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 black
/
africana
communication
theory

e d i t e d by
kehbuma langmia
Black/Africana Communication Theory
 Kehbuma Langmia
Editor

Black/Africana
Communication
Theory
Foreword by Ronald L. Jackson II
Editor
Kehbuma Langmia
Department of Strategic, Legal and
Management Communication
School of Communications
Howard University
Washington, DC, USA

ISBN 978-3-319-75446-8    ISBN 978-3-319-75447-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75447-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934711

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This book has been dedicated to those who fervently believe that Black
Scholars Matter.
 Foreword: A Tool for Understanding
the African Diaspora

The foundation of every Diaspora can be found in its ideals, mores, beliefs,
and culture—its way of doing things. Moreover, the basis for any curricu-
lum about that Diaspora resides within its theories. The theories foretell
the intricacies of the discursive practices that guide how citizens of the
Diaspora behave. To date there has been no one book that has been exclu-
sively dedicated to showcasing Black/Africana communication paradigms,
but now we have it in Kehbuma Langmia’s book Black/Africana Com­
munication Theory.
Of course the function of theories is to provide us with conceptual tools
to use when trying to make sense of what we are observing. The contem-
porary social landscape throughout the African Diaspora, no matter
whether it is in Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Australia,
Antarctica, or Europe, provides us with a plethora of phenomena to
explore no matter whether it is Boko Haram of Nigeria, the Stolen
Generation of Australia, the Afroasiatic identity of Ongota, or any number
of African places, events, rituals, and aboriginal people groups throughout
the Diaspora. While it is impossible to have a book with theories to suffi-
ciently describe every phenomenon what Black/Africana Communication
Theory offers is an ambitious explication of theories that rigorously unrav-
els an African-centered set of human experiences, habits, and practices.
The urgency of the need for intellectual minds to attend to the social
quagmires in which we find ourselves is significant now more than ever.
The African Diaspora is grasping for answers for the collapse of democra-
cies all around the world. Even in the United States the democratic ideal,
and its accompanying promises of freedom, equity, and fairness, is called

vii
viii FOREWORD: A TOOL FOR UNDERSTANDING THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

into question daily. Higher education institutions cannot decide whether

their principal interests are to prepare students to be global citizens or to
simply make money. While these are not mutually exclusive, since it is pos-
sible to have both coexist simultaneously, the neoliberalist charge to con-
stitute the national identities of all Americans on the basis of capitalism
alone is debilitating. It runs counter to African sensibilities, which value
the collective and seek to lift up others as we individually progress. In fact
what this book will show is that the notion of the individual is a principally
Western concept that seems misplaced when discussed alongside African
Diaspora perspectives.
What is not so strange within the Diaspora is the need to protect an
authentic sense of African values defined by ethics, language and discourse,
belonging, holism, interconnectedness, social support, and self-efficacy
through community. This need intensifies in places where African peoples
have been colonized, because they have already experienced an assault on
their cultural way of being. In many cases, whether through the Maafa
known as the holocaust of enslavement or through some other devastating
transition, the Diaspora spread geographically when Black people arrived
in places where they were subjugated. Under colonial rule, where in many
cases they were not permitted to speak their native tongue, they had to
find a way to adjust psychologically, linguistically, and culturally in order
to survive. The emergence of pidgins and eventually creoles often hap-
pened out of a need to communicate with other Africans during this dis-
persion and resettlement process where for example African people who
spoke Hausa had to learn to speak to other Africans who spoke Igbo,
Kiswahili, Yoruba, Zulu, Fulani, Berber, or one or more of almost a hun-
dred other languages spoken on the continent. One of the principal con-
sequences of colonialism was a gradual loss of various aspects of indigenous
African identities with each new generation detached from the physical
continent of Africa.
Retrieval over the custody of meanings, practices, mores, and values
reflecting classical African antiquity has been an uphill battle for Africans
who have been removed from Africa for several generations. The famous
Melville Herskovitz and E. Franklin Frazier debate discussed in Holloway’s
(2005) book Africanisms in American Culture attempts to grapple with
whether Blacks in America and elsewhere can legitimately claim an African
identity at all, or whether who they are today is to be regarded as some-
thing entirely separate and distinct from an indigenous African identity. In
other words, is there any such thing as an African carryover or continuity
or is that nonsense? This ultimately begs the question, for example, of
whether African Americans are more African or American.
 FOREWORD: A TOOL FOR UNDERSTANDING THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
   ix

The fact that we continue to be compelled to ask this ontological and

cosmological question is a result of most of the African Diaspora’s physical
detachment from Africa and our divided cultural consciousness. Fortunately
we have had the benefit of many brilliant writers over the years such as
Chinua Achebe (2016), Chiek Anta Diop (1989, 1991), Jahnheinz Jahn
(1994), Marcel Griaule (1975), Chancellor Williams (1992), Molefi Asante
(2013), Maulana Karenga (2008), and others who have sought to not just
acknowledge the antecedent conditions that led to the spread of the
Diaspora but also work to reinstate the significance of human agency by
critiquing and establishing paradigms intended to reflect Africanity. They
understood the phrase “Know Thyself,” a phrase that emerged from early
African dynasties over 3000 years ago and has been claimed by Greek,
Chinese, Hindu, and other cultures throughout the world. The phrase sug-
gests more than what its literal meaning signifies, which presumably is to
get to know your origins and how you define yourself. It is also a phrase that
captures the past, present, and future implying self-knowledge across time.
In coming to know the people who belong to the African Diaspora we
need paradigms and models to help us make sense of the cultural behavior
and discourse patterns we are observing. For example how do the wailing
and memorial service practices in Ghana compare to the way we memori-
alize the deceased in Jamaica, Brazil, China, or the United States?
Questions like these encourage us to pause and consider the vastness of
the African continent as a point of origin for the Diaspora, a place with 54
independent countries and hundreds of languages. To say one’s ancestors
are from Africa is a complex assertion. One must take time to locate which
part of Africa and what traditions are distinctive to that region.
Recently I received my results from the Ancestry.com DNA test I took.
I was delighted to learn that the findings showed that I am 86 % African
with most of my ancestral heritage concentrated in Nigeria, Ghana,
Benin/Togo, and Cameroon. While this revelation was exciting I almost
immediately felt overwhelmed by how much I still have to learn about
those African countries. I have been reading about Africa for the last 30
years but I feel like I know almost nothing about my ancestral heritage. I
do not know much about the foods, languages, dialects, dress, rights of
passage, and collective identities of those regions. African Americans have
been told for centuries that they have African ancestral roots. This DNA
science helps us to move one step closer to understanding our family tree,
medical histories, and so on. Even still it takes books like Black/Africana
Communication Theory to guide us in our attempts to retrieve aspects of
our Diaspora culture.
x FOREWORD: A TOOL FOR UNDERSTANDING THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

What this book reveals, if you read closely, is that there are at least four
functions of the African Diaspora, and I suspect this is the case for all
Diasporas: (1) to coalesce dispersed people who share the same ancestral
origin; (2) to track and ensure African continuities, cultural carryovers, and
what Maulana Karenga (2008) calls kawaida (traditions) regardless of geo-
graphical location; (3) to solidify public remembrance and regard for
the history, heroes, aesthetics; and (4) to empower and facilitate agency of
the people of the Diaspora through shared values and stories of greatness.
The first function of coalescence is critically important because dispersed
peoples take on new national cultural norms and daily ways of being. They
are susceptible to the kind of cultural amnesia that Molefi Asante argues is
a product of a dislocated cultural consciousness. Even if the Diaspora suc-
ceeds with the first function the identities of the dispersed people needs to
be understood. There is a famous line in Spike Lee’s movie School Daze
where the character Julian/Dean Big Brother Al-might-ty (played by
Giancarlo Esposito) is invited to a rally about divestment from South Africa
and he disdainfully replies, “I’m from Detroit—Motown!” This is awfully
telling as we think about what happens when a people have lost connection
with their homeland. He did not imagine himself as African and recoiled at
the mere mention of such a linkage. The third function is to remember the
Diaspora through how we tell about our history. This retelling of history
signifies our desires and shapes our worldviews. This function of remem-
brance is just as much about telling the history as it is about the final func-
tion, which is empowerment. By empowerment I mean that Diasporas
function to help their dispersed people to cope psychologically, linguisti-
cally, and emotionally. It helps them to understand that they still have a
purpose and have the agency to find value and success in their lives. When
a child is introduced to heroes in their own respective culture it reminds
them that they are an offspring of greatness and a destiny of success is theirs
to achieve.
The functions of Diasporas are directly aligned with the paradigms that
essentially embody and re-enliven those functions. For example when Molefi
Asante’s (2013) discussed the concept of “afrocentricity” he describes it as
a lens through which we can conceptually address a sense of “decentered-
ness” among dispersed Africans “recognizing that Africans in the Diaspora
had been deliberately de-culturalized and made to accept the conqueror’s
codes of conduct and modes of behavior” (p. 31). The beauty of this book
Black/Africana Communication Theory edited by Kehbumia Langmia is
that we now have an additional communication-focused interdisciplinary
 FOREWORD: A TOOL FOR UNDERSTANDING THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
   xi

resource that works to apprehend critical elements of the African Diaspora.

Its value will become increasingly more significant as the world becomes
more transient, as the digital Diasporas expand, and as those in the African
Diaspora seek to better understand their own ancestry.

University of Cincinnati Ronald L. Jackson

Cincinnati, OH, USA

References
Achebe, C. (2016). Arrow of God. New York: Penguin.
Asante, M. (2013). Afrocentricity: Imagination and Action. Malaysia: Multiversity
and Citizens International.
Diop, C. A. (1989). The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Chicago:
Chicago Review Press.
Diop, C. A. (1991). Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology.
Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Griaule, M. (1975). Conversations With Ogotemmeli: An Introduction to Dogon
Religious Ideas. London: International African Institute.
Holloway, J. E. (2005). Africanisms in American Culture. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press.
Jahn, J. (1994). Muntu: African Culture and the Western World. New York: Grove.
Karenga, M. (2008). Kawaida and Questions of Life and Struggle: African
American, Pan-African and Global Issues. Los Angeles: University of Sankore
Press.
Williams, C. (1992). Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from
4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. Chicago: Third World Press.
 Acknowledgments

It is certainly an undisputable truism that hard work indeed pays dividends.

