Wantok Travel Blog

Today we tour the Dinka custom of marriage. Despite payment of dowry that ranges from 100 to 500 cows, women are treated godly.  Once a man gets married, his wife will not cook or sweep for 4 years. This period is called "Anyuuc" (Generous Welcoming). It is meant for the new bride to rest, relax and study her husband homestead values. During this time, her husband's sister will do the cooking, washing utensils, collecting firewood, fetching water, and doing other domestic work till later.  After 4 years, her husband decides to arrange a very big party called "Thaat" (cooking festival) where 3 cows and 5 goats are slaughtered to initiate a wife into cooking for the family. But if the man misbehaved during the 4 years the wife can decide to leave and she doesn't even have to pay back the dowry 😂

Dutty Boukman was a Gambian sold into slavery. He toiled at a plantation in Jamaica. He was later sold to the French in what was Saint Dominic now Haiti. He was the architect of the Haitian revolution and helped ushered the first independent black state in the northern hemisphere. Nyang Njie

Quick Facts:  👉Hails from Panita Village, Tongoa Island.  👉Raised alongside eight siblings by a single mother. 👉 In 1971 his mum moved to Port Vila, taking four of her youngest children, including Fred. 👉Fred started football when he joined the Tongoa Football Club, now known as Shepherds United FC.  👉In 1991 Fred was suspended for punching a referee from Tunisia.    👉 The same year Fred switched to refereeing, he passed the FIFA fitness tests.  👉 In 1996, Fred was selected to officiate at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA, alongside Pierliugi Collina who was named the world’s best referee.  Read Fred's full profile in Saturday's Daily Post (Issue no. 6983) or on www.dailypost.vu #VanuatuDailyPost #fifa23

While on an expedition in Africa in 1904, an American explorer purchased a young Pygmy man named Ota Benga from traders and brought him to the U.S., where he became part of the “African village” at the St. Louis World’s Fair. After the Fair ended, Ota was hired by the Bronx Zoo to work as a caretaker, but as public fascination with him grew the Zoo began to “exhibit” him, leading to controversy and protests. In response to the criticism the Zoo turned Ota over to Reverend James Gordon, who placed him in an orphanage in Brooklyn. In 1910 Gordon sent Ota to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he lived with Gregory Hayes, president of Lynchburg’s Virginia Seminary. While a boy in Africa, Ota’s teeth had been chiseled into sharp points, as part of a traditional Pygmy ritual. Rev. Gordon had Ota’s teeth capped and had him dress in conventional American clothing. While attending school he was tutored in English by the poet Anne Spencer. Eventually Ota got a job working in a tobacco factor...

Sorry Is all that you can't say Years gone by and still Words don't come easily Like sorry like sorry Forgive me Is all that you can't say Years gone by and still Words don't come easily Like forgive me forgive me But you can say baby Baby can I hold you tonight Maybe if I told you the right words At the right time You'd be mine I love you Is all that you can't say Years gone by and still Words don't come easily Like I love you I love you But you can say baby Baby can I hold you tonight Maybe if I told you the right words At the right time You'd be mine Baby can I hold you tonight Maybe if I told you the right words At the right time You'd be mine You'd be mine You'd be mine......

People called Mary McLeod Bethune "The First Lady of The Struggle." The struggle being improving life for African Americans. Born in 1875 in a small cabin close to Mayesville, South Carolina, Mary was the fifteenth of seventeen children of parents who had been enslaved. From a young age, Mary was inspired to learn. With encouragement from her parents, she'd walk five miles a day to attend the mission school nearby. The experience set a foundation for her life. "The whole world opened to me when I learned to read," Mary would say. For Mary, her love for learning evolved into a profession of teaching. And after some years of being a teacher, Mary opened the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training Institute for Negro Girls in 1904. The initial class of six students learned from a curriculum that began at 5:30am with Bible study and continued throughout the day with a focus on self-sufficiency skills development until the school day ended at 9pm. And wi...

