All the Way to Timbuktu: Exploring the Cultural Riches of Mali 

Look beyond what the Western media says to appreciate Mali’s rich cultural heritage.

WARNING: As of February 2021, the U.S. Department of State advises against all travel to Mali due to risk of crime, terrorism and kidnapping. For the time being, enjoy the country from your computer screen. Do not visit Mali.

A man reading historical manuscripts from West Africa. Jermaine Johnson. CC2.0

Mali is a landlocked country located in the heart of West Africa. Mali’s rich history dates back to the 11th century, when the empire of Mali controlled vast swaths of the Niger River valley. Known as a beacon for Islamic scholarship and trade from the 13th to the 16th century, things took a turn when the French colonized the country in 1898. Since achieving independence in 1960, Mali has suffered from coups, droughts, corruption and insurgencies by Islamic extremists in the country’s north. 

Despite Mali’s negative reputation in Western media coverage, the country has a fascinating history and vibrant culture that deserves to be celebrated—from afar, until safety returns. Here are some of the stunning historical and cultural sites in Mali: 

Djenne

The Great Mosque and market in Djenne, Mali. Carsten ten Brink. CC2.0

Located in central Mali on a seasonal island in between the Niger and Bani rivers, Djenne is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest towns and has been inhabited since 250 B.C. The town was a stopping point for traders in the trans-Saharan gold trade and was known as a hub of Islamic learning during the 15th and 16th centuries. The stunning Great Mosque in Djenne is the world’s largest adobe structure, containing three turrets. Interestingly, adobe structures are very common in Mali due to the lack of wood in the desert. The area in front of the mosque makes a great spot for people-watching and is the site of a colorful market every Monday. 

Cliffs of Bandiagara

A village in Mali’s Dogon region. Emilio Labrador. CC2.0

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the cliffs of Bandiagara are home to the Dogon people, who continue to carry on age-old traditions. Carved into tall sandstone cliffs, the Dogon region stretches for over 125 miles and provides a fascinating place for travelers. Due to the region’s remote nature, the culture of the Dogon people has been mostly left unchanged for centuries. Dogon cultural festivals take place from April to May and contain beautiful Dogon masks, dance and art. Travelers in the Dogon region often stay overnight in Mopti, a town located along the Niger River. 

Timbuktu

Conducting maintenance at Djingareyber Mosque in Timbuktu. United Nations. CC2.0

A city fabled for its rich heritage as a trading center, Timbuktu is still a crucial point for salt caravans traveling across the Sahara desert. From the 13th to 16th centuries, Timbuktu was a center of Islamic scholarship, with its teachings and sacred texts disseminated across the Muslim world as far as Cairo, Persia and Baghdad. The city was home to a 25,000-student university and several magnificent mosques, including Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia. Many manuscripts are now in danger of falling apart or being sold on the black market. Due to recent conflicts in northern Mali, Timbuktu was proclaimed an endangered World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2012. Thus, preserving Timbuktu’s historical legacy is of utmost concern. 

Bamako

A market in Bamako. Aene gespinst. CC2.0

Mali’s capital is a vibrant city located on the Niger River in the southern part of the country. Translated as “crocodile river” in the Bambara language, it is an exciting place to acclimate to Malian life and culture, whether by trying the local cuisine, visiting bustling markets or exploring Mali’s music scene, which is well known throughout Africa. 

Mali’s rich historical legacy is often overshadowed in the Western media by stories of violence caused by religious extremists, but there is much more to the story. One must be willing to look beyond the country’s negative portrayal to appreciate Mali’s true cultural heritage.

Megan Gürer

Megan is a Turkish-American student at Wellesley College in Massachusetts studying Biological Sciences. Passionate about environmental issues and learning about other cultures, she dreams of exploring the globe. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, singing, and composing music.

Singapore’s Dying Dialects

Singapore is a tiny Southeast Asian country often celebrated for its diverse and multilingual population. Despite efforts to preserve its cultural heritage, the country is at risk of completely losing the speakers and history of its Chinese dialects. 

A street in Singapore’s Chinatown showcasing the four official languages of the country. Courtesy of Rhiannon Koh.

Singapore is an island nation located on the tip of the Malay Peninsula. This city-state is an international port known for its cleanliness, law and order, and neo-futuristic cityscapes. Under its sleek veneer of lights, however, Singapore also harbors an impressive heritage thanks to its multicultural populace.

