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8 Sep, 4 tweets, 2 min read
1858AD
Ut̪end̪i wa Mwana Kupona (The Poem of Mwana
Kupona’)
written by Mwana Kupona, a swahili woman from lamu, Kenya

written for the education of her daughter; Mwana Hashima binti Sheikh, on how to be an upstanding woman in swahili society

#randomxt
-Berlin State Library ImageImage
Mwana Kupona was the wife of Bwana Mat̪aka, the ruler of Siyu
she was one of several notable swahili female scholars
and was a contemporary of the famous 19th century west-african poetess, Nana Asmau

this 102-verse poem is still recited by both young and newlywed swahili women in east africa
and is one among the dozens of extant poems of the "utendi genre" from the 16th-19th century -which made up the bulk of "secular" swahili literature
cc;
ADVICE AND PRAYER FROM A MOTHER: AN EPIC POEM (EXTRACTS) Mwana Kupona binti Msham Kenya [1858] kiswahili
in books.google.co.ug/books/about/De…

and
On the Poetics of the Utendi
by Clarissa Vierke
books.google.co.ug/books/about/On…

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More from @rhaplord

isaac Samuel Profile picture
27 Jul
"How can we reconcile Museveni’s political thought with his political practice, One way to read Uganda’s predicament is as a dialogue between Museveni’s ideas and the international economic order which confronted him"

@alykhansatchu

roape.net/2021/07/27/the…
“A multiparty system in an industrialised society is likely to be national, while in a preindustrial society its likely to be sectarian”

"That self-serving logic underpinned Museveni’s view that the wrong sort of democracy, too soon, threatens cohesion and hinders modernisation"
"Museveni initially resisted IMF structural adjustment, but 191% inflation, foreign aid funding half of gov't, he changed course"

“In his search for the new Jerusalem, he went to the precipice, peered over the edge and didn't like what he saw, That is why he will never go back.”
Read 7 tweets
isaac Samuel Profile picture
22 Jul
664BC "Dream Stela" of Kushite king/Egyptian pharaoh Tanwetamani

-nubian museum
#randomxt

The stela narrates Tanwetamani's "restoration of the double kingdom of Kush and Egypt from the condition of chaos " after he'd defeated Necho I and the delta & sais chiefs in 664BC Image
Originally erected in the Jebel Barkal temple in sudan and written in hieroglyphic by a scribe from napata, this dream stela emulated the language of Piye's 'Great Triumphal Stela (Piye was a kushite king who conquered Egypt and established the 25th dynasty in 760BC)
But this fragile peace was short-lived as the Assyrians under Assurbanipal invaded Egypt again in 664 and sacked Thebes
upper Egypt remained loyal to Tanwetamani until 656BC when Psamtik's daughter was adopted as the "God's wife of Amun" elect by the reigning Kushite princes thus
Read 4 tweets
isaac Samuel Profile picture
18 Jul
quite misleading, this is both correct and incorrect

-correct b'se the longitudes 10° to 20° were the first in subsaharan africa to be entirely filled up by states (1300s Mali to Ethiopia)

-incorrect b'se Aksum/Ethiopia, Kerma/Kush/Makuria and Kanem were aligned north to south ImageImageImage
even more misleading when you consider that the pre-sokoto states of nothern nigeria eg zaria and borgu were aligned north-south as well including the more southerly yoruba states like Oyo Image
rather than geography and other reductive explanations (à la jared diamond), a better explanation for the west-east alignment of Ghana, Mali and Songhai was the control of the Senegal & Niger river valleys which were by then the most populous and productive regions in west africa ImageImage
Read 6 tweets
isaac Samuel Profile picture
9 Jul
1882 AD
Wathiqa ilā amir Kanū fi amr al-mahdī (treatise on the exodus) by Maryam Bint Shehu in sokoto, Nigeria

-sokoto state history bureau
#randomxt

Maryam was a prominent scholar & lecturer from the sokoto empire; one of several highly literate women in 19th cent. west africa
in this letter to her son Muhammad Bello b. Ibrahim Dabo; ruler of kano (then province of sokoto), Maryam sought to reassure and calm the people of kano that the rumors of the Mahdi's arrival were false inorder to stem the exodus of faithfuls moving east (to sudan)
This was a time of eschatological anxieties in west africa in anticipation of the prophetic traditions of the 12th caliph and the mahdi leading to a millenarian turmoil

a nubian named Muhammad Ahmad had declared himself the mahdi in 1881 and freed sudan from the ottoman turks
Read 6 tweets
isaac Samuel Profile picture
8 Jul
Folios from three of the chronicles of the history of kano, nigeria

1650AD, Asl al-Wanqariyin (wangara chronicle)
1880AD, Tarikh al-Musamma (kano chronicle) written by the scribe Dan Rimi Malam Barka
19th cent., Wakar Bagauda (Song of Bagauda)

-jos museum, nigeria
#randomxt
Kano was one of the commercial capitals of the hausalands and one of the largest cities in 19th cent. west africa

Malam Barka was a powerful slave official originally from wadai (in chad) during the reign of sarkin kano Muhammad Bello (1882–93) he wrote
the kano chronicle using several oral history sources during the political upheaval after bello's death

The anonymously authored Wakar Bagauda may also be attributed to him
Read 6 tweets
isaac Samuel Profile picture
6 Jul
walter scheidel's "escape from rome" makes a strong case for the advantages rome's demographics (thus: manpower) had over its rivals carthage, the ptolemies and seleucids
even going as far as comparing it with 17th cent. europe on the eve of colonial expansion ImageImageImageImage
demographics also partly explain how colonial powers were able to project themselves outside their home continents
in the early 20th century, there were 2.5 million euopean soldiers in its colonies (augmented by local recruits) excluding the americas that were by then independent Image
demographics also explains why ethiopia was able to defend itself while most of africa was ultimately subjugated

in the 1875 yohannes mobilized as many as 100,000 soldiers to defeat the egyptians
by the 1896 menlik had an 120-200,000 large army and defeated the italians ImageImage
Read 4 tweets

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