Wahya Cirlce
Jumanne

World Studies 101: Alkebulan (Africa)

The ancient name of Africa is Alkebulan. Alkebu-lan “Mother of Humankind” or “Garden of People”, and is pronounced al-kee-boo-lan. It is considered the oldest and currently the only word of indigenous origin recorded for this continent. It was used by the Moors, Nubians, Numidians, Khart-Haddans (Carthagenians), and Ethiopians.

DECOLONIZE
Cultural Reclamation
To assist the world in detoxing from being colonized, it is helpful when we understand each other’s direct history, culture and lineages. Alkebulan is used as a term of empowerment, particularly by those in the diaspora, to honor their Ancestors and reclaim African history that has been overshadowed through time.

Pan-African Symbolism
The title of the land serves as both a symbolic remembrance by the people as well as a unification title for the continent in everything from Pan-Africanist literature to everyday speech.

Alternative Naming
Often, Alkebulan is used as a direct alternative to the name "Africa" in lectures, Afrocentric literature, and social media discussions to highlight the pre-colonial history in truth, not perpetuate that which was written by outsiders as they subjugated the people and exploited the land.

You have surely noticed the names of the days of week, too? Well, this is from where these names originate! We will begin our world Journey with a brief travel through humanity and the indigenous of seven continents as humans with belief systems that are tens or thousands of years old, Magick and Medicine, inhabit them all. We will not cover ALL practices as there are as many practices as there are Practitioners on the continent! For that reason, Three Circles Medicine currently only covers the major group, or root, on each continent.

ALKEBULAN TRADITIONAL BELIEFS

We will begin our World Studies here. Although currently a major Path, known as Christianity, it only came to the continent of Alkebulan (Africa) in the 1st or early 2nd century CE. The Indigenous oral traditions and tribal practices have reigned supreme for tens of thousands of years before that arrival. The first of the Islamic Path appeared on the land while the prophet Mohammed was purported to still be alive (He is reported to have died in 632 CE). Thus, both religions have only been on the continent of Africa for around 1400 years. As we look deeper into the continent, we can see the tribal beliefs go back much, much further.

 While Egypt receives most of the attention for this continent due to its exploitation by Europe, we will not begin there. We will also not begin with the oldest known Tribe in Alkebulan, the San, either. We will begin here with the Yoruba.

Why?

Because they are extremely prevalent globally due to their culture being distributed by those who chose to exploit them. While we acknowledge older belief systems and stories of oral tradition amongst the tribes that live in many other places, we will look at the Ifa of Yoruba.

HISTORY
The Traditional “religion” of Alkebulan can be traced back to between 200,000 and 100,000 BCE. We can look at many aspects and see why a book indoctrination such as Christianity or Islamism took root. The tradition of Alkebulan (African) spirituality, both Magick and Medicine ALREADY included a “supreme being”. This left the proselytizing door open for one of the Abrahamic, or Patriarchal, oriented dogmas such as Christianity or Islamism to easily overpower a tribal belief system through fearmongering. Especially when there were rampant cases of the “killing” of tribal deities, and Ego running rampant amongst those who wished to colonize and exploit the land. This is a pattern that we will see repeated over and over again for a few thousand years around the world. Much confusion comes from these two “book religions” and their lack of understanding of both the Yoruba culture and its long found indigenous traditions that existed long before their arrival.

SWAHILI
The names of the days of the week are in Swahili this week as we look at the Medicine and Magick of this land. Beginning around 3,000 years ago, speakers of the proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations. The Swahili people originate from Bantu inhabitants of the Southeast Coast of this continent in Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. They are mainly united under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language, which is an Alkebulan native language of Bantu origin which had been in existence before the arrival of Arabs in the Northeast of the continent, approximately in the 8th Century or so. Known as the Swahili Coast, it is located along the shores of Eastern portions of Alkebulan. This land began to take shape as a developed society. This was a region where Africans and Arabs mixed to create a unique identity often referred to as Swahili Culture. This is also where many were taken from to enslave and how the imported practices of things such as Vodou and Santeria began.

IFA
To look at practices that pre-date those two “big book” Paths, we will look at Ifa in Yoruba culture. It is considered to be very Earth oriented in its approaches. Ifa has more connection with the divine cosmic energy for such practices as Divination and Yoruba’s “folk magick” - Earth energy - with major herbal components. It is the opinion of many Practitionerst hat Yoruba Folk Magick is the more predominant in that land but its culture is in jeopardy as “those of faith” have mixed up “dogma” with “culture”. Using the Plant Allies that Mother Earth gave us is not “pagan”, it is HUMAN. The words and their meanings have been bastardized by those dogmas that we, The People of Earth, are attempting to remove from control, Evangelical and Pentecostal to be exact. But, you decide.

The following link is a presentation by Cambridge Unitversity on Yoruban Prehistory to Present studies. The research for this book was completed by Dr. Aribidesi Usman of Arizona State University African Studies and Dr. Toyin Falola of University of Texas African Studies. The presentation is a breakdown by Toyin.

Watching this video will take an hour of your time and it is well worth the Knowledge you will gain. It has purpose in dispelling the corrupted information passed around in the “pagan” community seeded and perpetuated with its falsities by Wiccan, Christian and Islamic sources. We do hope you are able to take some time with this video and garner a pearl of wisdom or two.

PLEASE NOTE: We recognize that we cannot fault everyone for that misinformation as it was taken from another culture and not allowed to freely flow from that culture and flourish for those who chose and choose to walk its Path. We do understand that we must “rise above”, seek true to source educate and inform ourselves so that we only deal in truths and not hearsay as Practitioners of the Arcane Arts.

 In the video, the beginning 20 minutes are a great breakdown of the book for study of the differences between Yoruba culture and Yoruba practice in Medicine and Magick. You are not asked to go and purchase or read this book, only try to listen to Dr. Falola’s presentation. He is of Nigerian descent and of the source. It may be a difficult listen for some from other cultures but who better to hear the truth from? The source. Lastly, there are no less than two specific pearls of wisdom, or magickal morsels, in this presentation. We do not purport any particular Path, but the knowledge of this one will help you study others as you will learn their “root” or parallels, current science points to all human life beginning in Alkebulan.

VIDEO:  THE YORUBA: From Prehistory to the Present

Presented by: Dr. Falola and Cambridge University