Valentin Mufila

Based on compassion, respect for others and the belief in a common bond joining all of humanity, Ubuntu is a philosophy and a way of life in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its values – in different languages and dialects – have connected peoples such as the Bantu, the Bakongo, the South African… »

The Kingdom of Aksum (also known as Axum) was formed in the first century BC in the northern region of Ethiopia. Although Its origins remain unclear we know that it was the first Christian kingdom in Africa and one of the most powerful. At the height of its expansion, the… »

Yaa Asantewa was born in 1840 in Besease, a city in what is now Ghana. She was the sister of Yaya Kwasi, who granted her the title of queen mother of Ejisuhene, a part of the Ashanti empire; given that there was a matriarchal system in place, this made her… »

Born between 1684 and 1686, Kimpa Vita was the fruit of a miraculous union. After the struggle of Queen Nzingha Mbande against colonialism and slavery, in 1666 another king named M’vita Kanga tried to free his people from the Portuguese. However, the rebellion ended very badly, as the Europeans possessed better weapons… »

Africa is a land of internal migration, as it has been the case for every continent on earth. The Bakongo people arrived in the region of the river Congo as part of the first Bantù migration, bringing with them the practice agriculture and iron working. The Bakongo people were fascinated… »

The Ghanaian Empire was after the Kingdom of Kush the largest empire of sub-Saharan Africa and one of the largest that Africa has ever known. At the time of its greatest expansion (X-XI centuries) it included current-day Sudan, Niger, Senegal, Mali and Mauritania and reached the gates of the Sahara. Like many… »

The world’s oldest constitution was written in Africa by King Sundiata Keita, who lived from 1190 to 1255. His father, Narhe Magan, accepted marriage to a hunchbacked woman named Sologon Konde to fulfill a prophesy that foresaw the birth of a great man from their union. The child was born hunchbacked and handicapped. After… »

Who are the Dogons? Where do they come from? We do not have much information on them, but they were certainly linked with the first peoples who settled in Egypt. Then in the 13th century, during the time of the Mali Empire, they descended to West Africa where the family… »

Around 3000 BC, when Narmer, nearly unanimously identified as Menes, departed from South Sudan and unified Upper and Lower Egypt to became Pharaoh, he unified two peoples. Approximately 10,000 years ago, the Sahara was rich in animals and vegetation; indeed, a team of archeologists have found images of cows and… »

About 1600 years ago the Shona, a very well-organized warrior people, descended from Sudan to southern Africa, bringing with them astronomical and spiritual knowledge as well as the practices of agriculture and metalworking (gold, iron and copper). From the scarce information we have about them, emerges one indisputable fact: the… »