belt of darker-skinned humans reaching beyond Africa:

And there were mixtures in between. People’s size and shape and color may have originally depended on where they lived:   

the Atlantic Ocean; the Indian Ocean; the Mediterranean Sea; the Pacific Ocean.

    

in the forests; or in the plains; or in the mountains.

across the Arabian peninsula; to southern India; to China and the Pacific Island; to southern Europe; also to the Americas.

an evolutionary necessity for colder climates. A broad nose is useful in warm climates, for it brings in much oxygen. But it is dangerous in climates where too much cold air can freeze the lungs. Thinner nasal passages help to warm the cold air, so that the lungs do not freeze.

Some Africans also migrated to northern regions. There, faced with a shortage of sunlight, these early dark-skinned humans would have suffered an opposite skin-problem from that of albinos in Africa. With little sunlight, these melanin-rich people would have obtained too little Vitamin D, for their melanin blocked even the limited sun.

Then, too, there was the matter of diet. If a people’s diet is based on barley, they develop certain characteristics. If it is based on rice or corn, they develop still others. In many ways over time, what we eat shapes our appearance.

As a result, they would have suffered from osteoporosis. Due to a Vitamin-D deficiency, their bones would become brittle and weak and often break, and they also would suffer from depression. Without strong bones and in a depressed state, such people would become easy prey for animals or human enemies, or simply die young of diseases.

In summary, new generations of scholars are teaching us that:

are all really one race. We are all children of one human race, originally from Africa, and now spread all over the planet. Again, thanks to contemporary science, we now know that there is no genetic foundation for any deep distinction among “races.” In fact, the genetic differences within so-called “races” are greater than the genetic differences between “races.” There are, of course, great cultural differences among the diverse peoples of the Earth, but these are learned differences.

  

For example, while formerly many Asians were shorter than many Westerners, today many of their children have grown quite tall, due to the shift to a Western diet that is heavier in animal protein. They also become prey, however, to dangerous Western diseases.

Therefore, in these cold Northern areas, simply in order to survive, these migrating Africans gradually evolved in color and features. First, their skin became lighter, so that they could absorb more sunlight and thus obtain more Vitamin D. Perhaps those who survived were those who genetically had less melanin. Or perhaps whole groups of people gradually lost their melanin, in a process just the opposite of light-skinned people tanning when they spend much time in the sun.

So changes in environment and diet are the simple explanation of the so-called “races.” We are not really members of different races, but simply children of various migrating African peoples, some of whom moved to different ecological environments and ate different foods. Again, the so-called “races” of    

There were also changes in features. For example, a thinner nose became

Caucasoid types, Mongoloid types, Negroid types, Semitic types,

humanity began in Africa; human civilization began in Africa; all “races” are ultimately African.

In summary, new generations of scholars are teaching us that:

  

There were also changes in features. For example, a thinner nose became

Caucasoid types, Mongoloid types, Negroid types, Semitic types,

humanity began in Africa; human civilization began in Africa; all “races” are ultimately African.

Of course, this does not mean that either of those tendencies is limited to females or males. Indeed, in contemporary society more and more women and men, as well as girls and boys, are sharing in both attractions:

efore ending our review of humanity’s ancient African roots, let us look at the role in traditional Africa of women and men, and also of the spiritual formation of African girls and boys.

  “FEMALE & MALE” IN BIOLOGY

THE GIFTS OF WOMEN & MEN IN ANCIENT AFRICA

Let us now look beyond biology to ecology, and to the impact of climate on the roles of women and men within differing cultural styles.

In the earliest forms of simple cellular life (millions of years before the emergence of humans), there were metaphorically speaking at first only “female” life forms, which reproduced by “mother-daughter” cloning. Later there came genetic diversity from recombinant DNA, made possible by the emergence of two sexes, male and female.

