posted
The area from Senegal to Liberia is on the atlantic coast of Africa. The area has a sahelian environment in the north and a deep rainforest environment in the south. The region is a cul-de-sac containing many groups with a varied history and related and interesting.
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the Bidjogo peoples, of the Bidjogos Archipelago, Guinea-Bissau, are primarily zoomorphic. Representing various land and sea animals including buffalo, fish, hippopotami, birds and pigs, the Bidjogo masks in the exhibition were once worn by adolescent boys during various initiation ceremonies. Additional belts, arm guards and other apparel enhance the young initiate's costume, likening the wearer to a wild animal. In Bidjogo culture, animals are believed to be mediums to the supernatural world. By invoking animals in cultural ceremonies, the Bidjogo believe that they are accessing forces to help regulate the religious, social and economic structures of their communities.
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Identification. "Guinea" was used by European explorers and traders to refer the coast of West Africa. It comes from an Arabic term meaning "the land of the blacks." "Bissau," the name of the capital, may be a corruption of "Bijago," the name of the ethnic group that inhabits the dozens of small islands along the coast. The combined name distinguishes the country from its southern neighbor, Guinea.
Location and Geography. Guinea-Bissau, one of the smallest and poorest West African nation-states, is surrounded by former French colonies. Sharing a border to the north with Senegal and to the south with Guinea, it has a land area of 13,944 square miles (36,125 square kilometers). The terrain is generally flat and nearly at sea level, although there are hills in the southeastern region. Wide tidal estuaries surrounded by mangrove swamps penetrate forty miles into the interior, where coastal rain forest gives way to sparsely wooded savanna.
Demography. In 1998, the population was at 1,206,311. The population is 76 percent rural, but almost 20 percent of the inhabitants live in the capital city. More than half the citizens were born after independence in 1974. Fula and Mandinga, who were traditionally politically centralized and make up the Moslem majority in the interior, account for roughly 30 percent of the population. Balanta, Manjaco, and Papel in the coastal and tidal zone constitute a sizable demographic majority.
Linguistic Affiliation. Government documents are written in Portuguese, students beyond the first few years of elementary school are taught in Portuguese, and government officials speak that language. However, only about 10 percent of the citizens are fluent in Portuguese. The national lingua franca is Criolu, which is derived primarily from Portuguese. Almost all Guineans born after 1974 know Criolu, although most speak it as a second language. Criolu developed in the era of slave trading, when it was used for communication between Portuguese merchant-administrators and the local populations. It became the primary language of Cape Verdeans, who were descendants of West African slaves and resettled in Portuguese coastal enclaves. These people were employed by the government in the lower levels of the colonial bureaucracy and engaged in local commercial activities. Criolu became the de facto national language during the struggle for liberation (1961–1974). Today Criolu is associated with an urban ethnic minority that identifies itself as Cape Verdean. It is also the language of national identity. Patriotic songs and slogans are invariably in Criolu and the national news is broadcast in that language.
Most residents are more comfortable speaking local African languages; close to half the population is monolingual in a local language. Balanta, Manjaco, and Papel speak related but mutually unintelligible languages that are distantly related to languages spoken in Senegal. The language of the Bijagos islanders off the coast is unrelated to that of any neighboring group. The languages spoken by Mandinga and Fula allow them to communicate with their cultural kin in neighboring nations.
Symbolism. The flag, with horizontal stripes of green, red, and yellow and a black star in the center, reflects an explicit concern to define the country in terms of national liberation and as pan-African rather than ethnic. During the revolution, efforts were made to minimize ethnic distinctions, and this Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau effort is reflected in the pervasive use of Criolu as the language of political slogans and patriotic celebration. Schools and avenues are named after heroes of the revolution, such as Domingos Ramos, who was killed while leading the first organized guerrilla battalion. Pan-African martyrs to national liberation such as Patrice Lumumba are similarly enshrined.
HISTORY AND ETHNIC RELATIONS
Emergence of the Nation. By the sixteenth century, European traders had established permanent trading posts along the coast and encouraged local peoples to raid their neighbors for slaves. The slave trade created and reinforced ethnic distinctions in the region. Bijagos became notorious slave raiders, and Manjaco and Papel produced food for the coastal trading posts, along with trade goods, such as elaborately patterned textiles.
After the end of the slave trade in the mid-nineteenth century, Bijagos maintained their independence until the 1930s. Manjaco and Papel were among the first people in the region to migrate to Cape Verdean and European pontas or concessions, to share-crop peanuts. They were active in the wild rubber trade in the early twentieth century, migrating to Senegal and Gambia. The end of the slave trade led to political collapse and chaos among the more politically centralized Moslem groups in the interior. As Moslem factions fought, they also raided the coast, leading to confrontations with European traders.
