Africological Historiography: Primary Considerations

Abstract

Africological Historiography is scholarship dedicated to the preservation of African cosmology in the telling of African history. Such an historiography also serves as a means to tease out the agency of African people in any circumstance of marginality, misinterpretation, suppression, and omission of said historical agency. For the purposes of developing Africological Historiography, Africologists may take on various interests in other fields in order to garner the data necessary for their inquiries. However, it is important to make sure that the data garnered from other disciplines are approached using Afrocentric methodology or they will be no good for Africological research. In this article, I explore the benefits and dangers of other fields of interests, the dangers of Eurocentric theoretical models, afrophobic historiographies, and the inherent praxis of the discipline in its use for producing Africological Historiography. These are primary considerations for Africologists in the presentation of African history.

Introduction

The topic of African history has been for too long dominated by western, and therefore Eurocentric, historiographical paradigms. Of course, it has been long announced by Africologists that cosmologically inaccurate treatments of African history and cultural phenomena are at the root of the issue. However, without more detailed Afrocentric frameworks for tackling this issue, the problem of Eurocentric domination over the representation of African cultural phenomena has and will continue. Therefore, this article was written with the explicit purpose of intervening in the conversation surrounding the construction of African cultural history and providing a framework for ensuring proper representations of African history and phenomena from the standpoint of African cosmology. In this article, I open with a brief discussion of what I have described as the three primary World Cultural Projects (WCP), a construction I use to describe how the imposition of the ethnocentric perspectives of non-African cultures, as well as their intracultural and intercultural behaviors, affect the African world. I then explore the benefits and dangers of other fields that are of interest to Africology such as history, anthropology, and linguistics. Next, I explore the use of orature as viable forms of African history. I also explore the perils of the Eurocentric theoretical models of modernity and postmodernity. I then conclude with a note on the inherent praxis of the discipline, being scholarship dedicated to agency and liberation. These are primary considerations for Africologists in the writing of African history.

World Cultural Projects

Throughout the ages the writing of a people’s history has proven to be an inherently political project. It cannot be argued that the utility of history for the purposes of distinguishing a group, justifying engagement in war, and/or the continuation of cultural, religious, and political homogeneity has been the primary aims of many an annal. In The World and Africa, Du Bois (2007) expresses an Afrocentric position as he proclaims, “. . .here is a history of the world written from the African point of view; or better, a history of the Negro as part of the world which now lies about us in ruins” (p. xxxi). Of course, the “African” whose point of view Du Bois relies on is his own, as well as that of the many colleagues of African descent he mentions and relies on heavily throughout the text.

Another influential figure in the development of African American historiography within the African context is Carter G. Woodson, known affectionately by African Americans as, “The Father of Black History.” In Woodson’s (1990) most well-known text, The Mis-Education of the Negro, he expresses his frustration at “Negro Colleges” (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) for centering their courses on the history and philosophy of “European colonists” and yet, “direct no attention to the philosophy of the African” (p. 137). Both Du Bois and Woodson seemed to clearly understand the implications of not centering African people within their own cultural paradigms of history and philosophy. This is particularly important when considering the dominant contemporary documentation of African history has largely been part of alien cultural projects that have bastardized and demonized African historical reality.

Therefore, in presenting this historiographic assessment, I must begin politically by positing that this endeavor aligns with the cultural project of African people. As such, it sits on the world stage between two other cultural projects. To be clear, I assume the existence of three paradigmatic world cultural projects, of which I describe as, (1) the African World Cultural Project (AWCP), (2) the European Cultural-Imperialist Project (ECIP), and (3) the Asiatic Intercultural Project (AIP). The use of the concepts of the ECIP and AIP in Africological scholarship is largely an assessment of their effects on the African world, and not simply a study of the cultural factions themselves. This article principally deals with the relationships between the AWCP and EICP and has not been equipped with the necessary arguments needed to engage the interplay of all three. However, subsequent articles shall cover the matter in time.

The African World Cultural Project (AWCP) seeks the restoration of African autonomy and sovereignty in world affairs. It is Pan-African in scope, and is dependent upon the continuation of cultural, social, political, and economic relations across the African world. Africological assessments of social behaviors and histories of African world societies, both positive and negative, are analyzed for cultural advancement.

The European Cultural-Imperialist Project (ECIP) is described as such for that it is both the historical and contemporary temperament of Europe toward the rest of the non-European world. This is evidenced by the forceful spread of westernization/globalization and the global pervasiveness of white supremacist ideology. The ECIP is evaluated as being dedicated to the continuation of European world hegemony through whatever political means necessary. Countercurrents within this ethos are present, if one is to include the likes of Marxist and postmodernist theories. However, even within these theories exists a paradox of European hegemony deserving of critical analysis.

The characterization of the Asiatic Intercultural Project (AIP) is largely a description of Asian relationships and social behavior toward each other through shared cultural and/or political ties. It also considers adverse behaviors, such as that of dominant nations like China exploiting weaker nations such as Sri Lanka (Sultana, 2016) and how the history of European imperialism may have influenced such endeavors. Naturally, ancient Asiatic involvement with Africa (Hyksos, Hebrew, Arab, Indian, etc.) is considered. However, this assessment is further evolving as we now have the beginnings of quasi-Chinese neo-colonialism developing in Africa, with well over a million Chinese now dotted throughout the continent (French, 2014).

The development of such a methodology was necessary in order to deal with the theoretical themes presented within this article. It is clear that other minority cultural identities exist that may exclude themselves from within the fold of these cultural descriptions. However, as it is generally accepted that the dominant primary cultures in the world are of African, Asian, and European disposition, the purpose of such a methodology provides clarity on intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships between these primary cultural factions. As aforementioned, this article primarily deals with the relationship between the AWCP and the ECIP.