MATRIFOCAL & PATRIARCHAL CULTURES Senegal’s Cheikh Anta Diop, a deceased brilliant African scholar who held a doctorate from the University of Paris, described two historical cultural styles which bear on roles of women and men:

In this metaphorical sense, the female role was originally the only one, and so it was the mother of life. The male role came later, but brought with it the change and diversity of creative evolution.



As we also noted earlier, perhaps this ancient biological root still persists in some aspects of the female and male psyche. Perhaps this is why among humans sometimes it seems that feminine spirituality is more oriented to nurture and care, while male spirituality is more oriented to adventure and achievement. 50

care and nurture; adventure and achievement.



the communal and cooperative mother-centered way of black African cultures; the individualistic and competitive father-dominant way of white Aryan cultures.1

By “Arans,” Diop means the lighterskinned humans from the colder North of Western and Central Europe.

efore ending our review of humanity’s ancient African roots, let us look at the role in traditional Africa of women and men, and also of the spiritual formation of African girls and boys.

  “FEMALE & MALE” IN BIOLOGY

THE GIFTS OF WOMEN & MEN IN ANCIENT AFRICA

Let us now look beyond biology to ecology, and to the impact of climate on the roles of women and men within differing cultural styles.



care and nurture; adventure and achievement.



the communal and cooperative mother-centered way of black African cultures; the individualistic and competitive father-dominant way of white Aryan cultures.1

By “Arans,” Diop means the lighterskinned humans from the colder North of Western and Central Europe.

who were closely linked to Africa to favor the following cultural patterns:

Diop’s books, which are listed in the Bibliography, also make fascinating reading. The difference between these two ways, according to Diop, was originally based on climate: 



 

the African climate in the southern tropical zones being warm and comforting; the Aryan climate in the northern temperate zones being for part of the year cold and threatening.

 



While Diop’s model of two cultures is in some ways simplistic, it may still be useful for certain purposes. Expanding on Diop’s insights, we might elaborate on his contrast as follows.

 

The darker-skinned Africans peoples lived in the warm south and needed their melanin to protect them from the sun. There the sunfilled side of “mother-nature” was kind and welcoming. Normally people did not have to struggle too much in order to survive. “Mothernature” gave them abundant food and warm sunlight. As a result, darker-skinned Africans tended to see life as good and kind, like a good mother. So they often favored culturally a maternal image of God and a central role for women in society.

to think of themselves communally as a family; to work in cooperation by helping each other; to prefer peace and stability over war and turmoil; to be joyful in life and to express this joy in music and dance; to welcome strangers as guests by lavishing hospitality on them; to live in the present with a deep sense of trust; to portray God more in the image of a loving Earthmother.

By contrast, the Aryans or northern light-skinned people, whose ancestors long ago had migrated from Africa, lived now in the cold North. There “mother-nature” was not always kind. She sent snow and ice and caused shortages of food. The cold and hunger of winter led to frequent death among the Aryan people. So they had to spend their lives fighting nature, and also sometimes other humans, simply to survive. As a result, the Aryan cultures often tend-ed to see all life as a struggle. They were drawn less to the maternal image of God. Instead they

All this led the African peoples and the other darker Southern peoples 52

rulers, often exercising through a warrior son.

tended to see God more as a distant and stern father, ruling from above like a strong warrior. Their cultures gave also priority to strong male warriors.

In ancient Egyptian tradition the throne on which the king sits, or more simply the stool, represents the lap of his mother from whom he derives authority. Still today all over the world humans emphasize the throne as a symbol of royal, priestly, or judicial authority.

As a result, the Aryan peoples and the peoples they influenced tended more  

 

  

to think of themselves as individuals bound by contracts; to work competitively against others out of a sense of scarcity; to be drawn often into war and to seek ever stronger weapons; to be more serious about life and less oriented to music and dance; to be fearful of strangers as potential enemies; to plan for the future out of deep anxiety; to portray God more in the image of a warrior-like skyfather.