The scholars who answered the call from me to contribute to this volume
have done a memorable job for the next generation of scholars dedicated
to the cause of Black communication scholarship. The academic dividends
that will yield from their contributions would go a long way to water the
tree of genuine freedom of thought that has been absent in much of com-
munication theory for Black/Africana scholars. So, a work of this nature
has certainly come to fruition because of the help of dedicated and com-
mitted scholars who have adopted as their mantra, seeking the right path
to restore Black intelligentsia on the academic decision map of planet earth.
All the contributors were of the view that something ought to be done to
bring clarity and directives to bear on Black and Africana communication
theoretical groundings in scholarships that have tap roots on issues related
to the Black race. Most of the contributors worked under a tight schedule
from me and sometimes had to send their contributions during examina-
tion duress at their universities. For that, I must say, from the bottom of my
heart that I am profoundly grateful for your sacrifice and not only that, you
have become, “the change you want to see in the world” in the words of
Mathama Gandhi.

xiii
 Contents

1 Introduction   1
Kehbuma Langmia

Part I Afrocentric Communication Theories   9

2 The Classical African Concept of Maat and Human

Communication  11
Molefi Kete Asante

3 Cognitive Hiatus and the White Validation Syndrome:

An Afrocentric Analysis  25
Ama Mazama

Part II Africana Communication Theories  39

4 The Igbo Communication Style: Conceptualizing Ethnic

Communication Theory  41
Uchenna Onuzulike

xv
xvi Contents

5 Kuelekea Nadharia Ujamaa Mawasiliano: Toward

a Familyhood Communication Theory  61
Abdul Karim Bangura

6 Afro-Cultural Mulatto Communication Theory  85

Kehbuma Langmia

7 Venerative Speech Theory and African Communalism:

A Geo-Cultural Perspective 105
Bala A. Musa

8 Africana Symbolic Contextualism Theory 125

Faith Nguru and Agnes Lucy Lando

9 The HaramBuntu-Government-Diaspora Relationship

Management Theory 149
Stella-Monica N. Mpande

10 Dynamism: N’digbo and Communication

in Post-modernism 173
Chuka Onwumechili

11 Consciencist Communication Theory: Expanding

the Epistemology on Nkrumahism 191
Abdul Karim Bangura

Part III African American Communication Theories 213

12 Afrocentricity of the Whole: Bringing Women

and LGBTQIA Voices in from the Theoretical Margins 215
Natalie Hopkinson and Taryn K. Myers

13 New Frames: A Pastiche of Theoretical Approaches

to Examine African American and Diasporic
Communication 235
Gracie Lawson-Borders
 Contents 
   xvii

Part IV Latin America & Caribbean Communication

Theories 255

14 Creolized Media Theory: An Examination of Local Cable

Television in Jamaica as Hybrid Upstarts 257
Nickesia S. Gordon

15 Caribbean Communication: Social Mediation Through

the Caribbean ICT Virtual Community (CIVIC) 277
Roger Caruth

16 Color Privileges, Humor, and Dialogues: Theorizing

How People of African Descent in Brazil
Communicatively Manage Stigmatization and Racial
Discrimination 301
Juliana Maria (da Silva) Trammel

Index 339
 About the Editor

Kehbuma Langmia is Professor/Chair and Fulbright Scholar in the

Department of Strategic, Legal and Management Communications,
Howard University in Washington, DC, USA. Dr. Langmia has extensive
knowledge and expertise in Public Speaking, Information Communication
Technology (ICT), Intercultural Communication and Social Media. He
has published eleven books, fourteen book chapters and nine peer-­
reviewed journal articles nationally and internationally. He is the recipient
of the 2017 Toyin Falola Book Award for his most recent book,
Globalization and Cyberculture.

xix
 About the Authors

Molefi Kete Asante is Professor and Chair, Department of Africology,

Temple University, PA, USA. He is the author of 83 books including
Revolutionary Pedagogy.
Abdul Karim Bangura is a researcher-in-residence of Abrahamic
Connections and Islamic Peace Studies at American University’s Center
for Global Peace in Washington, DC, USA and a visiting graduate profes-
sor of several universities in Africa. He holds five PhDs in Political Science,
Development Economics, Linguistics, Computer Science, and
Mathematics. He is the author of more than 90 books and more than 600
scholarly articles. In addition to having received more than 50 prestigious
national and international awards, he is fluent in about a dozen African
and six European languages, and studying to increase his proficiency in
Arabic, Hebrew, and Hieroglyphics.
Roger Caruth holds a PhD in Mass Communication and Media Studies
from Howard University; JD from Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School;
and MPA and BA from Clark Atlanta University. He studied Mass Com­
munications in undergraduate studies and International Administration
and Development in graduate studies, and then went on to John Marshall
Law School where he received a Juris Doctor degree in 1999. Dr. Caruth
recently concluded a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Annenberg
School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania. His research
focuses on International Communications and the use of information
communications technologies (ICT) to improve the quality and standard
of life of Caribbean communities in the region and abroad.

xxi
xxii About the Authors

Nickesia S. Gordon is Associate Professor of Communication at Barry

University, Florida, USA. Her research focuses on globalization, media
and culture, communication for social change, as well as mass media and
popular culture. She also has an active research agenda in critical studies as
it relates to gender, race and nationality. She is co-editor of Reflections on
Gender from a Communication Point-of-View: Peace Studies: Edges and
Innovations Series and Still Searching for Our Mother’s Gardens: Experiences
of New, Tenure Track Women of Color at ‘Majority’ Institutions. She is also
author of Media and the Politics of Culture: The Case of Television
Privatization and Media Globalization in Jamaica 1990–2007.
Natalie Hopkinson is an assistant professor in the graduate program in
Communication, Culture and Media Studies at Howard University. A for-
mer staff writer, editor and cultural critic for the Washington Post and The
Root, she is the author of two books: Deconstructing Tyrone and Go-Go
Live. Her next book of essays on the arts and society in contemporary
Guyana was published in 2018 for The New Press. She holds a PhD in
journalism and public communication from the University of Maryland-­
College Park and a BA in Political Science from Howard University.
Agnes Lucy Lando is Associate Professor of Communication and Media
Studies at Daystar University, Kenya. She obtained her PhD in Social
Communication from The Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, in 2008.
She holds an MA in Human and Intercultural Communication and BA
in Audiovisual Productions. In October 2016, Lando became the first
African elected Board Member-at-Large of the International Communication
Association (ICA). Lando has publications in Communication Ethics,
Higher Education in Africa, The Critical Role of Crisis Communication
Plan in Corporations’ Crises Preparedness, Rumors on Social Media; and
Kenya’s subtle 2013 Post-Election Violence. She is the 2013 George
Gerbner Excellence Award recipient.
Gracie Lawson-Borders is Dean and Professor in the Cathy Hughes
School of Communications. She received her PhD from Wayne State
University, masters and bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern University
and Michigan State University, respectively. Her research examines media
coverage of minority groups and issues in the media, as well as media man-
agement, convergence, and new media. Her book Media Organizations
and Convergence: Case Studies of Media Convergence Pioneers focuses on
 About the Authors 
   xxiii

convergence of technologies in media organizations. Dr. Lawson-Borders

is a member of the policy board of the Howard Journal of Communications,
the advisory board of BlackPast.org, and the editorial board of the
International Journal on Media Management. She is a former journalist
who worked at The Chicago Tribune, Oakland Press and Akron Beacon
Journal.
Ama Mazama is Professor of Africology and African American Studies at
Temple University. She received her PhD in Linguistics from La Sorbonne,
Paris, with highest distinction and has published 20 books in French or
English, among which The Afrocentric Paradigm (2003) and The
Encyclopedia of Black Studies (2005), as well as over 100 articles in French
and English in national and international journals. Her main scholarly
interests are centered around Afrocentric theory and praxis. Dr. Mazama
serves as Graduate Director in her department, as well as co-editor in chief
and managing editor of the Journal of Black Studies.
Stella-Monica N. Mpande is a Faculty Program Coordinator and Senior
Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, USA. Her research
focuses on development communication, international government public
relations and Diaspora affairs. She also has active research and work relat-
ing to organizational communication, media relations, international and
intercultural communication, transculturalism, and entrepreneurship.
Some of her publications have appeared in Enhancing Personal
Communication & Effectiveness: Custom Howard Edition for Howard
University, Social Media: Pedagogy and Practice, Quill and Scroll maga-
zine. She is also the online news anchor of Ndiho Media’s Africa Innovation
and Technology Chanel, which features young African entrepreneurs’
unique technological innovations to enhance their local and global
communities.
Bala A. Musa is Professor of Communication Studies at Azusa Pacific
University, CA, USA. He is recipient of the Clifford G. Christians Ethics
Research Award. He is series editor of Communication, Society and Change
in Africa. He is Fellow, National Mass Media Ethics Colloquium, and
Fellow, Multi-Ethnic Leadership Institute. His research interests include
communication ethics, communication and conflict, communication the-
ory, intercultural communication, social and new media communication,
development communication, and popular culture. He is the author and
xxiv About the Authors

(co)editor of numerous journal articles, books, and book chapters includ-

ing, From Twitter to Tahrir Square; and Communication, Culture and
Human Rights in Africa. Musa and his wife, Maureen, have three adult
children.
Taryn K. Myers is currently a doctoral student in the Communication,
Culture and Media Studies program at Howard University. Originally
from Baltimore, Maryland, Taryn received her BA and MS at Towson
University. As part of her thesis research project, Taryn conducted qualita-
tive interviews with residents of the Rakai community in Uganda to deter-
mine how the stigma of being associated with the first incidence of HIV/
AIDS has affected the town and its residents. This experience sparked
several epiphanies for Taryn: a belief in doing work that serves communi-
ties and an interest in the way marginalized communities counter media-­
constructed stigma.
Faith Nguru is Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academics Affairs, Riara
University, Kenya. She is a full professor of Communication and career
educationist. She earned an undergraduate degree in Communication and
a Masters’ degree in Christian Ministries from Daystar University; and
earned another Masters and a Doctorate degree in Mass Communication
from Bowling Green State University, OH, USA. Previously she served at
Daystar University as Head of Post Graduate Department; Dean, Faculty
of Arts; Director, Research, Publication and Consultancy and Dean,
School of Communication, Language and Performing Arts as well as
Coordinator of the Communication PhD Program. She has published a
book, journal articles, and book chapters.
Uchenna Onuzulike is Assistant Professor of Organizational Com­
munication at Bowie State University, USA. His research lies in (­ critical)
intercultural communication, theories, organizational communication,
ethnic and transnational identities/media, and Nollywood. He has a num-
ber of publications including peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.
His latest paper appeared in the Journal of International and Intercultural
Communication. He has presented approximately fifty papers at profes-
sional meetings and conferences. His 2014 dissertation, Ethnic and
Transnational Identities in the Diaspora: A Phenomenological Study of
Second-Generation Igbo-American Young Adults, won the Outstanding
Dissertation Award of the National Communication Association’s African
American Communication and Culture Division.
 About the Authors 
   xxv

Chuka Onwumechili is Professor of Strategic, Legal, and Management

Communication (SLMC) at Howard University in Washington, DC,
USA. Dr. Onwumechili has published over 10 books, numerous book
chapters, and several journal articles. He is the current editor of the
Howard Journal of Communications. Among his publications are In the
Deep Valley with Mountains to Climb: Exploring Identity and Multiple
Reacculturation, Organizational Culture in Nigeria: An Exploratory
Study, Nigerian Football: Interests, Marginalization, and Struggle, and
Privatization of the Electronic Media in Nigeria. He grew up in Nigeria
and lived among Igbo relatives, learning the culture and understanding
changes in the culture over time.
Juliana Maria (da Silva) Trammel is a tenured Associate Professor of
Strategic Communication and Program Assessment Coordinator in the
Department of Journalism & Mass Communications at Savannah State
University, GA, USA. Her research interests include the intersection of
gender, media, race, and human communication, with a special focus on
social media, women, and early childhood communication in Brazil. Her
most recent publications include “Breastfeeding Campaigns and Ethnic
Disparity in Brazil: The Representation of a Hegemonic Society and
Quasiperfect Experience” published by the Journal of Black Studies and
co-authored a book chapter titled “Social Media, Women, and
Empowerment: The Issues of Social Media Platforms by WNGOs in
Jamaica and Brazil”, published by the Studies in Media & Communications,
among other publications. In 2016, she also served as a contributing
writer for PR News. In addition to her scholarship, she has over 15 years
of communication-related experience including social advocacy on the
Capitol Hill, higher education administration, teaching, and consulting.
 List of Figures

Fig. 5.1 A theoretical framework of Ujamaa Nadharia Mawasiliano63

Fig. 6.1 Quadrant A 95
Fig. 6.2 Quadrant B 98
Fig. 6.3 Quadrant C 99
Fig. 6.4 Quadrant D 99
Fig. 8.1 Relationship between context and symbolic formation. Key:
Context 1: broad spiritual/religious context, Context 2: broad
community/ethnic group context, Context 3: personal
individual/family context, X: assumptions 135
Fig. 9.1 The HaramBuntu government-diaspora communication
model. Stage 4 adapted from Chaffee, S. H. and McLeod J. M.
(1973). Interpersonal perception and communication.
American Behavioural Scientist, 16, p. 483–488 158
Fig. 11.1 A theoretical framework of consciencist communication 193
Fig. 13.1 Diasporic communication 251
Fig. 14.1 Creolized media continuum 263
Fig. 15.1 Typology of virtual communities (adapted from Porter 2004) 282
Fig. 15.2 Six social technologies categories (adapted from Forrester
Tech­nographics, 2010) 288
Fig. 15.3 CIVIC themes 293
Fig. 16.1 Flux of cultural contribution from marginalized cultures
to the national scene 312
Fig. 16.2 Reoccurring triggers of racial descrimintion in Brazil 319
Fig. 16.3 Co-cultural communication techniques preferred by the sample 320
Fig. 16.4 Social spheres cited for their prevalence of racial
discrimination in Brazil 321

xxvii
xxviii List of Figures

Fig. 16.5 Comparison of techniques towards an aggressor of the same

phenotype vs. different phenotypes 323
Fig. 16.6 Self-identification by skin shade 327
Fig. 16.7 Cross-tabulation between self-identification by skin shade
(grouped by lighter and darker shades) and self-identification
using the terms “African descent” or “mixed” 327
Fig. 16.8 Cross-tabulation between self-identification by skin shade
(grouped by lighter and darker shades) and self-identification
using the terms “negro(a)” or “mulato(a)” 328
Fig. 16.9 Cross-tabulation between self-identification by skin shade
(grouped by lighter and darker shades) and perception towards
being own vulnerability to racial discrimination 328
 List of Tables

