Arieanne Evans-Hill Essays (266 words) - Mali Empire, Songhai Empire

Arieanne Evans-Hill November 27, 2017 History of Art 01 Dr. Jones West African Manuscript Questions Importance of manuscripts to the community. How does this change with Africa's place in European history? Manuscripts in Timbuktu provide a new understanding of West African history. Conserving the manuscripts is very important to the culture because conserving history and reiterating what happened in the past is how the culture survives in the world. African history is built on oral tradition, historians believe that it's not credible but it is a source, nonetheless. Timbuktu translates into something relating to books. The manuscripts also rendered as tools to teach Islamic practices and knowledge in the community. The information in West Africa's manuscripts is a great source of common knowledge which will always be good for teaching. The existence of a manuscript is a legay within itself because even after an entire original culture is long gone, written history keeps the memory alive forever (if preserved correctly) and provides a credible way of learning about it through words. With Timbuktu having manuscripts and basically having a long history and established culture before European imperialism, it negates the fact that Europeans "made" Africans better when they captured them and put them into slavery. West African and Chinese manuscripts can be compared in two ways: both are essential to their respective cultures when educating people about the ways of the ancestors or in China's case, about Buddhist gods and their relationships as well as learning about and keeping West African and Chinese cultural history alive to this day.