DIVERSE CULTURAL TRADITIONS Yet all is not simply “black and white.” For patriarchy also arose in Africa. And there are traditions in Aryan cultures of strong warrior women, as well as of caring and nurturing men. Thus, both cultural styles are found to some degree in all cultures. Diop’s point is simply that it seems that in the African tradition the family-like ways, centered in women, were stronger in the whole culture. Similarly, he argued, in the Aryan cultures the warrior-like ways, centered in men, were stronger in the whole culture.

Using more technical language, we may label these two cultural styles as:  

power

matrifocal or mother-centered; patriarchal or father-dominant.

To call a culture matrifocal does not necessarily mean that women ruled such cultures in the same style as male dominance. But in these cultures, women were very strong and had great power. There are many African traditions of strong female

Certainly in Africa there are both mother-centered and fatherdominant traditions. For example, among Africa’s herding peoples, like the Maasai, the male warrior

who were closely linked to Africa to favor the following cultural patterns:

Diop’s books, which are listed in the Bibliography, also make fascinating reading. The difference between these two ways, according to Diop, was originally based on climate: 



 

the African climate in the southern tropical zones being warm and comforting; the Aryan climate in the northern temperate zones being for part of the year cold and threatening.

 



While Diop’s model of two cultures is in some ways simplistic, it may still be useful for certain purposes. Expanding on Diop’s insights, we might elaborate on his contrast as follows.

 

All this led the African peoples and the other darker Southern peoples 52

rulers, often exercising through a warrior son.

tended to see God more as a distant and stern father, ruling from above like a strong warrior. Their cultures gave also priority to strong male warriors.

As a result, the Aryan peoples and the peoples they influenced tended more  

 

  

Using more technical language, we may label these two cultural styles as:  

power

matrifocal or mother-centered; patriarchal or father-dominant.

Certainly in Africa there are both mother-centered and fatherdominant traditions. For example, among Africa’s herding peoples, like the Maasai, the male warrior

gained the secrets, they took control of farming, especially profitable yams, but the women still had to do the hard work of hoeing the rows of soil.

seems central. But this herding culture is quite different from Africa’s farming cultures, which are more matrifocal. In another example, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, a Christian author from Ghana, writes of her matrilineal roots (meaning that family lineage is traced through the mothers) in the ancient Akan people, and specifically in the Asante tradition, which is strongly matrifocal. In her culture the queen mother is superior to her son, who is the king.

Historically farming seems to have been invented by women, who still control much of it in rural Africa. But later, with the development of the metal plow, control over this particular sector of agriculture passed to men, since the iron plow was too heavy for women to manage. The Kikuyu of Kenya have a similar story which tells of the men overthrowing the women. In the Kikuyu story, the society was originally ruled by several strong sisters, who had their own weapons. So the men plotted to get them all pregnant at once. When the sisters were all pregnant, the men came and stole their weapons and took control themselves.

But then she also writes of her contact through marriage with Nigeria’s Yoruba people whose traditions, she says, are both patrilineal and patriarchal (with patrilineal meaning that family lineage is traced through the fathers, and patriarchal meaning that men rule over women). She also writes of a story among the Ibibio people of Nigeria. According to this story, there was a time when only women knew the secrets of divine magic. They learned these secrets from the great mother goddess. But the younger women taught the men these secrets, and with this knowledge, the men beheaded the priestesses and took over the women’s shrine. Since then, the story says, their priests have dressed like women.

Despite these stories, and even admitting that patriarchy also arose in Africa, Diop’s point still seems valid. For in Africa patriarchy appears to rest still upon a powerful undercurrent of ancient primal matrifocal energy which, though it may have been repressed, nonetheless remains strong. Thus, according to Diop, among the African cultures, because of their warm climate, the women’s

The secrets of the goddess were the secrets of farming. When men 54

Africans did buy Aryan slaves from European slave merchants. Indeed, the word “slave” comes from the word “Slav,” which refers to white people from the Slavic tribes captured by members of other European tribes.

family-like ways are even today a stronger cultural force. Meanwhile, among the Aryans because of their originally cold climate, the men’s warrior-like ways remain the stronger cultural force. Going beyond Diop, we might also guess that the matriarchal strength of Africa is to be found more among older tribes which did not become warrior states or great empires, and among those which were not nomadic herders.

