African Origin of Mississippian and South Death Cult Mounds

In 1310 Mansa [King] Abubakari of the Mali Empire set sail from his Kingdom in West Africa to visit the lands across the Atlantic.  In this expeditionary force their were 25,000 men and women.  Over time the Malians were nativised so we can count them amount the first Black Native Americans.

People in West Africa during King Abubakari’s time were not ignorant of the nautical sciences and navigation.

 West Africans had a highly developed knowledge of boat technology and navigation sciences. The canoes they built from gigantic trees were as big as the boats sailed to America by Columbus.

West Africans had a highly developed knowledge of boat technology and navigation sciences. The canoes they built from gigantic trees were as big as the boats sailed to America by Columbus. Much of what we Know about African nautical sciences comes from Vasco da Gama.

Vasco da Gama is said to have found information about the West Indies from Ahmad b. Majid, whom he met along the West Coast of Africa. Majid wrote a handbook of navigation on the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, Sea of Southern China  and the waters around the West Indian Islands. Majid is also said to be the inventor of the compass. See: R.A.G., Bazan, Latin America the Arabs and Islam,,Muslim World, (1967) pp.284-292; G. Ferrand, Introduction a l’astrnomie nautique des Arabes, Paris,1928 (p.247). 

The only occupied mounds seen by Europeans were those built by the Black Native Americans, the Arawak Indians and people in Florida. Hernando de Soto the only European to see occupied mounds tells us much about their construction and use.

     De Soto and his men discussed the mounds they found among the Florida Indians. Here as mentioned earlier lived  many Black Native Amerians. De Soto noted that at Ucita, Florida: "The town was of seven or eight houses built of timber, and covered with palm-leaves....The chiefs house stood near the beach, upon a very high mound made by hand for defense; at the other end of the town was a temple...."  It is interesting to note that in Florida one of the major ethnic groups living there was the Yamassi or Jamassi a tribe of Black Native Americans.

     The mounds in the United States are usually found near rivers. In the Ohio Valley 10,000 mounds have been discovered. In the north the mound zone begins in western New York and extended along the southern shore of Lake Erie into what is now Michigan, Wisconsin and on to the states of Iowa and Nebraska. In the southern United States the mounds lined the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to eastern Texas, and extended up through the Carolinas and across to the state of Oklahoma.

    The mounds of ancient America follow the lines of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and outlying regions as well. They vary in size from colossal mounds in Illinois to mere blisters rising from the earth.

     Most, if not all of these mounds had long been abandoned by their former inhabitants when they were discovered. Many excavated mounds have yielded human bones, weapons, tools, inscriptions and jewelry.

     Statues of Africans have also been found in these mounds. As discussed earlier there were two types of African statues found in the ancient mounds excavated in the western Sudan.

Africoid statues of type one , i.e., humanoids in a sitting position with their hands on the thigh and right knee pointing up while the other knee is resting on the ground are found in Tennessee and Indiana at the Angel site.

 

 

 The most common type, style two statues , i.e., statues of humanoids in a sitting position with the hands placed across the chest have also been found at Etowah and Temple mound sites in Tennessee and Georgia.  It is also interesting that anthropomorphic statues found in Polk County, Georgia is analogous to statues found in Mauritania.

       

   Black Africans are characterized as being broad faced, full lipped, illustrating prognathism , large boned with fleshy noses.   Samuel Morton in Crania Americana , written in 1839 noted that Adena people possessed "ponderous bony structure[s]...large jaws and broad face". This description of the Adena, fits exactly the description of the West African type.

 

     Most of the Malian influence among the mound builders corresponds to artifacts recovered from the Southern Death Cult. The arms on these statues are placed across the chest. The pipes recovered from many mounds in the United States and the name for Tobacco suggest that it was the Manding who introduced tobacco to the New World.

    The Manding may have also constructed the Temple Mounds. These mounds were built between A.D. 700 and 1700. The Temple Mounds were built in the central Mississippi Valley, Arkansas, southern Missouri, southern Illinois and western Tennessee.

 

    The sculptural evidence found in the mounds all indicate an African origin as proven by Wiener (1922). A long pipe with a crouching figure on the bowl on exhibit in the New York Historical Society is of an African with compound bracelets,five on the wrist, six on the upper arm, four on the calf, such as only found in Mexico and west Africa. These bracelets are found in gorgets from the Etowah Mound, which show Malian influence.       

    Other sculpture heads and figurines of Africans have been found on the banks of Paint Creek ,near Chillocothe,Ohio; Tennessee; Mississippi; and on Green Flats in Virginia, which wear African headdresses ,skull caps and facial striations identical with those of the Manding. We also find the depiction of Africans in carvings from Spiro Oklahoma. At Spiro Mound African faces were carved on shells and the Manding cross sign placed on the palms of the hands on one artifact. This cross in the Manding script meant "righteousness, purity". Other inscribed works of art from the Moundville site in central Alabama also show Manding signs, especially the Manding cross.

