#Swahili coast

[dream-world-universe]

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Dar es Salaam (Abode of Peace) is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of the Dar es Salaam Region. Dar es Salaam is the largest city in East Africa and the sixth-largest in Africa. Located on the Swahili coast, Dar es Salaam is an important economic center and one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. Dar es Salaam is Tanzania's most prominent city for arts, fashion, media, film, television, and finance. Wikipedia

[leroibobo]

the old town on lamu island in kenya is one of the oldest and best-preserved swahili settlements in east africa, having been founded in the 14th century, and - unlike many other swahili settlements - continuously inhabited since. historically, it served as an economic powerhouse, and today still lives as a cultural one. like swahili culture itself, its buildings mix architectural elements from cultures who've come in contact with the area, including bantu, arab, persian, indian, and european.

one of the most distinctive features of the old town's architecture - and swahili architecture in general - is the carved detailing on doors, which is usually done on wood. since carved doors were once considered a sign of wealth, many buildings in lamu old town have them. the patterns are often geometric and nature-inspired and sometimes contain religious inscriptions.

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[mishpacha]

The [Portuguese] fault lay in their own antiquated system of society.  Lacking a strong mercantile class, they understood little but loot and conquest.  They stood outside the stream of mercantile democracy; and their rigidly autocratic methods of government and trade proved ruinous for themselves as well as for all those whom they conquered.  Their individual genius for enterprise and courage, adaptation and invention, was repeatedly stultified by the stupidity of their institutions; and one disaster, fatally, followed another. Having seized the terminal ports of India and Africa and ruined those by royal order and aristocratic piracy, they blindly wrecked all that sensitive network of mercantile interest which centuries of trading had woven from one end of the Indian Ocean to the other.  Their early letters back and forth are full proofs that they never succeeded in restoring any regular system of international trade.  The most that happened was that a little of the old trade went on in spite of them.  But having destroyed this great system of exchange and found its restoration beyond their powers, they desperately went off in search of gold; and when gold eluded them they looked for silver; and when silver failed they went for anything they could get, and were finally content with slaves.

The Lost Cities of Africa by Basil Davidson; pg. 331.

[rosaluxembae]

I'd be interested in someone who's better with medieval East African history than me comparing the Summer Islands to the Swahili Coast city states IRL.

On a superficial level at least they're both civilisations with intercontinental maritime trade influences.

[rooksamoris]

they did jamil's story so dirty, so im here to do him justice. honestly, a lot of my depictions of him come from various pieces of arabic literature that criticize the caste system/social hierarchy as a whole. a lot of our most romantic literature comes from people who could not be in love with their muses due to social/ethnic hierarchies. as such, a lot of the writing that i have done of jamil is inspired by those conflicts and just arabic poetry in general.

his story is very underdeveloped and the fandom treats him horribly. that isn't controversial, at least i don't think so. there's a lot of orientalism in the work of twisted wonderland when it comes to the scarabia duo, as well as leona kingscholar too, so im just doing my best to rectify that via sharing bits of arab culture and history through him and kalim as well, soon enough. i wanna do with same with leona, hopefully. im not east african, but i am yemeni and it takes like one-two hours in a boat from the coast of aden to get to east africa.

recently, i have been looking into studying swahili. btw, swahili comes from the arabic word meaning "coast" but it is a bantu language. due to their proximity to the coast and the arabian peninsula, the languages and cultures have mixed a lot (look into socotra island). all that rambling aside, i love the scarabia duo and leona. they deserved better from the creators as well as the fandom.

[vampyresovereign]

TWISTED CHARACTERS AND THE MUSIC I THINK THEY'D LIKE! (savanaclaw ver.)

the part two i promised for no one specifically. i'm mainly doing every dorm because i want to -isa<3

LEONA KINGSCHOLAR

I actually think Leona would listen to music fairly frequently. He's a rich kid, I def headcanon he got one of them expensive ass sports cars and probably speeds on the highway blasting music, pissing off literally everyone else tryna drive home from work. His music taste would be surprisingly diverse, too. He'd probably like a mix of 2000s rnb which includes like Rihanna, Ne-Yo, AALIYAH SO OBVIOUSLY, Akon, and he'd be a (not obsessive) Beyonce stan. He'd listen to NYC and UK drill, and since I headcanon Sunset Savanna to be an East African inspired nation, he'd probably have some Kenyan/Tanzanian/Ugandan/Rwandan artists on his playlist too (since those countries are where Swahili is spoken widely.) I don't have any artists to name but if yall know some put me on.

RUGGIE BUCCHI

Ruggie, similar to Leona would have diverse music taste. Probably grew up surrounded by music, listening to whatever was on the radio while cooking sum for his grandmother, and now he uses one of Leona's ten credit cards to pay for his Spotify premium. He def listens to albums when he's chilling on his bed, studying/trying to unwind after a long day of running around. Though he grew up on similar traditional East African music, his favorite genres (IN MY OPINION) would be alternative hip hop and indie music. He LOVESSSSS Kanye West (tcd to yeezus), Tyler the Creator (and honestly all of OFWGKTA), Gorillaz, Childish Gambino, Vampire Weekend, and early alternative hip hop artists like the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, etc. He was also probably put onto Britpop through Gorillaz, and likes Blur, Oasis, and (it's a secret tho) he fucks with Radiohead's "ok computer" album.