The Greeks and Romans often captured slaves from the Slavic tribes and then turn sold them.

If so, it would be those matrifocal tribal traditions, like the Akan, which constitute Africa’s deepest spiritual roots.

IMPACT

FEMININE & MASCULINE SYMBOLS Continuing to reflect on these two styles, one patriarchal and the other matrifocal, we may note that there are two sexual symbols for these two distinct cultural styles:

SLAVERY



Perhaps this difference in cultural roots explains why Europeans were so successful in coming to Africa to establish an international slave-trade from there and to colonize the continent in the early industrial era. Africans themselves did not extensively build up their own massive international slave trade, even though there were historically Aryan slaves within African cultures. Nor did they develop intercontinental empires.



the womb-like circle for the feminine way of community; the phallic-like line or arrow for the masculine way of mission.

Both the circle and the line are sacred symbols, which constitute the traditional foundations of feminine and masculine spirituality. Of course, we know today that both women and men can share to some degree in both. The soft round circle is the symbol of the womb, the inner circular source of all life. Following this symbol, in many African traditions

But slavery is both an ancient African and ancient Aryan tradition. 55

gained the secrets, they took control of farming, especially profitable yams, but the women still had to do the hard work of hoeing the rows of soil.

The secrets of the goddess were the secrets of farming. When men 54

The Greeks and Romans often captured slaves from the Slavic tribes and then turn sold them.

If so, it would be those matrifocal tribal traditions, like the Akan, which constitute Africa’s deepest spiritual roots.

IMPACT

FEMININE & MASCULINE SYMBOLS Continuing to reflect on these two styles, one patriarchal and the other matrifocal, we may note that there are two sexual symbols for these two distinct cultural styles:

SLAVERY



the womb-like circle for the feminine way of community; the phallic-like line or arrow for the masculine way of mission.

But slavery is both an ancient African and ancient Aryan tradition. 55

symbol, the symbol of the male face of God, the symbol of the primal man.

where women have been strong, the dwelling is circular; so too the gathering around the fire, and the rhythmic circular movements of dance.

In the third small book in this series (still to be written), we hope to return to explore more these ancient archetypes of African male and female spirituality and how they relate to the cultural-spiritual crisis of today.

This feminine image is an ancient symbol for the community of life. It is also a sacred symbol, the symbol of the feminine face of God and the symbol of the primal female, who is complete in herself, who is one with all, from whom all life comes in birth, and to whom all life returns in death.

MASCULINE & FEMININE FORMS OF CONTROL

The other symbol is the line, which is the symbol of the male phallus, the outer source of fertilization. Thus, in traditional societies, the symbol of the line was seen in the warrior’s spear and arrow, and in the sacred journey of the hero.

In all patriarchal cultures, and in those patriarchal dimensions of matrifocal cultures, women tended to be repressed. This was all the more so when, as happened among all cultures, one tribe conquered another tribe. Typically the conquering tribe would kill the men and seize the women and children. The women would become by force both wives and slaves of the conquerors.

Another African male symbol of the line was found in the famous pyramids, so pervasive in Nubia and Egypt. Geometrically speaking, the pyramid is a series of lines converging into one points, which are then all ordered to one point at the top.

Tragically we know that in most human cultures, in an echo of this ancient warrior conquest, some men still beat their wives in order to control them, as if they were slaves.

The male hard phallic line is an ancient symbol for the defense and enrichment of life. The line breaks beyond the circle, or penetrates it from the outside in order to guard it and to fertilize it with new gifts The phallic line is also a sacred symbol, the foundational masculine

In this regard, patriarchal men have tried to keep women weak, though, of course, they have never fully

we seek today in the postmodern era.

succeeded in that repressive and evil goal. In contrast with patriarchal cultures, matrifocal cultures producing strong women have faced a different temptation.

