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Leo Frobenius on Africa
Ethnologist and archaeologist Leo Frobenius was born in Berlin on the 29th of June 1873. His first
expedition to Africa was to the Congo in 1904. In 1918, he began his expedition to North, West and
Central Africa. Back in Germany, he founded the Institute for Cultural Morphology in Munich in
1920. He was appointed a honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt in 1932. In 1925, the
city of Frankfurt acquired his over 4,700 historical African stone paintings and even more
sculptures of African art currently in the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt. He died in Italy in 1938,
aged 65. He corresponded and collaborated with the great sociologist, historian and author, the
African (American born and African-American descent) W.E.B Du Bois.
Darkness enshrouded the deeps which had swallowed humanity's lovely ideal. The children of
the Gods had gone under, because they failed to remember the law their awe-
worthy ancestry had bequeathed them. All that splendour of art, which had erstwhile
glorified the island, slid into Ocean's bed.
And, in common with those who yearn for the light which knowledge brings, I have spent many an
hour in gloom there. But I failed to find it governed by the " insensible fetish." I failed to find power
expressed in degenerate bestiality alone. In spite of the exalted light of the Church, I discovered the
souls of these peoples, and found that they were more than humanity's burnt-up husks.
Yet, neither was I slow to observe that they no longer obeyed the laws handed down to the sons of
the Gods, their sires of bygone days. They remember them still. They still make part of their
dreams. These people have only fallen away from the height of human achievement. A glorious
ideal of mankind had been thrust into the depths. The darkness had engulfed it. Fiat
Lux ! Let there be light ! And there was light!
……………LEARNING TO SEE is, indeed, the most difficult of things in the laborious study of
African mystery. (But if only we open our eyes, we shall see such exquisite beauty as to delight all
our senses and take our breaths away. Enough to revive a hopeless race)
But—these (so called) cannibal Bassonge were, according to the types we met with, one of those
rare nations of the African interior which can be classed with the most aesthetic and skilled, most
discreet and intelligent of all those generally known to us as the so-called natural races.
Before the Arabic and European invasion they did not dwell in “hamlets," but in towns with twenty
or thirty thousand inhabitants, in towns whose highways were shaded by avenues of splendid palms
planted at regular intervals and laid out with the symmetry of colonnades. Their pottery would be
fertile in suggestion to every art-craftsman in Europe. Their weapons of iron were so perfectly
fashioned that no industrial art from abroad could improve upon their workmanship. The iron
blades were cunningly ornamented with damascened copper, and the hilts artistically inlaid with
the same metal. Moreover, they were most industrious and capable husbandmen, whose careful
tillage of the suburbs made them able competitors of any gardener in Europe. Their sexual and
parental relations evidenced an amount of tact and delicacy of feeling unsurpassed among
ourselves, either in the simplicity of the country or the refinements of the town. Originally, their
political and municipal system was organized on the lines of a representative republic. True, it is on
record that these well-governed towns often waged an internecine warfare ; but, in spite of this, it
had been their invariable custom from time immemorial, even in times of strife, to keep the trade
routes open and to allow their own and foreign merchants to go their ways unharmed. And the
commerce of these nations ebbed and flowed along a road of unknown age, running from Itimbiri
to Batubenge, about six hundred miles in length. This highway was only destroyed by the "
missionaries of civilization " ……. towards the close of the eighteenth century. But, even in my own
time, there were still smiths who knew the names of places along that wonderful trade-route driven
through the heart of the " impenetrable forests of the Congo." For every scrap of imported iron was
carried over it.
What are the assertions of an author in the 'sixties of the nineteenth century worth in the face of
such facts as these? ………………..And is it not equally obvious that such skill in the arts, such great
commercial expansion, such town-planning and such municipal construction, must be the product
of prolonged historical civilization ? Are not the facts, taken as a whole, here gift altogether against
the narrow-minded view which is inclined to. If you reject the value of the whole and of everything
connected with it upon the evidence of unessential, quaint excrescences, such as the civilization of
every nation must of necessity disclose?
Under the pressure of an irresistible public opinion these dark- skinned Africans well know how to
keep their own secrets with a stubborn taciturnity which we Europeans, whose development is
individual and whose training is in personality, are quite unable to understand. Not one of us at
home can imagine the crushing weight brought to bear by the whole mass of society on a single
member.
But, incidentally, I gave an account of some material on which history could be based, and which
would form a far mightier link between the Present and the Past than pyramids and bronzes and
sculptures and manuscripts ; I mean, the memory of human beings, who have not yet learned to
write, or who have not had the treasury of remembrance ruined by the excessive use of the written
word !
