Of any region on the African continent, West Africa had the biggest concentration of ancient kingdoms and empires in its pre-colonial history. It’s no easy task to capture snapshots of West Africa at various points in its evolution. Images of even the most historically important realms — Mali, Songhai, Ghana, Ashanti, etc. —, with their …
Oral histories all agree that the Ashanti were originally part of a unified Akan clan that included the Fante, Wassaw and other Twi-speaking people. But it is in the specifics of its subsequent division that stories begin to diverge. In one legend, it is Fulani invaders, destroying the Akan’s crops and forcing them to forage …
Many oral histories, myths and conjectures obscure the origins of the Bambara. Some claim their ancestors migrated from the Sahara desert. Others say they came from the Wassoulou River Valley, an area straddling the extreme south of present-day Mali, the east of Guinea and the north of the Ivory Coast. While others still suppose their …