MALE & FEMALE RITES OF PASSAGE

When a culture has strong women, its temptation is to indulge males as if they were always children. Indulging men as if they were children is the dominant form of female control over men, even if one more indirect than physical beating.

In many traditional societies in Africa, the rites of passage for youths to adulthood frequently differed for boys and girls. As we have seen recently in the press, the feminine rite of passage was sometimes designed to repress female sexuality in the interest of male control through female genital mutilation.

It is nonetheless equally effective, though counter-productive to authentic mutual relations. Also, in matrifocal cultures around the world, there is an imbalanced tendency to form the central familial bond not in the husband-wife relationship, but in the mother-son relationship.

Today there are rightfully worldwide campaigns to stop female genital mutilation. But we need to beware, even while rightfully challenging female mutilation, that we do not eliminate the spiritual formation which young women received from the ancient women’s wisdom which was an integral and central part of these rites of passage.

Recall the great African goddess image of the madonna and her male child, seen early on in the symbol of Isis and Osiris, or in the Akan queen mother with her son the king. In all these images, the husband-father does not even appear.

For when teen-age girls become women physically but do not receive the wisdom teaching of the older women, they place themselves at great risk and often bring children into the world without the support of marriage.

In all cultures, while men’s temptation may be to control females by force, women’s parallel temptation may be to control males by indulgence or spoiling. Neither form is healthy for the mature female-male relationships that 57

symbol, the symbol of the male face of God, the symbol of the primal man.

where women have been strong, the dwelling is circular; so too the gathering around the fire, and the rhythmic circular movements of dance.

MASCULINE & FEMININE FORMS OF CONTROL

Tragically we know that in most human cultures, in an echo of this ancient warrior conquest, some men still beat their wives in order to control them, as if they were slaves.

In this regard, patriarchal men have tried to keep women weak, though, of course, they have never fully

we seek today in the postmodern era.

succeeded in that repressive and evil goal. In contrast with patriarchal cultures, matrifocal cultures producing strong women have faced a different temptation.

MALE & FEMALE RITES OF PASSAGE

creators and co-protectors of the community of life.

There is also an important legacy of male wisdom, passed by older males to maturing boys in male rites of passage. These rituals are usually aimed at strengthening the male character with courage and discipline so he ceases to be a boy who can be spoiled, and instead becomes a true man who will defend the community of life.

Here for the moment, however, we wish only to point out that rites of passage may be more important for boys than they are for girls, though they are important for both. But to understand this point, we need first to examine the deep roots of what may be called female spirituality.

There can be a serious problem if only women shape young males, for they are tempted to spoil them. Women can give many things to boys and even make noble sacrifices for them. But women cannot give to boys the sacred gift of true manhood.

ROOTS OF FEMALE SPIRITUALITY Young females, of necessity, become powerfully aware of their passage to adulthood. Young girls become aware of their emerging adulthood through dramatic changes in their bodies.

Only authentically mature men can give to boys the sacred gift of true manhood. For this reason, older males in traditional African societies have maintained special rituals to assist adolescent boys in their journey to true manhood.

With the onset of menstruation, their bodies dramatically tell them that they are now able to bring forth new life. So too, when their breasts grow, they realize that they can feed babies by giving them milk from their own bodies.

Traditionally in Africa among all tribal peoples, rites of passage have been key means for forming strong and noble men, devoted to protecting the community of life.

This is the great spiritual fact for women, whether they have babies or not. Their bodies tell them clearly of their physical and spiritual power to birth life from their own bodies, and to nourish young life from their own bodies. This fact appears to be the deepest root of

Again, in the third small book of this series, we hope to return to examine these rites of passages as they can be used today with young males and with young females so that both may grow up to be co-

women’s spirituality. Thus women’s spirituality was originally linked to the creation of life, and to its nourishment. That is why the madonna and child is the most ancient and most powerful symbol of the feminine face of divine power.

more difficult time in finding their own adult identity, and in finding their own spiritual power.