The official story of Singapore begins in the third century. Early Chinese records show that this island was frequented by the Malays, the Javanese, the Indian Cholas and other passing tradesmen. According to legend, the 14th-century Srivijayan prince Sri Tri Buana stumbled upon the island, saw a tiger, and mistook it for a lion. He then named the island “Singapura,” or the “Lion City.” After nearly five centuries of obscurity, the island resurged into the spotlight when the British statesman Stamford Raffles founded what is now considered modern-day Singapore. Even before Raffles’ influence, the island was already home to an ethnically diverse mix of Chinese, Malays and Indians. 

Since its independence in 1965, Singapore has encoded multiculturalism and linguistic diversity into its constitution. Statute 153A states that Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English shall be the four official languages in Singapore; no person shall be discriminated against for whichever they choose. Consequently, multilingual signs are considered the norm and it can cause a public uproar when signs fail to be inclusive. In recent years, however, English has dominated communication in many homes.

Singapore’s city plan emphasizes historical preservation, fostering an urbanscape of both old and new. Courtesy of Rhiannon Koh.

When Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, came to power, he believed that knowledge of dialects undermined the mastery of key languages. Since Singapore was a former British colony and was largely comprised of those of a Chinese background, Yew pushed for English and Mandarin education in schools, essentially cutting down a “thriving linguistic tropical rainforest.” Though these languages gave Singapore a competitive edge in global markets, many Singaporeans lost knowledge of their mother tongues—Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka and others—as well as their connection to grandparents and elders who spoke exclusively in those dialects. A 2015 Department of Statistics study found that in-home dialect use decreased from 18.2% in 2005 to 12.6%. In the wake of this reckoning, many youths are taking steps to reclaim their heritage. Students like Lee Xuan Jin came to understand that Hokkien and Teochew were his “true mother tongues” as opposed to mainland Mandarin. To rekindle the language and improve literacy, Lee launched a Facebook page called Writing in Hokkien.

Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay, a testament to the country’s endemic botany and the potential of its future. Courtesy of Rhiannon Koh.

In an op-ed piece for Rice, Natalie Tan questions Singapore’s Speak Mandarin Campaign—a program that effectively rendered dialects obsolete in favor of a unified but vague Chinese culture. Tan argues that Singaporeans lost a bridge to the past. If this trend continues, Singaporeans will lose their ability to translate interviews and other important historical documents. Locals will also lose the stories of their elders as well as the rich histories still bound up in fading languages. 

The demise of Chinese dialects taps into the overarching issue of dying languages across the globe. Some feel the dissolution of language is inevitable, citing cultural differences in value and multicultural diversity. Others argue that dying languages should be saved, referencing the invaluable knowledge Indigenous languages harbor. Many languages disappear each year; the difficult question is whether anything should be done to prevent this fate.

Rhiannon Koh

earned her B.A. in Urban Studies & Planning from UC San Diego. Her honors thesis was a speculative fiction piece exploring the aspects of surveillance technology, climate change, and the future of urbanized humanity. She is committed to expanding the stories we tell.

The Back-to-Africa Movement: A Response to Racism

Some Black Americans have chosen to move to Africa to embrace their heritage and ancestral roots after experiencing racism, violence and stereotyping in the United States. 

A village in Tanzania. ceasrgp. CC BY-SA 2.0

The Back-to-Africa movement was initially started to encourage those of African ancestry to travel back to Africa where their ancestors once lived. Even though many are unsure of the movement’s founder, many in the U.S. attribute it to Marcus Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914 in New York City’s Harlem district. He encouraged many Black people to seek social equality even if it meant moving to Africa through “self-emancipation.”

However, the Back-to-Africa movement can be traced even further back to the 19th century and the establishment of the American Colonization Society The predominantly-White group, founded by Robert Finley in 1817, shipped up to 12,000 freed slaves and freeborn Black Americans to Liberia. Historians’ views on the American Colonization Society’s work remain split; some view it as an early group dedicated to Black Americans’ freedom while others see it as nothing more than an attempt to remove Black people from the United States. Either way, the group was unpopular among the African American community, and should not be confused with more recent Back-to-Africa movements.

Painting of Marcus Garvey. David Drissel. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Many African Americans have more recently picked up the Back-to-Africa movement to help strengthen Black identity. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X both made visits to Ghana in order to reconnect with their heritage. 

