Journey through Mali

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNl8kIwj1_k&list=RDKMp_El9ltAs&feature=share Kora music from West African Griot lankandia cissoko

The Journey Begins : Have Your Ticket Ready: Stops along the way: Places along the Trans Sahara Trade

Route : Dejenne, Timbuktu, the Niger Valley

First Stop Djenne

Archaeological excavations reveal secrets about Mali’s past, beyond the 12th century. No written records exist

of Mali’s past, only oral history past down by griots. This is

exciting news!

First Stop Djenne

Archaeological excavations reveal secrets about Mali’s past, beyond the 12th century. No written records exist

of Mali’s past, only oral history past down by griots. This is

exciting news!

The Great Mosque in Djenne is a central point of Muslim worship, with many schools that spread the faith to the region. It is the largest mud building in the world.

The Great Mosque in Djenne

Koran School A Koranic school in Djenné, Mali, where the kids wash off their

writing tablets in between lessons..

Djenne’s weekly market fills the plaza in front of the Great Mosque. People conduct business with their right hands and seated on the ground.

Trade Fair

Doing Laundry and More…

The Bani River in Mali supplies water for many uses. How do you think this is river useful today? What role did it play in the development of the Great Mali empire?

Timbuktu was another city on the trans Sahara trade route along with Djenne.

For nearly a thousand years, camel caravans plied the trackless sands of the western Sahara, a barren landscape where arid conditions and searing sun conspire against crops, trees, andeven desert grasses.

Traveling from well to well, merchants transported the products of West Africa--gold, ivory, salt, and slaves--to the northern reaches of the continent, where they would exchange them for glass, ceramics, and precious stones brought to North Africa from the wider Mediterranean world.

Timbuktu - Selling Salt: 40 Camels from the Mines to the river

Today as in the past, salt from the desert remains a source of trade. Five hundred years ago it was as valuable than gold?

Why was salt so important for trade?

The Tuareg are a native tribe of Timbuktu

Timbuktu is remote, desolate and hard to get to.

Tuareg men prepare tea Miriam is the oldest sister in her family, she is drawing camels.

Dogon Cliff Dwellings

The Dogon people were the first to settle the Niger Valley. They continue to live in these cliffs as they did hundreds of years ago. They are similar to the Anasazi Indian cliff dwellings in the southwestern United States. They live south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, in the Mopti region

Dogon Mask

Dogon tribesman must make offerings to the tree spirit before they can be allowed to use the wood of the Togoda tree to make their masks that are important in their

Dances. Here they are on stilts.

Dogon SculpturesThe Dogon are one of the most artistic cultures of Africa. For centuries they have createdrich, powerful sculptures.

Here is a grainary door, a stool, and a box.

Faces of Mali