ROOTS OF MALE SPIRITUALITY

No male experience can truly compare with this awesome feminine power. The ecological-feminist philosopher Charlene Spretnak describes this as:

Historically it would seem, men became aware of their distinct spiritual power, through the act of killing as hunters and warriors. By virtue of their greater upper-body strength and greater geographic mobility (since they do not physically bear or nourish children from their bodies), males were charged with protecting the community of life from outside enemies, be they animals or other humans. For this purpose men had to be disciplined and courageous, in order to be willing to sacrifice themselves in death and to be willing to kill.

the elemental power of the female – by which I mean the capability to grow people of either sex from her flesh, to bleed in rhythm with the moon, (and) to transform food into milk for infants.2 Males stand humbly before such awesome woman-power. Males have nothing comparable in their passage to adulthood. Certain hormonal changes do occur in adolescent males, causing pubic hair and deeper voice as well as stronger muscles. But in the young male these are very gradual transitions.

This collective male charge carries a legacy of millions of years of:

Whereas girls generally mature in body and spirit together, males can easily grow up into physically mature men, yet remain emotionally immature boys. So males have a

  

killing animals; killing other humans; being killed themselves.

This legacy has left a great psychic wound deep in the collective male soul. We hope to return to speak of this male soul-wound in this the third small book of this series. For the moment, however, let us look a

From personal notes on an oral presentation by Charlene Spretnak, author of STATES OF GRACE: THE RECOVERY OF MEANING IN THE POSTMODERN AGE (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991). 2

creators and co-protectors of the community of life.

Traditionally in Africa among all tribal peoples, rites of passage have been key means for forming strong and noble men, devoted to protecting the community of life.

more difficult time in finding their own adult identity, and in finding their own spiritual power.

ROOTS OF MALE SPIRITUALITY

No male experience can truly compare with this awesome feminine power. The ecological-feminist philosopher Charlene Spretnak describes this as:

This collective male charge carries a legacy of millions of years of:

Whereas girls generally mature in body and spirit together, males can easily grow up into physically mature men, yet remain emotionally immature boys. So males have a

  

killing animals; killing other humans; being killed themselves.

From personal notes on an oral presentation by Charlene Spretnak, author of STATES OF GRACE: THE RECOVERY OF MEANING IN THE POSTMODERN AGE (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991). 2

bit more at this male mission to protect the community of life.

community of life, rather than defend it.

Again, the purpose of this male power to give up one’s own life, or to take the life of another, was not to destroy life itself, but rather to protect the community of life from dangerous wild animals or from dangerous human enemies. Males were charged with protecting women, children, and elders, all of whom were too weak to defend themselves.

We have seen today just how destructive young male violence can be when it is guided only by young male peer-pressure, especially in the form of gangs and in the form of false teachings from of contemporary mechanistic-utilitarian culture. In traditional Africa, this powerful young male energy was carefully channeled into a life-protecting path by rites of passage, that is, into rituals of initiation into authentic manhood.

This male power over life was further expanded with the ritual of hunting, whereby males provided red meat for the community to be nourished. Women also hunted and gathered, but their targets were small game and fruits and vegetables. Nonetheless, while much contemporary mythology has favored the image of the male hunter, historically it seems that women actually produced most of the food.

