Shona and Great Zimbabwe

Location: Zimbabwe & Southern Mozambique

Languages:

• Bantu Family• Include 5 language

clusters:– Kore Kore– Zesuru– Manyika– Nadau– Karangua

United in early 19th century

Economy• Agricultural

• Men & Women help on the farm

Gender Roles• Men hunt and fish to

supplement the family’s diet

• Women create and sell baskets and pottery to supplement the family income

Political Systems• National States led by a Head Chief who

makes important decisions & is paid tributes

• Traditionally organized in small groups– 1-2 elderly men & their extended families

Religion

• Believe in 2 types of spirits– Vadizimu Spirits: ancestoral

• Ancient heroes/ recent ancestors• All that is good in society

– Shave spirits:Wandering spirits• Foreigners/ animals• Inspire talent/ cause harm through witchcraft

Shona Built Great Zimbabwe

• Built in approximately 400 A.D.

Details

• Walled city

• Approx. 150 square miles

• Population : 18,000

Architecture

Aime Cesaire, Communist and Negrity.

• Other Important Books on the Anti-Colonialism include

• W.E.B. DuBois' Color and Democracy (1945) and The World and Africa (1947)

• Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

• The Wretched of the Earth. (1961)• George Padmore's Pan-Africanism or

Communism?: The Coming Struggle for Africa (1956),

• Albert Memmi's The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957),

• Richard Wright's White Man Listen! (1957), • Jean-Paul Sartre's essay, "Black Orpheus"

(1948), • Their works were boosted by journals such

as Présence Africaine and African Revolution.

Quote from Fanon; “The Wretched of the Earth.”