Table 8.1 Religious adherents in Kenya 128

Table 15.1 Summary of virtual community definitions from different
perspectives (adapted from Gupta and Kim 2004;
Laine 2006) 284
Table 15.2 CIVIC membership breakdown created by researcher, 2017 290
Table 16.1 Mean average of reaction towards an offender of a different
phenotype versus the same phenotype 323
Table 16.2 Comparison of common triggers of teasing in Brazil between
self and general 326

xxix
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Kehbuma Langmia

De-Westernization of communication theory is the ultimate aim of this

edited volume. This is in part because Min-Sun Kim cites Stephen LittleJohn
admitting that “communication theory in the United States is a Eurocentric
enterprise. That is, communication theory has a strong Western bias” (Min-
Sun 2002, p. 1). We intend to “correct” this bias through the panoply of
Afrocentric-driven theories in this collection. In fact, the Black race has
been despoiled of its inalienable right to self-hood and self-expression for
the longest period in human history. And given the fact that they, too, like
any other human species on planet earth have been given voice that distin-
guishes them from non-human subjects, it has become imperative for a
comprehensive study of this nature to examine the role of the Black voice
within the cosmological, and more importantly, the ontological human
communicative spaces. We did not want to fall prey to the Achebiana
African proverb that “unless the lions produce their own history, the story
of the hunt will glory only the hunter” (Achebe 2000, p. 73). We want the
story of the hunt in the future to be all inclusive. Of course, we are well
aware of the Eurocentric “standard” theories in communication that have
been tested and retested within the Black communication circle with little
or no success. We are also conscious of the contours of human communica-
tion that are rooted in the historical being of mankind, in the sense that no

K. Langmia (*)
Howard University, Washington, DC, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 1

K. Langmia (ed.), Black/Africana Communication Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75447-5_1
2 K. LANGMIA

human creature on this universe can lay claim to a universal communicative

pattern that explains interpersonal, group, and mass communicative levels
for all human species on planet earth. To echo Patrice Loch Otieno
Lumumba, the celebrated Kenyan Law Professor, “Black people of African
descent are not descendants of a lesser God” (see Lumumba’s YouTube
Speech, Tanzania, 2017). We are all unique in our own ways because of the
geo-historical context of our birth. Consequently, assembling a coterie of
communication scholars of the Black race to theorize various unique com-
municative strands of their people in given settings at home on the conti-
nent and abroad has been long overdue. This is the driving force behind
the birth of this companion.
Additionally, a reading of Houston Baker’s “Critical Memory and the
Black Public Sphere” chapter in his brilliant edited volume title The Black
Public Sphere triggered our interest for this book. In it he argues that it is
not only the knowledge of the past that is critical in understanding African
Americans but a much more critical memory of that past. So, there is need
for theorizing Black/Africana communication that captures communica-
tion dynamics between and among the Black race on the continent and in
the Diaspora. Since the separation of the two ethnic groups almost 300
years ago, there have been contacts both physical and virtual between the
two groups. Some of the group communication traits that set them apart
from other ethnic groups constitute the research goal for this project.
Some of the known salient characteristics of Black intergroup communica-
tion theory are: (1) Inter-subjective thought sharing, (2) Communalism
(i.e., recognition of collective essence), and (3) Ethnocentrality (ethnic/
tribal affinities).
We are also aware of the fact that there have been several communica-
tion theories that have roots in European cultural, political, and historical
traditions. In fact, Young (2014) believes that the majority of theories
have what he calls “Western bias” (p. 29). Other scholars sharing that view
include, Craig and Muller (2007) and Hofstede (2007). This creates dif-
ficulty to burgeoning scholars whose research focus is on Africa/Black
ancestry or any other non-Western subjects. A few African-driven theories
have seen the light of day. For example, “Negritude” a term coined by
Leopold Sedar Senghor and now Molefi Asante’s Afrocentricity are
theories/paradigms that encapsulate the philosophical, cultural, socio-­
psychological, and political worldview of the Black man. But hardly do we
have unique Black communication theories that have captured the inter-­
human communication dynamics of Blacks in Tropical Africa, the United
 INTRODUCTION 3

States of America, the Caribbean, and Latin America during and after the
slave trade movements. Writing about Afrocentricity, Jackson (2003)
affirms that “Afrocentricity is a direct counter narrative to a most obvious
and hegemonic grand narrative presupposing that all that is not of Europe
is not of worth” (117). Of course, there is some worth in the communica-
tive dirges, divinations, incantations, myths, and folktales by Black folks on
the continent, and abroad and that is where their humanity has symbolic
meanings. Communality, group cohesion, love, and pain are always pres-
ent within in-group interaction within the Black community in any given
geographical location. The historical root of this tendency can be traced
back to communality in Africa pre-and post colonization. On the other
hand, a plethora of Western-driven theories have been criticized for guid-
ing Black-centered discourse notably, feminism that made scholars like
Patricia Phil Collins to come up with Black feminism to include the experi-
ence of Black women. Other scholars like Leslie Ogundibe preferred the
term “womanism” to include Black African women in the discourse of
feminist theory. Most Western-driven theories do not have a place in Black
communicative experience especially in Africa. A lot of scholars interested
in Black communication scholarship are on the crossroads of either using
a Western-driven theory to explain a Black communication dynamic or use
a hypothetical rule to achieve their objectives since they cannot find com-
pelling Black communication theories. This situation creates confusion in
the communication field.
A sizeable number of communication theories, which have roots in
Euro-American tradition and culture only, exists in literature. For instance,
Jürgen Habermas’ Public Sphere theory emanated from his observation of
Europeans using cafeteria, coffee shops, and saloons to discuss political
issues affecting the government of their countries. Agenda Setting Theory
by McCombs and Shaw was derived from the study carried out by voter
sampling in the USA in the 1930s. Cultivation Theory by George Gerbner
originated after the 1950s when television was having an impact on the
daily lives of people in the United States and people were cultivating vio-
lence and other attributes from it. The same can be said of the Internet
and Computer Mediated Communication Theory that is beginning to
take shape with the influence of computer communication. But most of
these theories are alien to the Black community communication experi-
ences. There are a plethora of forms of communicative attitudes and
behaviors rooted within the Black experience on the continent and abroad
that need theorization and that is the focus of this book.
4 K. LANGMIA

I am always reminded of my PhD defense on the influence of Internet

discourse in constructing the Black immigrant public sphere. One of my
chief examiners kept hammering on the fact that I used a European the-
ory, Habermas’ Public Sphere to discuss Black communicative experience
on the Internet. He wondered why I did not use a Black communication
theory. And my answer was simple: I have researched literature and have
not come across any appropriate Black communication theory necessary
for me to examine and validate my research questions. I was able to go
through that debacle by being forced to include it as a limitation in my
dissertation. And I did. Now is the time to resolve that limitation. We
need a book of this nature so that the next generation of Black communi-
cation scholars have readily available theoretical frameworks rooted in
their culture and experience to test in their research.
Several articles have appeared in journals and some book chapters on
and about Black communication theories. For instance, Owusu-Frempong
(2005), uses the Afrocentricity theoretical sign post to study the festival
ceremony in Africa. He argues that it helps readers understand the cul-
tural symbolisms of the rituals and customs in Africa. But he does not
elaborate if this can be functional in carrying out similar study with Blacks
in the Diaspora. Kelley (2002) theorizes on what she terms “Good
Speech” as a conduit that propels the discourse of African Americans in
political debates with their rival white counterparts in the United States.
The element of this good speech also has roots in Africa though she limits
her analysis to African Americans only. Martin et al. (2011) posit in their
article that their “study investigates conversational strategies used by
African Americans to communicate with European Americans” (p. 1).
Moore and Toliver (2010) conducted a focus group in a predominantly
white university campus to find out communicative patterns between
Black professors and Black students. Bassey (2007) and Molefi Asante
(1987) have described differing communication dynamics within the
Black community and beyond. But they have not described a communica-
tive pattern that is typically Black, rooted in the African continent be it
during group communication setting.
Afrocentricity has been widely acclaimed as the theory for African or
Black studies. But it is not typically a communication theory per se. It does
not address the contours of interpersonal/intercultural, mass, and group
communication dynamics between and among Blacks in Africa and abroad.
Black people the world over may have the different pigmentation and their
communicative skills have been influenced by Euro-American communi-
cative techniques. Maybe the modern communication characteristics have
 INTRODUCTION 5

infiltrated in-group communication within the Black community. It is

these tendencies that we seek to examine and describe in this book. African
slave trade and colonization brought with it assimilationist tendencies that
dealt a serious blow on the cognition of most Blacks on the continent and
abroad. As a result, their inter-personal as well as in-group dialogic com-
munication witnessed dramatic shifts. This shift differed from region to
region. The Gullah language still survived in North and South Carolina,
the ritualistic language still abounds in the “Kwanza” Black festival in
North America. The influence of globalization of Western social, eco-
nomic, political, and cultural life is having an effect on Black communica-
tion but somehow, the uniqueness of Black worldview still plays a part in
creating newness in Black communication. The power of the spoken word
known in the African American community as “Nommo” (Levine 1977)
and so on indicates that Black communication still survives but to create a
grand/mid-range theory that can capture the nature of in-group commu-
nication involving the young and the old generation is what is lacking in
Black communication scholarship.
This edited volume titled Black/Africana Communication Theory has
assembled skilled communicologists who have proposed Black-driven the-
ories that can stand the test of time. In Chap. 2, Molefi Kete Asante dem-
onstrates the strengths of the African cosmological communicative stance
by emphasizing the role of Maat in the cognitive and communicative space
of African-driven dialogue. That same motif is visibly present in the next
chapter by Ama Mazama. She proposes the concept of “Cognitive Hiatus”
as a back drop to what she has termed “the fourth stage of consciousness”
for the Afrocentric scholars griped by white racism. So, it is apparent from
her chapter that like Asante, she is painfully concerned about liberating the
perforated mind of the African scholar caught in the vortex of Euro-centric
hegemony. That liberation can be actualized through the theoretical pos-
tulations of Uchenna Onuzulike on the ethnic communicative theory that
focuses on the Nigerian Igbo communicative styles. A systematic study of
such communicative styles as proposed in his study can provide a recipe for
redemption from Eurocentrism. Similarly, the communicative theory of
Ujamaa (familyhood) by Abdul Karim Bangura in Chap. 5 can be used to
analyze Tanzania hip-hop music in Africa as well as the African-American
Kwanza celebrations in the United States.
Chapter 6 on the Afro-Cultural Mulatto Theory of Communication
(AMTC) demonstrates how different groups of interactants can find
psycho-­cognitive comfort while communicating in any given urban center
in Africa. The four quadrants presented in the chapter demonstrate how
6 K. LANGMIA