The memory of these things had been kept have in rustic brains for nigh two thousand years. The
storms of war and times of trouble had swept across it ; in long periods of gentle peace the harrows
had been drawn along its furrows year in year out,……Generation upon generation had trodden over
it ;
……..Such is the godlike strength of memory in those who live before the advent of the written word.
Every archaeologist can quote examples from the nations of the North. But who would imagine that
the negro race of Africa possessed an equally retentive mind for its store of ancient monuments?
For well-nigh ten centuries no brick-built pyramid was lifted skywards, yet gaffers still recall the
song which was sung when hundreds upon hundreds of toilers wrought, when layer was spread
upon layer, when the clay was beaten with batlets and baked in the heat of a fire.
I am thinking, e.g., of the vanished glory of San Salvador, the capital of the Congo Empire.
Discovered as a genuine African city towards the end of the fifteenth, it had in the sixteenth century
become the centre of a Christian realm under the influence of Portugal and the Church, whose
pomp was proverbial in Europe for a time, and yet its dignitaries were only native negroes. Black
bishops, robed in costly vestments, preached their sermons in a mighty cathedral. Dukes, princes
and noblemen, habited in the fashion of that day, the short Spanish mantle on their shoulders and
the sword upon their thigh, followed in the Emperor's train. Negroes, every man of them! It was as
though a pageant of the world of Europe had been called into existence out of “brutal paganism” at
a wizard's word—so the old chronicles tell us.
And then, when a century has run its course ! The mighty Emperor of the Congo buffeted by a
priest ! A second century goes by: nought but miserable ruins—wretched negro huts—and tattered
Bushmen! So swiftly vanished all the splendour of the velvets and the satins! And why?
The negro, naturally gifted with a delicate sense of tact, is always shy of saying and discussing
things his interlocutor neither likes to hear nor see.
……..Although all the wealthy princes of the Interior had come down in the world during the most
recent disturbances and had seen a host of shrewd folk from the Coast quickly piling up riches, and
although great portions of the city had been in part destroyed,
…….I did, indeed, mark down a fine lot of ceremonial furniture in the temples, but not a soul had
any idea of selling. Nor, bearing in mind that Ibadan is by no means an impoverished negro city, is
it (not) very difficult to understand this. The inhabitants of Ibadan can hardly be described
otherwise than as being fairly well-to-do. The resources of Yoruba-land, so enormously wealthy in
oil-yielding palms, produce a revenue so substantial that families of repute are able to make a
good income with little effort,
………And thus the comfortable Ibadanese paterfamilias, reclining at ease on his mat beneath the
broad veranda of his bungalow inside his fertile compound, makes sacrifices to his household-gods,
sleeps, eats, and drinks gin,
……..Why should a man, whose money comes so easily, barter his sacred paternal inheritance for
nothing, and yet again nothing, to an eccentric pale-face ? So there was nothing to be got in
exchange for the legendary bread and butter, empty bottles, trouser-buttons, or frayed epaulettes.
It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose that these people expressed any great joy in
feeling a few shillings in their palms. Not a single one of them thought of rushing greedily at our
filthy lucre. We often haggled over some one article or other for days together, and I often missed a
really fine piece because the wretched starvelings suddenly raised money elsewhere for their
immediate needs. I observed something new to me in Africa in these early days which gave me food
for thought. Whenever one of these poor fellows had arranged to part with a good antique at a price
and his well-to-do relatives came to know of it, the richer ones among them, who, as a rule, were
quite indifferent to the fate of their poor relation, now offered him substantial sums in order to
retain the family possessions.
Generous hospitality and spacious circumstance are met with everywhere and always. The entire
household has an air of largeness and breathes that atmosphere of elbow-room necessary in the
pursuit of husbandry.
Every morning the sturdy sire takes up his tools and sets a good example to his children and
dependents instead of lounging idly round about. Even the aged find some use for their failing
powers until they breathe their last. When, every now and again, I had been told Yorubans were a
lazy lot, the term was true enough about the nawabs of the city, but to see them go about their
business in farmstead or small country town was to give the lie direct to such a general statement.
…….The lad and another man took a side-path of their own while we went along the main road to
the Ebolokun Grove with the " Ancient," at a pace suited to his great age. On arrival under the palm-
trees, we found that the young fellow had made a short cut. He was carrying a fairly heavy sack
slung across his shoulders. It contained the effigy of the God. After Martius had been summoned
from the scene of his labours close by, we waited intently for the sack to be opened. The grey-head
placed two stones one above the other and he and his son bared the upper parts of their bodies—the
invariable custom at all religious ceremonial—dragged something out of the bag, placed it on the
stones, and then—well, then—I did two things : I rubbed my eyes and pinched my leg to make sure I
was not dreaming and to avert attention from my exceeding joy.