Young Bijagos Islands men perform ritual dances to attract wives in this matriarchal society. Most other ethnic groups in Guinea-Bissau are more patriarchal. [This is like the MBororo Fulani]
Thatched houses in a Buboque Island village in the Bijagos Islands. Although cities display colonial architecture, villages feature these more traditional dwellings.
Food in Daily Life. Rice is a staple among the coastal peoples. It is also a prestige food, and so the country imports it to feed the urban population. Millet is a staple crop in the interior. Both are supplemented with a variety of locally produced sauces that combine palm oil or peanuts, tomatoes, and onions with fish.
Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. Most people participate in elaborate life cycle ceremonies in which family and community celebrates events such as birth, circumcision, marriage, and death. Most of these events, especially funerals, entail the sacrifice of livestock for consumption and ritual offering and the consumption of large quantities of palm wine or rum.
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Women prepare fish of Buboque Island. Fish and shellfish are important in both Guinean diet and exports.
Domestic Unit. In the villages, the domestic unit is a large kinship group with common rights to agricultural property and obligations to work for one another.
Inheritance. Land passes from fathers to sons or from older brothers to younger brothers. Among the Manjaco and Papel, rice fields owned by domestic groups are inherited by a sister's sons, who act as caretaker-managers, dividing use rights to portions of the fields.
Kin Groups. All the ethnic groups are organized in fairly large kin groups known as clans or lineages. Most kin groups tend to be patrilineal and patrilocal, although there are also large categories of matrilineal kin who share rights to land and to local religious and political offices.
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quote:"Guinea" was used by European explorers and traders to refer the coast of West Africa. It comes from an Arabic term meaning "the land of the blacks
agnawa- berber not arabic
-------------------- لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007
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DNA gives African-Americans a stronger link to the past
By KIRSTEN TAGAMI The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 07/18/07
Doug Jackson has always wanted to know more about his family history, but that longing grew acute when his 6-year-old son was asked to wear a costume or flag from an ancestor's country for a school "cultural day."
"The other kids had flags from Ireland, England, and many of the countries in South America," said Jackson, co-founder of Shared Vision, an Atlanta-based marketing firm. "The African-American kids were relegated to the continental level. My son would ask, 'What country am I from?' Of course, I didn't know. Our family history stops in the mid-1800s in North Carolina." Jenni Girtman/Staff (ENLARGE) With her daughter, 11-year-old Keybsiia Gipp, at her side, Joi Gilliam (center) and Opal Maye learn they are of Senegal descent at the Origins: Revealing Ancestry event as part of the National Black Arts Festival event Tuesday.
Jenni Girtman/Staff (ENLARGE) Camille Russell Love, left, and Jim Alexander react after learning their common Cameroon ancestry.
So when Jackson learned about a DNA test that promised to trace his roots back to specific parts of Africa, he was thrilled. He took the test last fall and learned that his forebears were from present-day Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique
****[ his forebears were from present-day Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique ] ****
Jackson is one of dozens of Atlantans who have used DNA technology in recent years to uncover histories lost in the transatlantic slave trade.
Among the latest to learn their origins: Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, artist Fahamu Pecou, jazz musician Russell Gunn and Louis Sullivan, the former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The results of their DNA tests were revealed during an invitation-only "Family Reunion" Tuesday night at a South Fulton conference center.
Franklin learned that her maternal line traces back to Sierra Leone. Afterward, she said she has visited many African countries but not that one.
"Another trip is in order," she said.
Stephanie Hughley, head of the National Black Arts Festival, got the most reaction from the crowd when she was told that her test showed she comes from the Balanta people of Guinea-Bissau. Balanta means "those who resist.
****[her test showed she comes from the Balanta people of Guinea-Bissau. Balanta means "those who resist.]******
Roberta Flack, India Arie and other celebrities will learn their results later in the 10-day National Black Arts Festival, which takes place in various locations around Atlanta.
Atlanta Falcons defensive end Chauncey Davis said he hoped to inspire others to have their DNA tested. "It's very important to know where you come from," said Davis, who lives in Lawrenceville. He learned Tuesday that his maternal line traces back to Sierra Leone.
African Ancestry Inc., the Washington, D.C., company that conducted the DNA tests, will be offering tests to festivalgoers for $275, reduced from the usual $349. The company takes a DNA sample by swabbing a client's cheek then compares it to results in their database of 25,000 indigenous African lines. Tests of mitochondrial DNA can determine from which part of the world someone's maternal ancestors came 10,000 years ago or more.