These rites were conducted by older men, often during the boys’ adolescence. The mature men trained the boys in courage and in wisdom so that they would use their bodies and their minds to protect and enhance the community of life. Generally a key part of the rite of passage to manhood was the act of male circumcision during teenage years. Here a bloody wound was inflicted upon the male sexual organ.3 There may have been two

Even so, in traditional terms feminine spirituality was centered in the positive act of birthing and nourishing life, while masculine spirituality was centered in the negative act of taking and giving up life. Because the male energy was physically and emotionally aggressive, both in upper-body muscles of males and in their hormonal testosterone, the male energy needed guidance, lest it turn destructive and attack the

Again, the purpose of this male ritual was very different from the purpose of female circumcision. In the female case, shaped by patriarchal customs, part of the purpose was to control and even repress female sexuality in service of male dominance. The act of female genital mutilation, something to be fought against, needs, however, to be distinguished from the female rite of passage itself, in which essential community wisdom and guidance was passed on to the young women. Unfortunately, some Westerners, includ-

motives for this painful act. For one, it may have been an attempt to imitate female genital bleeding, so as to share in its sacred power. For another, because of the pain, it may have been a way of instilling courage into those who would be asked to risk their own life for the life of the wider community.

males, as indeed is already happening in some places. But their ancient African roots also need to be adapted today to the wounds inflicted by the modern era and to the new challenges of the emerging postmodern global civilization. These rituals need to reflect upon the long and difficult modern experience of:

In traditional Africa, those boys who together underwent a rite of passage would remain for the rest of their lives closely bound together in service of the community of life. As they aged together, they would together make the new passage from the role of younger warrior to the role of older warrior, and finally to the older role of elder. As elders, they would in turn become guides to young boys seeking true manhood.

   

Also, today’s young people need to be formed in challenge of protecting and nurturing not only their own local community but also the planetary community of life. This is the new mission before today’s youth: to birth and to nurture, and to protect and to regenerate the planetary community of life.

CHALLENGE FOR TODAY’S YOUTH Today we need to restore the spiritual dimension of these rites, both for young males and for young fe-

SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

the Atlantic slave system; its aftermath of discrimination; the colonialist wounding of peoples across the Earth; the ecological wounding of Earth itself.

Let us now summarize the themes that we have explored in this first book:

ing some Christian missionaries, in their desire to eliminate genital mutilation, also destroyed the means for the community’s passing on its collective wisdom. The great tragedy has been that, while the spiritual wisdom was lost, the genital mutilation often continued in secret.



the rich African spirituality of God and Creation;

bit more at this male mission to protect the community of life.

community of life, rather than defend it.

   

CHALLENGE FOR TODAY’S YOUTH Today we need to restore the spiritual dimension of these rites, both for young males and for young fe-

SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

the Atlantic slave system; its aftermath of discrimination; the colonialist wounding of peoples across the Earth; the ecological wounding of Earth itself.

Let us now summarize the themes that we have explored in this first book:



the rich African spirituality of God and Creation;

 



In the second book of this series, we will explore this tragic and violent tale of the devastation of Africa, of the enslavement and murder of Africa’s peoples in both the Arab-Muslim and EuropeanChristian slave trades, and the continuing challenges within Africa and across the African Diaspora, and especially in the Americas

the emergence of the human race from Africa; the foundation and early development of human civilization within Africa and its expansion to the rest of the world; the symbolic spiritualities of women and men, and the formation of boys and girls in these spiritualities.

For now, however, we simply rejoice in the good news that Africa is:

As the mother and father of the human experience, Africa could have gone on to become the permanent leader of the human race. Unfortunately that did not happen. For the ancient emigrant children of Africa, once they had separated from her, developed different cultural ways and sometimes destructive ones.

  

the geological center of Earth’s land mass; the place to which all humans trace their common roots; and the source of human spirituality and civilization.

We rejoice that God has given us such a great gift!

For example, when modern European first returned to Africa, it was not for a ceremony of homecoming, but rather to rape and to plunder both the people and the land.

 



For now, however, we simply rejoice in the good news that Africa is:

  

the geological center of Earth’s land mass; the place to which all humans trace their common roots; and the source of human spirituality and civilization.

We rejoice that God has given us such a great gift!

For example, when modern European first returned to Africa, it was not for a ceremony of homecoming, but rather to rape and to plunder both the people and the land.

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