     A figurine found in a cemetery at Nashville, Tennessee was of an African women, while another African statue was found at Clarksville, Tennessee in 1897. These statues as well as heads on the gorgets from the Missouri mounds show analogous striations found on the faces of Manding clansmen.      

 

     Among the Southern Death Cult mound builders we find a third type statue , which has the leg and knee as the base, with the arms placed across the chest with the hands resting above the breast. Another type statue is seen in the effigy jar with "weeping-eye" motif, it has as its base the feet and buttocks, the knees are pointing up in the air, and the arms are placed across the chest with the hands placed above the opposite breast.

    The major reason for the varied art styles among the mounds that were built by the Malians, result from the fact that Mali was composed of many different ethnic groups that spoke different languages and practiced varied cultures. As a result of this ethnic pluralism we find an homogenous people who inhabited many mounds in the United States, that practiced a multiplicity of cultural forms.

In addition to the transfer of African style statues in the mounds the Malians also left many inscriptions. These inscriptions and statues support the African origin of many mounds in the United States.

African Mounds the Antecedent to Mounds built in the United States

Many Mound Builders had come with Abubakari in 1310. These Black Native American mound builders had come from the ancient Empire of Mali.

West Africans had a highly developed knowledge of boat technology and navigation sciences. The canoes they built from gigantic trees were as big as the boats sailed to America by Columbus. Much of what we Know about African nautical sciences comes from Vaco da Gama. Vasco da Gama is said to have found information about the West Indies from Ahmad b. Majid, whom he met along the West Coast of Africa. Majid wrote a handbook of navigation on the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, Sea of Southern China  and the waters around the West Indian Islands. Majid is also said to be the inventor of the compass. See: R.A.G., Bazan, Latin America the Arabs and Islam,,Muslim World, (1967) pp.284-292; G. Ferrand, Introduction a l’astrnomie nautique des Arabes, Paris,1928 (p.247).  Paul Gaffarel, in Etude sur les Rapports de l'Amerique et de l'Ancien continent  said that when Balboa reached America he found "negre veritables" or true Blacks. Balboa noted "...Indian traditions of Mexico and Central America indicate that Negroes were among the first occupants of that territory." This is why so many Mexicans have "African faces".

  In ancient America it would appear that many mounds were built by Africans. These mounds were built between 200 B.C. and A.D. 1500. Many of the late mounds in the United States and South America were probably built by some of the 25,000 colonist from Mali who sail in the direction of the Americas in 1310.

     We can not point out the exact ethnic origin of all the African mound builders in the Americas. But we are sure that these blacks built many mounds along the Mississppi river and beyond in the United States ; and in South America from Brazil and Venezuela up into the northeastern parts of the United States. Leo Wiener in Africa and the Discovery of America, discussed the African figurines found in many of these mounds in great detail. The organization of the Malian mounds in the Americas were based on African models Blacks had built in Africa.

 AFRICAN MOUND BUILDING

       African people brought their architectural styles to the Americas where ever they settled depending on the topography of the settlement area. Near rivers they lived on mounds. In semiarid regions, the Malians built cliff houses like those found in the American Southwest. Today the Dogon people who trace their decent back to the Mande live in identical cliff dwellings as those found in Colorado, where Manding inscriptions have also been discovered.(Winters 1977a,1979)

     The ancient Africans built several types of homes. For example , as mentioned earlier round huts were very popular among the Manding.In ancient times they also built masonry houses and cliff dwellings identical to those found in the American Southwest. These cliff dwellings were later abandoned as the weather in the areas in which they were built became more arid, and thus less suitable for cattle raising and intensive agriculture.

Archaeologists have excavated these burial mounds and found numerous artifacts including large burial jars from Mopti, Soye Kaniana, and Kami (1).

     Some excavated tumuli in the Niger area have also yielded many copper and glass artifacts including numerous terracotta figurines of blacks in a sitting position. These seated figures have been mainly found at Kaniana, while other statuettes have been found at Nankaka, Kami, Koubaye, Bamako-Bankoni, N'Koumi and Mopti. It is interesting to note that many of the  African tumuli are almost identical burial mounds excavated in the United States and the pyramids of Egypt as discussed in the previous chapter.

     Many mounds have been excavated in the Mopti region

at Kami Island. The site of Kami is situated on the right bank of the Niger river. It occupies a small expanse of land with the river on one side and a bog/swamp on the other side (2).

     At Kami archaeologists have found many funerary emplacements in mounds with the dead buried in large jars or urns. They are similar to the pottery found at Fatoma (3) .

     At Kami archaeologists have found in addition to the burial jars , copper artifacts,statues, pipes  and pottery (4).  The baked clay pipes colored red-and-white were made in diverse forms and placed in the funerary urns. The copper artifacts and pottery found in the western Sudan are decorated with beautiful geometric designs which are similar to those found at Anasazi. We also find many polishers and grindstones.