de-Africanized culture and communication has now become since the

European colonization of Africa. The re-Africanization communicative
project is equally exemplified in Bala Musa’s chapter on Venerative Speech
Theory in which he argues that “geo-cultural perspective of African com-
munalism” can be made possible through the process of communication
through using what he calls the “psycho-social environment” context. It
is that spirit of emphasizing communication effectiveness from a contex-
tual stand point that Faith Nguru and Agnes Lucy Lando underscore in
their chapter titled “Africana Symbolic Contextualism Theory. In fact,
what makes their chapter such a unique contribution to this volume is the
religio-African-communicative stance that it takes.
In Chap. 9, we are introduced to a new theory by Stella Monica N. Mpande
called the “HaramBuntu-Government-Diaspora Communications Theory
(HGDCT)”. The increasing Diasporic communication with those resident at
home in Africa needs a model to be understood by the average person.
It would appear that even though this chapter focuses primarily on the
Ugandan communicators, the implication of the study can be seen in other
African countries. The same is true of the next chapter by Chuka Onwumechili
whose contribution on the N’digbo communication styles in Nigeria is
rooted in a traditional religion known as Odinani. Using an autoethno-
graphic method, the author demonstrates how this communication style can
be gleaned in various contexts like conflict, bride price ceremony, family life,
and sport. Through these theoretical postulations, freedom from the west-
ernized theories are feasible especially when one reads Abdul Karim Bangura’s
chapter on “Consciencist Communication Theory”. This theory as the name
implies is rooted in the philosophical stance of Kwame Nkrumah who
believed that for Africa to extricate herself from the cocoon of Western hege-
mony, conscientious decisions have to be made by citizens in Africa. Bangura
has taken the communicative route of his consciencist philosophy to demon-
strate how successful this theory can be applied on the continent.
Chapter 12 takes us into the heart of African American communication
in the United States, most importantly how the LGBTQIA and Black
female voices are impacted. For an effective communication to yield long-­
lasting dividends, inclusivity is the main argument in this chapter. Still in
the realm of African-American communication, Lawson-Borders in Chap.
13 examines the interplay of various communication theories in what she
terms “Pastiche” to show how blending existing theories can be brought
together to form a new perspective in examining African American com-
munication issues. In Chaps. 14, 15, and 16, we move to Latin America
 INTRODUCTION 7

and the Caribbean nations where Black Communication theories have

assumed another dimension. For instance, the creolized media theory pro-
posed by Nickesia S. Gordon in Chap. 14 is uniquely situated in the com-
municative sphere of people in Jamaica. The creolization of the Jamaican
society has brought another perspective in looking at the marriage between
traditional media and digital media in that part of the country. Unless and
until one has a good grasp of the nature of media culture and language in
that part of the country, one will hardly understand the communication
dynamics of the media systems. The same is true of Roger Caruth’s chap-
ter on CIVIC (i.e., the ICT and the Caribbean virtual communication
systems). The last chapter by Juliana Trammel is on the Racial Democracy
Effect Theory in Brazil. In her chapter on Brazilians of African descent
who are marginalized, other communicative elements like teasing, mem-
bership, and phenotype affect relationship dynamics.
All in all, this volume is intended as a bench mark to analyzing future
communication dynamics involving Blacks in the continent of Africa and
those in the Diaspora.

References
Achebe, C. (2000). Home and Exile. UK: Penguin.
Asante, M. (1987). The Afrocentric Idea. Philadephia: Temple University Press.
Bassey, M. (2007). What Is Africana Critical Theory or Black Existential Philosophy.
Journal of Black Studies, 37(6), 914–934.
Craig, R. T., & Muller, H. L. (2007). Theorizing Communication: Readings Across
Traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (2007). Asian Management in the 21st Century. Asia Pacific Journal
of Management, 24(4), 411–420.
Jackson, R. L. (2003). Afrocentricity as Metatheory: A Dialogic Exploration of Its
Principles. In R. L. Jackson & E. B. Richardson (Eds.), Understanding African
American Rhetoric (pp. 115–130). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kelley, V. (2002). “Good Speech”, an Interpretive Essay Investigating an African
Philosophy of Communication. Western Journal of Black Studies, 26(1), 44–54.
Levine, L. (1977). Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Martin, J. N., Moore, S., Hecht, M. L., & Larkey, K. L. (2011). An African
American Perspective on Conversational Improvement Strategies. Howard
Journal of Communications, 12(1), 1–27.
Min-Sun, K. (2002). Non-Western Perspectives on Human Communication:
Implication for Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
8 K. LANGMIA

Moore, P., & Toliver, S. D. (2010). Intraracial Dynamics of Black Professors’ and
Black Students’ Communication in Traditionally White Colleges and
Universities. Journal of Black Studies, 40(5), 932–945.
Owusu-Frempong, Y. (2005). Afrocentricity, the Adae Festival of the Akan,
African American Festivals, and Intergenerational. Journal of Black Studies,
35(6), 730–750.
Young, A. (2014). Western Theory, Global World. Harvard International Review,
36(1), 29–31.
 PART I

Afrocentric Communication Theories

 CHAPTER 2

The Classical African Concept of Maat

and Human Communication

Molefi Kete Asante

Overview
I arrive at this task of writing a chapter for Kehbuma Langmia’s Black/
Africana Communication Theory project completely dumbfounded by the
turn of events in the history of both African and American communication
and the nature and level of discourse about what passes for news, for
instance, and what is fake news. There is a crisis in the field of communica-
tion but it is brought on by a moral crisis deeply rooted in much of the
Western world’s devotion to an ideology of domination (Schiller 1975). I
am convinced that the communication crisis in the West, begun in the
United States with an imposition of cultural power, will continue to have
serious implications for the African world. The reverberations will be at
several levels such as ontological, axiological, ethical, and existential in the
field of communication. What will be necessary is a return or a re-memory
of the nature of African communication within the context of tradition,
community, and values. This is why I am proposing a Maatic theory of

M. K. Asante (*)
Department of Africology and African American Studies, Temple University,
Philadelphia, PA, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 11

K. Langmia (ed.), Black/Africana Communication Theory,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75447-5_2
12 M. K. ASANTE

communication grounded in the ancient classical African idea of ethics

(Karenga 2003; Asante 2016).
Here we are at the juncture of what has been called a warping civiliza-
tional event because the future is bent toward the narcissistic and self-­
indulgent communication of the celebrity age when what is American, for
example, soon becomes Nigerian, Cameroonian, South African, or
Ghanaian. Hence the failures of the Western theories of communication
have too often become the failures of Africans who participate in these theo-
ries. In effect, the African communication scholars have fallen off their own
beams and landed squarely on the floor of the West. They have often not
even examined their own intellectual origins. We know that the West, by
virtue of several centuries of pursuing advantage, superiority, and domi-
nance, is morally corrupt when it comes to viewing humanity as an extraor-
dinary community of equals. But the situation of African scholarship and
scholars theorizing is complicated by the lack of focus, the open-­face willing-
ness of reactionary whites who control careers to support dislocated Africans,
the rampant insecurity of Black theorists whose lack of clarity blinds their
vision, and the inability of scholars to utilize an Afrocentric analysis of soci-
ety, process, and communication across cultures (Craig and Muller 2007).
Afrocentric and Asiacentric scholars have all complained of this blurring of
the African and Asian minds when it comes to theory and substance in the
academy (Raju 2017; Miike 2008).
For example, Gregory D. Smithers, Tunde Adeleke, and other contem-
porary Eurocentric historians have identified Afrocentricity as a form of
“racial epistemology” (Smithers 2010; Adeleke 2009). Of course, this is
nonsense and appears only in the works of those who promote a discourse
that is anti-African. They are disdainful of Pan African unity and take a
derogatory attitude toward projects such as this one by Kehbuma Langmia
because they do not understand the historical relationships of African peo-
ple over the past 500 years. Indeed, they fear the definition made by
Africans from the Caribbean, South America, and North America that
they are African. Of course, they do not have a problem with Europeans
in South America, North America, or Australia, asserting their identity as
European descended people. To be African is not merely to be born on
the continent of Africa; that is why whites in South Africa are not consid-
ered Africans. They are born in Africa and they are domiciled in Africa but
their social, intellectual, cultural, and psychological identity is rarely if ever
with the people of Africa. There is no monolithic African culture and no
Afrocentrist has ever claimed such but we have claimed as a fact that all
 THE CLASSICAL AFRICAN CONCEPT OF MAAT AND HUMAN… 13

African cultures have commonalities just as all Arab cultures and all
Chinese cultures or European cultures have similarities and ­commonalities.
The desire to deny African commonalities and similarities appears sinister
and disingenuous. The anti-Afrocentrists are always ready to over-­reach in
their criticism of agency analysis by accusing Afrocentrists of claiming an
“unchanging Africa as the core of black identity.” This is a provocative and
untrue statement of the Afrocentric position but it serves to demonstrate
why it is important to develop African/Black theories of communication.
To posit Black theories is not to launch biological determined ideas about
communication but to base the assumptions and theorizing in the philo-
sophical substance of African historical and intellectual narratives. Only
those who seek to discredit African ideas will see a problem with this devel-
opment. Hence African/Black theories and Afrocentric theory are not
instruments seeking to “invert” Eurocentrism as Smithers claimed. Adeleke
speaks of “Afrocentric essentialism” as a way to criticize Afrocentricity by
suggesting it represents “intellectual intolerance” but the only intolerance
Afrocentricity attacks is irrationality (Adeleke 2009). There is no Afrocentric
essentialism and there are no Afrocentric theories that assert or advance
“intellectual intolerance”; if anything, Afrocentricity and Asiacentricity
advance the most liberal regime of tolerance. For some reason, probably
racist, the anti-Afrocentrists prefer to speak negatively about Afrocentric
theories without any proper citation of Afrocentric texts. For example,
Adeleke speaks of Afrocentricity as “race-conscious, ahistorical, and anti-
global in its intellectual trajectory.” This is a false reading of any Afrocentric
texts that I know and it certainly does not ring true as my position.
Theoretically and philosophically I could not have produced nor would I
have co-edited with Yoshitaka Miike and Jing Yin the Global Intercultural
Communication Reader if Smithers and Adeleke’s positions held. Unfor­
tunately, the rush to crush the irrepressible Afrocentric theoretical move-
ment generates various kinds of intellectual abnormalities. Nevertheless it is
irresponsible, even in the age of Donald Trump, for those who are anti-
Afrocentric to straight out dissemble with statements that Asante believes
that “all blacks share one African identity regardless of historical experi-
ences and geographical locations” (Smithers 2010). One can almost see
that this statement emerges from some weary Eurocentric assertion with no
hinges to anything that I have written. It is patently false.
I should note, however, that there are scores of scholars of European
ancestry, some of whom I have trained, who have a clear understanding of
Afrocentricity and the theories derived from it. In fact, Basil Davidson, the
14 M. K. ASANTE

late historian, once told me that most white scholars have a general
­“disbelief” when it comes to the Afrocentric paradigm and theories (read
Davidson 1990). Mazama’s construction of the Afrocentric paradigm
encouraged a popular intellectual movement that has become a leading
interpretative edge in modern social and communication theories. By
releasing the intellectual freedom of Africans to interrogate African cul-
tural values, ethics, philosophies, and traditions in order to generate theo-
ries, Afrocentricity has become a valuable tool for the critique of
domination, the assertion of place and subject location for the African
person, and the reconstruction and presentation of African theories of
communication. However, the issue itself is deeply betrayed by the histori-
cal condition of the West where numerous major historians influence the
likes of the Adelekes and Smithers.
One has only to return to consideration of the work of J. M. Blaut who
argued that eight Eurocentric historians had pushed a particularly Euro­
centric view of world history to see that the communicationists in the field
of intercultural communication, mass communication, and inter-­personal
communication theory essentially laid the foundation for this critical
moment in Africa’s communication history (Blaut 2000).
So, the objective of this chapter is to advance the idea that African com-
munication in its Maatic dimension may be an answer to the critical issues
confronting African and Western culture at this moment of political chaos
and uncertainty around what is real and what is unreal. It goes without
saying that the first weeks of Donald Trump’s Administration in 2017 as
President of the United States challenged the orthodox notions of what
goes for rational and effective communication. The reason for this is
because the idea of propaganda has merged with the notion of communi-
cation. Since propaganda is a special form of communication that is biased,
misleading, and meant to promote or advance a particular political point
of view, it is separated from what we normally see as ordinary communica-
tion. At one time, communication was considered distinct from propa-
ganda but in the age of Trump these ideas have become similar to what
happened during the National Socialism period in Nazi Germany in the
1930s and 1940s. The Regenpropagandaministerium did not distinguish
its political truth from that considered beneficial for the society. No one
dared to express different views because the one loudspeaker was the word
of the Fuhrer. In many ways the West, in its UK and American versions,
fought against this convergence of propaganda and communication, with
the identification of various propaganda techniques.
 THE CLASSICAL AFRICAN CONCEPT OF MAAT AND HUMAN… 15