Within the ECIP, academic fields across the western world have developed in order to present history, science, and general scholarship but have all done so from, naturally, a Eurocentric perspective. This would not be problematic if not for the hegemonic imposition of Eurocentric perspectives on their once colonial and subsequent neo-colonial subjects as universal concepts. Eurocentric perspectives about African phenomenon have not only negatively affected the way much of the world perceives Africa but has brought about internal contradictions and crisis across the African world. During pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial eras western academia obtained a vast amount of data on African phenomena. By virtue of western academia’s ethnocentric interpretation of data relating to African phenomena, and the academic prowess it has gained on the international stage, it has also monopolized academic opinion relating to African phenomena. This is primarily why Africologists may be interested in the fields of study in which house the data of human existence, but the interpretation of such data from these fields of interest is analyzed with Afrocentric methodology.

Toward an Africological Historiography

The discipline of Africology has long yearned for its own unique historiographical disposition. Asante (2007) dedicates a whole chapter to the idea of an “Afrocentric Historiography” in his text, An Afrocentric Manifesto. The late Winston Van Horne saw Afrocentricity as a “transgenerational and transcontinental idea. . .[utilizing] aspects of the philosophies of numerous African cultures to arrive at its ideal” (Asante, 2010). The field of Black Studies has seen several overhauls in nomenclature; however, no name has so aptly defined the unique disciplinary position as Africology, coined by Van Horne. ¹

Africology is defined as the Afrocentric study of all African phenomena transcontinentally and transgenerationally. Since professionals in the field, Africologists, utilize the Afrocentric paradigm which, “places African ideas at the center of any analysis that involves African culture and behavior,” (Asante, 1998, p. 2), Africological Historiography is scholarship dedicated to the preservation of African cosmology in the telling of African history. Further, in situations where the people and their history remain marginal, such a historiography serves to “tease out the agency” of African people (Asante, 2007, p. 65).

In Okafor’s (1997) article, Toward an Africological Pedagogical Approach to African History, he refers to African history as “a matrix” under which are embedded the various histories of the African world. Both Okafor and Asante acknowledge the utility of Cheikh Anta Diop’s historiography, or Diopian Historiography (Asante, 2007, p. 118), in presenting an agency-affirming, chronological history of African people. Asante (2007) describes Diopian Historiography as a corrective view of African history that relocates the ancient Nile Valley as an African cultural center.

Africology exists as an errant agent within the western academy. It is not of the western academy; instead, for the sake of combating hegemonic Eurocentric paradigms imposed upon African people, it forced its way into a seat at the academic table. However, by the very fact that it has a seat at the table of the western academy it is, and has been since its inception, threatened by Eurocentric imposition. ² As such, if Africology wishes to maintain any notion of autonomy, it is not possible for it to hold an interdisciplinary position. It is a solely disciplinary field with a guiding paradigm that is foundational to no other field. Unlike every other field in the western academy, Africology is primarily predicated upon the assumption of agency for African people.

Fields of Interest

The discipline of Africology has little interest in other academic fields stemming from humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, other than what can be gained from the findings—though even some of the procedures used in order to make their findings have been found useful. However, Africologists are not concerned with the use of the intellectual paradigms of those various fields, or methodologies in which they create and utilize, as those fields are Eurocentric in nature and are inconsistent with an Afrocentric analysis.

On the subject of history, Africologists begin with quite a different conception of history than western Historians. Historians see history as strictly written and a concept they call prehistory as events occurring prior to the written record. Such a suggestion negates the emphasis various African societies place on tradition and undermines scientific attempts at understanding the past through oral tradition or, more accurately, orature. ³ To be sure, there has been much good work done by some historians, and especially by Africanists, to expand the notions of history and prehistory beyond the simplicity of this binary. However, this theoretical paradigm still remains extant within much contemporary historical scholarship. Africologists, however, understand such a historiographical method to be an Agency Reduction Formation (ARF) (Tillotson, 2011, p. 60), and not constructive for interpreting past African realities. The modernist paradigm of time extant within Western historiography has had many dire implications for African people. One decolonial scholar has presented the issue in such manner:

. . .Europeans not only colonized space, people and knowledge but more importantly time. Time became bifurcated into two – the pre-modern and the modern. To sustain this sense of time, Euromodernity invented such nomenclatures as indigenous, tribe, primitive and black as it drove towards distinguishing those who claimed to be modern (to be in the future) while actively working to confine other human beings to the past (primitivity/backwardness). (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018, p. 243)

Africologists regard history as any account of past and present events, written or oral, that is non-linear, but cyclical. History for Africologists isn’t seen as a universally accepted concept, and Africologists acknowledge that the perception of history in the various regions of the world are totally dependent upon the cultural centers of those who record and present history. For African people, history exists in the present, and the “present” has already been known to occur, as in the Akan proverb, “Tete are ne nne,” or “ancient things are today” (Daaku, 1971, p. 117). In this way, the past and present can occur both simultaneously and asynchronously along a cultural perception of constant renewal. Events that may have occurred ages ago are constantly renewed in cultural memory and cultural praxis, however, are yet and still dynamic in that the present is also a constant extension of the past. The notion of a “prehistory” is lost upon such a cosmology as a record of the past is not solely predicated upon written accounts.

This is not to say that written record serves no or little importance in African cosmology. On the contrary, within African paradigms, juxtaposed to its authoritarian status in the West, written record is complementary to orature. We find the creation of writing in antiquity among the civilizations of Kemet, Kush, and Axum. The use of the Arabic script for the various languages of the Sudanic empires should also serve as instructive. Further, various African scripts prior to Western intervention were created: the Vai script of Liberia, the Mende script of Sierra Leone, the Masaba script of Mali, the Bamun script of Cameroon, the Nsibidi script of Nigeria and Cameroon (with later variation in the Afro-Caribbean known as Anaforuana), and the Somalian script (Asante, 2019, pp. 259–265). Nevertheless, Eurocentric thinking considers the presence of writing to be a primary hallmark of “civilization.” This view measures the creative and intellectual capacity of cultures by the ethnocentric yardstick of Europe. For African societies, the creation of written literature should not be considered as some great leap in intellectual capacity, especially if orature worked just as well, perhaps even better.

