Dr. Malidoma Patrice Somé is a scholar and noted shaman of the Dagara, a society in Ghana and Burkina Faso that has maintained ancient practices. Somé is most popular for documenting his journey to shamanism in the 1994 book Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman. He writes about the proverbial dive into the rabbit hole as he was studying with the elders of his community and balancing his newfound wisdom with his Western education. Somé paints a picture of a different path to knowledge that contradicts the norms of Western conventions. According to him, the Dagara have no word for the supernatural. “For us, as for many indigenous cultures, the supernatural is part of our everyday lives,” he writes. The Dagara also don’t draw a line between reality and imagination either, he writes, but rather emphasize the power of thought to create reality.1
And the Dagara don’t have a word for fiction. Out of curiosity, Somé decided to conduct an experiment. In the book, he recalls a day in 1996 when he showed the film Star Trek to his shaman elders. The elders watched the film, assuming that these were the day-today happenings of a group in another part of the world. He writes, “My elders were comfortable with Star Trek, the West’s vision of its own future. Because they believe in things like magical beings (Spock), traveling at the speed of light, and teleportation, the wonders that Westerners imagine being part of their future are very much a part of my elders’ present. The irony is that the West sees the indigenous world as primitive or archaic. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the West could learn to be as ‘archaic’ as my elders are?”2
But the elders also found the Trekster spaceship and outfits to be a bit cumbersome in the magic-making process. It would be much simpler if they just traveled with their minds.
The absence of Africa’s contribution to global knowledge in history, science, and beyond is a gaping hole so expansive it almost feels like a missing organ in the planet’s cultural anatomy. Can humanity ever know itself with this rigid segmentation of knowledge? Can ancient knowledge be recovered? Can trauma be erased? While the whys and hows that led to this void are etched in history, the obvious absence has compelled many Afrofuturists to look to the continent’s myths, spirituality, and art on a never-ending quest for wholeness.
Afrofuturist artists site Egyptian deities, the Dogon myths, water myths, and Yoruba orishas more than any other African cosmology in their art, music, and literature. From the costumes of Earth, Wind & Fire to Lee Scratch Perry’s Black Ark to the idea of the mothership itself, the Dogon’s star bond with Sirius and ancient Egyptians’ unexplained technologies are the basis for Afrofuturist lore, art, and spectacle.
These cultures are referenced largely because of the sci-fi elements and mysticism in the mythology. The Egyptian and Dogon, in particular, are the most documented African wisdoms in the world. The importance of the Yoruba orishas and African water deities to enslaved African cultures in the Americas resound with descendants and continental Africa today. Afrofuturists are intrigued by Africa’s ancient wisdom and ancient wisdom from around the world. The aesthetic attracts students of the esoteric. Shamanism, metaphysics, Hinduism, Buddhism, African traditional religions, mystical Christianity, Sufism, Native American spirituality, astrology, martial arts mythology, and other ancient wisdoms are typically funneled through an African or diasporic viewpoint.
Stargazing is a popular pastime.
“Afrofuturism is about looking at and recovering those ancient ways and looking at how artists through the ’60s and now are using those to talk about the future,” says D. Denenge Akpem, scholar and performance artist.
Afrofuturists love to anchor their work in golden eras from times long gone, and there’s no ancient culture that merges the heights of science and the esoteric like the Egyptians and Nubians. Egypt’s reign in the ancient world and Nubia’s influence stand as proof that cultures of dark-skinned people ruled advanced societies and shaped global knowledge.
From naming themselves after Egyptian deities to donning the wardrobe, no stone is left unturned in the quest to reinterpret the greatness of ancient Egypt and Nubia in modern and futuristic black cultures. Ankhs, pharaoh crowns, and snakes are the visual aesthetic of the pharoahs. Gods and goddesses reappear in Afrofuturistic art, depicting an Egyptian cosmology that is as much in the past as it is the future.
Ancient Egypt’s stellar deities Ra, Isis, Horus, Set, the sky goddess Nut, and beyond are common mythological inspirations. Sun Ra named himself after the Egyptian god, and Erykah Badu gained fame while wearing the Egyptian ankh—a symbol of eternal life and fertility—in videos and stage shows, which repopularized African-inspired fashion and piqued curiosity about quantum physics.