A deeper base for this type of Western propaganda is found in the

original idea of the 1622 council of cardinals sent out by Pope Gregory
XV to create foreign missions through the propagation of Catholicism.
Spreading a particular doctrine as if it were the only truth was the inten-
tion of the original propaganda council of the Catholic Church. Linked
to this form of propaganda was the occurrence 26 years later when the
Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe and estab-
lished the current political order. Political and social realities always have
causes. Consider the situation that created the notions that we support as
“natural” today. The Thirty Years’ War began in 1618 when the ruling
Austrian Habsburgs sought to force their subject Protestant populations
in Bohemia to accept Catholicism. This was a religious war and it had all
of the brutality and degradation of other religious wars. In effect, the
Holy Roman Empire fought against France, the Germans were pitted
against the Habsburg emperor and the Russians, Swedes, Swiss, Poles,
Dutch, and Spaniards were all involved in the war to protect their reli-
gious or commercial interests. The European principalities and territories
established a system of sovereign states that had been around as a vision
for nearly one hundred years but now entered the record as the begin-
ning of international law. Here, Europe imposed its concept of sover-
eignty which became for the rest of the world the idea of states controlling
territory under their authority.
I have introduced this historical vignette to establish a major part of the
power dynamics that created the theoretical, philosophical, and social con-
structions of the world in which we live. Those who are deeply embedded
in the inevitability of Eurocentrism cannot envision the emergence of
African intellectual ideas.
Thus, we are confronted with a new experience and a more skilled set
of one-voice proponents who have already convinced those in Europe,
especially the UK, France, and Germany, that one-voice is necessary for
the protection of Western civilization. They do not realize that Africa is
deeply embedded in the West and that there will always be resistance
against group think and one-tone speech. Sending messages, the sub-
stance of the communication process, to other people in various sectors is
one of the areas where we can see how laden Africa’s communication is
with Western ideas. This is precisely why I have sought to expand this idea
of Maat as a basis for communication.
16 M. K. ASANTE

Origins of the Maatic Ideal in Communication

Maat is one of the oldest concepts in the world. It is found in the texts of
the ancient Egyptians, one of the earliest African civilizations. For our
purpose, the idea of Maat is key to understanding order, balance, truth,
justice, harmony, and reciprocity in human interactions. This is the essence
of communication. In classical Africa, Maat was symbolized by the image
of a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. She represented correct
thinking, rationality, balance, harmony, and proper values. Maat was a
goddess of the underworld, sitting in judgment over the souls of the dead
in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. Indeed, the power of Maat was found in
the regulation of the seasons, the cosmic movement of the starts, and the
relationships between human beings. In the ancient Egyptian narrative
Maat was the only entity with Ra at the creation. So, Maat, found in the
boat of Ra, as it rose over the waters of the abyss of Nu at the beginning
of creation, is an idea that is as old as the origins of African symbolic think-
ing. I have taken this ancient idea as the key to an innovative approach to
communication. So how do we get from the Maatic principles of correct
and proper relationships between the cosmic and earthly, the divine and
the human, the earth, the heavens, and the underworld, and human com-
munication principles?
The Maatic theory of communication is based on a set of principles that
explain how to engage with other humans along the lines of effective or
persuasive values. Everything that one can do to create the space for
human beings to advance understanding and bring into existence the best
possible world is found in Maatic theory. Given the current state of com-
munication affairs it is useful to examine the classical African traditions for
a Maatic idea of communication theory.

Principal Ideas of Maatic Communication

Among the principal ideas of Maatic communication are the following:

1. The objective of communication is to hold back chaos.

2. Human communication is reciprocal in both substance and form.
3. Isfet, evil, must always be seen as the enemy to Maat, order and
harmony.
4. Proper communication restores that which is broken as in serudj-ta.
5. Good communication is that which is justifiable and is completed
with maa kheru, justified.
 THE CLASSICAL AFRICAN CONCEPT OF MAAT AND HUMAN… 17

The Paradigmatic Condition of the West

In 1993 J. M. Blaut wrote The Colonizer’s Model of the World to expose
what he considered to be a false sense of history advanced by whites (Blaut
1993). He would aim to end his project with Decolonizing the Past, a book
that would have secured all the chords necessary for the emerging work of
the young communicationists such as Yoshitaka Miike and Kehbuma
Langmia who would question the Eurocentric construction of communica-
tion. What Blaut did for history, Miike and others have tried for communi-
cation. For example, Miike’s “De-Westernizing Communication Research:
What is the Next Step” makes several main points. First, he says that there
are two dimensions to Eurocentrism: (1) the ideology of universalizing and
totalizing Western worldviews and phenomena; and (2) the ideology of
devaluing and downplaying non-Western values and experiences. Miike
then goes on to cast aside false ideas about centric approaches to non-
Western communication. He argues that Asiacentric intellectual pursuits,
along with Afrocentric and other non-Eurocentric approaches, will help
communication studies in the non-Western region overcome the structure
of “academic dependency” and make truly local and global contributions in
theorizing about humanity, diversity, and communication (Miike 2008).
The condition that we are in as far as theory is concerned is entangled
with the Western advancement of a Eurocentric worldview that is stuck in
the midnight of European supremacy. Michael Tillotson has claimed that
the threats to Africans are not simply physical safety but rather that they
are ideological as well (Tillotson 2011). The Eurocentric historians that
J. M. Blaut cited in his book Eight Eurocentric Historians were Max
Weber, Lynn White Jr., Robert Brenner, Eric L. Jones, Michael Mann,
John A. Hall, Jared Diamond, and David Landes. Of course, we see Max
Weber as the leader of this pack of racist and Eurocentric writers. They
simply believed that the West was superior and while each one had a dif-
ferent approach to this idea of superiority, they all landed in the same
place. My contention is that these historians drove the intellectual ideol-
ogy of white racial supremacy much like the literary critics have captured
the main intellectual traditions of the West since the last half of the twen-
tieth century. Weber’s argument was for European rationality. Blaut
exposed the racism that lined the works of Weber. It is important to under-
stand that many Westerners in the field of communication also believe that
Europeans have a different sense of rationality. Weber, for example, spoke
of the Chinese as having a “strong attachment to the habitual,” “absolute
18 M. K. ASANTE

docility,” and a “lack of genuine sympathy and warmth” in his work on the
Religion of China (Weber 1968, pp. 231–233). One can see that while this
list of historians contains mostly capitalists and racists, Robert Brenner also
appears on Blaut’s list. Brenner’s idea that capitalism and modernity were
derived from conditions internal to the West and arising from class strug-
gle during the medieval era suggests a Western idea of advancement.
Brenner did not look toward the enslavement of Africans, the rape of the
South and North American continents and people, the rampant plantation
system of forced labor, and the tremendous amount of labor taken from
Africa to burrow the mines in South America.
I do not have to discuss each historian attacked by Blaut but it is neces-
sary for me to make the point that the historical situation, that is, the
explanation of the historical situation is the site for the existential play of
communication between human beings. If you think that I am less human
than you, that you are superior because of some idea of tillage, of rational-
ity, of the use of guns, and the ability to grow wheat, then we cannot have
a positive communication environment. Africans who have accepted the
thesis put forth by Eurocentric historians have themselves lost a sense of
historical reality (Bassey 2007).
This critical consciousness or loss of it is something that interpersonal
and intercultural communicationists will have to deal with as they con-
front the Western paradigm. Ferreira has demonstrated in her book, The
Demise of the Inhuman (Ferreira, 2013), that resistance to African intel-
lectual ideas is widespread. Indeed, the general assaults on the structures
of Eurocentric domination by African and Asian scholars, sometimes
joined by progressive white intellectuals, have changed the colonial men-
tality of those who have tried to retain control of ideas. These scholars
recognize that there are other ways of viewing reality. I have been cautious
in explaining that the Maatic theory seeks to work across platforms, inter-
personal, mass media, rhetoric, and intercultural communication.

People of Thunder and Silence

One of the early attempts to explain African communication came in the
form of the book Thunder and Silence: The Mass Media in Africa, written
by Dhyana Ziegler and Molefi Kete Asante in 1992 to assess the state of
African media. Of course, we discovered uneven development on the
continent from country to country. Even now there are unequal develop-
ments and technological challenges on the continent. Nevertheless, some
 THE CLASSICAL AFRICAN CONCEPT OF MAAT AND HUMAN… 19

countries are beating the odds and developing strong communication

channels. South Africa and Nigeria are the continental leaders in every
media avenue. They have complex and diverse media companies and indi-
viduals who are as creative as any I have ever met. Although this was a
survey of the continent we did not attempt to examine the theoretical
ideas I am advancing here with the Maatic idea of communication. We
simply explored the media institutions from the viewpoint of the West
because we had not reached the level of understanding that we have now.
The advanced study of African cultures, the exploration of cultural conti-
nuities, linguistic studies, and historical narratives grounded in African
philosophies have led us to new orientations toward communication
theory.

Assumptions
Maulana Karenga has written the most comprehensive study of Maat. In
his book Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt, he captured the essence
of the concept in seven concepts. Maat is seen as truth, righteousness,
justice, order, balance, harmony, and reciprocity. Now it is clear that these
concepts can exist on their own but in using them in relationship to Maat
I am following the Karengian understanding that in the European lan-
guages one can find that Maat may be defined as any one of these seven
concepts. However, I am using Maat, this classical African concept, as it
was understood in relationship to the cosmic order. To deal with commu-
nication between humans one must try to distinguish how any form of
communication is manifest in society.
For example, when one says that communication must demonstrate
truth then the content of the messages that are transmitted between speak-
ers or receivers must advance the idea of factual and evidential informa-
tion. One could also say this about righteousness, justice, order, balance,
harmony, and reciprocity. Each one of these concepts is central to a Maatic
theory of communication. Without justice, for example, one could not
have the proper or correct form of human communication. This allows us
to condemn and criticize injustice, brutality, and discrimination. The same
could be said of harmony—that is, a communicator must seek to hold back
chaos and to bring into being harmony and order. Now this is different
from what we know of Western narratives of human relations. It is, in most
cases in the West, a belief that conflict and contradiction are central to
human life and activity. Hence the aim is to produce something new out
20 M. K. ASANTE

of the conflict. Among Africans the search is for order, stability, harmony,
and this keeps societies organized on the strength of fundamental princi-
ples. I see this as a quest for values of communication and community
based on Maatic theory. In fact, the era of one dominant notion of Western
paradigmatic overarching argument and ethno-nationalist ideological for-
mulations has reached its end.
Let us turn our attention to how communication engages the constitu-
ent characteristics of Maat. Truth as a trait of Maat is that which is in
synchrony with reality or fact. Using this concept of truth, alongside the
idea of humans exhibiting the quality of rationality, means that the com-
municator can demonstrate a logical front for any argument, persuasive
communication or informative presentation. In Africa truth resides in the
long history of proverbial wisdom as passed down from one generation to
the next. Who argues with the statement “it takes a village to raise a child?”
The ancient Kemetic people of classical Africa were the first to contend
that the person ought to seek righteousness. Hence, we are able to say that
the communicator himself or herself must exhibit the quality of being
justifiable. If you are not a good person then you cannot be a good com-
municator. This is why in the Maatic context it can be necessary to sepa-
rate, that is, to distinguish between ideas of eloquence and effectiveness.
One could be eloquent in the sense of using words and at the same time
quite unrighteous in morality. The lack of moral integrity would render
any communicator nothing but a mere talker.
Justice is preeminently a social concept in the sense that it exists in rela-
tionship to others. The Maatic idea is that the communicator must dem-
onstrate fairness, equity, even-handedness, and honesty. Of course, these
requirements would certainly be difficult for recent American political
communicators and perhaps for politicians in most parts of the world. Yet
the African classical idea is that the communicator must have a quality
representative of peace, neutrality, and the virtue of seeking fair play.
Without justice there is no possibility of believability in the communicator.
A credible communicator is one w embodies the idea of justice.
The communicator who practices Maat must include the search for
order. A speech, for example, has to be arranged in a way that makes sense
to other people. All communication messages must have this particular
quest for order if they are to be valuable within the context of meaning.
Words carry more meaning when they have a disposition that is orderly.
The next idea in Maatic communication is the search for balance. One
seeks even-handedness, an even distribution of assets to allow a condition to
 THE CLASSICAL AFRICAN CONCEPT OF MAAT AND HUMAN… 21

