I would love to see more pre-colonial photos but I guess that would be difficult to come by as there were no cameras

there are but people scared to show them

Freesia:

I would love to see more pre-colonial photos but I guess that would be difficult to come by as there were no cameras

Abagworo:



A) Africans were purely the same and are still same to me. We were all unclad and lived in mud houses with thatch roof and that is the truth. Going by all the older pictures I've seen only either the noble or elderly wore clothes. The children and common people were stack Unclad or show me any picture displaying other wise.

Why, why, why!?

Freesia:

I would love to see more pre-colonial photos but I guess that would be difficult to come by as there were no cameras

http://ukpuru..com/

too much "swag"

ezeagu:

http://ukpuru..com/

ezeagu:

Why, why, why!?

http://ukpuru..com/

Thanks for the link Abagworo,Like someone mentioned above looks like clothes were really worn by royals,chiefs or priests.I'm obsessed with African history before the coming of the Europeans to the Motherland but unfortunately those people to tell us more have been gone  for years,Most of the info we get is based on or during the African revolution.

Freesia:

Thanks for the link Abagworo,Like someone mentioned above looks like clothes were really worn by royals,chiefs or priests.I'm obsessed with African history before the coming of the Europeans to the Motherland but unfortunately those people to tell us more have been gone  for years,Most of the info we get is based on or during the African revolution.

What's the African revolution?

Freesia:

Thanks for the link Abagworo,Like someone mentioned above looks like clothes were really worn by royals,chiefs or priests.I'm obsessed with African history before the coming of the Europeans to the Motherland but unfortunately those people to tell us more have been gone  for years,Most of the info we get is based on or during the African revolution.

It depends on what you consider clothes. All of the adults in the link had clothes on, but I guess people don't consider a wrapper or a shawl as clothing, unless it's complemented with trousers, a shirt, or full bodily clothing.

The boy below may have little on, but he still has clothes on. The 'important parts' are still covered by. . . .cloth so he isn't naked (nairaland reaally immature to censor "naked".

[center][img]http://2.bp..com/-3KnNfW2Q2Qc/TqSeaPg7Q1I/AAAAAAAAAu8/W8yrmdeTH2s/s1600/AN00058166_001_l.jpeg%2Bcopy[/img][/center]

Abagworo:



A) Africans were purely the same and are still same to me. We were all unclad and lived in mud houses with thatch roof and that is the truth. Going by all the older pictures I've seen only either the noble or elderly wore clothes. The children and common people were stack Unclad or show me any picture displaying other wise.

1. Yeah, we're all the same - that's  why we look different, have different languages and even language groups, different indigenous religious beliefs , different patterns of social organization, etc.  How ridiculous.

I'm sure you know deep down that an Igbo isn't the same as a Congo pygmy or an Ethiopian/Abyssinian/Habesha, or a San/"Bushman", but you're saying everybody is the same. If you want to say your own specific sub-group were a certain way, limit that to your sub-group and don't drag other groups into that nonsense.


2. By the way, I didn't say that there weren't limits on who could wear clothes or claim that a significant number of children would wear clothes, but to say that "we were all unclad" before contact with Europeans or Arabs is nonsense.

People have yet to explain to me why the indigenous clothing styles looked nothing like - and didn't even match in basic physical shape or form - the clothing Europeans and Arabs wore.

Why does the clothing on the people in the Nok art look so different from Arab and European clothing?


3. As for living in mud dwellings,

a) not everybody lived in "houses", some lived in what are properly and accurately described as huts, while some others had regular sized houses, large houses, great halls, etc., that alone is a difference.

b) the Egyptians lived in mud and straw dwellings. That's why Egypt was once referred to (erroneously) as a "civilization without cities" by European historians and archaeologists - they couldn't find stone ruins of houses and palaces around the temples and tombs, so they were confused as to where all the houses were, assuming that if people could build with a certain material (stone and different types of rocks), then they would necessarily want to use that material everywhere, even when it wasn't their preference. Some of the remains of these mud and straw buildings can be seen and a few have been excavated. It is now well known and generally accepted that Egypt's primary architectural style for buildings that were meant to be continuously lived in was with mud.

The ironic thing about your tone in describing the mud houses with thatched roofs - apart from the fact that the ancient Egyptians that are universally considered quite sophisticated preferred mud buildings for the places that they actually intended to live in - is that the material of the dwellings served an actual purpose: to keep the home cool(er) during the day in a hot environment. This is attested to by pre and post colonial observers.