But Afrofuturists aren’t the only ones reeled in by Egypt’s glory. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the mysteries of the pyramids and Sphinx, even the love-drenched tales of Cleopatra have inspired some of the greatest art, motion pictures, and literature of our time. Although anthropologists continue to crack away at the time-honored mysteries of the ancient Egyptians, the true meanings behind their mythology, architecture, religion, and writings are still cloaked in question marks, inspiring speculative history and theories that zigzag straight to space. Ancient Egypt is a treasure trove of speculation. Writers have speculated that the pyramids are celestial portals to other worlds. Others say that aliens, not humans, are the true architect, a theory often fraught with racism for its inability to imagine brown-skinned people achieving such mastery. Then there’s also the speculation that Egyptians had a special connection to other worlds. Even the blockbuster film Prometheus implies that the hieroglyphics are the offshoots of an ancient alien language.
In 1787 Count C. Volney, French scholar and author of Ruins of Empires, delighted readers with the wonders and impact of Egyptian culture on the changing world and the intellect of the “black-skinned” creators.
Early Egyptian libraries and secret societies were the envy of philosophers from Pythagoras to Plato, both of whom studied in Egypt. How did this culture come to be? What secrets did it hold? What were its secret teachings? Ancient Egyptian culture and lore is as much a pipeline to the great beyond as the mystery of dark matter.
The Afrofuturistic claim on the culture places the nation at the heart of African diaspora history, a statement that counters popular culture’s tendency to divorce Egypt from its African locale and people. “A lot cling on to it because it is a high point in African history,” says Afua Richardson, comic illustrator, about ancient Egypt’s popularity among Afrofuturists. “The pyramids themselves are one of the great mysteries of the world.”
An artist in a family of scientists, Richardson began her career as a flutist, playing for Sheila E. and Parliament/Funkadelic, among others, and was soon asked to lend her artistic skills to create album covers for Nona Hendryx. Richardson is a fan of speculative fiction on ancient societies and is developing a new comic on the Egyptian mystery schools and technology. However, Egyptian imagery in Afrofuturism is so popular it’s almost cliche, and she wants to add a new spin. “I want to combine futuristic imagery with shamanism,” she says.
Others look to the culture’s realities as a backdrop for fantasy. Fantasy writer N. K. Jemisin’s book The Killing Moon delves into the lives of high priests inspired by Egyptian society. In the book, the priests of the dream goddess harvest dreams and guide dreamers into the afterlife.
Egyptian astronomy spread throughout Africa due in part to the Egyptians’ expansive trade routes, which crossed into the Horn of Africa and south of the Sahara. Manuscripts from Timbuktu in West Africa reference the Egyptian reach, and astrological understanding is nearly omnipresent in art and architecture from the region.
Lore aside, it’s a fact that the Great Pyramid of Giza and others have a host of sky-bound connections. Pyramids were arranged to align with the movement of constellations, solstice sunrises, and cardinal points on the compass. The star Sirius was associated with the annual flooding of the Nile River. Egyptians had a very sophisticated understanding of astronomy that permeated everyday life.
Ancient Nubian culture has a symbiotic relationship with Egypt. The two often shared pharaohs, deities, and history. The two are sister cultures in many ways. Nubia may predate Egypt. Nestled in modern-day Sudan, just south of modern Egypt, Nubia was also known for its stellar architecture and rich cosmology. Unfortunately, the building of the Aswan Dam some decades ago flooded many ancient Nubian sites and ruins. Much of it is currently covered by water.
Symbolically, Egypt and Nubia predate and rival the Western world’s anchor in ancient Greece and Rome.
The Dogon have perplexed Western scholars for centuries. Some believe that this Mali-born ethnic group, with an astronomical lore that goes back three millennia, harbors the ancient wisdom of the Egyptians. The stories of the Dogon opened the floodgate of alternative histories and tales inspired by probable outer-space human origins.