As aforementioned, Africans view history as cyclical, dynamic events rather than as a simple linear progression. This does not mean that African people had no philosophy of planning ahead. In fact, the civilization of Kemet (Pre-Ptolemaic Egypt) produced the world’s oldest calendar to be used for such. However, this calendar was based off of regularity in their natural setting, such as the heliacal rising of Sirius, or the character of the Nile that allowed them to know the periods of inundation, planting, and harvest (Asante, 2019, p. 50). The African philosopher Mbiti (1997) stipulates that for African people:

Time has to be experienced in order to make sense or to become real. . . Since the future has not been experienced, it does not make sense; it cannot, therefore, constitute part of time, and people do not know how to think about it—unless, of course, it is something which falls within the rhythm of natural phenomena. (p. 17)

One such common “rhythm of natural phenomena” is the seasons of river inundation followed by that of planting and harvest observed and measured by stellar and/or lunar cycles. This, according to Mbiti, involves a two-dimensional philosophy of time that makes room only for immediately occurring events to be placed, “in the category of inevitable or potential time. . . The most significant consequence of this is that, according to traditional concepts, time is a two-dimensional phenomenon, with a long past, a present and virtually no future” (p. 16).

Mbiti developed much of his theory from linguistic examinations, finding no words for “future” in the Bantu languages of the Kamba and Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya. He makes it known that time is something that African people relate to events and phenomena, not for the sole purpose of mathematical certainty as valued in the west. There have been a number of favorable opinions and critiques of Mbiti’s African philosophy of time (Ani, 1994; English, 2006; Gyekye, 1995; Kalumba, 2005). Gyekye (1995), for example, argues convincingly that future time does exist in African reality, and particularly in the Akan language of West Africa (pp. 171–172). Ani (1994) insists that what Gyekye and Mbiti are referring to is the African worldview of “sacred, cyclical time,” which governs a one-dimension temporal linearity of past, present and future, thus, “Sacred time is eternal and therefore it has the ability to join past, present, and future in one space of supreme valuation” (p. 60).

Digressing, what is being highlighted here is the unique quality of African temporal reality, particularly in regard to how temporal reality is utilized in the general maintenance of African cosmology. This is poignant due to the fact that even as Africologists, many of us still utilize the calendar year and numbering and notation systems (i.e., B.C., A.D., B.C.E., C.E., etc.), as developed by Europe. Such consideration should remain extant throughout any Africological inquiry into the African past. I would even suggest the eventual creation or revival of a calendar and temporal notation system based on African paradigms.

The scholarship being produced by social science fields such as Anthropology and Archeology are considered by Africologists, for much has been discovered through their inquiries. However, much like the field of History, Anthropology has caused much of African historical phenomena to be misconstrued and denigrated due to their history of racist and ethnocentric analyses. Nevertheless, archeo-anthropological procedures such as excavation, stratigraphy, and seriation of material culture are useful to Africological inquiry about the African past.

Within the use of a method such as excavation, Africologists should also position restoration as an equal objective, as Africologists are not only concerned with digging up the African past, but also with restoring the dignity of African heritage and continuing the tradition of linking the past with the present. Anything that can be found within the material culture of the African past should be considered for restoration and/or preservation in a manner that is, to the best of our understanding, respectful to the ancestors by and for whom it was created. Further, if an Africologist disturbs the gravesite of African ancestors, whether in ruins or well preserved, it is their mission to restore the site to ensure proper veneration of those ancestors. Another primary objective in such investigation is to ensure Africologists have control over primary sources. It must be well understood that control over primary sources has far reaching implications in terms of access, interpretation, and even in the politics of citation.

A superb example of excavation and restoration that employs Africological tact is the work being done by the Asa G. Hilliard South Asasif Restoration Project (ASA Restoration Project). The project was founded by Anthony T. Browder and named in honor of the late Asa G. Hilliard who was an Afrocentric educator and authority on Kemet. The mission project has opened the door for numerous people of African descent (primarily African-Americans) to have access to primary sources of Kemetic history as they assist with the excavation and restoration of the tombs of Karakhamun and Karabasken, first priest of Amun and mayor of Waset (Pre-Ptolemaic Thebes), respectively (Browder, 2011, p. 15). As the name implies, the team has excavated, and are now in the process of restoring the tombs in order to preserve Kemetic and Kushite heritage. In Finding Karakhamun, Browder (2011) highlights the significance of their work:

The excavation and restoration of the tomb of Karakhamun affords us an opportunity to analyze primary evidence which links Kushite history and culture with that of Kemet. We have their words and their images to guide us. Just as Karakhamun and his contemporaries reached into the distant past to define themselves and preserve their names for future generations, we are in a unique position to do the same. (p. 74)

The efforts of the ASA Restoration Project provide a clear example of the possibilities for Africological inquiry utilizing the recovery methods of archeology. Though the mission was not a venture developed and implemented by trained Africologists, it operates on Afrocentric principles, which has yielded valuable primary source information.

Other social science fields such as ethnography and sociology are likewise useful in terms of the data that has been collected but, much like their counterparts, the methodologies and analyses utilized by these fields are also quite problematic for measuring groups based on ethnocentric subjectivity. Any cursory survey of the history of these fields in particular reveals their Eurocentric bias, but it is the related field of linguistics that has hid its bias well. The study of linguistics is a primary example of a field where an abundance of useful data is present but the manner in which the field applies the data is largely Eurocentric. In relation to African languages, there often exists a bifurcation of culture and language. The construction of language is often depoliticized, and largely so in supposed efforts to link languages by their antecedents in order to find common origins. The study of the antecedents and the quest to find their origin are not problematic ventures, however the methods and nomenclatures used in order to do so are often exercises in agency reduction. For example, the use of the term Afroasiatic to refer to languages such as Mdw Ntr, Amharic, and Hausa further polarizes African people and culture in a rather Hegelian fashion as north-African languages become alienated from the so-called sub-Saharan.

