Drumming the Scandal
In the first half of the 20th century, the Tiv people of east-central Nigeria developed a way to air their disputes called “drumming the scandal.” The quarrelers each wrote catchy songs about what a scumbag their rival was, then performed them so loud they could be heard from other villages. This technique tended to escalate […]
The Convenient Tyranny of Judar and Mahmud
In 1590 the Saadi Sultanate in Morocco invaded the Songhai Empire in what is today Mali and Niger. The man the sultan sent to oversee the conquest and occupation did a good job, but had the temerity to question one of the sultan’s decisions and was replaced by a new guy. These two successive Saadian […]
The Songhai Prince in Hiding
In the 1580s, a prince of the Songhai Empire in what is today Mali fled into hiding after completing a sensitive mission on behalf of the emperor. He remained undercover for five years, hidden in plain sight, until the coast was clear. Finding the prince without blowing his cover could be a really fun short […]
The Sudden Succession Crisis and the Fall of Askia Musa
In 1531, the askia (emperor) Musa I of the Songhai Empire in what is today northern Mali was overthrown by his brothers. But when they went to place one amongst themselves on the throne, they found one of their cousins beat them to it. This brief power struggle, its actions restricted almost entirely to close […]
Ports of the Erythraean Sea
The Indian Ocean has been a hub of trade as far back as we have records. Merchants have long traveled its coastlines and—in ancient eras where leaving sight of land was often a death sentence—taken advantage of its predictable annual monsoon winds to cross the ocean itself in long, daring journeys. While we know ancient […]
Six Political Power Players from the Pangani Revolt
Last week we looked at a really complicated (and interesting!) revolt against the Zanzibar Sultanate in 1888 Pangani, Tanzania. The revolt featured three different factions: the independents, who wanted total separation from the Sultanate; the autonomy faction, which wanted to reduce Zanzibari authority over Pangani and restore the privileges of the local elites; and the […]
Pangani: A Pile of Conflicts Exploding in Revolt
In 1888, the Swahili coast of what is today Tanzania rose up in revolt against the Sultanate of Zanzibar, triggered by the arrogance of the sultan’s new German ‘friends’. The revolt was particularly memorable at the trading town of Pangani. But while German shortsightedness may have provided the instigating incident, Pangani had been moving towards […]
Andrew Battel: Pirate, Convict, Merchant, and Mercenary
Andrew Battel was a failed English pirate. Captured by his intended victims, he was forced into convict labor by Portuguese colonial officials in Angola, Africa. He then went on to a varied career as a Portuguese soldier, a weird sort of half-merchant-half-mercenary dude, a minor warchief, a soldier again, and finally a deserter. His and […]
The Villainous Sorcerer-King Against Imperial Mali
Last week, we dug into the West African griot-song The Epic of Sundiata, about the eponymous founder of the Mali Empire who lived circa 1217-1255. Sundiata’s mother dominates the first half of the epic, and she makes a fabulous NPC! This week we’re going to look at the second half of the epic through a […]
The Buffalo-Ghost Queen of Imperial Mali
Sundiata (circa 1217-1255), the founder of the Mali Empire, is famed in song and story in part because of his eponymous griot-song The Epic of Sundiata. And it’s deservedly famous – it’s a great story! But the coolest character in the epic isn’t Sundiata. It’s his mom, Sogolon Kondé. She’s a sorcerer with a buffalo ghost, […]
Family Strife and Secret Language in the Fall of Gao
The Epic of Askia Muhammad recounts many important events in the history of the Songhai people of Niger and Mali. It’s a long song – it takes hours to sing – and it has sections in multiple languages. Among other stories, it tells the tale of a terrible turmoil in a Songhai noble family and how this […]
Five Old Ibibio Women
The homeland of the Ibibio people is the delta of the Niger River in southeast Nigeria. In the mid-1960s, anthropologist Iris Andreski visited Ibibio villages in the rainforest and swamps between Calabar and Port Harcourt to interview the oldest women she could find. Her book, Old Wives’ Tales, is a collection of biographies of these […]
Limnic Eruption
Once a month here on the Molten Sulfur Blog, I run content taken from our book Archive: Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs. This post is one of eighty entries in Archive, each more gameable than the last! This post is brought to you by beloved Patreon backer Arthur Brown. Thanks for helping keep […]
The Ruins of Ungwana
On the coast of Kenya, shrouded in dense bush, the ruins of Ungwana wait for archaeologists. The ruins of nearby Gedi and Kilwa – major trading centers whose coins have been found as far afield as Australia – get most of the attention, while Ungwana decays under vine and root and equatorial rain. Nonetheless, the site […]
The Capitalist Cannibal Butthole Bird
In northern Cameroon, there exists a belief in a particular kind of cannibal witch. Each such witch has a bird living in their butt that crawls out to eat other people through their butts. It’s weird, wild, creepy, deeply intertwined with local values systems, and super gameable. Also, I’m going to alternate between clinical language […]