Monday, April 15, 2013

Project


Shona, Great Zimbabwe, and Mutapa

Include the following information in your project about Shona, Great Zimbabwe, and Mutapa.
Geography

-          Include a historical map, with location and physical features

-          Include a current-day map of the region

-          Describe the climate

-          Describe the vegetation
Trade

-          Explain how gold lead to increased wealth and power for Great Zimbabwe
Politics

-          Identify and explain reasons the city of Great Zimbabwe weakened

-          Tell who Mutota was

-          Explain how Mutota helped expand the Mutapa empire
Oral Tradition

-          Compare an African folktale to a Native American folktale. Compare and contrasts the styles, subjects, characters, and purposes
Additional Optional Topics

-          Artifacts

-          Warfare

-          European/Portuguese interactions

-          Literature (stories, poetry)

-          Architecture, Religions Buildings (i.e. the Great Enclosure)

Geography, Climate, and Vegetation

The climate of the Shona Empire including the two settlements great Zimbabwe and Mutapa, was split up into four major seasons. The first season usually starts at November and ends in March, and this time marks the wet and warm season. A transitional season starts in April and ends in May. The third season starts in May and ends in august, during this season they would have a cool and dry winter. The last season comes in august and ends in October, and during this time there is a warm and dry climate. In the region of the Shona Empire it did rain a substantial amount, on average it would rain 12-40 inches of rain.

          Because, the Shona Empire was mostly based in the southern part of Africa, between the Zambezi River and Limpopo rivers, they had fertile farmlands. The vegetation zone the Shona Empire had was the savannah.

This is a map of were great Zimbabwe was.

                                    The 2 maps above are of Mutapa.
 

Trade

The trade of gold in Great Zimbabwe, led to an increase of wealth and power, and affected Great Zimbabwe greatly. Way the gold trade affected great Zimbabwe greatly was because, the traders who went through these trade routes, would be taxed, the also demanded from the regions less powerful leaders, gold payments. This resulted in the civilization to have a great increase of wealth.
 
The way that gold trade increased power of great Zimbabwe, is that because great Zimbabwe had controlled the gold trade, and lie between the gold producing city’s, great Zimbabwe could use this gold to make more people come and show them that Great Zimbabwe is a good place to trade, resulting in an increase in trade as well, as an increase in merchants coming to great Zimbabwe.
This is a picture of a gold rhino that was found in
Great Zimbabwe
 

Politics


       But as time passed, great Zimbabwe did decline. The way that great Zimbabwe declined is unknown, and is debated among historians. One way they believe the empire fell was by the overuse of land by cattle, causing a shortage of materials, and well as a drought, which caused the people to flee. Another theory is that the people took advantage of the shifting trade networks, by leaving great Zimbabwe. By the 1500 great Zimbabwe was unpopulated.
          But that wasn’t the end of the Shona Empire. A man named Mutota, left great Zimbabwe, and traveled north near the year 1440 looking for land and salt, according to Shona oral tradition. On his trip he found a valley. The valley carried a surplus of wood, rainfall and fertile soil. Later on Mutota, was trying to build a new empire, one way he did this was by leading an army, which captured the land of other states.
          Mutota had many strategies of growing and expanding the area. One way was that he built a strong army that was able to capture a lot of land including much of what is Zimbabwe today.
This is a drawing of what Mutota was thought to look like
 

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Oral Tradition


This is a Native American folktale:

The origin of fire

Long, long ago, animals and trees talked with each other, but there was no fire at that time. Fox was most clever and he tried to think of a way to create fire for the world.

One day, he decided to visit the Geese, whose cry he wished to learn how to imitate. They promised to teach him if he would fly with them. So they contrived a way to attach wings to Fox, but cautioned him never to open his eyes while flying.

Whenever the Geese arose in flight, Fox also flew along with them to practice their cry. On one such adventure, darkness descended suddenly as they flew over the village of the fireflies. In mid-flight, the glare from the flickering fireflies caused Fox to forget and he opened his eyes--instantly his wings collapsed! His fall was uncontrollable. He landed within the walled area of the firefly village, where a fire constantly burned in the center.

