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#African #brownskin #brown skin

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by Mohamed Fathi

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B o b M a r l e y

#African

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#African

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kemetic-dreams · 23 hours

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who is mahreb of the axumite?

Maher or Maḥrem was a South Semitic god of the Aksumites and the Himyarites. He was the son of the main god Ashtar, and his counterpart was Beher, god of the sea. He was the deity of war, comparable to Mars or Ares in ancient Greek mythology, who used both forms of the interpretatio. The god Maher (or Mahrem) held a place of special importance with the Axumites; the kings of the pagan period[clarification needed] were all called the "Sons of the Invincible Mahrem.

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kemetic-dreams · 23 hours

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The language emerged from contact between French settlers and enslaved Africans during the Atlantic slave trade in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although its vocabulary largely derives from 18th-century French, its grammar is that of a West African Volta-Congo language branch, particularly the Fongbe and Igbo languages. It also has influences from Spanish, English, Portuguese, Taino, and other West African languages. It is not mutually intelligible with standard French, and has its own distinctive grammar.

Haitians are the largest community in the world speaking a modern creole language, according to some sources. However, this is disputable, as Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based Creole language, is attested by some sources to have a larger number of speakers than that of Haitian Creole and other French-based Creole languages, particularly if non-native speakers are included

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Children of the Ocean God – Head Flattening

Head flattening is a painless, gradual cranial modification procedure, which involved binding a newborn’s head between two wooden boards which were wrapped in a cloth which would be tightened by hand. The pressure of the boards, gently and consistently applied over time, would cause the child’s forehead to elongate, creating a nearly flat silhouette extending from the tip of the infant’s nose to the crown of their head. It is also important to note that head flattening appears to have had no adverse effect on a child’s mental development. Black Caribs were indeed widely reputed to be very crafty huntsmen as well as highly skilled military strategists, both of which suggest that they knew how to put their noggins to use.

Head flattening was practiced by the Black Carib women (many of whom were Arawak) since flat, backwards sloping foreheads were seen as a sign of beauty and perfection. However, they were also other ancillary benefits, in particular for their sons, who would later become warriors. The Black Caribs, as well as other Amerindian tribes, believed that a flat forehead was advantageous in combat since if an arrow struck their head it would bounce back harmlessly. Another added benefit is that flat foreheads were supposed to better able to withstand blows from enemy war clubs.

Interestingly many Europeans who observed the practice of head flattening found it very barbaric and abusive, especially since mothers applied it to their fragile newborns infants. Ironically, in Black Carib culture head flattening was actually seen as a sign of good parenting by a loving mother.

The practice of head flattening was not unique to the Black Caribs and other Amerindian tribes in the Caribbean, such as the Arawaks. In fact, it was widely practiced in the Americas (e.g., by the Mayans and Incas) as well as in other geographies around the world including Europe (e.g., France, western Russia and Scandinavia ) and Central Asia. Intentional cranial modification predates written history and is in fact still practiced to this day in Vanuatu. This makes it one of the oldest continuously performed human customs. Fascinating stuff!

What is the Tainos appearance?

The Arawaks or the Tainos, as some of them were called, were not tall people; they were of medium height or short and generally slim. Christopher Columbus in his journals described them as neither African nor European. It is believed that they had an olive complexion. They also had long, straight, coarse black hair.

The men wore loin cloths and married women wore a nagu , which was like a skirt. They painted their bodies with designs in bright colors.

The Taino people were polytheistic, worshiping a pantheon of many different gods, ancestors and spirits, which they called Zemi. The word zemi was also used to refer to icons and fetishes of the gods, most often made from carved rocks. Atabey was the Taino mother goddess, and goddess of freshwater.

Taíno spirituality centered on the worship of zemis (spirits or ancestors). Major Taíno zemis included Atabey and her son, Yúcahu. Atabey was thought to be the zemi of the moon, fresh waters, and fertility. Other names for her included Atabei, Atabeyra, Atabex, and Guimazoa. The Taínos of Kiskeya (Hispaniola) called her son, "Yúcahu|Yucahú Bagua Maorocotí", which meant "White Yuca, great and powerful as the sea and the mountains". He was considered the spirit of cassava, the zemi of cassava – the Taínos' main crop – and the sea.