remain stable. This is what Kelley (2002) referred to as good speech. In no

case would a communicator operating on the principles of Maat seek imbal-
ance in a situation; the aim is to arrive at balance. Gaining balance as the
objective of communication creates an ethical direction that helps commu-
nicators in Africa and everywhere else in the world to appeal to the logical
relationship between theory and practice. We are actually creating in Maatic
communication the condition for society balance. Those who create the
conditions for imbalance, for disorder, and for falsehood are the enemies of
effective and useful communication.
Here is what I believe that Maat would suggest: communication works
best when there is a proper disposition of attitudes, personalities, and mes-
sages, so as to bring into existence a harmonious community. For me a
proper disposition is that quality of existence that allows for communica-
tion to operate in a zone of freedom, openness, equality, and community.
This seems to be the core of the Maatic ideal of communication. Since all
communication, in the human realm, deals with people, we are strongly
interested in achieving relationships. Africans have always believed that the
aim of the person in interaction should be to bring into existence good
relationships. Our imbrications with each other and with the substance of
our lives and communities are also at the core of Maat. All communica-
tions are concerned with feelings, that is, emotions as well as ideas and
arguments between humans. This keeps us in contact with traditions,
memories, customs, rituals, and habits. Of course, war and peace, brutali-
ties, racial discrimination, gender oppression, and persecution of the poor
are also at the core of communication. There are also issues of the past,
present, and the future in conversations. In some cases, the communica-
tion environment becomes a site for the communication of communica-
tion itself as it pursues the Maatic example. I mean the communicator
seeks to discover reciprocity in the situation of communication.
Maatic theory calls upon communicators to put into consideration the
idea of reciprocity. Here the communicator seeks to reciprocate what
another communicator seeks to communicate. One exercises Maat with
the aim of empowering people, especially the communicators, toward the
pivotal quality of harmony. In the African context, the idea of reciprocity
assists in making community viable and sustainable.
There are three aspects of reciprocity that might underscore the power
of this concept. In the first place, reciprocity involves the exchanging of
ideas, qualities, and things. Second, it involves the notion of mutual ben-
efits. Third, it is a kind of privilege granted by one person to another.
22 M. K. ASANTE

Therefore, the microphysics of communication find themselves played out

in the public as well as the interpersonal arena. What is it to see the defeat
of ignorance and the enthronement of decency and the pursuit of stability?
Here communication theory is at its very best as theory and practice of
positive human relationships.
In conclusion and summary, this chapter has sought to introduce
another rubric into the conversation about human communication by
examining one of the earliest concepts known to humanity. Maat, as a con-
struct for relationships, was introduced by the ancient people of Kemet as
a way to maintain permanence, stability, and harmony in human society. In
fact, the per-aa (Hebrew: pharaoh) had a singular purpose and that was to
keep society from falling into chaos. The instrument for this function was
Maat. He or she, as per-aa, the Great House, had to do Maat, live Maat,
and speak Maat. Without this constant search for order and balance, har-
mony and justice, a society would be devoid of truth, justice, and righ-
teousness and fall into madness. One can easily see that any form of
communication utilizing these Maatic values would yield a powerful ethic
of unity, community, and cooperation. Every study of African philosophy,
from the Teachings of Ptahhotep to the Ubuntu philosophy of Bishop Tutu
of South Africa, emphasizes the value of Maat as a communitarian state-
ment of human communication where we exist because others exist and we
are who we are because you are who you are; everything is reciprocity.

