Wasteland, Eurocentrism, and a petition for an expansion focusing on Africa

[Sun_Wu]

"were usually equipped with large reed or animal hide shields and a stabbing spear that was called a tamba"

Bullshit that was how European feudal armies operated, Europeans would also have considered poison dishonourable. European armies were much more organized and well equipped.

I was referring the them bringing their own weapons as opposed to being centrally equiped. Also, a reason for lack of metal armor is limited iron deposits in Mali.

Well, once again we are in a strange place, I have never suggested the Mandé was not the heart (core) of the Mali Empire, I just suggested that much of the cavalry of the Mali Empire were subjugated Tuareg.

Everything I have read suggest cavalry was a small part of the Mali Empire army, bowmen and spearmen making up the bulk of it.

They were relevant enough terrain difficulties for horses and camels prevented a further south expansion.

 

[Chronicler]

I was referring the them bringing their own weapons as opposed to being centrally equiped. Also, a reason for lack of metal armor is limited iron deposits in Mali.

They were relevant enough terrain difficulties for horses and camels prevented a further south expansion.

The Mali Empire "heartland" as it was called has some of the largest iron deposits in Africa (northern part of todays Guinea).

 

[Sun_Wu]

The Mali Empire "heartland" as it was called has some of the largest iron deposits in Africa (northern part of todays Guinea).

Mali was huge and much of it had no iron ore to speak of, furthermore just because it has large deposits doesn't mean they were necessarily accessible then.

 

[Chronicler]

First at all, a tribe is a primitive form of political organization and says nothing about weapon technology. Many nomads also lived in tribal organizations, and still they had highly developed arms and armours.

Second, Mali had a highly structed military organization, too structured for beeing "tribal", which you appareantly use as a synonym for "primitive".

Third, Wikipedia doesn't even give a source for its claim for weapons beeing imported and i also have never heard of that before. If Malians imported anything at all it was chainmail. The rest of the equipment could of course be manufactured localy. After all, the manufacturing of iron is proven since the Nok-Culture and is assumed to developed at around 800-500 BC (C 14). Why they shouldnt be able to smelt iron wepaons on their own after almost 2000 years?

Sure, And I have yet to read anything that would suggest the Mali Empire was not primitive, even "Empire" is stretching it, considering how highly decentralized it was.

I am not sure how "highly structured" a military is if you depend on local tribes to produce warriors for you. Also remember when we study European records from this time we can often study down to soldier payrolls, there is no such record in Mali.

And lastly, we know the Mali Empire sold salt and slaves and traded with gold, so it's only reasonable to assume they got something back? My guess is weaponry. And from what I have read, that seems to be the case. Other things were probably horses, books etc.

 

[Chronicler]

Mali was huge and much of it had no iron ore to speak of, furthermore just because it has large deposits doesn't mean they were necessarily accessible then.

Let's be honest here? Most of the salt came from surface deposits from ancient salt lakes etc, same with gold, underground mining with tunnels and shafts didn't happen. Something that did happen in Europe at this point in time.

 

[LinusLinothorax]

Sure, And I have yet to read anything that would suggest the Mali Empire was not primitive, even "Empire" is stretching it, considering how highly decentralized it was.

I am not sure how "highly structured" a military is if you depend on local tribes to produce warriors for you. Also remember when we study European records from this time we can often study down to soldier payrolls, there is no such record in Mali.

And lastly, we know the Mali Empire sold salt and slaves and traded with gold, so it's only reasonable to assume they got something back? My guess is weaponry. And from what I have read, that seems to be the case. Other things were probably horses, books etc.

Have you even read anything further about Mali than just skimming Wikipedia?

 

[Chronicler]

Have you even read anything further about Mali than just skimming Wikipedia?

Most of what I read is from books, I don't use internet much, Wikipedia is an easy way to get some pictures and stuff though. Once again, let's be honest, most of Mali Empire history is guesswork.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djinguereber_Mosque <---I mean you can't beat this kind of stuff, first they present a person that supposedly had an influence according to Arab sources, and then they completely disregard that and write that he probably had little role if any.

If I open any book that is supposedly history of a state that had no or little written history, these books usually all tell me different things, and much of it is guesswork.