In some cases, African Ancestry takes it a step further by pinpointing tribal origins — something that is controversial among geneticists. A study last year in a British peer-reviewed journal found that very few DNA samples from African Americans could be traced to a single African ethnic group.
At best, the test can tell people they hail from a particular area in Africa, said Bruce Jackson, one of the authors of that study. He is a geneticist at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell and director of the nonprofit African-American DNA Roots Project.
Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Forrest Whitaker have been public about using DNA testing to fill gaps in their family trees. That publicity has helped create a booming business for African Ancestry, which has been offering tests for about four years.
The notion of recovering lost origins is certainly appealing, but not everyone agrees that it is vitally important to understanding one's identity.
"I don't have anything against DNA testing, but I disagree with the idea that you don't have a history
or an identity without it," said Jacqueline Peavy, a business speaker from Atlanta.
"I know exactly who I am. I am an amalgamation of
many ethnic Africans ... I am a new world African in America."
For Jackson, the marketing executive, the DNA
test results have proven to be "a great family project."
He is going to share
the results with relatives
at an upcoming family reunion and is planning to take his son to Mozambique next year.
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My mother's mother's brother was tested by African Ancestry and we got the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau as his paternal line and Halogroup M1 as his maternal line.
This is a Balanta Rice field in Guinea Bissau.
Ooooh Weeeee! I should stop posting right here.
Oh yeah!
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Tracing African roots through DNA (cont.) FORTUNE Magazine By John Simons, Fortune writer February 16 2007: 3:49 PM EST
Discovering the past
In mid-November I decided to make the same journey and delivered genetic samples to African Ancestry's offices. I took both of the tests the company offers - an analysis of mitochondrial DNA, passed to me from my mother and her mother, and so on, and a second test to examine my Y-chromosome, passed to me from my father and his father, etc. The cost: $550.
The sample collection was simple. For each exam, I rubbed my inner cheeks and gums for two minutes, collecting microscopic tissue samples on a swab, then sealed them into separate bar-coded envelopes. The specimens would first go to a Utah DNA processor called Sorenson Genomics, which sequences, digitizes and sends the DNA to Kittles in Chicago. Using proprietary software, Kittles tries to identify matches between his clients' DNA and those in his gene database. The whole thing takes four to six weeks.
What's interesting, and somewhat limiting, about the tests is that my mitochondrial DNA can only reveal information about my mother's mother's lineage. And my Y-chromosome analysis can only provide clues about my father's father's ancestry. That's all the genetic information I carry. What's left out, then, is information about my mother's father's DNA (passed through generations via the male line), and my father's mother's DNA, which is maternally inherited.
A few days before Christmas, I received my results in the mail. "The mitochondrial [i.e., maternal] DNA sequence that we determined from your sample shares ancestry with the Mende, Temne and Limba peoples in Sierra Leone today," read my official letter. Included in the envelope was a lengthy explanation of the genetic analysis, along with a graphic depicting portions of my DNA and a booklet offering information and sources for further research on specific ethnic groups.
"The Y-chromosome DNA markers," the letter continued, "share ancestry with people in two countries today: the Makua people of Mozambique and the Lissongo people in the Central African Republic. While these groups may differ socially and culturally, there are people within them who share a common genetic ancestry."
*******[Kittles helped put my ancestry in context. About 30 percent of his clients have Sierra Leone matches, he says, which makes sense, as it's in the heart of the slave-trading region. Only about 5 percent of African slaves were from what is now Mozambique and Madagascar in the southeast, far from the main centers.]*******
With this new information in hand, I now know more about my African ancestors than I do about many succeeding generations. The entire period between when my ancestors arrived (whenever that was) and the early 20th century is a mystery.
On my father's side, I know that my paternal great-grandfather was born in Brooklyn in 1910. His parents and their families, so I'm told, had lived in northern Virginia for generations. My mother's family hails from the Bahamas. Early details of their arrival in the U.S. are sketchy because they came as illegal immigrants and picked fruit in Florida. By the early 1940s, when my mother was born, they were living legally in Brooklyn.
My mother, visiting me for the holidays, couldn't contain her excitement upon hearing that she was related to the three main ethnic groups in Sierra Leone. She immediately commandeered my computer and began surfing Web sites for photos of the Mende, Limba and Temne people. "Oh, my God. She looks like Aunt Louise," she said, pointing to a photo of a Mende woman standing in a field with her children.
After a few more hours on the computer and a trip to the bookstore, my mother had a plausible theory about our Sierra Leone origins: Slaves from Sierra Leone were sought for their expertise in rice farming. Many of them ended up in the Carolinas and Georgia as the backbone of the region's rice industry. How did these possible ancestors get from the Carolinas to the Bahamas? Before the American Revolution, the Bahamas was a sparsely populated British outpost, but after the American victory in 1783, many plantation owners who remained British loyalists resettled in British colonies in the Caribbean. Between 1784 and 1789, the population of the Bahamas tripled to 12,000 people - three-quarters of them slaves.
