Chapter 6: Africa, Eurasia, and America
Let’s talk camels! So, I had just come back from Southwest Asia, and one of my colleagues asked how it was. I told a story of watching a compound that was surrounded by bails of sugarcane and SO MANY CAMELS! For the location I was in, it was odd to see camels. The colleague I was telling this story to was from Eastern Afghanistan directly on the border of Pakistan in Nangarhar, or as we liked to call it the Nangahood. It was a rough spot. Either way, she had grown up in a very traditional way before she had to escape the country with her family. I’m talking normal family, growing some crops for food and a little cash, and always with the poppy field as the cash crop. Anyway, back to the camels. So I tell her this story, and she says “OHH! Camels are SUCH a luxury.” I laughed and laughed. This woman was highly educated and worldly. What that told me was how important animals were in that area.
Camels are a big deal. Any pack animal really. Guess what, Africa did not have them. I would say that one of the greatest impacts made by Eurasia’s proximity to Africa was the camel. The camel allowed people to conduct Trans-Saharan trade. This camel enabled trade had massive influences on the rise and fall of entire empires in Northern Africa. Just look at Meroe and Axum. This was just the start of the influence.
Did you know that some of the Bantu languages were originally written in Arabic? Look at Swahili. It was originally written in Arabic script before the Romanization of the alphabet. Look at Nubia, according to page 236 of Strayer, they used Greek as a liturgical language. This all is a direct result of the proximity of the regions.
Looking far far to the West, if we examine the Americas we find something very different but equally impressive. With the exception of the Llama and Alpaca, there were not animals suitable for domestication and use in farming. Since America was not near enough to any other landmass to acquire these animals, agriculture had a different look. The work was harder. It was less productive, and this influenced large swaths of people particularly in the North of the Americas to continue on with gathering and hunting. Obviously there were massive civilizations that rose during this time, but I think that is less relevant to the distance of America from Eurasia. I think that gatherer-hunter tribes would have faded much faster had there been animals suitable to domestic farming in America.
Ishi
This is incredible! Good job and that must have been such an experience to witness in a lifetime. I definitely want to travel especially once this is COVID is over. I love the visuals too especially the language being adapted or translated is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI would say that my time in that part of Asia was some of my best. I think speaking the language really helped. Having spent so much time learning languages, I always find their development interesting. I learned Swahili before I learned Pashto (Pashto script is almost identical to Arabic) so I didn't appreciate that tidbit about the language as much. Now I really enjoy being able to go back and read older Swahili texts in Arabic script. I hope you get to travel as much as you want after this pandemic is over. Do you have any spots you are just dying to go to? I would love to go to Peru and climb Machu Pichu, and also Easter Island is high on my list, and New Zealand, and Iceland. I want to go everywhere! I have friends that live in Dubai and they say it's amazing. The whole place is so beautiful. All of the Gulf States really are. I spent some time in Qatar, and going into Doha to swim in the Gulf and shop was always a favorite of mine. The sooks (markets) have so many incredible things. I was with a group of friends one day, and one of them found this 6 foot tall hookah, and he was haggling in Arabic. Apparently the deal he struck was for this seller named Hector to take a picture with me in exchange for a discount. They kept joking they were going to sell me for the right find.
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