Omowale Jabali : Strange Fruit From The Family Tree

[Omowale Jabali]

The Serpent Cult at Whydah


The destruction of Whydah as a Kingdom did not put an end to the veneration of the serpent there. According to William Davaynes, who was one of the directors of the East India Company and who had left the Coast of Africa in 1763 after having resided there twelve years, eleven years as Governor at Whydah and the other at Annamboe, "The snake was the peculiar worship of the ancient people of Whydah, and when this province was conquered by the King of Dahomey, the worship of the snake was continued upon motives of policy. Formerly a person who killed a snake was put to death; but now a goat is sacrificed as an atonement."[31] The last statement must apply to the case of Europeans alone, for as we shall see the death penalty against...
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/vao/vao04.htm

The chief centre of serpent worship was Dahomey in Africa, but the cult of the python appears to have been of exotic origin, dating back to the first quarter of the 17th century. By the conquest of Whydah, the Dahomeyans began adoption of serpent worship after contact with a people of serpent worshippers, which they first despised. Some 50 snakes reside at a serpent temple at the chief center Whydah. Each python of the danh-gbi kind must be treated with respect - penalty for killing one, even by accident is certain death.

http://66691177999.yuku.com/topic/1559#.Uj4G5WS9Kc0

 

[Omowale Jabali]

The following is from the link above.


Some Native American tribes revere the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes, able to give fair winds or cause gale and frightfully horrendous storm. The serpent plays a large part in one of the dances among the Hopi of Arizona. The rattlesnake was worshipped in the Natchez temple of the sun and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent-god. The serpent was regarded as a portal between 2 worlds in many MesoAmerican cultures. The tribes of Peru are said to have adored great snakes in the pre-Inca days and in Chile the Mapuche made a serpent figure in their deluge beliefs.

 

[Omowale Jabali]

History of the Xweda


The Xwéda kingdom was located in the center of the “Slave Coast”, an area so designated by the European traders because it was the source of the majority of slaves exported to Europe and the New World . The Slave Coast encompassed the area from the River Volta in the west to the Lagos channel in the east, and is geographically distinguished by savannah type vegetation, as opposed to the tropical rain forest running to the east and west along the African coast. Though the area did not represent any one indigenous African political or ethnic unit, most of the inhabitants belonged to one ethno-linguistic entity, known as Aja-Ewe. The kingdoms of Allada, Xwéda, and Dahomey all spoke an Aja-Ewe language variants .

http://www.museeouidah.org/xweda/History.htm

 

[Omowale Jabali]

Africans in French America

http://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/FrenchAmA.htm


Purchasing freedom, involvement in militias, and working through apprenticeships are just three examples of how people of African descent actively resisted being enslaved. Naming practices were another form of resistance among enslaved peoples of African descent. Through their use or non-use of names, African peoples asserted their identity. According to Hall, slaves in French Louisiana often times kept their names, many of which were Islamic in origin. Of those given French names, they often times had Islamic or African middle or second names. “Some of the names listed for slaves in the captiveries at Goree and Bissau were found throughout colonial documents in Louisiana. Furthermore, many slaves who were listed in documents under French names actually used African names, which were recorded as second names” (Hall 1992:166). It should be noted that in Louisiana “slave culture” was “early and thoroughly Africanized and the first generations of creole slaves grew up in stable, nuclear families composed of African mothers and fathers and creole siblings” (Hall 1992:159).[/S]

 

[Omowale Jabali]

"One of the methods of keeping the races distinct, even after the abolition of slavery, was to require that African-descended women cover their hair in public. Leave it to black women to take a sign of legal and social subjugation and turn it into art. The turbans are still an expressive and vital part of Martinican women’s dress, especially for special occasions, as several websites attest. Bright materials are intricately woven around the head, employing an entire vocabulary of meanings that convey not only status and occupation, but also romantic availability."

Source: Color, Caste and Class in Martinique

http://sites.coloradocollege.edu/martinique/2011/07/21/79/