My mother and I could not have made these kinds of connections, however tenuous, without the results from African Ancestry. But a number of scientists have questioned the interpretations the company makes (and are more than a little piqued that Kittles does not share his database). Last October, Bert Ely, a geneticist at the University of South Carolina, published a paper suggesting that African-American mitochondrial DNA has been mixed so much that, in many cases, it is impossible to find a match with a single ethnic group in Africa.
Ely plotted the DNA sequences of 170 African Americans against those of 3,725 people living in Africa. He found that most African Americans share lineage with three or more groups of Africans. He also found that some 40 percent of African Americans had no match with Africans in his database. In my case, it's not that my DNA doesn't match the Mende, according to critics, but that I may not have the full picture.
"You're limited by the size of the database," says Jonathan Marks, an anthropologist at the University of North Carolina. "How many other people did you match from other tribes that were not sampled?" The question is fair. Still, although the record is incomplete, I now have a link to my past I did not have before.
Pilar Ossorio, a professor of bioethics and law at the University of Wisconsin, questions the claims of specificity. "Just as an example," she says, "there are people in the Balkans who share the same mitochondrial DNA with people in Africa."
Kittles defends his research. His database is more than triple the size of Ely's, he notes; therefore, it has more ethnic variability and is more accurate. He grouses, "This is sour grapes that I didn't share my data with them."
African Ancestry's clients appear unfazed. On a Web forum, customers overwhelmingly side with the company. Dwainia Tullis's view is typical. Last August she discovered she shared ancestry with the Balanta and Fulani tribes of Guinea Bissau.
*****[Last August she discovered she shared ancestry with the Balanta and Fulani tribes of Guinea Bissau.]********
"I'm getting another cousin of mine involved to cover all sides of the family," says the 51-year-old hairdresser from California. And what has been the benefit? "I'm more whole now," she says simply.
For me, my family tree is still missing branches. Rather than one specific place of belonging, I've discovered I share DNA with people spanning the entire continent of Africa. In the end, I feel more African when I peer into the mirror - and, oddly, more American.
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The Results of the African Ancestry DNA Testing are in.
The Paternal Lineage of the Hamlin Family traces it's origins to the African country: Guinea Bissau. Our Dna is a 100% match for the Balanta and Fulani Tribes of Guinea Bissau. Information on the history, culture and lives of our African Ancestors is coming soon...
Some scientists use L0 to refer to an extinct haplogroup. For example, one commercial testing company states, "Another haplogroup, L0, preceded L1, but is long since extinct."[2] In this model, L1 is considered the haplogroup from which all living humans are descended.
As existing today
Some scientists use L0 to refer to the first offshoot of Mitochondrial Eve, estimated to have lived in Africa approximately 150,000 to 170,000 years ago. Haplogroup L0 consist of four main branches (L0d, L0k, L0a, L0f). All of them were originally classified into haplogroup L1 as L1d, L1k, L1a and L1f.
Haplogroups L0d and L0k are typical for Khoisan tribes in South Africa.
Haplogroup L0a is most prevalent in South-East African populations (25% in Mozambique).[3] Among Guineans, it has a frequency between 1% and 5%, with the Balanta group showing increased frequency of about 11%. Haplogroup L0a has a Paleolithic time depth of about 33,000 years and likely reached Guinea between 10,000 and 4,000 years ago.
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quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
The writer did not lie. He did not understand the origin of word Mystery Solver and that's not the main thrust of this thead.
In that case, any clear-headed thinking person wouldn't have a problem with people who do understand the origin of the word, setting the record straight, so that other unsuspecting people wouldn't be misled.
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quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
The writer did not lie. He did not understand the origin of word Mystery Solver and that's not the main thrust of this thead.
In that case, any clear-headed thinking person wouldn't have a problem with people who do understand the origin of the word, setting the record straight, so that other unsuspecting people wouldn't be misled.
OK. Correct any Arabic or other words that you think need correcting.
And as they would say in Hebrew Todah Rabah = Thank You Very Much. (Muchisimas Gracias)
Posts: 1115 | From: GOD Bless the USA | Registered: May 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Red,White, and Blue + Christian:
OK. Correct any Arabic or other words that you think need correcting.
I'll keep you posted, when I do come across anything else that needs to be corrected, presuming that I've had time to read your copy & paste material. That particular error was actually brought to my attention instantly, by that one *alert* poster, presumably a 'picky' one at that, according to your logic.
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