It's curious therefore, that something that was based on common sense and basic needs is so greatly looked down upon.

c) That some of these houses could look very polished and neat is also known. And some of them were designed in such a way that multiple European observers were impressed with them. A look at Frobenius's description of Ife ruins, or various European descriptions of Benin or the British admiration for the palace of Kumasi before they burnt it down, makes this quite clear.

d) one kingdom (Benin) which had extensive contact with Europeans which would have exposed them to European clothing, and had trade connections that would have seen some of their people make contact with European forts and buildings elsewhere in Africa - never even for a minute attempted to build European stone brick houses with tiled roofs or anything in the fashion of a European dwelling. Nor did they have some mass adoption of European clothing. If they didn't have real clothing before making contact with Europeans or Arabs, why were they so reluctant to adopt en masse and exhibit the clothing styles that Europeans and Arabs wore?

e)

"Excavations in Benin City, near the royal palace, yielded some rare and intriguing fragments of cloth dating to the 13th century. Microscopic analyses revealed that the fibers of some of the fragments had convolutions and other features associated with cotton, but the condition of the samples prevented a definitive identification.13 Other aspects of the cloths point to indigenous, rather than foreign, manufacture, such as the variety of fabric structures and diversity of types and weights of yarn elements. These features are consonant with cloth woven on the vertical loom. In my view, it is the presence of flat, raphia-like fibers in some of the samples that speak most strongly to a West African provenance. In any case, by the time European navigators and merchants began to frequent this part of the Guinea Coast in the 1490s, the Benin area was noted as a place where cotton cloths could be purchased at inland markets. In the year 1505, for example, one Portuguese merchant stationed at the trading post of Ughoton purchased over 1800 locally woven cotton cloths, using them to clothe slaves, make ship’s awnings, and exchange for gold on the Gold Coast.14"

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=benin+connah+cloth+13th+century&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEgQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.lse.ac.uk%2FeconomicHistory%2FResearch%2FGEHN%2FHELSINKIKrieger.pdf&ei=RnrsTp2yCqKOsALphpzJCQ&usg=AFQjCNFqYmXMgw67xVveh-uIEg76B3z0XA

Abagworo

From my research so far it seems[b] all black Africans were very much alike in culture,religion and a lot of things before contact with Europeans. [/b]Most of these things we call our culture today are infact the things that killed our culture. Arabs and Europeans. Our real culture was beautiful and rich.
So we can actually say our true culture existed before the 16th century.

@^^ Haba! Are you serious? You are giving too much credit to the Europeans and perhaps to the Arabs in Africa. Please review your historical/anthropological knowledge of "self" before making such broad and senseless statements about Africa/people

Abagworo

A) Africans were purely the same and are still same to me. We were all unclad [/b]and [b]lived in mud houses with thatch roof and that is the truth. Going by all the older pictures I've seen only either the noble or elderly wore clothes. The children and common people were stack Unclad or show me any picture displaying other wise.

@ ^^ Again, your knowledge of the history of apparel in Africa etc, must be very lacking indeed. Being unclad in itself is no big deal but I guess that you do not fully understand the concept of 'clothing' in relation to your view of "all unclad"

Living in mud houses with thatched roofs is not inherently inappropriate for our environment either . Is it? I wonder where your sense of history is coming from or is it some kind of feeling of inadequacy and misplaced sense of 'shame'?. You need to travel extensively in Nigeria and learn a thing or two about your people and their environment etc before making such spurious statements as the "truth" by you. Please review the source of your knowledge and research, you may come away with a different viewpoint more in consonant with prevailing knowledge of our illustrious history(Egypt- RSA)Africa.

Just so we're clear, the developed world still uses thatched roofs and less often mud to build houses.

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Igbo

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[center]Some mud (hay and bamboo) buildings are actually quite impressive.
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[img]http://www.arthistory-archaeology.umd.edu/ARTHwebsitedecommissionedNov32008/webresources/courses/ARTH275/FA05/Images/110805images/Cameroon%20palace%20detail.jpg[/img][img]http://www.arthistory-archaeology.umd.edu/ARTHwebsitedecommissionedNov32008/webresources/courses/ARTH275/FA05/Images/110805images/Hausa%20house.jpg[/img]
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