According to the Dogon cosmology, the Sirius system is the home to the Nommos, a race of amphibians akin to mermaids and mermen who visited Earth thousands of years ago. They arrived on Earth in an ark—inspiring Perry’s Black Ark and Clinton’s mothership myths—and imparted the wisdom of the stars.
French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen conducted and recorded conversations with Dogon priests between the 1930s and ’50s because they were dumbfounded by the Dogon’s common star knowledge, all assessed without a telescope. The Dogon knew that the star Sirius has two companion stars, the Digitaria (po tolo) and Sorghum (emme ya tolo). They knew that Digitaria has a fifty-year orbit cycle, and they were also familiar with the rings of Saturn and Jupiter’s moon. Robert K. G. Temple’s book The Sirius Mystery was published in 1977 and popularized these Dogon myths and knowledge.
Scientists would later challenge Griaule and Dieterlen’s findings as well as Temple’s extraterrestrial leanings, arguing that there’s no way this culture—without conventional astronomical technology—could possibly know about star orbits and distant moons. And yet the Dogon have conducted ceremonies since, and have art depicting their knowledge from, as early as the thirteenth century.
The brightest star in the night sky, Sirius is a popular star in legend and lore, with mentions in the Iliad, Star Trek, and Men in Black. But no story rivals the creation story of the Dogon.
Artist Cauleen Smith says she is fixated with the Dogon and used their theme in her 2012 show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. “I spent a few days in the astronomy research center reading about the star Sirius. [Scientists] will spend a whole chapter on how it’s impossible for the Dogon to know about this star. They are even willing to consider that aliens from outer space told them,” she says. “Why do they have a seven-hundred-year-old ritual for a star that they cannot see?”
The Dogon astronomy is held by many Afrofuturists as proof of the advanced science minds and talents of the ancient world. “It represents an African source,” says Akpem, who teaches about the star’s creative inspirations in her college-level Afrofuturism course. “It represents a cosmology that predates Western discoveries,” she continues. Afrofuturist bloggers from the AfrofuturistAffair.com to FuturisticallyAncient.com and Black ScienceFiction.com have posted essays and YouTube videos heralding the star. Art and stories relating to the star Sirius as well as galactic-origin metaphors are attributed to the Dogon.
Dogon lore is also one of the sources of the Mami Wata and African mermaid myths. Mami Wata are the pantheon of African water deities—half human, half sea creature. Other Mami Wata include the Togo’s Densu and Yoruba’s Olokun. However, the Dogon say their stories of Nommos, the mermen and mermaids of their ancestors, came from Egyptian stories. “Most were honored and respected as being ‘bringers of divine law’ and for establishing the theological, moral, social, political, economic, and cultural foundation, to regulating the overflow of the Nile, and regulating the ecology i.e., establishing days for success at sailing and fishing, hunting, planting etc. to punishment by devastating floods when laws and taboos were violated,” writes Mama Zogbé, Mamaissii Vivian Hunter-Hindrew, EdM, author of Mami Wata: Africa’s Ancient God/dess Unveiled.3
Even the words Mami and Wata have Egyptian origins. Ma or mama means “truth and wisdom,” and Wata comes from the ancient Egyptian word uati, meaning “ocean water.”
Contemporary images of Mami Wata are mostly women with long hair and snakes circling their torsos. The image was created by a nineteenth-century German artist but was inspired by the ancient imagery of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Isis was also depicted with braided hair and two serpents draped around her neck. (Isis and Mary, mother of Jesus, also are similarly depicted, as a mother holding a child.) According to myth, when she’s not sea bound, she walks the streets of modern African cities and has “avatars” that do the same. She gives wealth to her followers.
The Mami Wata are also closely associated with Africans brought to the New World in the transatlantic slave trade. They inspired the Drexciya myth, of female slaves thrown overboard who now live under the sea. Mami Wata are also a favorite of graphic and installation artists, with odes on sites such as MermaidsofColor.tumblr.com.
Aker, blogger for Afrofuturist website FuturisticallyAncient.com, argues that Mami Wata permeate popular black culture. R&B star Aaliyah’s slithering snake adornments in the “We Need a Resolution” video and the floating scene in the “Rock the Boat” video are archetypical references to Isis/Mami Wata. Even Tina Turner’s rocking “Proud Mary (Rolling on the River)” evokes water goddess lore.