References
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Asante, M. K. (2016). The African Pyramids of Knowledge. New York: Universal
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Journal of Black Studies, 37(6), 914–934.
Blaut, J. M. (1993). The Colonizer’s Model of the World. New York: Guilford Press.
Blaut, J. M. (2000). Eight Eurocentric Historians. New York: Guilford Press.
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child, a bit of the index held between the antagonised thumb and
medius is shown. The same sign expresses both parents, with
additional explanations. To say, for instance, my mother, you would
first pantomime “I,” or, which is the same thing, my, then woman, and
finally, the symbol of parentage. My grandmother would be conveyed
in the same way, adding to the end, clasped hands, closed eyes, and
like an old woman’s bent back. The sign for brother and sister is
perhaps the prettiest; the two first finger-tips are put into the mouth,
denoting that they fed from the same breast. For the wife—squaw is
now becoming a word of reproach amongst the Indians—the dexter
forefinger is passed between the extended thumb and index of the
left.
Of course there is a sign for every weapon. The knife—scalp or
other—is shown by cutting the sinister palm with the dexter ferient
downward and towards oneself: if the cuts be made upward with the
palm downwards, meat is understood. The tomahawk, hatchet, or
axe, is denoted by chopping the left hand with the right; the sword by
the motion of drawing it: the bow by the movement of bending it, and
a spear or lance by an imitation of darting it. For the gun the dexter
thumb or fingers are flashed or scattered, i.e. thrown outwards and
upwards, to denote fire. The same movement made lower down
expresses a pistol. The arrow is expressed by knocking it upon an
imaginary bow, and by snapping with the index and medius. The
shield is shown by pointing with the index over the left shoulder
where it is slung ready to be brought over the breast when required.
The pantomime, as may be seen, is capable of expressing
detailed narratives. For instance, supposing an Indian would tell the
following tale:—“Early this morning I mounted my horse, rode off at a
gallop, traversed a ravine, then over a mountain to a plain where
there was no water, sighted bisons, followed them, killed three of
them, skinned them, packed the flesh upon my pony, remounted,
and returned home,”—he would symbolize it thus:
Touches nose—“I.”
Opens out the palms of his hand—“this morning.”
Points to east—“early.”
 Places two dexter forefingers astraddle over sinister index
—“mounted my horse.”
Moves both hands upwards and rocking-horse fashion towards
the left—“galloped.”
Passes the dexter hand right through thumb and forefinger of the
sinister, which are widely extended—“traversed a ravine.”
Closes the finger-tips high over the head and waves both palms
outwards—“over a mountain to a plain.”
Scoops up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth, and
waves the hand from the face to denote no—“where there was no
water.”
Touches eye—“sighted.”
Raises the forefingers crooked inwards on both sides of the head
—“bison.”
Smites the sinister palm downwards with the dexter first—“killed.”
Shows three fingers—“three of them.”
Scrapes the left palm with the edge of the right hand—“skinned
them.”
Places the dexter on the sinister palm and then the dexter palm
on the sinister dorsum—“packed the flesh upon my pony.”
Straddles the two forefingers on the index of the left
—“remounted.”
Finally, beckons towards self—“returned home.”
“While on the subject of savage modes of correspondence, it may
not be out of place to quote an amusing incident furnished by the
Western African traveller Hutchinson. There was, it seems, a
newspaper established in the region in question for the benefit of the
civilized inhabitants, and an old native lady having a grievance,
“writes to the editor.” Let us give her epistle, and afterwards Mr.
Hutchinson’s explanation of it:
 “To Daddy Nah, Tampin Office.
“Ha Daddy,—Do yah nah beg you tell dem people for me make
dem Sally own pussin know—Do yah. Berrah well. Ah lib nah
Pademba Road—one buoy lib dah ober side lakah dem two docta lib
overside you Tampin office. Berrah well. Dah buoy head big too much
—he say nah Militie Ban—he got one long long ting—so so brass
someting lib da dah go flip flap dem call am key. Berry well. Had dah
buoy kin blow she—ah na marnin, oh na sun time, oh na evenin, oh
nah middle night oh—all same—no make pussin sleep. Not ebry bit
dat more lib dah One Boney buoy lib overside nah he like blow bugle.
When dem two woh woh buoy blow dem ting de nize too much to
much. When white man blow dat ting and pussin sleep he kin tap wah
make dem buoy carn do so. Dem buoy kin blow ebry day, eben
Sunday dem kin blow. When ah yerry dem blow Sunday ah wish dah
bugle kin blow dem head bone inside. Do nah beg you yah tell all dem
people bout dah ting, wah dem to buoy dah blow. Tell am Amstrang
Boboh hab feber bad. Tell am Titty carn sleep nah night. Dah nize go
kill me two picken oh. Plabba done—Good by, Daddy.
“Crashey Jane.”
“For the information of those not accustomed to the Anglo-African
style of writing or speaking, I deem a commentary necessary in order
to make this epistle intelligible. The whole gist of Crashey Jane’s
complaint is against two black boys who are torturing her morning,
noon, and night—Sunday as well as every day in the week—by
blowing into some ‘long, long brass ting,’ as well as a bugle. Though
there might appear to some unbelievers a doubt as to the possibility
of the boys furnishing wind for such a lengthened performance, still
the complaint is not more extravagant than those made by many
scribbling grievance-mongers amongst ourselves about the organ
nuisance.
“The appellative Daddy is used by the Africans as expressive of
their respect as well as confidence. ‘To Daddy in the stamping (alias
printing) office,’ which is the literal rendering of the foregoing
address, contains a much more respectful appeal than ‘To the Editor’
would convey, and the words ‘Berrah well’ at the end of the first
sentence are ludicrously expressive of the writer’s having opened
the subject of complaint to her own satisfaction and of being
prepared to go on with what follows without any dread of failure.
 “The epithet ‘woh-woh’ applied to the censured boys means to
entitle them very bad; and I understand this term, which is general
over the coast, is derived from the belief that those persons to whom
it is applied have a capacity to bring double woe on all who have
dealings with them. ‘Amstrang Boboh,’ who has the fever bad, is
Robert Armstrong, the stipendiary magistrate of Sierra Leone, and
the inversion of his name in this manner is as expressive of negro
classicality as was the title of Jupiter Tonans to the dwellers on
Mount Olympus.”
It is probable that to his passion for “picture making” Mr. Catlin is
indebted for his great success among North-American children of the
wilderness. A glance through the two big volumes published by that
gentleman shows at once that he could have little time either for
eating, drinking, or sleeping; his pencil was all in all to him. No one
would suppose it by the specimens Mr. Catlin has presented to the
public, but we have his word for it, that some of the likenesses he
painted of the chiefs were marvels of perfection—so much so,
indeed, that he was almost tomahawked as a witch in consequence.
He says:
“I had trouble brewing from another source; one of the medicines
commenced howling and haranguing around my domicile amongst
the throng that was outside, proclaiming that all who were inside and
being painted were fools and would soon die, and very naturally
affecting thereby my popularity. I, however, sent for him, and called
him in the next morning when I was alone, having only the interpreter
with me, telling him that I had had my eye upon him for several days
and had been so well pleased with his looks that I had taken great
pains to find out his history, which had been explained by all as one
of a most extraordinary kind, and his character and standing in his
tribe as worthy of my particular notice; and that I had several days
since resolved, that as soon as I had practised my hand long enough
upon the others to get the stiffness out of it (after paddling my canoe
so far as I had) and make it to work easily and succesfully, I would
begin on his portrait, which I was then prepared to commence on
that day, and that I felt as if I could do him justice. He shook me by
the hand, giving me the Doctor’s grip, and beckoned me to sit down,
which I did, and we smoked a pipe together. After this was over he
told me that he had no inimical feelings towards me, although he had
been telling the chiefs that they were all fools and all would die who
had their portraits painted; that although he had set the old women
and children all crying, and even made some of the young warriors
tremble, yet he had no unfriendly feelings towards me, nor any fear
or dread of my art. ‘I know you are a good man (said he), I know you
will do no harm to any one; your medicine is great, and you are a
great medicine-man. I would like to see myself very well, and so
would all of the chiefs; but they have all been many days in this
medicine-house, and they all know me well, and they have not asked
me to come in and be made alive with paints. My friend, I am glad
that my people have told you who I am; my heart is glad; I will go to
my wigwam and eat, and in a little while I will come and you may go
to work.’ Another pipe was lit and smoked, and he got up and went
off. I prepared my canvass and palette, and whistled away the time
until twelve o’clock, before he made his appearance, having
employed the whole forepart of the day at his toilette, arranging his
dress and ornamenting his body for his picture.
“At that hour then, bedaubed and streaked with paints of various
colours, with bear’s-grease and charcoal, with medicine-pipes in his
hands, and foxes’ tails attached to his heels, entered Mah-to-he-bah
(the old bear) with a train of his profession, who seated themselves
around him, and also a number of boys whom it was requested
should remain with him, and whom I supposed it possible might have
been his pupils whom he was instructing in the mysteries of his art.
He took his position in the middle of the room, waving his evil
calumets in each hand and singing the medicine song which he
sings over his dying patient, looking me full in the face until I
completed his picture at full length. His vanity has been completely
gratified in the operation; he lies for hours together day after day in
my room in front of his picture gazing intently upon it, lights my pipe
for me while I am painting, shakes hands with me a dozen times
each day, and talks of me and enlarges upon my medicine virtues
and my talents wherever he goes, so that this new difficulty is now
removed, and instead of preaching against me he is one of my
strongest and most enthusiastic friends and aids in the country.
 “Perhaps nothing ever more completely astonished these people
than the operations of my brush. The art of portrait painting was a
subject entirely new to them and of course unthought of, and my
appearance here has commenced a new era in the arcana of
medicine or mystery. Soon after arriving here I commenced and
finished the portraits of the two principal chiefs. This was done
without having awakened the curiosity of the villagers, as they had
heard nothing of what was going on, and even the chiefs themselves
seemed to be ignorant of my designs until the pictures were
completed. No one else was admitted into my lodge during the
operation, and when finished it was exceedingly amusing to see
them mutually recognizing each other’s likeness and assuring each
other of the striking resemblance which they bore to the originals.
Both of these pressed their hand over their mouths awhile in dead
silence (a custom amongst most tribes when anything surprises
them very much); looking attentively upon the portraits and myself
and upon the palette and colours with which these unaccountable
effects had been produced.
“Then they walked up to me in the most gentle manner, taking me
in turn by the hand with a firm grip, and, with head and eyes inclined
downwards, in a tone of a little above a whisper, pronounced the
words te-ho-pe-nee Wash-ee, and walked off.
“Readers, at that moment I was christened with a new and a great
name, one by which I am now familiarly hailed and talked of in this
village, and no doubt will be as long as traditions last in this strange
community.
“That moment conferred an honour on me which you, as yet, do
not understand. I took the degree (not of Doctor of Law, nor Bachelor
of Arts) of Master of Arts—of mysteries, of magic, and of hocus
pocus. I was recognized in that short sentence as a great medicine
white man, and since that time have been regularly installed
medicine, or mystery,—which is the most honourable degree that
could be conferred upon me here, and I now hold a place amongst
the most eminent and envied personages, the doctors and conjurati
of this titled community.
 “Te-ho-pe-nee Wash-ee—pronounced ‘tup’penny’—is the name I
now go by, and it will prove to me no doubt of more value than gold,
for I have been called upon and feasted by the doctors, who are all
mystery-men, and it has been an easy and successful passport
already to many strange and mysterious places, and has put me in
possession of a vast deal of curious and interesting information
which I am sure I never should have otherwise learned. I am daily
growing in the estimation of the medicine-men and the chiefs, and by
assuming all the gravity and circumspection due from so high a
dignity (and even considerably more), and endeavouring to perform
now and then some art or trick that is unfathomable, I am in hopes of
supporting my standing until the great annual ceremony
commences, on which occasion I may possibly be allowed a seat in
the medicine lodge by the doctors, who are the sole conductors of
this great source and fountain of all priestcraft and conjuration in this
country. After I had finished the portraits of the two chiefs and they
had returned to their wigwams and deliberately seated themselves
by their respective firesides and silently smoked a pipe or two
(according to an universal custom), they gradually began to tell what
had taken place; and at length crowds of gaping listeners, with
mouths wide open, thronged their lodges, and a throng of women
and girls were about my house, and through every crack and crevice
I could see their glistening eyes which were piercing my hut in a
hundred places, from a natural and restless propensity—a curiosity
to see what was going on within. An hour or more passed in this way
and the soft and silken throng continually increased until some
hundreds of them were clung and piled about my wigwam like a
swarm of bees hanging on the front and sides of their hive. During
this time not a man made his appearance about the premises; after
awhile, however, they could be seen folded in their robes gradually
sidling up towards the lodge with a silly look upon their faces, which
confessed at once that curiosity was leading them reluctantly where
their pride checked and forbade them to go. The rush soon after
became general, and the chiefs and medicine-men took possession
of my room, placing soldiers (braves, with spears in their hands) at
the door, admitting no one but such as were allowed by the chiefs to
come in. The likenesses were instantly recognized, and many of the
gaping multitude commenced yelping; some were stamping off in the
jarring dance, others were singing, and others again were crying;
hundreds covered their mouth with their hands and were mute;
others, indignant, drove their spears frightfully into the ground, and
some threw a reddened arrow at the sun and went home to their
wigwams.
“The pictures seen, the next curiosity was to see the man who
made them, and I was called forth. Readers, if you have any
imagination, save me the trouble of painting this scene. I stepped
forth and was instantly hemmed in in the throng. Women were
gazing, and warriors and braves were offering me their hands, whilst
little boys and girls by dozens were struggling through the crowd to
touch me with the ends of their fingers, and while I was engaged
from the waist upwards in fending off the throng and shaking hands
my legs were assailed (not unlike the nibbling of little fish when I
have been standing in deep water) by children who were creeping
between the legs of the bystanders for the curiosity or honour of
touching me with the end of their finger. The eager curiosity and
expression of astonishment with which they gazed upon me plainly
showed that they looked upon me as some strange and
unaccountable being. They pronounced me the greatest medicine-
man in the world, for they said I had made a living being; they said
they could see their chief alive in two places—those that I had made
were a little alive; they could see their eyes move, could see them
smile and laugh; they could certainly speak if they should try, and
they must therefore have some life in them.
“The squaws generally agreed that they had discovered life
enough in them to render my medicine too great for the Mandans,
saying that such an operation could not be performed without taking
away from the original something of his existence, which I put in the
picture, and they could see it move, see it stir.
“This curtailing of the natural existence for the purpose of instilling
life into the secondary one they decided to be an useless and
destructive operation, and one which was calculated to do great
mischief in their happy community, and they commenced a mournful
and doleful chant against me, crying and weeping bitterly through the
village, proclaiming me a most dangerous man, one who could make
living persons by looking at them, and at the same time could, as a
matter of course, destroy life in the same way, if I chose; that my
medicine was dangerous to their lives and that I must leave the
village immediately; that bad luck would happen to those whom I
painted, and that when they died they would never sleep quiet in
their graves.
“In this way the women and some old quack medicine-men
together had succeeded in raising an opposition against me, and the
reasons they assigned were so plausible and so exactly suited for
their superstitious feelings, that they completely succeeded in
exciting fears and a general panic in the minds of a number of chiefs
who had agreed to sit for their portraits, and my operations were of
course for several days completely at a stand. A grave council was
held on the subject from day to day, and there seemed great
difficulty in deciding what was to be done with me and the dangerous
art which I was practising and which had far exceeded their original
expectations. I finally got admitted to their sacred conclave and
assured them that I was but a man like themselves, that my art had
no medicine or mystery about it, but could be learned by any of
them, if they would practice it as long as I had; that my intentions
towards them were of the most friendly kind, and that in the country
where I lived brave men never allowed their squaws to frighten them
with their foolish whims and stories. They all immediately arose,
shook me by the hand, and dressed themselves for their pictures.
