Page 185 - A People Called Afrika

Afrika’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems

farms were even communally held and what one had, all had
a share in. Such practices maintained egalitarianism and elim-
inated many of the competitive practices found in Capitalis-
tic societies. One of the richest ways of passing down cultural
wisdom and experience was from the elderly members of the
society to the children, through stories and songs or simply
time spent together. In this way the wisdom of the ancients
traversed time, and passed from generation to generation,
with the new lessons that were learnt along the way incorpo-
rated in order to increase the wealth of wisdom of the people.

The Afrikan culture was a living encyclopedia that depend-
ed on relationships and personal interactions to share infor-
mation and tools for living, as well as historical perspectives
and events, with each other. It was the way in which people
identified relatives, even those who had gone and married into
other ethnic groupings, which prevented inbreeding among
relatives. Much of this is lost today with elderly being left in
the villages due to rural-urban migration or even being placed
in old people’s homes and away from the connection to the
family unit. The value of their experiences and knowledge is
being cast aside in favor of shallow knowledge bases largely
gleaned from the West or from watered down information
and knowledge provided in books and the internet. And
like it is popularly said, “The death of an aged person is like
the burning down of a library of wisdom and knowledge.”

Afrika’s architecture
Afrikan architecture, much like every other aspect of the
lives of the ancient Afrikans, had deep meanings attached to
it. They were not random builders. Of note also is that an-
cient Afrikans always had at the central point of their archi-

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