Obadele Kambon is a recent example of the modern Back-to-Africa movement. Kambon was living in Chicago in 2007 when he was wrongfully accused of possessing a loaded firearm illegally in his car. In reality, he had an unloaded, licensed gun. The fear of mistreatment and wrongful convictions, sometimes even leading to death, was a main influence in Kambon’s decision to move to Ghana in 2008.He said his participation in the Back-to-Africa movement made him realize what it “feels like to be a White person in America, just to be able to live without worrying that something is going to happen to you.”

Many of those who have moved to Africa from the United States fear that “nothing can fix [racism].” Africa holds the potential to reconnect people with their roots while offering them a life less affected by racism and violence. 71% of African Americans in the United States have said that they have experienced discrimination in some form. For many African Americans, heading abroad frees them from the need to prove themselves to be more than their skin color.

2019 was marked by Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo as the “Year of Return.” It coincided with the 400th anniversary of what is believed to be the first enslaved Africans arriving in the United States. Last year, Ghana rewarded over 100 citizenships to Black individuals from the Americas as a part of its “Year of Return” initiative. The campaign brought over 500,000 visitors to the region—and some of them have decided to stay.

Eva Ashbaugh

is a Political Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies double major at the University of Pittsburgh. As a political science major concentrating on International Relations, she is passionate about human rights, foreign policy, and fighting for equality. She hopes to one day travel and help educate people to make the world a better place.

PERU: Weavers of the Sky

Traditional handwoven fabrics embody the living history and heritage of the Peruvian highlands. Intricate textile patterns with expressive names such as Mayu Qenqo (meandering river) or Pumac Makin (puma footprints) tell tales of the geography and events of the Andean region and its history over thousands of years.

“Weaving is part of how we communicate our history to younger generations and the rest of the world,” Rosemary tells me, as she runs her fingers through alpaca thread in her home. Her fervour is palpable, as she explains how skilled weavers have passed ancient knowledge from old to young, generation after generation.

For years, hand-woven fabrics have embodied the living history and culture of the Peruvian Highlands. Textile patterns with expressive names like Mayu Qenqo (Meandering River) or Pumac Makin (Puma Footprints) tell tales of the events in the Andean region, as well as its diverse and chaotic landscape and sacred history spanning thousands of years.

Above: Detail of Asunta, a young Andean weaver from a traditional Quechua community in the Piuray Lagoon weaving a new textile. Weaving is done using a simple backstrap loom, and the pattern design is woven only from memory.

As I made my way through the thundering mountains that so gracefully embrace the Sacred Valley, I listened with fascination to the ancient — yet living — stories about Quechua customs that my driver Elvis was reciting. He proudly told me the history of his land and the people who have inhabited it since pre-Columbine times. The ambition and scale of his tales matched any Western classic, despite never being written down.

“Manco Capac was the first and greatest of all the Inca — son of Inti, the Sun, who brought him up from the depths of the Lake Titikaka to rule from the great city of Cusco, the navel of the Earth.”

We take an unexpected left turn off of the main road, and start to approach Piuray Lagoon, as Elvis continues with his story. “Manco Capac had two children, a girl and a boy. Then one day Inti asked Manco Capac to go and find his children so that they could spend the sunset together. Yet when he went looking for them, he found in their place two lagoons; the Huaypo Lagoon (his son) and the Piuray Lagoon (his daughter).”

“These two lagoons,” explains Elvis, announcing our arrival, “represent the duality and balance of the sexes in modern day Quechua culture.”

Above: In the home of Rosemary (22), a young Andean weaver in Piuray Lagoon, raw alpaca fibre and traditionally processed yarn hang from a branch. The raw alpaca fibres are carefully washed by hand using a soap prepared from the yuca root, preparing them to be hand spun into yarn.

In 1528 the Spanish colonisation of the Inca Empire destroyed and eradicated all written records of Incan culture, which was the only palpable account of Quechua customs and folklore. Now, the only original testament is found between the threads of intricate textile designs handwoven by indigenous communities of the Puna (Andean highlands).

Right up until the present day, Quechuan communities from the Peruvian highlands have been the keepers of tradition and the sustainers of an ancient yet arduous way of life. They work in absolute harmony with the Peruvian mother earth, whom they call Pachamama. Their unique weaving practices and patterns date back to pre-Columbian civilisations, and continue to be a great symbol of Quechuan cultural identity.