After this there was no further difficulty about sitting, all were ready
to be painted; the squaws were silent, and my painting-room was a
continual resort for the chiefs and braves and medicine-men, where
they waited with impatience for the completion of each one’s picture,
that they could decide as to the likeness as it came from under the
brush, that they could laugh and yell and sing a new song, and
smoke a fresh pipe to the health and success of him who had just
been safely delivered from the hands and the mystic operation of the
white medicine.”
The Mandans celebrate the anniversary of the feast of the deluge
with great pomp. During the first four days of this religious ceremony
they perform the buffalo dances four times the first day, eight the
second, twelve the third, and sixteen the fourth day, around the great
canoe placed in the centre of the village. This canoe represents the
ark which saved the human race from the flood, and the total-
number of the dances executed is forty, in commemoration of the
forty nights during which the rain did not cease to fall upon the earth.
The dancers chosen for this occasion are eight in number and
divided into four pairs corresponding to the four cardinal points. They
are naked and painted various colours; round their ankles they wear
tufts of buffalo hair; a skin of the same animal with the head and
horns is thrown over their shoulders; the head serves as a mask to
the dancers. In one of their hands they hold a racket, in the other a
lance, or rather a long inoffensive stick. On their shoulders is bound
a bundle of branches. In dancing they stoop down towards the
ground and imitate the movements and the bellowing of buffaloes.
Alternating with these pairs is a single dancer, also naked and
painted, and wearing no other garments than a beautiful girdle and a
head-dress of eagles’ feathers mingled with the fur of the ermine.
These four dancers also carry each a racket and a stick in their
hands; in dancing they turn their backs to the great canoe. Two of
them are painted black with white spots all over their bodies to
represent the sky and stars. The two others are painted red to
represent the day, with white marks to signify the spirits chased
away by the first rays of the sun. None but these twelve individuals
dance in this ceremony of solemnity. During the dance the master of
the ceremonies stands by the great canoe and smokes in honour of
each of the cardinal points. Four old men also approach the great
canoe, and during the whole dance, which continues a quarter of an
hour, the actors sing and make all the noise possible with their
instruments, but always preserving the measure.
Besides the dancers and musicians there are other actors who
represent symbolical characters and have a peculiar dress during
this festival. Near the great canoe are two men dressed like bears
who growl continually and try to interrupt the actors. In order to
appease them women continually bring them plates of food, which
two other Indians disguised as eagles often seize and carry off into
the prairie. The bears are then chased by troops of children, naked
and painted like fawns and representing antelopes, which eagerly
devour the food that is served. This is an allegory, signifying that in
the end Providence always causes the innocent to triumph over the
wicked.
All at once on the fourth day the women begin to weep and
lament, the children cry out, the dogs bark, the men are
overwhelmed with profound despair. This is the cause: A naked man
painted of a brilliant black like the plumage of a raven and marked
with white lines, having a bear’s tusk painted at each side of his
mouth, and holding a long wand in his hand, appears on the prairie
running in a zigzag direction, but still advancing rapidly towards the
village and uttering the most terrific cries. Arriving at the place where
the dance is performing he strikes right and left at men, women, and
children, and dogs, who fly in all directions to avoid the blows of this
singular being, who is a symbol of the evil spirit.
The master of the ceremonies on perceiving the disorder quits his
post near the great canoe and goes toward the enemy with his
medicine-pipe, and the evil spirit, charmed by the magic calumet,
becomes as gentle as a child and as ashamed as a fox caught
stealing a fowl. At this sudden change the terror of the crowd
changes to laughter, and the women cease to tremble at the evil
spirit and take to pelting him with mud; he is overtaken and deprived
of his wand and is glad to take to his heels and escape from the
village as quickly as he can.
It is to be hoped that the North-American Indian when
communicating with Kitchi-Manitou does not forget to pray to be
cured of his intolerable vice of covetousness. He can let nothing odd
or valuable pass him without yearning for it, or so says every
traveller whose lot it has been to sojourn among Red men. So says
Mr. Murray, and quotes a rather ludicrous case in support of the
assertion:
“While I was sitting near my packs of goods, like an Israelite in
Monmouth Street, an elderly chief approached and signified his wish
to trade. Our squaws placed some meat before him, after which I
gave him the pipe, and in the meantime had desired my servant to
search my saddle bags, and to add to the heap of saleable articles
everything of every kind beyond what was absolutely necessary for
my covering on my return. A spare shirt, a handkerchief, and a
waistcoat were thus drafted, and among other things was a kind of
elastic flannel waistcoat made for wearing next to the skin and to be
drawn over the head as it was without buttons or any opening in
front. It was too small for me and altogether so tight and
uncomfortable, although elastic, that I determined to part with it.
 The Covetous Pawnee.
“To this last article my new customer took a great fancy and he
made me describe to him the method of putting it on and the warmth
and comfort of it when on. Be it remembered that he was a very
large corpulent man, probably weighing sixteen stone. I knew him to
be very good-natured, as I had hunted once with his son and on
returning to the lodge the father had feasted me, chatted by signs,
and taught me some of the most extraordinary Indian methods of
communication. He said he should like to try on the jacket, and as he
threw the buffalo robe off his huge shoulders I could scarcely keep
my gravity when I compared their dimensions with the garment into
which we were about to attempt their introduction. At last by dint of
great industry and care, we contrived to get him into it. In the body it
was a foot too short, and fitted him so close that every thread was
stretched to the uttermost; the sleeves reached a very little way
above his elbow. However, he looked upon his arms and person with
great complacency and elicited many smiles from the squaws at the
drollery of his attire; but as the weather was very hot he soon began
to find himself too warm and confined, and he wished to take it off
again. He moved his arms, he pulled his sleeves, he twisted and
turned himself in every direction, but in vain. The old man exerted
himself till the drops of perspiration fell from his forehead, but had I
not been there he must either have made some person cut it up or
have sat in it till this minute.
“For some time I enjoyed this scene with malicious and demure
gravity, and then I showed him that he must try and pull it off over his
head. A lad who stood by then drew it till it enveloped his nose, eyes,
mouth, and ears; his arms were raised above his head, and for some
minutes he remained in that melancholy plight, blinded, choked, and
smothered, with his hands rendered useless for the time. He rolled
about, sneezing, sputtering, and struggling, until all around him were
convulsed with laughter and our squaws shrieked in their
ungovernable mirth in a manner that I had never before witnessed.
At length I slit a piece of the edge and released the old fellow from
his straight-waistcoat confinement; he turned it round often in his
hands and made a kind of comic-grave address to it, of which I could
only gather a few words: I believe the import of them was that it
would be ‘a good creature’ in the ice-month of the village. I was so
pleased with his good humour that I gave it to him to warm his
squaw in the ‘ice-month.’”
As this will probably be the last occasion of discussing in this
volume the physical and moral characteristics of the North American
Indian, it may not be out of place here to give a brief descriptive
sketch of the chief tribes with an account of their strength and power
in bygone times and their present condition. The names of Murray,
Dominech, Catlin, etc., afford sufficient guarantee of the accuracy of
the information here supplied.
The Ojibbeway nation occupies a large amount of territory, partly
within the United States, and partly within British America. They are
the largest community of savages in North America: the entire
population, in 1842, amounted to thirty thousand. That part of the
tribe occupying territory within the United States inhabit all the
northern part of Michigan, the whole northern portion of Wisconsin
Territory, all the south shore of Lake Superior, for eight hundred
miles, the upper part of the Mississippi, and Sandy, Leech, and Red
Lakes. Those of the nation living within the British dominions occupy
all Western Canada, the north of Lake Huron, the north of Lake
Superior, the north of Lake Winnibeg, and the north of Red River
Lake, about one hundred miles. The whole extent of territory
occupied by this single nation, extends one thousand nine hundred
miles east and west, and from two to three hundred miles north and
south. There are about five thousand in British America, and twenty-
five thousand in the United States. Of their past history nothing is
known, except what may be gathered from their traditions. All the
chiefs and elder men of the tribe agree that they originally migrated
from the west. A great number of their traditions are doubtless
unworthy of credence, but a few that relate to the foundation of the
world, the subsequent disobedience of the people,—which, the
Ojibbeways say, was brought about by climbing of a vine that
connected the world of spirits with the human race, which was strictly
forbidden the mortals below, and how they were punished by the
introduction of disease and death, which before they knew not;—all
this and much more of the same nature, is a subject of more than
ordinary interest to the contemplative mind.
Their first intercourse with Europeans was in 1609, when they, as
well as many of the other tribes belonging to the Algonquin stock,
met Champlain, the adventurous French trader. They were described
by him as the most polished in manners of the northern tribes; but
depended for subsistence entirely on the chase, disdaining
altogether the more effeminate occupation of the cultivation of the
soil. From that time they eagerly sought and very soon obtained the
friendship of the French. The more so that their ancient and
inveterate foes, the Iroquois, were extremely jealous of the intrusive
white men. With the help of the French they gained many bloody and
decisive battles over the Iroquois, and considerably extended their
territories. The history of the nation from this time is not very
interesting. From the ravages of war and disease the tribe, as may
be perceived from a comparison with many others, has escaped with
more than ordinary success; partly owing to the simplicity and
general intelligence of the tribe in guarding against these evils.
Their religion is very simple, the fundamental points of which are
nearly the same as all the North American Indians. They believe in
one Ruler or Great Spirit—He-sha-mon-e-doo, “Benevolent Spirit,” or
He-ehe-mon-edoo, ”“Great Spirit.” This spirit is over the universe at
the same time, but under different names, as the “God of man,” the
“God of fish,” and many others. It is supposed by many travellers
that sun-worship was a part of their mythology, from the extreme
respect which they were observed to pay to that luminary. But we
find the reason of this supposed homage is, that the Indian regards
the sun as the wigwam of the Great Spirit, and is naturally an object
of great veneration. In this particular, perhaps, they are not greater
idolaters than civilized people, who have every advantage that art
and nature can bestow. The Indian, because the sun doesn’t shine
to-day, won’t transfer his adoration to the moon to-morrow; and in
this respect at least is superior to many a wise and educated “pale
face.”
In addition to the good spirit they have a bad spirit, whom,
however, they believe to be inferior to the good spirit. He is
supposed to have the power of inflicting all manner of evils, and,
moreover, to take a delight in doing so. This spirit was sent to them
as a punishment for their original disobediences. They have, besides
these, spirits innumerable. In their idea every little flower of the field,
every beast of the land, and every fish in the water, possesses one.
Pawnees.—This tribe, which is scattered between Kansas and
Nebraska, was at one time very numerous and powerful, but at the
present time numbers no more than about ten thousand. They have
an established reputation for daring, cunning, and dishonesty. In the
year 1832 small-pox made its appearance among the Pawnees, and
in the course of a few months destroyed fully half their numbers.
They shave the head, all but the scalp lock. They cultivate a little
Indian corn, but are passionately fond of hunting and adventure. The
use of the Indian corn is confined to the women and old men. The
warriors feed on the game they kill on the great prairies, or on
animals they steal from those who cross their territory. The Pawnees
are divided into four bands, with each a chief. Above these four
chiefs is a single one, whom the whole nation obey. This tribe has
four villages, situated near the Nebraska. It is allied with the
neighbouring tribe of the Omahas and Ottoes. It was till recently the
custom of these people to torture their prisoners, but it is now
discontinued, owing to the fact of a squaw of the hostile tribe being
snatched from the stake by a white man. The circumstance was
regarded as a direct interposition of the Great Spirit, and as an
expression of his will that torture should he discontinued. They do
not appear to possess any historical traditions, but on certain other
subjects preserve some curious legends. The “sign” of the Pawnees
is the two forefingers held at the sides of the head in imitation of a
wolf’s ears.
The Delawares.—This ancient people, once the most renowned
and powerful among American Indians, has of late years so dwindled
that were the entire nation to be gathered, it would scarcely count
one thousand souls. They are now settled in the Valley of the
Canadian river, and their pursuits are almost strictly agricultural.
According to their traditions, several centuries ago they inhabited the
western part of the American continent, but afterwards emigrated in
a body to the banks of the Mississippi, where they met the Iroquois,
who, like themselves, had abandoned the far west and settled near
the same river. In a short time, however, the new comers and the
previous holders of the land, the Allegavis, ceased to be on friendly
terms, and the combined Delawares and Iroquois declared war
against them to settle the question. The combined forces were
victorious, and divided the land of the Allegavis between them. After
living peaceably for two hundred years, another migration was
resolved upon, and, according to some accounts, the whole of both
nations, and according to others, but part of them, settled on the
shores of the four great rivers, the Delaware, the Hudson, the
Susquehanna, and the Potomac. Up to this time the Delawares
remained, as they had ever been, superior to the Iroquois, and by-
and-by the latter grew jealous of their powerful neighbours, and by
way of thinning their numbers sought to breed a deadly feud
between the Delawares and certain other near-living tribes, amongst
which were the warlike Cherokees. This was an easy matter. The
arms of every tribe are more or less peculiar and may be safely
sworn to by any other. Stealing a Delaware axe, an Iroquois lay wait
for a Cherokee, and having brained him with the weapon laid it by
the side of the scalpless body. The bait took, and speedily the
Delawares and the Cherokees were plunged into deadly strife.
 An Iroquois Warrior.
The Iroquois, however, were not destined to escape scot free for
their diabolical trick. The Delawares discovered it, and swore in
council to exterminate their malicious neighbours. But the latter were
much too wise to attempt a single-handed struggle with their justly
incensed foes, so soliciting the attention of the other tribes they set
out their grievances in so artful a manner that the others resolved to
help them, and there was straightway formed against the
unoffending Delawares a confederation called the Six Nations.
“This,” says the Abbé Dominech, “was about the end of the fifteenth
and beginning of the sixteenth century, and from this period dates
the commencement of the most bloody battles the New World has
witnessed. The Delawares were generally victorious. It was during
this war that the French landed in Canada, and the Iroquois not
wishing them to settle in the country took arms against them; but
finding themselves thus placed between two fires, and despairing of
subduing the Delawares by force of arms, they had recourse to a
stratagem in order to make peace with the latter, and induce them to
join the war against the French. Their plan was to destroy the
Delawares’ fame for military bravery, and to make them (to use an
Indian expression) into old women. To make the plan of the Iroquois
understood, we must mention that most of the wars between these
tribes are brought to an end only by the intervention of the women.
They adjure the warriors by all they hold dear to take pity on their
poor wives and on the children who weep for their fathers, to lay
aside their arms and to smoke the calumet of peace with their
enemies. These discourses rarely fail in their effect and the women
place themselves in an advantageous position as peace-makers.
The Iroquois persuaded the Delawares that it would be no disgrace
to become “women,” but that on the contrary, it would be an honour
to a nation so powerful, and which could not be suspected of
deficiency in courage or strength, to be the means of bringing about
a general peace and of preserving the Indian race from further
extermination. These representations determined the Delawares to
become “women” by asking for peace. So they came to be
contemptuously known by other tribes as “Iroquois Squaws,” and
losing heart, from that time grew more few.
Shawnees.—The ancient “hunting grounds” of this important tribe
were Pennsylvania and New Jersey; but they are now found in the
Valley of the Canadian. “Some authors are of opinion,” says the
author of “The Deserts of North America,” “that these Indians come
from Eastern Florida, because there is in that country a river called
Su-wa-nee, whence the word Shawanas, which is also used to
design the Shawnees, might be derived. It is certain, however, that
they were known on the coast of the Atlantic, near Delaware and
Chesapeak, subsequent to the historical era: that is to say, after the