WILLIAM LEO HANSBURY: The Material Culture of Ancient Nigeria 261 DOCUMENTS: 296 307 Reports of the American Convention of Abolition Societies on Negroes BOOK REVIEWS: NOTES: Molema's The Bantu, Past and Present; Muzzey's American History; 375 380 THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY, INCORPORATED 41 NORTH QUEEN STREET, Lancaster, P▲. 1216 YOU STREET, N. W., WASHINGTON, D. C $2.00 A YEAR 60 CENTS A COPY FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS, 25 CENTS EXTRA BOUND VOLUMES, $3.00 by Mail COPYRIGHT, 1921 BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY Entered as second-class matter January 1, 1916, at the Post Office at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 3, 1879. THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY VOL. VI-JULY, 1921-No. 3 THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF ANCIENT NIGERIA. The opinion of the Western World toward Africa and Africans is in the process of a very slow, yet very tremendous, change. The distant yet ultimate development of this process will bring about a most important revolution in the world of modern thought. It will be marked by a complete reversal of the prevailing present-day evaluation of the history of a continent and of the accomplishments and possibilities of a great people. To the lay mind of the modern world, Africa is a gigantic jungle of barbarians, bamboo and baboons, where Livingstone traveled, Rhodes prospected, and Roosevelt hunted. Furthermore, it is only within the last twentyfive years or more that even that learned group whose profession is the exposition and interpretation of human history has begun to modify its opinions in this connection. An insight into the spirit of learned opinion regarding Africa and the Africans only a comparatively short time. ago may be gained from the following article, which appeared in a Berlin journal in 1891. The article, in part, runs: "With regard to its Negro population, Africa in contemporary opinion offers no historical enigma which calls for a solution, be1 Quoted by Leo Frobenius, Voice of Africa, Vol. 1, p. 1. cause from all the information supplied by our explorers and ethnologists, the history of civilization proper in the continent begins, as far as concerns its inhabitants, only with the Mohammedan invasion. "Before the introduction of a genuine faith and a higher standard of culture by the Arabs, the nations had neither political organization nor, strictly speaking, any religion, nor any industrial development. None but the most primitive instincts determine the lives and conduct of the Negroes who lack every kind of ethical inspiration. Every judicial observer and critic of alleged African culture must once for all make up his mind to renounce the charm of poetry and wizardry of fairy lore, all those things which in other parts of the world remind us of a past fertile in legend and song; that is to say, must bid farewell to the attractions offered by the Beyond of History, by the hope of eventually realizing the tangible impalpable realm conjured up in the distance which time has veiled within its mists, and by the expectation of ultimately wresting some relics of antiquity every now and again from the lap of the earth. "If the soil of Africa is turned up today by the colonist's plough share, no ancient weapon will lie in the furrow; if the virgin soil be cut by a canal, its excavation will reveal no ancient tomb; and if the ax effects a clearing in the primeval forest, it will nowhere ring upon the foundations of an old world palace. Africa is poorer in record history than can be imagined. Black Africa' is a continent which has no mystery, nor history!"' But now this view of Black Africa and its peoples so widespread and well established a generation ago is being slowly dissipated and a new and revolutionary view of the mysterious contents is building itself in its stead. The facts and forces bringing about this great change fall into three main classes; they are of an historical, archaeological and ethnological character. The real beginning of this change of opinion may be said to date from the capture of the old African city of Benin by the British military forces in the year 1897. The economic and political aspects of the incident do not concern us here, but from an anthropological point of view it proved to be one of the most important incidents of the nineteenth |