Black African & Native American Societies
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The purpose of this research is to examine black African and Native American societies before European contacts in regard to their religions, political structure, and economics. If the pre-encounter societies of Africa and the Americas differed in the hold they had on the respective territories they inhabited, they appear to have been similar in possessing well-developed and refined (though unappreciated, by the Europeans) structures of social organization, including religious, political, and economic structures. In the case of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec, politics was organized around imperial authority. In Africa, too, there were indigenous empires with their own political and economic systems. Leaving aside imperial Egypt, which was linked with and well known to Europe before the first millennium, there were empires of Kush in the Sudan, of Ethiopia, and of Nubia (Davidson, 1966, 39-41). The religious environment of pre-encounter Africa was multifaceted, and remains so to the present day. Davidson says that African religion was as varied "in almost as many ways as there were African peoples. . . . [P]eople living in he rain forests of the Congo, scarcely ever seeing the sky, came to have very different ideas about the origin and operation of the world from people living in the sky-enclosing plains of the open grasslands" (Davidson, 1966, 123). On the other hand, running through most specific religions was a persistent belief in a "High God," which was associated wit
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s multi-tribal configuration and in the sense of the sacred that infused daily life. According to Fixico (1996, 29), 547 distinct tribes have been identified in present-day America; this leaves out the peoples that have disappeared over time. Fixico continues, in summary of the principal point:
American Indian communities possess internal histories of relations defined according to their separate cultures. Tribal communities are built on an infrastructure of interrelated societies and roles, such as clans, leaders, warriors, medicinal persons, and others. An important part of this network is the community's relationships with the flora, fauna, and metaphysical spirituality. This network is based on a sociocultural understanding of a religious nature (Fixico, 1996, 32).
The fact that political structure interpenetrates sacral religious sensibility in Native American custom and practice appears to have been present both before and since European contacts. "Many American Indian religions teach that we are wrapped together in a multi-dimensional cycle," says James (1992, 38). "One key to understanding this belief is that their gods were, and are, so many aspects of an integrated world. Accordingly, the objectives of prayer are har
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Some common words found in the essay are:
East Africa, Native American, American Indian, Iron Age, Pizarro Peru, Davidson African, Nanih Waya, Tallensi Ghana, Adena Hopewell, America African, silverberg 1986, davidson 1964, debo 1934, james 1992, native american, davidson 1966, political structure, north america, american indian, asch asch, davidson 1966 126, james 1992 39, york review books, silverberg 1963 197, native american society,
Approximate Word count = 2285
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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