To be sure, Afroasiatic implies an African parent language to both African and Asiatic languages under its language tree. However, the grouping of the language together has no practical use for Africologists as the languages become depoliticized or neutral in their application, if not simply erroneously classified and interpreted. In fact, historian and linguist Théophile Obenga has long argued that this language grouping is based on prejudice. In the first chapter of Wiredu’s (2004) edited volume, A Companion to African Philosophy, Obenga states:

The so-called “Afro-Asiatic family,” or “Chamito-Semitic family,” which has gained wide circulation, has no scientific foundation at all. There is no proof of an “Afro-Asiatic historical grammar.” One may recall here what Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) called “the prejudice of the prestige of the multitude,” that is to say, the supposition that what everyone says must be true. In the human sciences “scientific” circles often make claims not based on any objectively verifiable grounds but rather just on this kind of prejudice. (Obenga, 2004, p. 32)

This is especially salient considering the fact that descent languages among contemporary African ethnic groups have allowed for the reconstruction of languages as old as the Mdw Ntr (Obenga, 2004). Whether we find the totality of Obenga’s contentions accurate, these factors are important considerations in Africological inquiry as they illuminate the prejudices of Western scholarship. To be sure, there are those in the field of linguistics who have made some progress in this line of thinking. However, the political atmosphere of white or Eurasian supremacy in much of the Western academy arrests such valuable contributions within the frame of what’s innovative, for sure, but not in what remains pervasive. For example, Ehret (2011), following the lead of Russian linguist, I. M. Diakonoff, terms Afroasiatic as Afrasian as Afroasiatic “gave undue prominence to the single Asian offshoot of the family, semitic, in a language family that was overwhelmingly African and originated in Africa” (p. 20). Ehret is clear that all Afrasian languages originated in Africa, and Semitic, being the sixth and most recent offshoot, is the only that ended up in the Asia (p. 137).

Ehret is a well-respected and well-published scholar in the field of linguistics, particularly African linguistics, and has been for around 60 years. Despite this, the politics in linguistics remains so that a well-qualified linguist does not necessarily mean one can accurately derive history from language (Ehret, 2011, p. 12). Those whose politics upholds Eurasian supremacy, which have been historically abound, continue to misrepresent African linguistics. Further, Ehret is critical as to how an abundance of recent scholarship in natural science, particularly biological anthropology, operating on what I argue as long-held racist and racial-religious views about Africa, begin only with the assumption of an “Asian homeland,” allowing such views to shape the interpretation of DNA evidence (p. 136).

In regard to the natural sciences, the models in which data is collected in those fields can be argued to not necessarily be Eurocentric. But, as aforementioned, the interpretation of the data can have serious negative implications. Further, it is important to note the absence of ethereal domain from scientific inquiry. Africologists find that African people’s positioning of spirituality and science as non-dichotomous but symbiotic in relationship is important in the understanding and reconstruction of African historical reality. Atheistic attitudes, which are prevalent in the scientific community, do not take such an orientation seriously and, thus, often aid in the distortion of African cosmological reconstructions.

Whether it be within the Western humanities or natural sciences, these fields of interest are used primarily to reconstruct the story of humanity and the various cultures that have existed throughout time and space. However, that which best distorts African cosmological reconstructions of history are often couched in the writings of languages that exhibit inherent cultural biases and epistemological approaches to the data being interpreted. However, a tradition of recording and transferring history from one generation to the next other than writing exists in African culture. It has at varying times and places been a system either complementarily adjacent to or without the presence of writing. Many in the Western world have referred to this system as either oral literature or, as a practice, oral tradition.

Orature as History

Oral literature and oral tradition must be more accurately described as orature. Orature is a term developed in the sixties by Ugandan linguist Pio Zirimu to combat the stagnate condition being placed upon the tradition by limiting it to simply a form of literature (Mugo, 1991, p. 40). Unfortunately, due to Zirimu’s murder by agents of Idi Amin in the late seventies, he was never able to fully develop the concept (Thiong’o’, 2007). However, Zirimu’s contemporary, the prolific scholar Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o’ (2007), directs us to South African scholar Pitika Ntuli as a legitimate source for a sophisticated contemporary definition, being that orature is “a fusion of all artforms,” or more descriptively, “Orature is more than the fusion of all art forms. It is the conception and reality of a total view of life. It is the capsule of feeling, thinking, imagination, taste and hearing. It is the flow of a creative spirit.”

Orature is one of the primary traditions of African culture. We find orature as tradition among the Yoruba (Ogunyemi, 2010) of West Africa, the Bakuba (Vansina, 1960) of central Africa, the Baganda (Kizza, 2010) of East-central Africa, and the Masai (Daaku, 1971) and Gĩkũyũ (Kenyatta, 1965, p. 115) of East Africa, just to name a few. Much of these societies pass down their oral traditions during elaborate festivals and ceremonies that initiate age-sets and generation groups (Daaku, 1971, p. 115). As aforementioned, orature in the African context goes beyond mere orality, as they utilize many esthetic devices in order to produce a holistic cosmological experience for the next generation. In Ghana, the Akan are known for festivals that are used to pass down tradition through orature to future generations. Ghanaian scholar Kwame Yeboa Daaku (1971) presents an example from the Akan:

Among the several devices adopted to preserve their history and tradition may be mentioned the pouring of libations, the music of the drums and horns, the creation of special linguist staffs, oaths, songs, proverbs, and funeral dirges. To a people who settle most disputes by having recourse to history it is of supreme importance that members of the various families and clans tell their stories to their young for, as they aptly put it, “Tete ka asom ene Kakyere,” that is, ancient things remain in the ears, which means traditions survive only by telling them. Again their respect for history is made explicit in the frequent assertion that “Tete are ne nne,” i.e., the very same ancient things are today, or history repeats itself (p. 117).

Jomo Kenyatta, father of modern Kenya and scholar of Kenyan history, provides another example from the East-African Gĩkũyũ ⁴ people, the very same ethnic group as Thiong’o. Kenyatta (1965), in his text Facing Mount Kenya, provides his readers with the legendary history of his great people who live east of Lake Victoria, the largest headwater of the Nile River. Kenyatta states that the legend is from the “beginning of things, when mankind started to populate the earth” (p. 3). Within the legend of Kenyatta’s native Gĩkũyũ we find that their original family group was named Mbari ya Moobi out of respect for the founding matriarch of the clan who was named Moobi. The founding patriarch of the clan was named Gĩkũyũ.