Reaching a small village near Piuray, we meet Mariana, a young girl with innocent features wearing a traditional montera (hat) and iliclla (black shoulder cloth) paired with a colourful vest and skirt. Walking beside her llama, Mariana explains how the women of Chinchero proudly wear their hand woven textiles and clothing on a daily basis, to differentiate the identity of their community from others in the highlands.

Above: Mariana (18), a young Andean girl from a traditional Quechua community in Piuray Lagoon, poses for a portrait with her llama. Both llamas and alpacas, domesticated species of camelid, provide lanolin-free fibres, making them soft and insulating, no matter the climate.

The region of Chinchero, at 3,780 meters above sea level in the province of Urubamba, is home to several Quechua communities. The men farm the land and harvest potatoes, barley, and quinoa to feed their families and sell at nearby markets, while the women raise llamas and alpacas to obtain textile fibres to weave. Alpaca and llama threads are lanolin-free, making them soft and insulating, regardless of the climate.

Women like Mariana spin on simple drop spindles and weave their colourful yarn on traditional back-strap looms while tending to their flock of alpacas or letting their family’s food cook over a fire, just as their forebears did before them for centuries. “I started playing with wool and spindles when I was very young. Then, around the time I was six years old, my older sisters started teaching me simple weaving techniques and patterns through observation and repetition,” explains Mariana.

Above: The patterns on this fabric represent Mayu Qenqo (Meandering River), Pumac Makin (Puma Footprints), and the Piuray and Huaypo lagoons. Rosemary (22), a young Andean weaver from the Piuray Lagoon, checks the dye process of a natural ball of yarn inside the colouring pot.

Chinchero has traditionally relied on farming for financial sustainability, yet in the recent years, demographic and social changes have forced these small communities to find new ways to sustain themselves. Competition with large agricultural corporations means that local farmers can no longer rely on farming to financially support their families. Indigenous women who used to weave just to serve their family have now had to increase their production and sell textiles in local markets.

Above: Concepcion (24) and her daughter Feliciana (7), from a traditional Quechua community near Piuray Lagoon, pose for a portrait in the weaving workshop.

“They want to change Chinchero,” explains Concepcion, a weaver and mother of two. “The government has seized some land to make an international airport and to build big hotels that cater to the growing tourism that is overwhelming the city of Cusco [50km away from the village of Piuray]. This is changing everything for our communities, forcing us to give up our ancient way of life, which will soon be unsustainable in competition with the growing demands of tourism.”

The women of the Chinchero region are regarded as the keepers of tradition and the cultural identity of their community. Concepcion’s daughter Felicia, at the tender age of 7, is already learning the elaborate process of weaving through her mother and the women in her family.

By the 1970s, as a result of the exponential growth of tourism in the Sacred Valley, mainly due to the popularity of Machu Picchu, many Quechua weavers started to change their production. They began using artificial aniline dyes instead of natural ones and making simple patterns on more homogenised non-traditional fabrics to keep up with the increasing demand from tourism. These new textile designs no longer reflect the ancient weaving traditions of the communities, and their culture and identity are now sadly at risk of being lost and forgotten.

Above: A selection of natural produce such as purple corn, green coca leaves, blue flowers, cochineal, salts and beans, all found growing in the Urubamba Valley and the Andean highlands. They are used by local Quechua communities to create natural dyes for colouring fibre and wool.

The balance between financial sustainability, quality of life, and sustaining the heritage of the Quechua people is a delicate one. Back in Rosemary’s home, she explains, “It is not only a cultural art form, but an integral part of our social organisation and economic situation.” She goes quiet for a while, before returning to the fibres on a drop spindle.

Today, although few in number, there still exist communities that remain largely unchanged in the face of globalisation. In a visit to some of the less transited areas of the highlands, I discovered villages that are winning the battle to preserve their customs, despite the increasing difficulties they face. They hold firm against the alluring tide of modernity, passing down knowledge from older to younger generations, from mother to daughter.

It is my hope that they will continue do so, whilst also benefitting from better access to healthcare and education, for many years to come.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA

MARTA TUCCI

Documentary photographer and writer, specializing in human rights, with a particular focus on issues of identity, migration and social exclusion. www.martatucci.com