“Originally recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival, the song was famously covered by Ike and Tina Turner. The name of the band that originally recorded it as well as the lyrics suggests a religious theme. Proud Mary is a ‘riverboat queen’ and its name reminds me of Virgin Mary, whose name come from Stalla Maris, ‘the star of the sea.’ Virgin Mary is often syncretized with Mami Wata or Erzulie,” writes Aker.4
Nona Hendryx and Labelle speckled their sci-fi rock with mermaid tops and tails and fin-like hair. CopperWire’s sole woman, Meklit Hadero, has an alias of Ko Ai, a character whose mythology says she is a messenger species that swims through electrical networks and doubles as a mermaid.
Hip-hop starlet Azealia Banks adopts the cosmetic mermaid motif too, adorned with the trademark colorful long hair and shell tops. With her Mermaid Balls and aquababes, the quickwitted lyricist taps into the fantasy ideal, complete with a Fantasea mix tape and songs titled “Neptune” and “Atlantis.”
Although Banks doesn’t credit her water-themed inventions to Mami Wata per se, she says that the basic idea was inspired by an invitation to designer Karl Lagerfeld’s house and a need to impress him. “I can’t just look like the rap chick,” she told Spin, so she dyed her hair green, blue, and purple for the appearance. “I looked like a fish,” she said. It’s telling that the young ingenue’s disdain for rap-borne limitations and her desire to break free of stereotypes led her to be redefined as a classic water goddess.5
In June 2012 the National Museum of African Art, nestled in DC’s epic Smithsonian Institution, unveiled a one-of-a-kind exhibit: African Cosmos: Stellar Arts. The brainchild of deputy director and chief curator Christine Mullen Kreamer, African Cosmos presented the legacy of continental art inspired by the cosmos, which stretches across thousands of years, threading distant cultures and times. Kreamer combined her lifelong fascination with stargazing and her work as a curator to assemble art, both ancient and modern, that spoke to the incredible influence of sky matters on art created by Africans. Heralded for its depth and perspective, the show was a whopping aha moment for spectators and journalists alike, many of whom had never thought about Africa’s science-inspired art. “This exhibition, many years in the making, is part of the museum’s series focusing on Africa’s contributions to the history of knowledge—in this case, knowledge about the heavens and how this knowledge informs the creation of spectacular works of art,” said Kreamer.
Works in the exhibit included an ancient Egyptian mummy board with an ornamented image of the sky goddess, Nut; the legendary Dogon sculptures; Yoruba sculptures honoring the thunder deity, Shango, and wind and lightning goddess, Oya; several Bamana antelope crest pieces, whose open-work manes imply the sun’s path through the sky; as well the Tabwa and Luba sculptures.
From ancient Nubian art on papyrus to a towering contemporary Rainbow Serpent made of repurposed containers, Kreamer’s impressive show gave definition to the too often ignored and often undefined legacy of African thoughts on the sky.
The exhibit featured contemporary artists as well, including El Anatsui, the late Alexander “Skunder” Boghossian, Willem Boshoff, Garth Erasmus, Romuald Hazoumè, Gavin Jantjes, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Karel Nel, Marcus Neustetter, and Berco Wilsenach.6 It was the first major exhibit of its kind.
There’s a tendency to view Africa for its cultural contributions in music and art, Kreamer told me, and a reluctance to understand the continent’s long-standing contributions to science and our understanding of astronomy.
The African understanding of the universe is highly personal, says Kreamer. And the one hundred works showcased in the exhibit depicted relationships between humanity, the sun, moon, stars, and celestial phenomena. More than religious symbols or decorative art, these works were complex webs of philosophy and science that gave new meaning to life.