Moobi and Gĩkũyũ had nine daughters, of which they found nine young men for the daughters to marry. After the death of Moobi and Gĩkũyũ, the daughters formulated nine clans under the collective name of Rorere rwa Mbari ya Moombi, namely, children or people of Moombi. Each new generation of Gĩkũyũ are introduced to this narrative. Naturally, the narrative may not be told exactly the same from one generation to the next, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the Gĩkũyũ. This tradition serves a cosmological importance that the Gĩkũyũ value above whatever possible lost detail that may lend more supposed “accuracy” to the events as they were. Orature for the Gĩkũyũ is passed down during rites of passage ceremonies involving circumcision, or irua as it is known to the Gĩkũyũ. Dances and songs that make up the rituals and “divine services” are known as mambura. Kenyatta describes the meaning of these traditions for Gĩkũyũ people:

Without this custom a tribe which had no written records would not have been able to keep a record of important events and happenings in the life of the Kikuyu nation. Any Kikuyu child who is not corrupted by detribalisation is able to record in his mind the whole history and origin of the Gĩkũyũ people through the medium of such names as Agu, Ndemi and Mathathi, etc., who were initiated hundreds of years ago. (p. 135)

Throughout Africa orature is a primary vehicle for the recording and telling of history, and the maintenance of cosmology. Scholar Mugo (1991) adds to the debate on the defining of orature as literature, stating:

To my knowledge the term Orature came into being during the late sixties and early seventies among circles of African literature and “oral literature” critics in East Africa. Leading among the proponents and coiners of the term were Pio Zirimu and Austin Bukenya, of Makerere University in Uganda. For years, critics had pre-occupied themselves with the debate whether or not to use “Oral Literature.” Orature was being defined in terms of literature and was being forced into the kind of “compartments” created for literature by structuralists; this tendency appeared to cause paralysis to this dynamic heritage (p. 40).

Mugo explains in her text that orature is composed, “for the people and often, with the people participating and restructuring the original so as to recreate it and enlarge its significance” (p. 21). Mugo’s Onion Structure Theory is quite instructive and provides further clarity. Consider that the core or “nucleus” of an onion houses the prototypical information necessary for the onion the develop. All layers that form around the onion are based first on the shape of the nucleus and then each subsequent layer, while having to adjust in size and consistency in order for the onion to properly develop. Metaphorically, the historical nucleus of a culture houses the prototypical cultural paradigms—the antecedents of all generations that are to come. The circular structure of the nucleus and the many layers which surround it provides metaphor for the cyclical perception of time and transgenerational co-existence between ancestors, those who are living, and those who have yet to be born. Each new generation is informed by the experience of past generations as well as having to adapt to contemporary circumstances. This is then passed on to future generations as the culture continues to develop in dynamic ways. “Like the onion,” states Mugo, “the Agikuyu world of Orature (during communal times) would view reality as constituting layers upon layers of interrelated co-existence” (p. 12).

The scholarship of Mugo underlines the reality that in African society, and particularly among the Gĩkũyũ, orature is a major vehicle for the dynamism of African cultural phenomena and the cosmological maintenance of African historical reality. Further, Thiong’o (2009) reminds us that the African antecedents of African American and Afro-Caribbean orature, such as the trickster characters Anansi and Hare, have been dynamically recreated in the so-called Americas in the forms of (the now diasporic versions) of Anansi and Br’er Rabbit (pp. 44–45). With this in mind, I argue that without engaging with orature, many an inquiry into the transgenerational and transcontinental social histories of African people, and particularly those that seeks also an African cosmological reconstruction, risks resulting in very poor illustrations.

The Africanist scholar Jan Vansina wrote extensively on the concept he referred to as “oral tradition” and its use as history. However, Vansina often failed to understand the African cosmological factors that shape orature. Vansina (1985) argues that, “Historians who work with the written sources of the last few centuries in any of the major areas of literacy should not expect that reconstructions using oral materials will yield as full, detailed, and precise a reconstruction, barring only the very recent past” (p. 199). Vansina didn’t necessarily denigrate orature, nevertheless, he still elevated writing as more useful juxtaposed to being a complementary reconstructive tool. However, both writing and orature are still largely based on the interpretation, perspective, and recognition of those who record and pass along information. In terms of reconstructing historical reality, there is much that can be lost in the dullness of written record which can only be gained through the experience of orature. As Jacob Carruthers (1995) points out, “living oral tradition. . . is a modern extension of the wisdom of ancient African thought” (p. 6).

Africologists must also consider the concept of nommo when dealing with African orature. Adapted from Dogon cosmology for Afrocentric discourse, nommo is “the generative and productive power of the spoken word” (Asante, 1998, p. 22). As aforementioned, when Africans pass on tradition through orature it is not simply the telling of stories from one generation to the next. The elaborate festivals, initiations, and ceremonies that accompany them provide a holistic experience. Therefore, cosmology is secured within an unbroken, organic link of tradition. As Asante (1998) posits, “. . .creative production is ‘an experience’ or a happening occurring within and outside the speaker’s soul” (p. 90). Therefore, Africologists tasked with the writing of African history must embody this principle. In the telling of African history there must be a sense of plurality without hierarchy, a conceptual device which facilitates the telling of one cultural experience shared by many ethnic interpreters. Asante further clarifies, stating, “. . .the African seeks the totality of an experience, concept, or system. Traditional African society looked for unity of the whole rather than specifics of the whole. . . considerations of the whole were more productive than considerations in detail” (p. 90).

In considering the “unity of the whole” in terms of Afrocentric scholarship and knowledge production, Africologists must never be so irresponsible as to intentionally allow any research to subvert contemporary African cosmologies in efforts to simply gain further context that may or may not be useful to praxis. An example of such unethical behavior would be the attempt to use material culture to “disprove” narratives, or even aspects thereof, embedded in orature. One may document their findings, conflicting or not, but do not attempt to force the particular African ethnic group to accept the data. Another example would be to document cultural phenomena that is shared by African people with the implication that it should be kept secret. Not all cultural-historical information valuable to African people is meant for publication, for publicizing can be harmful to traditions that have a necessity of secrecy in order to remain effective.