 

[Chronicler]

I wish you guys could at least admit that the history of the Mali Empire is in the same position or maybe even a worse position than Viking history.

With the vikings we had runestones and sagas, even though it's mostly reliant on foreign sources and remnants. And yes, much of it is guesswork.

I remember a few years back I read an article in a popular history magazine, written by a researcher about how men and women were equal during the Viking Age, though there was not any source material so I wrote to him and asked what he based this theory on, he wrote back and mentioned only *ONE* runestone that was raised by a returning raider, saying that his wife took good care of the farm when he was gone....

EDIT: Another one of my more recent favorites is David Starkey saying Princess Elizabeth enjoyed Thomas Seymours sexual advances....like how could he possibly know that, it's not like there is a diary entrance by Elizabeth saying "Oh and Thomas cut of my dress today, I enjoyed it so much".

 

[LinusLinothorax]

Most of what I read is from books

Like?

 

[Minigrinch]

I am not sure how "highly structured" a military is if you depend on local tribes to produce warriors for you. Also remember when we study European records from this time we can often study down to soldier payrolls, there is no such record in Mali.

How is this any different from Europe at the time? Most militaries relied on levies, and its an especially hypocritical thing to claim when Europe was still in the later years of feudalism; something which relied on heavily decentralised military hierarchies.

And lastly, we know the Mali Empire sold salt and slaves and traded with gold, so it's only reasonable to assume they got something back? My guess is weaponry. And from what I have read, that seems to be the case. Other things were probably horses, books etc.

Once again how is this any different to Europe? Arms trading is hardly the sign of a primitive society. So the Malinese elite importing weapons and armour makes them primitive, yet European leaders importing weapons and armour from places like Toledo or Damascus are civilised?

 

[Chronicler]

How is this any different from Europe at the time? Most militaries relied on levies, and its an especially hypocritical thing to claim when Europe was still in the later years of feudalism; something which relied on heavily decentralised military hierarchies.



Once again how is this any different to Europe? Arms trading is hardly the sign of a primitive society. So the Malinese elite importing weapons and armour makes them primitive, yet European leaders importing weapons and armour from places like Toledo or Damascus are civilised?

I seriously doubt there was much Arms trading between Europe and Damascus during this period considering the Mali Empire existed during the crusades. Also, I have yet to read about a European state (take notice I've mostly read about the northern ones) that was unable to produce it's own armor and weaponry. (I might be wrong about the Damascus thing).

Some European states had standing armies during the period the Mali Empire existed, Spain comes to mind. Even with levies and mercenaries it was more organized than with tribes showing up with animal hides for shields and spears. There has also been periods of standing armies in many European states. And it also depends on what kind of measurement you put on it, I mean feudal lords and kings had permanent garrisons in castles etc. So there was always some semblance of permanent force.

 

[Chronicler]

Like?

I haven't read much African history at all in recent years, the last book I read concerning Africa was King Leopolds Ghost, which I read a few years back.

 

[quoms]

I haven't read much African history at all

 

[Evie HJ]

Leather equipment (bucklers, etc) was quite common for the foot levies of many nations in Europe wat the time.

Meanwhile, the Mande people had a developed iron-working industry and blacksmith were one of the more prestigious social roles. Whether they imported all their armors and helmets or whether importing them early on gave way to local production later is a matter I would like to look into (certainly, wiki's claim is far from conclusive either way, and the "they never build their own" theory flies in the face of the importance of Mali's iron-working industry).

 

[Chronicler]

Leather equipment (bucklers, etc) was quite common for the foot levies of many nations in Europe wat the time.

Meanwhile, the Mande people had a developed iron-working industry and blacksmith were one of the more prestigious social roles. Whether they imported all their armors and helmets or whether importing them early on gave way to local production later is a matter I would like to look into (certainly, wiki's claim is far from conclusive either way, and the "they never build their own" theory flies in the face of the importance of Mali's iron-working industry).

You have to forgive me but I have never read of a medieval european shield entirely made of leather, I have read of wooden shields reinforced with leather and metal, but that's about it. You also have to agree that there is a difference between boiled leather and an animal hide that has been stretched out over wood. There is also an ongoing debate now about how common leather armor actually was in the medieval era (very few pieces survive).

