Toppled Cornerstones - Ancient West African Women - Toppled Cornerstones

ANCIENT WEST AFRICAN WOMEN

TOPPLED CORNERSTONES

COLONIZATION & CHRISTIANIZATION

Cand. Phil., DK: Ph.D., UK

Retired Social & Medical Anthropologist

First Published in 2016 by:
Pneuma Springs Publishing
Ancient West African Women - Toppled Cornerstones
Copyright 20Christiana Oware Knudsen

Christiana Oware Knudsen has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Mobi eISBN: 9781782284178
ePub eISBN: 9781782284192
PDF eBook eISBN: 9781782284215
Paperback ISBN: 9781782284154
Pneuma Springs Publishing
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W: www.pneumasprings.co.uk
Published in the United Kingdom. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher.

First, my sincerest thanks go to one African Priest in Rome who asked me to write a book about how Ancient West African women were affected by North Atlantic chattel slave trading.

This book will be sold to help meet the needs of children admitted into some hospitals in West Africa.

Next, my thanks go to Professor Erik Knudsen, who made a first read-through of the manuscript and gave me his opinion about the subject matter.

I would also like to thank the librarians of the City of Brighton & Hove, in the UK, who helped me with some technical matters.

I thank the Danish artist, Rikke Kolkur S rensen, who has illustrated the slave traders and their human "commodities".

My sincerest thanks to you all.

I dedicate this book to all you little Children, the newly arrived souls on this Mother Earth Planet, Children of all skin color, of all races, of all cultures, of all religions, and of all nationalities. Children, always show great respect for your mothers, from whose wombs you have emerged, as well as for your fathers, who have contributed spiritually to your physical development, in accordance with the belief of some of the Ancient West African Tribes. As you grow older, always pray to God for the awareness that will enable you to treat others as you would like them to treat you.

My ancient Akan heritage goes back to the Akan tribe, one of the ethnic matriarchal descent system groups who, in ancient times, migrated from Egypt's Nile Valley to the Ancient Ghana Empire in Western Sudan now West Africa. This Empire is known to have existed between 300 BCE and 1235 CE. It should be noted that, that Ancient Ghana Empire dates back even further than 300 BCE, but this was the period when migrants from the Nile Valley first travelled there, about 300 CE. Later on, this ethnic group was among many others which left the Ghana Empire in the early 13th century, going southwards towards the Guinea Coast to avoid being converted to Islam with its patriarchal descent system. Eventually the Akan, with other ethnic groups, reached the Guinea Coast region. Later, this area experienced the most deadly chattel slave trading in human history, followed by colonization and Christianization by people who, like the chattel slave traders, came from Christian Europe. Later on, part of this area, which was named the "Gold Coast" by the British during its colonization, became modern-day Ghana.

Many years ago, one very old retired school teacher I met while travelling in modern Ghana for my anthropological field research work said to me:

"We escaped the Arab influence by hopping from the frying pan, that is, escaping Islamization and slave trading by the Arab Muslim Traders, and then we landed into the fire, that is, chattel slave trading, colonization and finally Christianization by Christian Europe."

In 1957, I visited Europe for the first time with my husband, the Danish-English medical doctor Dr. Peder Kristian Kj rulff Knudsen, and our first child. Even though, as a young qualified school teacher, I enjoyed seeing many interesting things in Europe, I was also shocked by an observation that did not please me, regarding European women's position in their societies. I observed that European women were not given the same respect as their men, and therefore were treated differently in many ways. Worse still, I encountered the isolation of old people who, according to my culture, should have been living with their families during their last days on this earth. One African man I met on a bus in London said to me:

"Here in Europe, old people's luxury residences are isolated from their family homes, which makes these residences similar to concentration camps."

Again, I noticed the disrespect shown to women by many young people and men on buses, on trains, in the shops and in the streets. Some shop assistants would be serving old people, especially old women, while at the same time they would be chatting and laughing with their colleagues, not making eye contact with their old women customers while serving them. Later on, I quickly realized that European men also showed general discriminatory treatment to women in West Africa in many respects after they arrived there. The inhuman treatment suffered by these Africans, especially by women chattel slaves on the Guinea Coast, were actually based on these men's own cultures back home in Christian Europe.

Therefore, when I was recently approached by a big international Christian charity organization for children, asking me to write a book about how West African women were affected in the West African chattel slave trade, which would be sold for children's charity work in West Africa, I accepted with great pleasure. Ironically, chattel slave trading, colonization and Christianization on the Guinea Coast, which were carried out by these civilized Christian Europeans, damaged lives and heritage, particularly of women and children, forever.

This book short, crisp, and full of serious food for thought therefore starts with the strange and sad, but extraordinarily interesting, information about the development of women's affairs in ancient West Africa. This area was one of the most interesting parts of Africa, even before the arrival of the Arab Muslim salt, gold and slave traders, as well as the Christian European chattel slave traders. Modern archeological findings have proved that people lived in this area, north and south of the Sahara Desert and right down to the Guinea Coast, thousands of years before the various ethnic groups of people from the Nile valley arrived in the region.

The strangest and most interesting common feature of these numerous migrants was their matriarchal descent systems. These provided clear evidence of the great value placed on women, not as sex objects, but rather as foundation cornerstones for humanity's existence on this planet. The reason for this extraordinary value of ancient West African females has been commented upon and summarized by many ancient West African historical writers, as well as ancient oral historians: it is simply that every human being on this planet, woman or man, has been developed in a woman's womb. Therefore, according to some oral historians of ancient belief systems, the female has been especially created to be not aggressive, but gentle, with special inbuilt loving qualities suitable for the patient upbringing of tiny newly arrived souls, for the continuation of the human species on this planet.