     At Kami small statues and sculptured heads have been found (5). The statues at Kami are made of grey earth and a slip dark rose in color.  Malzy,believes that the statue found in the mound represented the dead person because it was found in the same position as the cadaver(6).  The statuettes found in these mounds are ancient because they show scarification, which was abandoned when the people in the western Sudan adopted Islam.And as noted by Malzy the art works of Kami, Mopti and Djenne are all of similar origins (7).

 

    There are two medieval Manding art styles. First, we have statues that depict humanoids in a sitting position with their right legs slightly higher then the left with the right hand placed on the right knee,the left hand is placed on the left knee or on the thighs. The feet and legs are slightly higher than the base of the statue. Many of the statues found in the mounds excavated in North America depict Africoids or blacks,  in this same sitting position common to statues found at Mopti, Djenne and Kami in West Africa (8).

    The second common  Manding pose for the African statues found in the mounds of Africa and the United States depict humanoids in a kneeling position, with the arms and elbows on the leg and thigh, and the hands placed on the knee; as in the case of the other statue type the feet and legs serve as the base.

      The mounds in the Americas are of various ages. This suggest that the Africans which inhabited many of these mound dwellings came at different times the to New World.

    Leo Wiener (1922) proved that many of the mound builders of the United States and Mexico were Manding speakers. He saw the mounds as defensive structures built on the African type of the stockade model. Wiener  noted that:

 

          "I have already pointed out that the mounds of the

          Mound-builders were town sites, with the hill for

          the caciques [chiefs] residence and temple, just as

          in the Sudan, and that the North American stockade

          is identical with the one in West Africa" (9).

We find many similarities between the art styles of the inhabitants of the mounds found in the area that encompassed ancient Mali, and the mounds built in the United States and South America.

  In discussing the artifacts found in the mounds of the Americas, and other artifacts scholars frequently note the resemblance of artifacts excavated from these mounds to Egyptian artifacts, even though the date for these artifacts are dated centuries after the decline of ancient Egypt as a unique African civilization. This results from the fact that the ancestors of the Manding speakers and the Egyptians formerly lived in the Fertile African Crescent. It was in this highland area of middle Africa that the culture typified by Egyptian civilization first originated.

Notes:

     1.P. Barlet, "Jarres Funeraires au Soudan", Notes Africaines, no.49, pp.107-10; and Annie Masson-Detourbet, "Terres Cuites de Mopti (Soudan)", Notes Africaines, no. 60, pp.100-102.

     2. G. Szumoski, "Fouilles a Kami et decouvertes dans la Region de Mopti (Soudan)", Notes Africaines , no.67 (1955), pp.66-69.

     3. Ibid., p.66.

     4. Ibid., p.68.

     5.Pierre Malzy, "A Propos d'une statuette Funeraire (Kami, Mali)", Notes Africaines, no.113, pp.17-19.

     6. Ibid., p.17.

     7. Ibid., p.18.

     8. "Statuettes de Terre Cuite de Mopti", Notes Africaines, no.43, pp.70-72; and Herta Haselberger, "Deux Statuettes en terre cuite du Podo (Republique de Mali) , Notes Africaines , no.112, pp.143-144.

     9. Leo Wiener, Africa and the Discovery of America, (Philadelphia,1922) Vol. 3, p.317.

Black Native Americans in War and Peace

 

Some racist and non-Black Native Americans claim Black people did not go to war against whites. This is wrong Black Native Americans had many wars with the whites, but like the Aztecs they were sold out by mongoloid Indians who joined the whites so they could take away the native lands of Black Native Americans. You don’t know anything about the Wars Native Black Americans had with the whites. This is especially true of the Yamasee. 

Much of what is now Georgia was a stronghold of the Native Black Americans. These Blacks lived predominately from the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina southward as far as St. Augustine ,Florida.
The vast majority of Native Black Americans lived in California, or along the Eastern seaboard in North America. They belonged to many Confederations including the Muskhoean and Algonquin. Some of their tribal names include Tuscarora, Secolan,  Tamacraw, Nanticoke, Kashita (Kauche-te), and Yamasee.

The Yamasee , was a tribe of Black Native Americans who originally lived in Florida and southern Georgia until they forced to migrate North into South Carolina by the Spanish in the 16th Century. The Yamasee were part of the  Muskhogean Confederacy. This was a Confederacy of mongoloid and Black Native Americans.

The whites began to steal the Yamasee lands. By 1715, the Yamasee  leading a Confederation of other tribes attacked the whites to drive them off their lands. The Cherokee who were part of the Muskogean Confederation broke away and formed an alliance with the  British in 1718 and helped defeat the Yamasee.

The Yamasee who were not killed were sold into slavery. Most of the Yamasee fled back into their ancestral homeland in Florida, which by this time was settled by the Creek.

 The Yamasee were  virtually wiped out due to  protracted combat with the Creeks, who felt they were trying to take over their land. Some Yamasee  joined  the Seminole tribe. In return, the Cherokee took control  of Yamasee land.

 If not for the break-away of the Cherokee the whites would have been defeated.