JACK HOWL

Jack is a canon gym rat. we already know he listens to music like HELL while he's bench pressing and doing pushups. I think he'd have similar music taste to Ruggie, excluding the "indie" part. (and he probably uses apple music, too.) Jack enjoys alternative hip-hop, and west coast hip-hop. He'd like Kanye and some of Tyler's popular songs, but he'd REALLY enjoy early 90s west coast rap like N.W.A, Dr. Dre. 2PAC ESPECIALLY, KENDRICK LAMAR ESPECIALLY. His favorite album is probably good kid maad city.

period -isa<3

[max1461]

Registering this prediction early: in 10 to 40 years when the Sahel region calms down politically, a lot of important medieval manuscripts (both in Arabic and in sub-Saharan African languages) are going to come to scholarly attention, which are going to significantly rewrite what we know about African history and linguistics.

It's basically already known that these manuscripts exist, the Timbuktu manuscripts have already been widely commented on and, in addition to Arabic texts, there are also Songhay texts and evidently texts in other languages too. Someone just pointed me to these (c. 15th century?) manuscripts in Old Kanembu. People have this impression of sub-Saharan Africa as a place that wasn't literate prior to colonialism, and while that's true of the interior and southernmost regions, it is varying degrees of not true for West Africa, the Sahel, and East Africa (most people know this about the Horn of Africa, fewer about the Swahili coast, etc.).

In any case the problem is that most of this writing is not exactly accessible to the wider scholarly community, it's either difficult to access due to political circumstances or because it's privately owned (as is the case for many of the Timbuktu manuscripts). But I think we should probably prepare for some quite revelatory discoveries about medieval Africa in the next half century or so as more texts come to light. It's going to be a cool time I suspect.

[thehollowwriter]

What is the real world equivalent of Afterglow/Sunset Savanna?

At first, I thought (hoped, lol) it was South Africa, but I'm not too sure

One of the languages sung in the original Lion King, in fact, the opening line of the movie is Zulu! ("Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba," which means "Here comes a lion, father.") Zulu is one of South Africa's 12 official languages.

The diamond patterns and general style of Leona's clothing are quite similar to that of the Swahili people, although diamond patterns can also be found in traditional Zulu clothing and beadwork.

Swahili, too, is one of the languages spoken in The Lion King and is mainly spoken in countries along the East African Coast outside of South Africa.

However, looking at the background in one of the screens in the actual game (and a background in the event iirc) you can find proteas in the right corner

(Ignore how I circled the hidden mickey lol). But there on the right are pincushion proteas, as well as king, queen, and prince proteas. These fynbos flowers are native to South Africa, specifically the Cape Floral region. They're also South Africa's national flower.

Of course, this is nowhere near the East African coast.

The background also reminds me of fond memories of going to various craft markets or passing by people selling their wares on the side of the road. Woodwork, pottery, beadwork, clothes, baskets, etc were always so fun and beautiful to look at, and you can see those things in the background too.

I don't live anywhere near the East African Cost, I live in the cape, so I'm not sure what local town markets look like there.

So from what I've seen, Yana probably took inspiration from the cultures and countries the two of the three languages in The Lion King, so it's a murky mix of more than one place (which is unfortunate since they're so distinct).

I still like to think it's the twst version of South Africa, though, since we're quite well known for having many unique cultures, languages and traditions in one place, and the Sunset Savanna seems similar.

[dream-world-universe]

Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania: Stonetown of Zanzibar, also known as Mji Mkongwe, is the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar, in Tanzania. The newer portion of the city is known as Ng'ambo, Swahili for 'the other side'. Stone Town is located on the western coast of Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago. Wikipedia

[leroibobo]

the kiti cha enzi (swahili for "chair of power") style of chair reflects both the tradition of decorative chairs being associated with wealth and power in many niger-congo language-speaking societies, as well as the various artistic influences which converged on the swahili coast due to trade. the chairs, only ever made in mombasa and the islands of pate, lamu, and zanzibar, are wooden - mostly ebony - with the seats made of woven string, and inlaid with ivory, bone, and sometimes silver.

the style was first developed in the 15th century. (this particular chair dates to the 19th.) despite the chairs' intricacy, they're also designed to be easy to take apart and carry - an important feature for past swahili rulers and other important figures who were always on the move. wealthy families tended to have at least a few which they'd use to seat important guests while less wealthy families may have owned less decorative versions.

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[bookishfeylin]

I know you don't usually do these kinds of posts, but you're probably one of the most implicated in black history month people that I follow so I wanted to ask you, as I already value your opinions in Acotar, what do you think of the documentary where actual historians claim Cleopatra was a black woman? Lately, this has been a pretty active topic on my fyp on TikTok, and I wanted to know a black woman's perspective on this.