Before us stood a head of marvellous beauty, wonderfully cast in antique bronze, true to the life,
incrusted with a patina of glorious dark green. This was, in very deed, the Olokun, Atlantic Africa's
Poseidon !
Profoundly stirred, I stood for many minutes before this remnant of the erstwhile Lord and Ruler
of the Empire of Atlantis.
' My companions were no less astounded. As though we had agreed to do so, we held our peace.
The black population of Southern Nigeria does not to-day pay the proper amount of respect due to
the white authorities, and the resulting corruption of morality is all the more serious because,
owing to European domination, the native holders of power (the Alafins, the Bales, the priests, etc.)
have lost a great deal of influence and no substitute is at hand for the former permanent imposition
of the strong hand.
……..How closely forged are the links of their philosophy and the greatness of this nation, not alone
in its practical existence, but in the intellectual quality permeating their religious thoughts.
The Bale, in part, and the people, in part, elect these officers. The populace itself has the privilege of
choosing the Djagun ; the Bale determines the sequence in rank of the Balogun. The juristic experts
seem to be selected according to knowledge and experience of the law. These were certainly men of
importance ; they squatted either in rotation or all together around the person of the President and
informed him of the " procedure " in the cases before him, and so not only furnished him with
desired " similar " cases, but came to his assistance with historical " precedents."
……But the salutations are another pair of shoes. Their many variations would seem a striking
oddity in Europe. Some of the other Yoruban tribes may be taken as patterns of politeness in their
greeting, which may, as we think, be considered overdone. The Ilifians have created such an
exquisite gradation, such a sublimely subtle light and shade in ceremonial manner, as would make
the heart of an expert, whether ducal teacher of deportment or royal conductor of the ballet, dance
with joy. I am, to my regret, extremely badly versed in this department and can only talk of its
effect, but not of its more delicate refinements. When Ilifian men or women salute each other, be it
with a plain and easy curtsey (which is here the simplest form adopted), or kneeling down, or
throwing oneself upon the ground, or kissing the dust with one's forehead, no matter which, there is
yet a deliberateness, a majesty, a dignity, a devoted earnestness in the manner of its doing, which
brings to light with every gesture, with every fold of clothing, the deep significance and essential
import of every single action.
……..These people show such an astounding propriety in their manner of managing a dress, a shawl
and a coat, such an art in the display of their movements, that the spectator rightly draws the
conclusion that time is but of little account in their eyes. And once so convinced, the natural
question arises, what does the life look like which goes on behind this beautiful and unanimous
masquerading? This is mostly a difficult question, but in this case it is easily answered. I have
previously mentioned the high degree of those qualities of intellect and its uses which bear witness
to the ancient civilization once possessed by Yorubans. The Ifians are altogether Yoruban……
Leo Frobenius, Voice of Africa
I AM AN AFRICAN
and rejoice exceedingly in any attendant success upon the production of evidence that my own
“tedious” Continent has one thing to offer, namely, real puzzles whose eventual solution is merely
deferred and a question of time.
"When they [the first European navigators of the end of the Middle Ages] arrived in the Gulf of
Guinea and landed at Vaida, the captains were astonished to find the streets well cared for,
bordered for several leagues in length by two rows of trees; for many days they passed through a
country of magnificent fields, a country inhabited by men clad in brilliant costumes, the stuff of
which they had woven themselves! More to the South in the Kingdom of Congo, a swarming crowd
dressed in silk and velvet; great states well ordered, and even to the smallest details, powerful
sovereigns, rich industries, -- civilized to the marrow of their bones. And the condition of the
countries on the eastern coasts -- Mozambique, for example -- was quite the same.
"What was revealed by the navigators of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries furnishes an
absolute proof that Negro Africa, which extended south of the desert zone of the Sahara, was in full
efflorescence which the European conquistadors annihilated as far as they progressed. For the new
country of America needed slaves, and Africa had them to offer, hundreds, thousands, whole
cargoes of slaves. However, the slave trade was never an affair which meant a perfectly easy
conscience, and it exacted a justification; hence one made of the Negro a half-animal, an article of
merchandise. And in the same way the notion of fetish (Portuguese feticeiro) was invented as a
symbol of African religion. As for me, I have seen in no part of Africa the Negroes worshipping a
fetish. The idea of the 'barbarous Negro' is a European invention which has consequently prevailed
in Europe until the beginning of this century.
