leo frobenius and africa

8/16/2019 Leo Frobenius and Africa

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Leo Frobenius on Africa

History of the Civilisation of the African

Leo Frobenius

“The idea of the ‘barbarous Negro’ is a European invention hich has conse!uently prevailed in

Europe until the beginning of this century"

“The children of the #ods had gone under$ because they failed to re%e%ber the la their aeorthy ancestry had be!ueathed the%&' A( AN AF)'CAN and re*oice e+ceedingly in any

attendant success upon the production of evidence that %y on “tedious" Continent has one thingto offer$ na%ely$ real pu,,les hose eventual solution is %erely deferred and a !uestion of ti%e-"

Leo Frobenius, German Explorer in “The Voice of Africa” (1913

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, borderedfor several leagues in length by two rows of trees; for any days they passed through a country of

agnificent fields, a country inhabited by en clad in brilliant costues, the stuff of which they

had woven theselves! More to the "outh in the #ingdo of $ongo, a swaring crowd dressed insil% and velvet; great states well&ordered, and even to the sallest details, powerful sovereigns, rich

industries; civili'ed to the arrow of their bones And the condition of the countries on the eastern

coasts, Mo'abiue, for e*aple was uite the sae

The Creation of “The Negro”What was revealed by the navigators of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries furnishes an

absolute proof that +egro Africa, which e*tended south of the desert 'one of the "ahara, was in full

efflorescence which the European conuistadors annihilated as far as they progressed or the new

country of Aerica needed slaves, and Africa had the to offer, hundreds, thousands, wholecargoes of slaves -owever, the slave trade was never an affair which eant a perfectly easyconscience, and it e*acted a .ustification; hence one ade of the +egro a half&anial, an article of

erchandise And in the sae way the notion of fetish (/ortuguese feticeiro) was invented as a

sybol of African religion

As for e, 0 have seen in no part of Africa the +egroes worshipping a fetish 1he idea of the2barbarous +egro3 is a European invention which has conseuently prevailed in Europe until the

beginning of this century 4What these old captains recounted, these chiefs of e*peditions, 5elbes,

Marchais, /igafetta, and all the others, what they recounted is true 0t can be verified 0n the old6oyal #unst%aer of 5resden, in the Weydeann collection of 7l, in any another 2cabinet of

curiosities3 of Europe, we still find West African collections dating fro this epoch

Marvellous plush velvets of an e*tree softness, ade of the tenderest leaves of a certain %ind of

banana plant; stuffs soft and supple, brilliant and delicate, li%e sil%s, woven with the fibre of a raffia,well prepared; powerful .avelins with points encrusted with copper in the ost elegant fashion;

bows so graceful in for and so beautifully ornaented that they would do honour to any useuof ars whatsoever; calabashes decorated with the greatest taste; sculpture in ivory and wood of

which the wor% shows a very great deal of application and style

And all that cae fro countries of the African periphery, delivered over after that to slave

erchants 8 9ut when the pioneers of the last century pierced this 'one of European civili'ation

and the wall of protection which had, for the tie being raised behind it, the wall of protection ofthe +egro still intact, they found everywhere the sae arvels which the captains had found on the

coast


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The Real Truth0n :

en such as "pe%e and Grant, ?ivingstone, $aeron, "tanley, "chweinfurt, @un%er, de 9ra''a, allof the ade the sae stateents> they cae fro countries doinated by the rigid laws of the

African Ares, and fro then on they penetrated into the countries where peace reigned, and .oy inadornent and in beauty; countries of old civili'ations, of ancient styles, of haronious styles

Before the Darkness1he revelations of fifteenth and seventeenth century navigators furnish us with certain proof that

+egro Africa, which e*tended south of the "ahara desert 'one, was still in full bloo, in the fullbrilliance of haronious and well&fored civili'ations 0n the last century the superstition ruled that

all high culture of Africa cae fro 0sla "ince then we have learned uch, and we %now today

that the beautiful turbans and clothes of the "udanese fol% were already used in Africa before 0sla

was even born or before Ethiopian culture reached inner Africa "ince then we have learned that thepeculiar organi'ation of the "udanese states e*isted long before 0sla and that all of the art ofbuilding and education, of city organi'ation and handwor% in +egro Africa, were thousands of years

older than those of Middle Europe

1hus in the "udan, old real African war&blooded culture e*isted and could be found in Euatorial

Africa, where neither Ethiopian thought, -aitic blood, or European civili'ation had drawn thepattern Everywhere when we e*aine this ancient culture it bears the sae ipression 0n the great

useus, 1rocadero, 9ritish Museu, in 9elgiu, 0taly, -olland, and Gerany, everywhere we

see the sae spirit, the sae character, the sae nature All of these separate pieces unite

theselves to the sae e*pression and build a picture eually ipressive as that of a collection ofthe art of Asia 1he stri%ing beauty of the cloth, the fantastic beauty of the drawing and thesculpture, the glory of the ivory weapons, the collection of fairy tales eual to the 1housand and

ne +ights, the $hinese novels, and the 0ndian philosophy

The African Style0n coparison with such spiritual accoplishents the ipression of the African spirit is easilyseen 0t is stronger in its folds, sipler in its richness Every weapon is siple and practical, not

only in for but fantasy Every line of carving is siple and strong 1here is nothing that a%es a

clearer ipression of strength and all that streas out of the fire and the hut, the sweat and thegrease treated hides and the anial dung Everything is practical, strong, wor%anly 1his is the

character of the African style When one approaches it with full understanding, one iediatelyreali'es that this ipression rules all Africa


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0t e*presses itself in the activity of all +egro people even in their sculpture 0t spea%s out of their

dances and their as%s; out of the understanding of their religious life, .ust as out of the reality of

their living, their state building, and their conception of fate 0t lives in their fables, their fairystories, their wise sayings and their yths

And once we are forced to this conclusion, then the Egyptian coes into the coparison or this

discovered culture for of +egro Africa has the sae peculiarity

Leo Frobenius ./0123/4205 as an ethnologist and archaeologist- His first e+pedition to Africa as

to the Congo in /467- 'n /4/0$ he began his e+pedition to North$ 8est and Central Africa- Herediscovered the fa%ous 9ri 9lo:un in 'fe in /4/;- =- He corresponded and

collaborated ith the great ?rofessor of History$ @ociology and Econo%ics and author$ the African3 A%erican$ 8-E-< u An inuiry into thepart which Africa has played in world historyB

leo frobenius and africa

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