Furthermore, much of the job of the Africologist in searching for cosmologically principled African historical constructions, is also the search for and reconstruction of African culture. For those in the African diaspora, this a painstaking examination of African cultural antecedents in the hopes of reconstruction of past lifeways as well as further enriching contemporary ways of living and acting as African cultural agents. Much of African vestige that African people in the western world still carry are without the cultural memory of their original purpose and proper perspectival role. This is also true for many on the African continent affected by generations of colonialism on their own soil. Generations of scholars of African history and culture have sought to deal with this issue, but not many as so brilliantly as the Senegalese polymath, Cheikh Anta Diop. Through linguistic and anthropological processes, Diop investigated and analyzed even the most ancient of African cultural antecedents. Though Diop himself was not an Afrocentrist, and some of his contentions Afrocentrists do not readily or wholly agree with, he presented many ideas that serve as precursors to Afrocentric thought and method.

Antecedent Methodology

The use of Cheikh Anta Diop’s historiographic framework, or Diopian Historiography, is done so primarily to place African culture as foundational in any analysis of African history. Diop understood well that the unifying factors of African cosmology were more fundamental than the externally imposed notions of what makes African people different (Diop, 1989, p. x). Though some have attempted to frame him as an essentialist, ⁵ he did not deny ethnic diversity, or even dynamism, but insisted on foundational and unifying aspects of African culture based on ancient antecedents. The complementary notions of the domains of matriarchy and patriarchy, denied for various erroneous reasons by the western academy, was Diop’s attempt in reconstructing an Afrocentric social history. Thus, Diop’s Two-Cradle Theory (Wobogo, 1976) arose as a social theory in which to use as a guiding methodology. Whether one finds the entirety of his Two-Cradle Theory to be practical or not, the use of the African background in formulating his theories are wholly relevant to the reconstruction of African history and historical cosmology. Although, when utilized, I propose that less focus should be placed upon the conflicting nature of the supposed two cradles, and more focus placed on Diop’s notions of cultural continuity and unity among the southern cradle of African people.

It is clear from Diop’s work that although the study of our historical culture may be foundational to the struggle for restoration, scholars should lend equal importance to contemporary political and social conditions. Such should express the dynamism and vast variety of African reality along with the overlapping social, political, economic, and spiritual circumstances transgenerationally and transcontinentally. In approaching this, the question of how African variation is understood becomes central. In respect to this matter, I have developed a methodology based on the antecedent hypothesis presented by Diop. Being pan-African in scope, I have utilized three African terms in order to develop a methodology in which to use in order to further understand, as Okafor put it, the matrix of African culture.

The first aspect or method of approach is Kanna (sameness). This approach is developed from the Yoruba phrase, “ti kanna ọrọ,” or “of the same matter.” It involves the gathering of data garnered from the field of Africology, and the various other aforementioned fields of interest, and synthesizing it using Afrocentric methodology in order to show clear antecedental sameness between various African ethnic groups and cultures. Examples could include the use of orature in order to reconstruct antecedental properties between regional groups, Afrocentric analysis of written accounts of various ethnic groups, or Afrocentric analysis of the material culture of various African societies (especially if they help to formulate social histories or examples of past lifeways).

The more nuanced concept of Fánna (similarity) derives from the Xhosa/Zulu term “Kuyafana,” or “in the same way; it is just the same.” This method assists with the notions of cultural continuity stemming from ancient precedents argued to be exemplified within the whole of the continental border, as well as within the African diaspora. Fánna may somewhat overlap with the Kanna method as investigations into cultural phenomena such as water rites, circumcision, libation, domains of matriarchy, and a variety of other cosmological similarities become central. However, Fánna recognizes that similar African phenomena may not present ready antecedents. It is simply a bridge in assisting in the possible discovery of antecedents or the acknowledgment of African phenomena that appears inherent throughout multiple groups despite any clear origin.

The concept of Naanị (uniqueness) derives from the Igbo phrase, “naanị ebe,” or “only place/source.” The use of the Naani method involves the distinguishing of cultural phenomena which shows no clear antecedents or similarity with other groups. This would involve first the identification and investigation of the unique phenomena before also investigating other groups in proximity, and/or regional and diaspora groups, in order to determine if either Kanna or Fánna is indeed not present. The utility in such also secures the agency and intellectual autonomy of individual African societies.

For African Americans, this method is especially salient as it provides frameworking for reconstructing the past lifeways of enslaved ancestors. Doing so would assist in further reconstructing the cosmological rational and utility of various aspects of African vestige among African Americans, enriching the collective comprehension of our own Africanity. ⁶ However, in the reconstruction and interpretation of African lifeways it is important that Afrocentric analysis remains foundation. It is quite easy, even for those of African descent, to measure past lifeways and the vestiges of our own culture by the benchmark of Eurocentric or Western epistemology. The improper interpretation of African cultural phenomena could result in disavowal by those of African heritage. This includes contemporary African culture that which has been dynamically recreated in the Americas, as well as the dynamic continuation of such on the African continent.

Hegemonic Modernity

The problem to consider is that modern scholars of African descent have engaged themselves with western theoretical frameworks to the determinate of African cosmological agency. Africologists, however, understand that frameworks such as modernity and postmodernity are not good for Afrocentric analysis. In fact, Africologists avoid engaging in such frameworks, only doing so in cases where Afrocentric theory is in need of defense or repair from hegemonic malignity. Modernism, or to be more accurate, western modernity, is to be understood as a paradigmatically Eurocentric framework and a byproduct of the European Imperialist Cultural Project (EICP). Scholars such as Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Blaut, Molefi Kete Asante, and Toyin Falola, have made it clear that modernism came about due to the imperialist expansion of European countries such as Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium (Monteiro-Ferreira, 2014, p. 40). Therefore, as it comes to western modernity, again we are dealing with the issue of the rest of the world’s reality being measured by the yardstick of Europe. In modernism, it is the cultural paradigms of the West that by which we describe what is modern, pre-modern, and post-modern. This leaves very little room for cyclical notions of the temporal domain, or even Mugo’s Onion Structure theory. Where in modernism are the layers of interrelated co-existence?

