African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African folklore 14
ARCHITECTURE
Traditional African architecture is frequently described as nothing more than an
assortment of small mud huts, an evaluation meant to dismiss the topic from further
consideration. Although some Africans do indeed build their houses with clay, these
dwellings are not the simple structures that they might outwardly seem. Earthen-walled
structures can vary significantly in size, configuration, or decoration even within a single
ethnic group, a circumstance that points toward the complexity of building designs across
the African landscape. Further, even the most cursory survey of indigenous African
architecture will reveal a number of monumental buildings, including palaces, shrines,
fortresses, and mosques, that are certainly comparable to European structures built during
the same periods. The faulty characterizations that portray African architecture as
marginal and minimal demand revision. For centuries Africans have crafted buildings
that signal and embody the cultural richness of the continent. Because the building
traditions of Africa are as numerous and as different as its peoples, one should speak of
African architectures.
The basic environmental patterns within the continent provide one of the reasons for
the diversity of African architectural traditions. Building practices that were developed,
for example, to cope with the conditions of the equatorial rain forests would not be used
in the desert regions. Those peoples living in the arid grasslands of northern Ghana often
build houses topped with flat roof terraces that would certainly erode into huge lumps of
mud if constructed just 200 miles to the south where seasonal rains are prolonged and
intense. Housing types will vary as well with differing economic activities and social
customs. Nomadic cattle herders, who must constantly move their livestock onward to
new pastures, build temporary shelters with readily available materials. By contrast, longsettled
groups of farming peoples who claim ownership over particular patches of ground
construct residences that are fixed, permanent, and substantial; their houses are as rooted
as the crops they raise. Further, there is a direct connection between house form and the
pattern of family organization. An ethnic group that sanctions monogamous marital
unions will generally require only a single freestanding dwelling to shelter a couple and
their children, while societies that practice polygyny will build compound houses where a
man will live with his several wives in a cluster of small buildings gathered around a
common yard. Other determinants affecting building and design decisions might include
location (rural or urban), religion (Christianity, Islam, or traditionalist), status of the
owner (royalty, commoner, or slave), personal wealth, historical period, and the degree of
contact with foreign influences.
The following profiles provide a quick tour of traditional architecture in the major
geographical regions of Africa. They not only furnish examples of representative building
types and technologies, but also suggest some of the historical and cultural forces at work
in the construction of houses.