Guabancex was the non-nurturing aspect of the zemi Atabey who was believed to have control over natural disasters. She is identified as the goddess of hurricanes or as the zemi of storms. Guabancex had twin sons: Guataubá, a messenger who created hurricane winds, and Coatrisquie, who created floodwaters.

Iguanaboína was the goddess of good weather. She also had twin sons: Boinayel, the messenger of rain, and Marohu, the spirit of clear skies

Taínos, a term coined by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1836.

Taíno is not a universally accepted denomination—it was not the name this people called themselves originally, and there is still uncertainty about their attributes and the boundaries of the territory they occupied.

The term nitaino or nitayno, from which "Taíno" derived, referred to an elite social class, not to an ethnic group. No 16th-century Spanish documents use this word to refer to the tribal affiliation or ethnicity of the natives of the Greater Antilles. The word tayno or taíno, with the meaning "good" or "prudent", was mentioned twice in an account of Columbus's second voyage by his physician, Diego Álvarez Chanca, while in Guadeloupe. José R. Oliver writes that the Natives of Borinquén, who had been captured by the Caribs of Guadeloupe and who wanted to escape on Spanish ships to return home to Puerto Rico, used the term to indicate that they were the "good men", as opposed to the Caribs.

Contrarily, according to Peter Hulme, most translators appear to agree that the word taino was used by Columbus's sailors, not by the islanders who greeted them, although there is room for interpretation. The sailors may have been saying the only word they knew in a native Caribbean tongue, or perhaps they were indicating to the "commoners" on the shore that they were taíno, i.e., important people, from elsewhere and thus entitled to deference. If taíno was being used here to denote ethnicity, then it was used by the Spanish sailors to indicate that they were "not Carib", and gives no evidence of self-identification by the native people.

According to José Barreiro, a direct translation of the word "Taíno" signified "men of the good". The Taíno people, or Taíno culture, have been classified by some authorities as belonging to the Arawak. Their language is considered to have belonged to the Arawak language family, the languages of which were historically present throughout the Caribbean, and much of Central and South America.

In 1871, early ethnohistorian Daniel Garrison Brinton referred to the Taíno people as the "Island Arawak", expressing their connection to the continental peoples. Since then, numerous scholars and writers have referred to the indigenous group as "Arawaks" or "Island Arawaks". However, contemporary scholars (such as Irving Rouse and Basil Reid) have recognized that the Taíno developed a distinct language and culture from the Arawak of South America.

Taíno society was divided into two classes: naborias (commoners) and nitaínos (nobles). They were governed by male chiefs known as caciques, who inherited their position through their mother's noble line. (This was a matrilineal kinship system, with social status passed through the female lines.) The nitaínos functioned as sub-caciques in villages, overseeing the work of naborias. Caciques were advised by priests/healers known as bohíques. Caciques enjoyed the privilege of wearing golden pendants called guanín, living in square bohíos, instead of the round ones of ordinary villagers, and sitting on wooden stools to be above the guests they received. Bohíques were extolled for their healing powers and ability to speak with deities. They were consulted and granted the Taíno permission to engage in important tasks

The Taíno had a matrilineal system of kinship, descent, and inheritance. Spanish accounts of the rules of succession for a chief are not consistent, and the rules of succession may have changed as a result of the disruptions to Taíno society that followed the Spanish intrusion.

Some Taíno practiced polygamy. Men, and sometimes women, might have two or three spouses. Ramón Pané, a Catholic friar who traveled with Columbus on his second voyage and was tasked with learning the indigenous people's language and customs, wrote in the 16th century that caciques tended to have two or three wives and the principal ones had as many as 10, 15, or 20.

The Taíno lived in settlements called yucayeques, which varied in size depending on the location.

The Taíno played a ceremonial ball game called batey. Opposing teams had 10 to 30 players per team and used a solid rubber ball. Normally, the teams were composed of men, but occasionally women played the game as well. The Classic Taíno played in the village's center plaza or on especially designed rectangular ball courts called batey. Games on the batey are believed to have been used for conflict resolution between communities.

Taíno spoke an Arawakan language and used an early form of proto-writing in the form of petroglyph,as found in Taíno archeological sites in the West Indies.

Some words they used, such as barbacoa ("barbecue"), hamaca ("hammock"), kanoa ("canoe"), tabaco ("tobacco"), sabana (savanna), and juracán ("hurricane"), have been incorporated into other languages.

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