The postmodernist school of thought has done some work in the area of deconstructing the ideas of modernism (Zengotita, 2019). As a challenge to the narratives of modernism, it includes some theoretical foundations that could perhaps accept a philosophy of interrelated co-existence. It is certainly a theory that is steeped in doubting all modernist notions of reality. However, it is also not beyond critique. Notably, the West’s only social analysts, particularly Marxists, have argued it to be a continuation of modernity’s position in perpetuating western capitalism.

Jameson (1991) describes this relationship as he opines that modernism represents an imperialist/monopoly stage of capitalism and postmodernism a multinational stage (p. 301). Harvey (1990) argues the paradox of postmodernism as an extension of capitalism: “Postmodern concerns for the signifier rather than the signified, the medium (money) rather than the message (social labor), the emphasis on fiction rather than function, on signs rather than things, on esthetics rather than ethics, suggest a reinforcement rather than a transformation of the role of money as Marx depicts it,” and continues on to describe money as the, “the supreme representation of social power in capitalist society” (p. 102).

An intersection between Jameson and Harvey’s arguments can be found in the ever-evolving worlds of mass media and media technology. For example, the popular use of social media for movements steeped in postmodernist ideology often finds ideological contradiction with capitalist aims while at the very same time paradoxically advancing them as industries offer new ways to market and sell the currents and countercurrents these movements produce. This in turn forces tech companies to evolve the social media mediums by which they are presented, which furthers capitalist enterprise.

While postmodernism may deny a cultural and sociological center, it certainly seems the character of western capitalism presents itself as a clear paradigm. As stated by Afrocentrist Monteiro-Ferreira (2014), “Although deconstruction is a permanent, ceaseless activity, it does not annul the binary oppositions that sustain the very process of deconstruction. In fact, postmodernism legitimizes [modernism]. . .Unlike postmodernism, instead of playing with removing, dislocating, and relocating the residents of the center, Afrocentricity asserts, in the contingency of the world, an equal value to the multiplicity of cultural and historical residents” (pp. 101–102). Thus, Africological framing does not deny a cultural center. This may, in a sense, tempt scholars to delve back into the trenches of modernist thought. However, what Africologists seek is to subvert the entire Western structure, “not merely challenges the place and the hierarchical order of the relationships of the interveners in the European project of modernity” (p. 102).

In this aim we seek plurality without hierarchy, not the replacement of Eurocentric epistemology with Afrocentric epistemology as the totalitarian universal. In the scholarship of African decolonial scholar, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018), ⁷ he insists, “Euromodernity corrupted the very noble vocation of the political through fetishism of power and naturalization of the paradigm of war and will to power that propelled them into enslavement of other human beings, conquest and colonization of other human beings, as well as denial of the very humanity of those who were considered non-European” (p. 94).

As alluded, Western modernity, or to use Ndlovu-Gathseni’s term, Euromodernity, is often chronicled in terms of the advancement or even presence of technology. There is no denying the role of western technology as a handmaiden of capitalist and imperialist interest. However, there is also the problem of the West’s monopoly over the intellectual heritage of technology. Such a monopoly also furthers its cultural hegemony within a masquerade of supposed universality that is nothing more than Eurocentric subjectivity (Asante, 1998, p. 1). Technology can be defined simply as the utilization of knowledge gained from scientific inquiry for the purpose of accomplishing an objective. Such utilization could see technology manifest in many forms (i.e., tools, goods, services, etc.). All of human culture has developed both unique and similar technologies for both similar and dissimilar endeavors, depending on community and individual needs of humans in various geographical and social circumstances. Such endeavors become intellectual heritages that drive the particular culture forward. However, modernist thought has confined those intellectual heritages within the ethnocentrism of Eurocentric historiography (Blaut, 2000). Thus, historical technological advancements of world cultures such as gunpowder, canals, the printing press, iron smelting, and calculus, to name a few, become hallmarks of civilization only when they are purposed in endeavors set forth or valued by Europeans.

In consequence, by way of colonial and neocolonial domination, this hegemonic perspective propagates the idea that it is Europeans who have provided the only true route or vision of “progress” intended for such technology in the forging of the “modern” world. This, in turn, renders any other perspectives and intended purpose of appropriated technologies produced by various cultures to be of no consequence. Whatever the purpose of those who initiated the prototypical forms of various technologies are considered primitive and forever ideologically stagnant within the temporal domain of antiquity. Further still, there are some historiographies which depict the history of technological advancement as altogether occidental, or ancillary to the West’s aims at progress (Arnold, 2005; Blaut, 2000). This is made all the more problematic when considering the politics of technological esthetics (Rutsky, 1999).

While it has been argued that Euromodernity has facilitated the expansion of technological and scientific advancements that have been useful to humanity, the very same cultural project was involved in the kidnapping and enslavement of human lives, ruthless and murderous colonization antics, and developing erroneous racial theories that, to this day, have horrifying repercussions for African people. Further, the African people’s involvement with so-called “modern technologies,” such as the automobile, cellular phone, and television, is not a conscious involvement with modernism. To be absolutely clear, the western academy’s application of “modernism,” despite its broad implications, should not be viewed as some universal human endeavor but merely a Eurocentric concept of social reality.

Modernism was developed out of Europe’s imperialist quest for power. It was able to be maintained due to the oppression and ontological and cosmological reduction of African people. The simple engagement with the modernist system (e.g., the creation of rockets for a European space program, the development of more efficient traffic signals for American cities, and the creation of music using “modern” technologies), does not make an African person a modernist. To be clearer, such involvement does not automatically make an African person an adherent or inheritor of the western intellectual heritage that is modernity. It is clear from the historical record that African people lived different realities and relied on intentions both unfamiliar and inconsequential to European ethos.

This can be understood a bit further if we consider the politics of language within Euromodernity. Consider the case of the Yorùbá whose language became gendered due to the ongoing encroachment of European nations, particularly the British. Nigerian sociologist, Oyěwùmí (1997), explains that colonization by the British lead to English becoming the lingua franca of Nigeria and, in effect, “the impact of English on Yoruba continues to be felt through loanwords, translation of Yoruba culture into English, and the adoption of Western values” (p. 158).