What these old captains recounted, these chiefs of expeditions -- Delbes, Marchais, Pigafetta, and
all the others, what they recounted is true. It can be verified. In the old Royal Kunstkammer of
Dresden, in the Weydemann collection of Ulm, in many another 'cabinet of curiosities' of Europe,
we still find West African collections dating from this epoch. Marvellous plush velvets of an extreme
softness, made of the tenderest leaves of a certain kind of banana plant; stuffs soft and supple,
brilliant and delicate, like silks, woven with the fibre of a raffia, well prepared; powerful javelins
with points encrusted with copper in the most elegant fashion; bows so graceful in form and so
beautifully ornamented that they would do honour to any museum of arms whatsoever; calabashes
decorated with the greatest taste; sculpture in ivory and wood of which the work shows a very great
deal of application and style.
"And all that came from countries of the African periphery, delivered over after that to slave
merchants, . .
"But when the pioneers of the last century pierced this zone of European civilization and the wall of
protection which had, for the time being raised behind it -- the wall of protection of the Negro still
intact --they found everywhere the same marvels which the captains had found on the coast.
"In 1906 when I penetrated into the territory of Kassai-Sankuru, I found still, villages of which the
principal streets were bordered on each side, for leagues, with rows of palm trees, and of which the
houses, decorated each one in charming fashion, were works of art as well.
"No man who did not carry sumptuous arms of iron or copper, with inlaid blades and handles
covered with serpent skin. Everywhere velvets and silken stuffs. Each cup, each pipe, each spoon
was an object of art perfectly worthy to be compared to the creations of the Roman European style.
But all this was only the particularly tender and iridescent bloom which adorns a ripe and
marvellous fruit; the gestures, the manners, the moral code of the entire people, from the little child
to the old man, although they remained within absolutely natural limits, were imprinted with
dignity and grace, in the families of the princes and the rich as in the vassals and slaves. . I know of
no northern people who can be compared with these primitives for unity of civilization. And the
peaceful beauty was carried away by the floods.
But many men had this experience: the explorers who left the savage and warrior plateau of the
East and South and the North to descend into the plains of the Congo, of Lake Victoria, of the
Ubangi: men such as Speke and Grant, Livingstone, Cameron, Stanley, Schweinfurt, Junker, de
Brazza-- all of them -- made the same statements: they came from countries dominated by the rigid
laws of the African Ares, and from then on they penetrated into the countries where peace reigned,
and joy in adornment and in beauty; countries of old civilizations, of ancient styles, of harmonious
styles.
"The revelations of fifteenth and seventeenth century navigators furnish us with certain proof that
Negro Africa, which extended south of the Sahara desert zone, was still in full bloom, in the full
brilliance of harmonious and well-formed civilizations. In the last century the superstition ruled
that all high culture of Africa came from Islam. Since then we have learned much, and we know
today that the beautiful turbans and clothes of the Sudanese folk were already used in Africa before
Muhammad was even born or before Ethiopian culture reached inner Africa. Since then we have
learned that the peculiar organization of the Sudanese states existed long before Islam and that all
of the art of building and education, of city organization and handwork in Negro Africa, were
thousands of years older than those of Middle Europe.
Thus in the Sudan old real African warm-blooded culture existed and could be found in Equatorial
Africa, where neither Ethiopian thought, Hamitic blood, or European civilization had drawn the
pattern. Everywhere when we examine this ancient culture it bears the same impression. In the
great museums -- Trocadero, British Museum, in Belgium, Italy, Holland, and Germany --
everywhere we see the same spirit, the same character, the same nature. All of these separate pieces
unite themselves to the same expression and build a picture equally impressive as that of a
collection of the art of Asia. The striking beauty of the cloth, the fantastic beauty of the drawing and
the sculpture, the glory of the ivory weapons, the collection of fairy tales equal to the Thousand and
One nights, the Chinese novels, and the Indian philosophy.
"In comparison with such spiritual accomplishments the impression of the African spirit is easily
seen. It is stronger in its folds, simpler in its richness. Every weapon is simple and practical, not
only in form but fantasy. Every line of carving is simple and strong. There is nothing that makes a
clearer impression of strength and all that streams out of the fire and the hut, the sweat and the
grease- treated hides and the animal dung. Everything is practical, strong, workmanly. This is the
character of the African style. When one approaches it with full understanding, one immediately
realizes that this impression rules all Africa. It expresses itself in the activity of all Negro people
even in their sculpture. It speaks out of their dances and their masks; out of the understanding of
their religious life, just as out of the reality of their living, their state building, and their conception
of fate. It lives in their fables, their fairy stories, their wise sayings and their myths.
And once we are forced to this conclusion, then the Egyptian comes into the comparison. For this
discovered culture form of Negro Africa has the same peculiarity
Leo Frobenius
Histoire de la Civilisation Africaine translated by Back and Ermoat Paris: Gallimard, 1936 6th
edition page 56 in
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois The World and Africa: An inquiry into the part which Africa has played
in world history New York: Viking Press, 1946 pp. 79, 156