L 11: Early West African Geography
This West African area is 3.5 million square miles of very dry with very few sources of water and isn't suitable to to live in.
What is the desert?
This is trade that happened between the people of West Africa and people who traveled across the Sahara desert to get to West Africa.
What is Trans-Saharan Trade?
This is an empire that was created after the Mande people conquered the city of Kumbi in the year 1240.
What is Mali?
This type of cloth is made out of many thin colorful stripes that represent the artist's life, family history, values, or political circumstances.
What is Kente Cloth?
This is information online that is incorrect and false.
What is Misinformation?
This area is also called the Sahel. It is not as dry as the desert and has enough water sources for vegetation like short grasses, small bushes, and trees to survive.
What is the Semidesert?
This is a group that mined gold and kept the location of their gold a secret.
Who are the Wangara?
This is the type of government inheritance that was put into place when Islam came to West Africa.
What is patrilineal inheritance (inheritance through the male bloodline)?
This is a poet/historian of West Africa.
What is a griot?
This information is intentionally incorrect and meant to mislead the reader.
What is Disinformation?
This area has tall grasses and scattered trees. It has a long rainy season which helps it grow grains and provide food for livestock (cows, camels, goats, etc).
What is the savanna?
This town was the center of salt mining.
What is Taghaza?
This is the type of law that Islam brought to West Africa.
What is shari'ah law?
This is an account or line of ancestry within a family.
What is a genealogy?
This is one thing that most people look at when evaluating the trustworthiness of a website BUT IS AN INCORRECT WAY to evaluate.
What is the look and design of the website?
This area is the southern most part of West Africa. It has the highest level of rainfall. In one half of the region yams, oil palms, and kola trees grow. In the other half tall trees like mahogany and teak rise above swamps and lagoons.
What is the forest?
This is the way that traders of gold and conducted their trades.
What is silently?
The presence of these educational institutions in West Africa increased with the Spread of Islam.
What are Quranic schools and universities?
This is a musical tradition where a leader plays or sings a short phrase and the chorus answers with a short phrase.
What is call and response?
These are not always trustworthy but many people think they are.
What are charts and graphs on websites.
This is the reason that people in different geographical zones traded with each other.
What is the ability to buy goods that are not produced in their own geographical zone?
This is how Ghana gained wealth from the Gold and Salt trade.
What is taxing goods?
This is what the architect Al-Saheli influenced besides the design of mosques in West Africa.
What was the shape of houses.
This is a written tradition that involves a story that teaches young people about history, morals, or values.
What is a folktale?
These are 3 questions you should ask yourself when you read sources online.
What are:
Who is behind the information?
What is the evidence?
What do other sources say?