Oyèwùmí is clear she is not a fan of Western concepts of modern and postmodern as she states that she is Yorùbá, “despite postmodernist treatises” (p. xvi) and that “gender categories and subsequent male dominance” in Yorùbá society are the result of indoctrination in the episteme of Western modernity (Oyěwùmí, 2016, p. 34). She makes this clear as she states, “The role of the educational establishment is crucial in this process. Schooling and academic scholarship represent the most systematic ways in which Yoruba society and discourse are being gendered” (Oyěwùmí, 1997, pp. 158–159). This has broad implications for gender analysis that shall be covered in subsequent articles regarding Africological Historiography.

Nevertheless, as with most biproducts of the EICP, modernism has had a significant role in psychological terror toward African people. It is through modernism that we have come to adopt such negative ideas as “Third World Countries,” “tribe,” “pygmy,” “bushman,” “native Indian,” and “negro.” These terms represent extant Eurocentric ideological negations about oppressed people and cultures. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018) addresses the issue eloquently, “Here was born a modern world in which those who had been pushed to the categories of indigenous, primitive, tribe and black, were questioned and rejected as human beings. . . [and] through such initiatives as colonialism were exiled from their knowledges, cultures, and even from themselves” (p. 243). Within modernism, there exists no plurality of ideas unless there is a hierarchy that establishes Eurocentric ethos as standard or, more insidiously, universal, while all other cultural ideas are marginalized to the fringes of societal thought. Because of such marginalization of African cosmology through language, Africologists seek lexical refinement.

Lexical Refinement

While the western humanities and social sciences have over the years largely done away with pejorative terms such as savage, negro, and colored in their description of African people and phenomena, there still remains much work to be done in terms of refining the general lexicon regarding African phenomena. Asante gives the example of an African house being called a “hut” as a misrepresentation of African reality (Asante, 2007, p. 43). He articulates that there are clear differences between the Eurocentric conception of “house” and what an African may consider a home (pp. 43–44). Erroneous, ethnocentric descriptions of African phenomena remain pervasive. Africologists are concerned with refining such language for, as aforementioned, we are primarily concerned with keeping our own lexicon centered in African cosmological reality. Thus, terms such as enslaved African and Maafa replaces terms such as “slave” and “slave trade” respectively.

Perhaps the most useful resources that we have for developing a proper lexicon are orature, which are laden with terms only understood within an African cosmological context. Africologists have positioned terms such as nommo, maat, and maafa to better enhance our burgeoning lexicon. Investigating orature will further assist Africologists in basing their writings on the historical realities of their African subjects; and doing so will ensure the development of a clear and proper lexicon based on African cosmological principles.

The tropes and subjectivities presented within lynched and decapitated texts adds a further, and possibly more problematic, obstacle to the challenge of lexical refinement (Asante, 1992). ⁸ The fact that these texts are written by writers of African descent lends credence to Eurocentric lexicons, while also simultaneously allowing the inherent Eurocentric nature of such terms to masquerade as universal ideas. Both in the West and on the African continent, Eurocentric masquerades are extant throughout lynched and decapitated texts.

To be clear, there also exists within the historical cultural milieu of the AIP Asiatic ethnocentric interpretations of African history and culture. They all present Africological concerns that must be addressed. However, it is clear that the use of Eurocentric theoretical frameworks in order to intellectually engage with African phenomena has been the primary crux of the issue at hand. The job of the Africologist is to identify and correct such distortions of African realities. This extends the bounds of theory into the practicing of such ideas, for lexical refinement is also related to our foundational praxis of the liberation of African agency.

Praxis

The discipline of Africology has a rather unique foundational praxis. In fact, our praxis is at the core of what makes our discipline so unique from any other. The praxis serves as a constant source of motivation for Africologists and is inherent in any legitimate Africological inquiry. In the introductory chapter of The Afrocentric Paradigm, perhaps the most seminal text in our field, Mazama (2002) imparts that, “From an Afrocentric perspective, where knowledge can never be produced for the sake of it but always for the sake of our liberation, a paradigm must activate our consciousness to be of any use to us” (p. 8). The production of knowledge for the sake of liberation is what separates this discipline from any other in the western academy. As aforementioned, Africology operates strictly on the Afrocentric paradigm, and as the African world is in disarray, the paradigm dictates to the discipline of Africology that it must be holistically involved in the restoration and upkeep of the African world. Therefore, Africological historiography exhibits an inherent praxis to restore African ontology, and subsequently, African cosmology and agency.

Those who utilize the Afrocentric paradigm “subsumes a consciousness of victory” (p. 11). Such a consciousness demands us to use knowledge and knowledge creation in order to liberate the agency of African people. In the Afrocentric paradigm this is described as the functional aspect, which utilizes knowledge creation for the sake of developing practical, abstract, and material manifestations of liberation. This includes, but is not limited to, the creation and exhibition of African cultural phenomena (music, dance, art) informed by Afrocentric examination, the development of beneficial political discourses and political institutions, the building of schools and spiritual centers, and the commemoration and dynamic restructuring of past lifeways disrupted by all forms of coloniality. Africologists are committed to aiding the African Cultural Project in order to bring about such reality. In the words of Mazama, “The ultimate test will be our praxis” (p. 8).

Conclusion

Africologists may take on various interests in other fields in order to garner the data necessary for their inquiries. Interests in resources and methods from other fields in the western academy may be necessary to conduct Africological research. However, it is important to make sure that those resources and methods are approached using Afrocentric methodology or they may prove insufficient as Africological scholarship. It is the job of Africologists to ensure the formation and maintenance of Africological historiography is not corrupted by alien cosmology. All Africological inquiry has an inherent praxis, being the use of scholarship in order to advance the African World Cultural Project (AWCP), restoring the agency and sovereignty of African people worldwide. The writing of African history is also an exercise in such praxis. The implications of an Africological Historiography are wide ranging and will ensure better control over source material, discourse, and perceptions concerning African phenomena. It will also better assist in the restorative efforts of the AWCP. However, Africological Historiography will never become the dominant voice among African scholarship if it continues its arrest in the western academy. More Africologists and schools of Africology are needed throughout the African diaspora and, perhaps more importantly, on the African continent, in order to ensure our goals come to fruition.