We know that they traded for metal goods, that tells me if they bothered taking metal goods across the desert, they probably had a very basic iron-working industry.

Btw, can you provide a source for the importance of Malis iron-working industry? Because all I ever read are historians and researchers all disagreeing on a number of topics such as if iron-working was independently invented in Africa or transported across the Sahara, if iron findings discovered were locally produced or imported. etc etc.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Mali was huge and much of it had no iron ore to speak of, furthermore just because it has large deposits doesn't mean they were necessarily accessible then.

Huh? Mali "had no iron ore to speak of" is so patently false, I don't know what to say.

Spoiler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laterite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age#Africa

-Notice the ore used is available in a lot of places. Approximately one third of the planet's soil sits on laterite. The closest areas that are relatively laterite-poor are in north-central and far south-western Africa, far north and far south of the area in question.
-Notice the iron reduction method does not require limestone, and does not require modern blast furnace temperatures.
-Notice the fuel is charcoal. Any place with plants or trees will work. (You won't see many smelters in the middle of the desert, that's for sure.)
-Notice before they were out competed by the vintage 20th century blast furnace tech, there were small cottage iron making industries all across the continent. edit -all across every inhabited continent actually, but we are talking about Africa here. The industrial revolution changed everything so rapidly the modern person has no clue what people could do for themselves before Sears and Walmart.
-Granted it appears a place in Eastern Africa called "Nubia" were exporting iron and iron products to their neighbors in this time frame, which may have suppressed industrial Iron-making in their neighbors.
-Granted bloomery processes are kind of time consuming so you couldn't scale up without a large number of smiths.

As an Engineer, I don't have a clue where you are coming up with this stuff. Africa may have mostly skipped the Bronze Age and moved straight into the Iron Age in the first millennium BCE, but that does not mean they are somehow magically incapable of making iron. This is not complex stuff for a Smith. The problem with turning out huge quantities of iron is more likely structural/economic, and very likely NOT basic access to the precursors.

Maybe your argument should be that there was not enough supply to keep large armies armed, maybe that they had such a surplus of gold they could just buy the weapons and they didn't need to ramp up iron production, or something.

edit - apologies if I came across strong. This stuff is fairly basic to me, and I forget not everyone is as technically-minded. Apologies if I insulted you or your intelligence. I'll see if there is a better way to rewrite this.

 

[LinusLinothorax]

Btw, can you provide a source for the importance of Malis iron-working industry? Because all I ever read are historians and researchers all disagreeing on a number of topics such as if iron-working was independently invented in Africa or transported across the Sahara, if iron findings discovered were locally produced or imported. etc etc.

As already mentioned, iron working was introduced by the Nok-Culure somewhere between 800-500 BC. Meanwhile, the earliest definete iron founds in Carthage date to ca. 500 BC. Thats why we have to assume it was developed localy.
Source: Manfred K. H. Eggert "Frühes Eisen in West- und Zentralafrika" ("Early iron in West- and Centralafrica") in "Nok. Ein Ursprung afrikanischer Skulptur"

 

[Chronicler]

As already mentioned, iron working was introduced by the Nok-Culure somewhere between 800-500 BC. Meanwhile, the earliest definete iron founds in Carthage date to ca. 500 BC. Thats why we have to assume it was developed localy.

What do you mean by introduced? There is no evidence that iron-working was independently invented in Africa. And I can't see what Carthage has to do with the state of ironworking in the Mali Empire? That nice stuff was produced in Carthage doesn't mean that in every other place in Africa where iron was worked they had equally nice stuff.

EDIT: Btw, I should have written Sub-Saharan Africa there.

 

[LinusLinothorax]

What do you mean by introduced? There is no evidence that iron-working was independently invented in Sub-saharan Africa.And I can't see what Carthage has to do with the state of ironworking in the Mali Empire? That nice stuff was produced in Carthage doesn't mean that in every other place in Africa where iron was worked they had equally nice stuff.
.

You sound a bit confused.

 

[Chronicler]

You sound a bit confused.

No, I have never said the Mali Empire didn't have some sort of basic ironworking. I just fail to see how what you bring up is helpful when trying to determine the state of ironworking in the Mali Empire during the period of it's existence.