Traditionally, African cultures don’t separate science and art in the Western perspective of the divide. Dr. Malidoma Patrice Somé was boggled by the difference. “In Western reality, there is a clear split between the spiritual and the material, between religious life and secular life. This concept is alien to the Dagara,” writes Somé.7 Cultural astronomy, according to Kreamer, is the study of “lay experts and nonexperts who relate in the broadest sense to the sky,” and it gives a language to the non-Western ideals of bridging science, art, and wisdom. Although cultural astronomers focus heavily on native cultures in North and South America, Africa, says Kreamer, is ripe for rigorous study.
“In contrast to the Western inclination to separate bodies of knowledge into distinctive fields, African systems are often more expansive and inclusive, bringing together philosophical, religious and scientific concepts into a more holistic approach toward comprehending reality,” Kreamer writes in her book African Cosmos, a companion piece to the exhibit. Kreamer, among others, argues that the failure to view African art and science from an African perspective creates a gaping hole in the global knowledge base.
When I called Kreamer to interview her for this book, she initially didn’t quite understand how her show fit into a conversation about Afrofuturism. I shared that many Afrofuturists incorporate African mythology and spirituality in their work. The African Cosmos exhibit is a reminder that there is a legacy of weaving art, philosophy, and the realms of the sky from a black and African perspective that predates the term Afrofuturism and any newfound curiosity. A life inspired by science fiction resides in the myths and art of the ages.
“Afrofuturism has always been a part of our culture,” award-winning filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu said at TEDx Nairobi. Kahiu said that many African myths and folktales are laced with spiritualism and science fiction. “It’s always been a part of us,” she said.
This connection to an African and African-diasporic perspective and other ancient wisdom is one that Afrofuturists seek.
Dr. Jarita Holbrook dedicates her life to uncovering the history of African stargazing. “My work as a researcher fills in the blanks. When you say African astronomy, there are only two [cultures] that come to mind, the Egyptians and the Dogon. The point was to give a voice to everyone else,” she says.
In fact, the spark for the study of cultural astronomy in sub-Saharan African is credited to the study of the Great Zimbabwean ruins in the nineteenth century that were found to align with celestial bodies. The Igbo, Bamana, Sandawe, Yoruba, Fante, and many others have rich astronomy cultures as well, and anthropologists and others are dedicated to their unearthing and documentation.
Holbrook studied a host of African cultures and their traditional relationships to the sky, and she is a big advocate for recognizing black astrophysicists. When asked how her curiosity in African cultural astronomy was piqued, she gives a one-word answer: “Racism.” Trained in astrophysics, Holbrook grew annoyed with the stares and odd questions she received as she studied for her PhD. “There’s a weird hazing. [People] act as if you don’t belong,” says Holbrook, who is also researching the trajectory of black women with PhDs in astrophysics and documenting the writing scripts in Africa with Kreamer. “But there is a history of black people looking at the sky.”
In fact, at the time of our interview, she was crowd-sourcing funds to shoot the documentary Black Sun, which follows two African American astrophysicists traveling to Australia and Japan to monitor the solar eclipse. When she’s not researching or teaching cultural astronomy, Holbrook’s writing science fiction. The Astronaut Tribe series, a yet-to-be-published work, is her debut sci-fi venture and was recently optioned for a film.
Holbrook began her career in African cultural astronomy by studying coastal groups and how they currently use the stars for navigation. She looked at sites in Tunisia in North Africa as well as Tanzania and Eritrea to the east and Gambia and Ghana in the west. Using the stars to navigate is a common practice, she says, adding, “I believe that, pretty much, you can walk around the coast of Africa and you can find people who navigate by the stars.”
She continues, “I’m very interested in women’s relationship to the sky and how they often use the moon to regulate their fertility.” She notes that the book Blood Magic, edited by Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb, points to African groups that look to the moon to determine where they are on their cycles. The planet Venus is connected with a feminine deity in African societies too. Holbrook says, “In West Africa, they tie the women initiation ceremony for the Mande family with Venus. Before the ceremony, they watch Venus to determine when the ceremony should begin.”