Thank you in advance, and if you usually don't answer these questions or don't want to answer this one, I'll totally understand, and there's no problem at all.

I didn’t know there was a new documentary out, but when I saw the name Cleopatra I automatically sighed because I knew what was coming. This is a subject a know a little 🤏🏾 about, actually, because I researched it a bit myself in my last year of high school (and stopped because of the uh. NASTINESS associated with this particular subject) and though it’s been a few years I remembered some main, basic things, and I wanted to check a few things first.

At best, in the most CHARITABLE interpretation as far as I in my limited knowledge can tell, it would be correct to say that’s it’s POSSIBLE that she MAY have been mixed Black because, though she was part of the GREEK Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt (Ptolemy being one of Alexander the Great’s generals who got the Egyptian portion of his empire after Alexander died), that’s on her fathers side; her mother’s exact ethnicity isn’t known. Not that this won’t stop the hoteps from running off and claiming her and all of ancient Egypt as Black though So some have ***speculated*** that her mother—and thus Cleopatra—may have potentially been part Egyptian (and that goes into the issue of deciding that the “Egyptian” in this instance had to have been Black rather than MENA but that’s again a whole other can of worms). BUT it’s more likely that her mother was Greek due to the uh, PRACTICE™️ of inbreeding and it not being common for the dynasty to marry Egyptians. So it’s more probable that she was fully Greek/Macedonian and not part Egyptian, much less part Black. (Also some historians speculate she may have had Persian blood? I guess? Again it’s a can of worms, not something i’m digging deep into because of the nastiness that you often stumble across) Unless there’s a new study confirming her mother’s identity or something that I missed, it’s simply incorrect to claim that Cleopatra was undeniably Black, because though it is ***possible*** she most likely ***wasn’t.***

But this topic really upsets me, because there are LEGITIMATE Black kingdoms and empires who were mighty and well developed and powerful like the Aksumite empire and kingdoms of Kongo and Loango and the Great Zimbabwe empire and the empires of Ghana and Mali and Songhay and the Ashanti kingdom and the WHOLE SWAHILI COAST THAT WAS INVOLVED IN THE INDIAN OCEAN TRADE ROUTE and they had their own great rulers, their own kings and queens and emperors and empresses, their palaces and castles, their own cities and towns, their own complex civilizations and dynastic royal families that deserve the attention Cleopatra and ancient Egypt get. They were erased—and Egypt was not—by white people to prop themselves up as the only race capable of forming civilizations and advanced societies as a means of justifying colonization and imperialism to “civilize” the rest of the world and as a result many of those other empires have been erased from our education system here in the states and many people cling to ancient Egypt as proof that we’re not inferior and aren’t savages like white people claim due to believing that since Egypt’s in Africa it had to have been mostly Black when Egypt, and the Ptolemaic dynasty and Cleopatra in PARTICULAR, are literally the worst example that could’ve been chosen and were the only African kingdom spared erasure FOR A REASON.

Anyway, I don’t like it, it’s disingenuous and does US wrong because we need to give that energy to other African kingdoms that need and could use the fame Egypt + Cleopatra get, and we deserve a better education system to teach us this stuff. I hope this answers your question? And I don’t mind any kinds of asks 🥰

[whencyclopedia]

Mutapa

Mutapa (aka Matapa, Mwenemutapa, and Monomotapa) was a southern African kingdom located in the north of modern Zimbabwe along the Zambezi River which flourished between the mid-15th and mid-17th century CE. Although sometimes described as an empire, there is little evidence that the Shona people of Mutapa ever established such control over the region. Prospering thanks to its local resources of gold and ivory, the kingdom traded with Muslim merchants on the coast of East Africa and then the Portuguese during the 16th century CE. The kingdom went into decline when it was weakened by civil wars, and the Portuguese conquered its territory around 1633 CE.

Great Zimbabwe Decline

By the 15th century CE, the kingdom of Great Zimbabwe (est. c. 1100 CE) was in decline and any links with the lucrative coastal trade of the Swahili coast had ceased. This may be because gold deposits had run out in the territory controlled by the kingdom. Additional factors may have included overpopulation, overworking of the land, and deforestation, leading to food shortages which were perhaps brought to crisis point by a series of droughts.

By the second half of the 15th century CE, the Bantu-speaking Shona peoples had migrated a few hundred kilometres northwards from Great Zimbabwe to a land where they displaced the indigenous pygmies and smaller tribes who fled to the forests and desert. The exact relationship between Great Zimbabwe and Mutapa is not known other than that archaeology has shown both kingdoms had very similar pottery, weapons, tools, and luxury manufactured goods like jewellery.

The Shona thus formed a new state, the kingdom of Mutapa, from around 1450 CE, although it may well have been a case of the Zimbabwe ruling elite changing capital rather than a general population movement from the south. The founder and first Mutapa king was Nyatsimba Mutota. According to Shona oral tradition, Mutota had been sent to investigate the land around the north bend of the Zambezi River and he came back with the glad tidings that it was plentiful in salt and wild game. The second king, Mutota's son Nyanhehwe Matope, would expand the kingdom even further, capturing both land and cattle.

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