30 - May - 2008
Diouldé Laya . 1984. La Voie Peule. Solidarietè pastorale et bienséances sahèliennes. Paris, Nubia. 272.
The Peul (Fufuldé) way of life. The code of honour of a herder people. When I started to be fascinated by the pastoral art of the Sahara I started also to pose myself many questions about the modern African pastoral societies. What disappeared from the desert a long time ago is still thriving somewhere in Sahel. To get into the picture of the African pastoralist cultures this is one of the right book everybody should read (in French).
Reccomended.
19 - April - 2008
Seligmann C.G. 1930. Races of Africa. Oxford University Press.Fourth Edition Reprinted in 1966. 170.
As a lover of the Saharan rock art I realized how much I have to learn about African peoples and cultures. Quite often I discovered that objects displayed in the European ethnographic museums are considered by distinguished rock art-scientists as mysterious unidentified object when they appears on rock panels as paintings... Therefore I started to dig in the ethnographic literature of the '30.
Here following one excerpt I found extremely vivid:
"The rain maker of the Dinka - equally divine kings - were not killed until so old that they themselves suggested this course, believing that they were no longer fit to advise or lead their people. The rain-maker would then lie on a stretcher and allow himself to be placed in the grave which had already been prepared for him; there he would remain for perhaps twenty four hours, from time to time reciting accounts of his deeds and giving advice to the tribesmen who crowded around. Then, when his strength was failing him and he felt that he had no more to say, he would tell his people to cover him, and he would soon suffocate".
Charles Gabriel Seligmann (1873-1940) is best know for his "Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan", published in 1932.
A must to have text. It can be easily found as an outprint book.
4 - April - 2008
2006.The Libyan Desert. Natural resources and cultural heritage. Eds Mattingly D., McLaren S., Savage S., Y. al-Fasatwy & K. Gaadgood. Society For Libyan Study.
A very heterogeneous collection of papers issued from a congress held in Tripoli in 2002 by the Society for Libyan Studies. I purchased this book to read a Saul Kelly's paper that according to the title I thought it was a prosecution of the very interesting book "The Hunt for Zerzura"(2002). Unfortunately it was only a summary of the book I already own, without any novelty.
Among the many different contributions devoted to the prehistory, geology, natural resource and planning I found a paper by j. Keenan about rock art as an economic resource for Libya, i.e. a tourist resource. This idea was proposed to persuade the Libyan people to protect their rock art treasures from hooliganism. The intent was god but in my opinion it was not honest: the prehistoric rock art was not intended for the today mass tourism: it is too fragile. The most advanced countries do not offer their rock art heritage to the mass tourism. Instead they offer replicas or allow the tourists to visit very few selected and specially managed rock art sites. In the National Park of the USA, Australia, France or Spain the ordinary tourist is not allowed to play at will with what is considered part of the national heritage and not a commodity!
A good compilation of papers alredy published elsewhere.
15 - September - 2007
Josephine Flood, 1997. Rock Art of the Dreamtime - Harpercollins Publisher, pp 372.
I enjoyed this book like a novel. It is a challenge to the human mind to think that in Australia an artistic tradition born about 40.000 years ago developed practically without interruption to our days and it is still perfectly alive today. It only changed very recently its preferred material support, abandoning the rocks and natural dies in favour of the canvas and acrylic colours. Another extraordinary fact the non Australian reader will certainly notice is how much successful the Australian archaeologists have been in establishing an absolute chronology of the Australian rock art by direct age determination of engravings and paintings. Thinking to the rarity, not to say the absence of direct age determination for the Saharan rock art, one wonder what went wrong with the Saharan archaeology. May be rock art studies in the Sahara are more the products of amateurs than the product of well paid researchers living in the universities.
In Australia the book is out of print but used copies can be easily purchased on the Internet.
A compulsory reading for everybody fascinated by the Australian rock art.
September - 14 - 2007
Christian Gallissian, 1977. Croisière des sables - Arthaud, Paris, pp 120.
I bought this book fishing it from a stall of used books, pushed from an old curiosity. In 2001, I photographed in Egypt the Balise Saviem 22. Now the Balise 22 is a modern monument, regularly visited from the hundreds of tourists, which every year repeat the classic tour of the Gilf Kebir.
At the moment I shot my picture, I did not understood the meaning of this presumably expensive high-tech cairn. Reading this book finally I understood why somebody took care of building it with a material different than stones. The crossing of the entire Sahara, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, carried out by Mr. Gallissian and companions in 1977, had as a declared scope the opening of a new road, in order to promote the economical and social development of this half- part of Africa. Inside of the dust cover, in fact, it is written:
"Au total, 10.000 kilomètres on été parcourus (dont 7000 hors piste) et 25 balises disposées sur le trajet. L'économie africaine sera la première bénéficiaire de la création de ce nouvel liaison."
Evidently such an over-ambitious dream did not became true. It is even difficult to believe that the organizers really did believed it was possible; perhaps it was necessary for them to pose as philanthropists to satisfy the sponsors that supplied a huge amount of money and equipment. However, if the "cruise of the sands" did not contributed to the economic and social development of the Africans as hoped for, sure it has been a funny enterprise for the participants. Of this adventure today remain some of the 25 balises, now transformed in cult objects by the Sahara maniacs, always enthusiastic for ruins and historical remains of any kind.
The text of the book is inconsistent and in great part regards the employed technology, completely outdated and of no interest for the modern travellers. However, this book is worth the one euro that I spent to purchase it!
More a curiosty that a collectible...
2007- August - 27
Mason Michael H. 1936.The paradise of fools. Being an account, by a member of the party, of the expedition which covered 6,300 miles of the Libyan desert by motor-car in 1935. - Hodder Stoughton, London, pp 282.
This classic book about the Libyan Desert exploration is probably the most hard to find book in the whole series. It took five years to get one copy and many time I was disappointed to discover that the copy from time to time appearing on the internet was sold just few seconds before I placed my order on the Internet. Finally I got one very good copy with the dust-cover still preserved. May be the unique dust-cover surviving…. A clear success for a bibliophile and a collectors of the great travel literature cantered on the Libyan Desert. Notwithstanding Mason was a professional writer this book does not stand comparison with the rest of the collection, I means the books by Forbes, Hassanein, Bagnold, Almasy, etc… Anyway the narrative cover an expedition that today will be impossible: by motorcars from Cairo to the heart of the Darfur in Sudan and back through the Uweinat-Gilf Kebir to Siwa.
The perfect Book for the collector of the great classic about the Libyan Desert. To get one copy is a challenge.
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