In 2006 Holbrook organized the first international conference on African cultural astronomy. The weeklong event was set to coincide with the solar eclipse on March 29 and brought the world’s African cultural astronomers together. Two years later she coedited African Cultural Astronomy with scholars R. Thebe Medupe and Johnson O. Urama, including essays on recent findings, research, and the conference itself. This body of work was a groundbreaking effort to bolster the study of African cultural astronomy and to integrate it into schools and universities. Research spanned the continent, looking to literature, art, lore, and anthropology. Holbrook hopes to catalog all of the cultural anthropological research and myths across the continent as well as the African scripts with sky symbols.
However, much of what scholars know about African cultural astronomy comes from African art. This was one of the reasons Holbrook was excited about the “African Cosmos” show. She says, “If they put their art on a semipermanent medium like the cast iron of the Dahomey—or wood carvings, stone carvings—those that practice in that medium can survive the times. Certain cultures we don’t know [about], because they weren’t using materials that would last.” Most African cultures have an agricultural calendar that’s directed by the sky and a creation story in which either their ancestors or God is connected to the sky, says Holbrook. “They’ll have artwork that is connected to the sky. Popular things to depict are the Milky Way, Venus, the sun, and the moon.”
Moreover, the animals used to describe groups of constellations reflect the region. “If you look at Pacific Island names for stars, you won’t find lions or bears, but you will find stingrays and fish. In Africa, you have giraffes, wildebeest, you have lions, and depending on where you are, you have leopards,” she says. She also says that because much of Africa is in the tropics, the constellations are arranged differently and follow tropical archaeoastronomy. “Not only does the sky look different and move differently, if you’re in the tropics, the sun, moon, and stars are directly overhead at some point. Outside of the tropics, stars are either south or north. When you live in the tropics, you don’t have stars that circle. Those in the tropics all see things move the same way.”
Holbrook also works with the Timbuktu Astronomy Project, helmed by Medupe. “We’re looking at the translation of Muslim astronomy in Africa,” she says. Medupe looks for variations in mathematics and science in the Arabic texts in various regions to determine if the local Africans modified it.
However, Holbrook doesn’t believe that Africa is unique in its historical and cultural relationship with the sky. “These things are common for cultures in Africa and are common for cultures in the world,” she adds. “The nature of racism is one where they expect Africans to have done nothing. So when you imply that they did things, or did what everyone else did, it’s earth-shaking. Why would Africans look at the sky? Why wouldn’t they? I feel like I have this activist role. Here I am causing trouble, finding that Africans study the sky.” Although the Egyptians and Dogon are highly researched, she encourages Afrofuturists to explore the plethora of African cultural astronomy, although she admits that information can be hard to come by. Nevertheless, the Somali, Mande (to which the Dogon belong), Dahomey, and Igbo are among those with intriguing cosmologies too, she says. “There’s so much work to be done,” she adds.
Umberto Eco wrote that writers are inspired by a question and their book is the answer. This simple insight into the nature of creativity applies to Afrofuturists as well. The mythmaking and time-travel themes and celebration of ancient wisdom are steam-powered by this idea that there simply must be more to the mythological canon than the stories we inherit. Just as Greek, Roman, and Norse myths undergird Western art, literature, entertainment, and architecture, Afrofuturists are among those thirsty for other ancient frameworks.
The mythology and beliefs that shaped African societies in antiquity are the greatest mystery of them all. Much of the records of these societies were purposely destroyed by invading societies. The dam built over Nubian homelands and ruins and Napoleon’s destruction of the historic library in Alexandria are just the tip of the iceberg. When ancient Egyptian language was banned following the nation’s takeover by Rome and later the Arabs, even the translation of the hieroglyphics was lost to the world, only to be restored centuries later by the painstaking work of linguists. But Egypt and Nubia withstood the test of time. Many ancient societies that thrived in the past are lost to us forever. If they were lucky, their art survived the perils of time. How many other wisdom traditions vanished in the rubble of history? What stories and heroes are lost in the winds of time? And what, if anything, could such tales from cultures past inform us of today about our humanity, our origins, and the purpose of life? How could this distant wisdom enrich our lives today?
I sometimes feel that Afrofuturism is the subconscious’s way of knocking at the door of present awareness, infusing those who are receptive with ideas and stories from worlds and times forever lost. Perhaps the mythmaking of today is the legacy and the subconscious, just the goddess’s way of sharing a vision.