Two kind fireflies came to see fallen Fox, who gave each one a necklace of juniper berries.
Fox hoped to persuade the two fireflies to tell him where he could find a way over the wall to the outside. They led him to a cedar tree, which they explained would bend down upon command and catapult him over the wall if he so desired.
That evening, Fox found the spring where fireflies obtained their water. There also, he discovered colored Earth, which when mixed with water made paint. He decided to give himself a coat of white. Upon returning to the village, Fox suggested to the fireflies, "Let's have a festival where we can dance and I will produce the music."

They all agreed that would be fun and helped to gather wood to build up a greater fire. Secretly, Fox tied a piece of cedar bark to his tail. Then he made a drum, probably the first one ever constructed, and beat it vigorously with a stick for the dancing fireflies. Gradually, he moved closer and closer to the fire.

Fox pretended to tire from beating the drum. He gave it to some fireflies who wanted to help make the music. Fox quickly thrust his tail into the fire, lighting the bark, and exclaimed, "It is too warm here for me, I must find a cooler place."
Straight to the cedar tree Fox ran, calling, "Bend down to me, my cedar tree, bend down!
Down bent the cedar tree for Fox to catch hold, then up it carried him far over the wall. On and on he ran, with the fireflies in pursuit.
As Fox ran along, brush and wood on either side of his path were ignited from the sparks dropping from the burning bark tied to his tail.
Fox finally tired and gave the burning bark to Hawk, who carried it to brown Crane. He flew far southward, scattering fire sparks everywhere. This is how fire first spread over the Earth.
Fireflies continued chasing Fox all the way to his burrow and declared, "Forever after, Wily Fox, your punishment for stealing our fire will be that you can never make use of it for yourself.

This is an African folktale:

The Story of the Lightning and the Thunder

In the olden days the thunder and lightning lived on the earth amongst all the other people, but the king made them live at the far end of the town, as far as possible from other people's houses.
The thunder was an old mother sheep, and the lightning was her son, a ram. Whenever the ram got angry he used to go about and burn houses and knock down trees; he even did damage on the farms, and sometimes killed people. Whenever the lightning did these things, his mother used to call out to him in a very loud voice to stop and not to do any more damage; but the lightning did not care in the least for what his mother said, and when he was in a bad temper used to do a very large amount of damage. At last the people could not stand it any longer, and complained to the king.
So the king made a special order that the sheep (Thunder) and her son, the ram (Lightning), should leave the town and live in the far bush. This did not do much good, as when the ram got angry he still burnt the forest, and the flames sometimes spread to the farms and consumed them.

So the people complained again, and the king banished both the lightning and the thunder from the earth and made them live in the sky, where they could not cause so much destruction. Ever since, when the lightning is angry, he commits damage as before, but you can hear his mother, the thunder, rebuking him and telling him to stop. Sometimes, however, when the mother has gone away some distance from her naughty son, you can still see that he is angry and is doing damage, but his mother's voice cannot be heard.

Comparison:

Both stories have animals as characters. In the story “the origin of fire” there was a fox, geese, fireflies and hawks. In the story of the lightning and thunder there was a sheep, and a ram. The morals for both stories are very similar. The moral is to not be selfish, and greedy. The format for both stories is a folktale, or a fable. Both hold some elements of nature.
 

Architecture

The Shona Empire including great Zimbabwe and Mutapa had many great architectural wonders. One of the most famous architectural phenomena’s is the great enclosure, which is the most famous, section of three other sections of great Zimbabwe. From a higher point of view the stone walls look like a massive necklace. The dimension of these ancient buildings is 820 feet in diameter and it rises above the ground by 36 feet. From granite in the hills around the city, the Shona people cut brick, by brick and assembled the great enclosure with no glue like substance to keep it together such as cement. They did not use cement because the granite stones were cut to perfection.                                            



 

Artifacts


Many valuable artifacts had been left behind by the people of the Shona Empire. A few artifacts come from great Zimbabwe, and are found in old huts, that were destroyed and were used as new land for new huts. In the leveled off huts there were Ceremonial spearheads, large soapstone bowls and gold objects. But the most valuable artifacts are found in an ancient temple. These artifacts are called the eight birds, which were carved out of soapstone, but the species of birds is unknown.
The picture above this caption
 is one of the eight  birds,
which are the most valuable
artifacts of Great
Zimbabwe
the picture above this caption,
are pieces of carved soapstone
bowls