Hatshepsut (1507–1458 BC) was the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II and the fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, ruling first as regent, then as queen regnant from c. 1479 BC until c. 1458 BC. She was Egypt's second confirmed queen regnant, the first being Sobekneferu/Nefrusobek in the Twelfth Dynasty. In order to establish herself in the Egyptian patriarchy, she took on traditionally male roles and was depicted as a male pharaoh, with physically masculine traits and traditionally male garb. Hatshepsut's reign was a period of great prosperity and general peace. One of the most prolific builders in Ancient Egypt, she oversaw large-scale construction projects such as the Karnak Temple Complex, the Red Chapel, the Speos Artemidos and most famously, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. Hatshepsut died probably in Year 22 of Thutmose III. Towards the end of the reign of Thutmose III and into the reign of his son Amenhotep II, an attempt...

On this date in 1745, we remember the birth of Olaudah Equiano, an African slave, and author. From Nigeria, Equiano, also known as (Gustavus Vassa), was kidnapped from his village at the age of eleven, shipped through the grueling "Middle Passage" of the Atlantic Ocean, hardened in the West Indies and sold to a Virginia planter. He was later bought by a British naval Officer, Captain Pascal, as a present for his cousins in London. After ten years of enslavement throughout the North America, where he assisted his merchant slave master and worked as a seaman, Equiano bought his freedom. At the age of forty-four he wrote and published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African. He registered this writing at Stationer’s Hall, London, in 1789. More than two centuries later, his work was recognized not only as one of the first works written in English by a former slave, but perhaps more important as the pa...

In 1875, Oliver Lewis became the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby, America’s longest continuous sporting event. Lewis was born in 1856 in Fayette Country, Kentucky, to his parents Goodson and Eleanor Lewis. Lewis was born free, but there is little known about his parents or family. Lewis was only 19 years old when he entered the first Kentucky Derby. The race was held at what was then the Louisville Jockey Club on May 17, 1875, but is now known as Churchill Downs. Ten thousand spectators watched this first race. Lewis rode a horse named Aristide, which was one of two colts entered by their owner, H. Price McGrath of Jessamine, Kentucky. The other horse, Chesapeake, was ridden by William Henry. Although the same owner entered both horses, Chesapeake was favored to win the $2,850 purse, and Lewis was told that his job was to lead most of the race to tire out the other horses. Out of the fifteen jockeys in the field, at this first Kentucky Derby, thirteen of them were Af...

Timbuktu, the fabled city nestled in the heart of Mali, stands as a symbol of Africa’s rich historical tapestry. Beyond its golden age as a bustling trade center, Timbuktu holds an extraordinary treasure trove – thousands of ancient manuscripts that whisper tales of intellectual brilliance, cultural exchange, and the pursuit of knowledge. In this article, we embark on a journey through time, exploring the significance of Timbuktu’s manuscripts, their diverse subjects, preservation challenges, and ongoing efforts to safeguard these invaluable artifacts.

The historic city of Timbuktu in Mali, recognised for its profound scholarly heritage, harbours the remnants of one of the world's earliest centres of learning, the University of Sankore. Established in the 1200s AD, this university was a beacon of knowledge, housing an extensive collection of manuscripts. These manuscripts, predominantly inscribed in Ajami—a writing system that employs Arabic script to transcribe African languages, with Hausa being a notable example—serve as a testament to the rich intellectual traditions of the region. As the centuries progressed, from the 1300s through to the 1800s AD, Timbuktu experienced the arrival and, in some cases, the colonisation by Europeans and West Asians. This period marked a turning point for the preservation of the manuscripts. The Malian custodians of this knowledge, acutely aware of the potential risk of destruction or expropriation by foreign invaders—a fate that befell numerous other texts across the African contine...

Benjamin Banneker was born a free man in 1731.  He lived in Maryland with his mother, a free African American woman, and his father, a former slave. While researchers believe young Benjamin spent some time attending a Quaker school, he had little opportunity for formal education. So the young man taught himself—and soon revealed his brilliant mind.  Flexing his ability to calculate the positions of celestial objects at regular intervals, Banneker began publishing almanacs from 1792 through 1797. Each issue included Banneker's astronomical calculations, weather predictions and tide tables, as well as poetry and writing on literature, medicine, and politics. A digital scan of Banneker's almanac from 1793 can be found here.  Banneker's scholarly pursuits led to his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. In a letter from 1791, Banneker respectfully challenged the then-Secretary of State's view on slavery and the intellectual capacity of Black people. Jefferson re...