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African History Videos 63 videos

African History 1: Intro
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African History 2: The Nubian city of Meroe
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African History 3: Ife, the Benin Empire, and the Igbo People 118 Views


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Description:

Today we're going to learn about West African priest-kings, priest-warrior-kings, and priest-warrior-supermodel-kings. Okay maybe we made that last one up.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:01

And here’s your shmoop du jour, brought to you by priest-kings.

00:05

The empires of the Niger River weren't the only things West Africa had up its sleeve. [Army appears from mans sleeve]

00:09

The West African Coast had a rash of independent towns, city-states, and mini-kingdoms.

00:16

Some were military dictatorships.

00:18

Some were towns ruled by priests. [Priests appear in a tribe]

00:20

And some even had a little democracy happening.

00:24

Unlike the US, the democratic ones thought up representative government without Greek

00:30

and Roman crib notes.

00:32

We could spend days going through the different peoples of the West Coast.

00:35

But we’ve got some cookies in the oven, so uh…we’ll have to hit the highlights. [Men standing together and cookies shaking in a microwave]

00:39

Let’s take a look at three very different West African societies: the Ife Kingdom, the

00:45

Benin Empire, and the Igbo people.

00:48

We’ll start with the city of Ife.

00:51

This place was close to the coast of modern-day Nigeria, and it was a major religious pilgrimage [People using musical instruments]

00:56

site back in medieval times.

00:59

It was a regular god-superstore, with temples to hundreds of local deities. [Man enters deities r us store]

01:04

It's actually still inhabited today.

01:06

People have been living in Ife since at least 600 BCE.

01:10

Which…is a pretty good run.

01:12

Priests eventually took over the whole city—army, merchants, government, the whole kit and caboodle. [Priest King walking through city]

01:17

By the 11th century, Ife was ruled by a bonafide priest-king.

01:22

This guy used his control over the different religious priesthoods to boss around other

01:26

cities.

01:27

Although the priest-king never had direct control over an empire, pilgrims and religious [Priest King and people praying]

01:32

leaders from hundreds of miles away followed his lead.

01:35

Next door to Ife was the Benin Empire, which was also close to the coast of modern-day

01:40

Nigeria.

01:41

The Benin Empire was ruled by a priest-king the locals called the “Oba.” [Oba appears by Benin tribe]

01:47

Unlike Ife's priest-kings, the Oba was sometimes elected instead of being born into the title.

01:52

The Oba ruled a very large, very powerful city-state called Benin City.

01:58

Even though he was technically a priest-king, the Oba of Benin was more of a military guy. [Oba transforms into warrior]

02:03

We’d call him a priest-warrior-king, but that takes too long to say.

02:07

To be a citizen in the capital of Benin City, you had to serve in the Oba's military. [Men in military enter benin city]

02:12

If you couldn't serve because you…

02:15

banged your foot on the bed or something, you might be forced to produce weapons or [Man creating a weapon]

02:19

food instead.

02:20

By 1500, the legions of Benin included at least 30,000 soldiers, armed with steel armor,

02:27

pikes, warhorses, composite bows, and muskets. [Benin soldiers appear]

02:31

Benin's empire was a basically a network of cities that paid money to Benin every year

02:34

to avoid getting a beat down. [Man waving money at others]

02:37

It was the classic protection money extortion scam.

02:40

Ife and Benin City were powers that knew how to throw their weight around. [Ife and Benin in a boxing ring]

02:44

But not all African kingdoms were total control freaks.

02:47

Take the Igbo people, for example.

02:49

They had a polytheistic religion like Benin City, but each town had its own temples.

02:53

So nobody bothered centralizing things under one priest-king.

02:58

Igbo towns actually worked like little republics.

03:00

All the landowners in a town, including women, voted for representatives to lead everybody [Land owners appear]

03:06

else.

03:07

Elected representatives did all the boring government stuff, like keeping law and order, [People placing items into a canon]

03:11

resolving disputes over property, and collecting debts.

03:15

OK, that stuff is probably fun for some people…

03:19

Compared to most other medieval societies, Igbo culture was also pretty advanced on women's [Igbo people in a field]

03:23

rights.

03:24

The ladies could own property, vote, and hold protests against rapists and wife-beaters.

03:28

In some cases, marriage between two women was even legal, as long as one woman took [Women marrying each other]

03:33

the role of head of the family.

03:35

Igbo culture was a neat departure from the usual kingly extortion racket. [Men holding a man out of a window]

03:39

It makes you wonder what other unique cultures were out there in historical Africa.

03:44

There could’ve been whole societies ruled by… intelligent giraffes who governed with [Giraffe ruling over igbo tribe people]

03:49

wisdom and fortitude.

03:50

OK, that one’s unlikely.

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