Land and Identity in Afrikan Tradition: The Origins of the Ancestral Land Complex

Abstract

The Afrikan traditional attitude to land is marked by the understanding that land is inalienable and owned by the community, not by any individual. This essay aims to recover, explain and analyze the presence of the Afrikan Ancestral Land Complex, a specific behavioral complex that is rooted in the land. The focus is the ancient Hapi [Nile] Valley, primarily at Kemet. Approaches derived mainly from history and language and linguistics are used to interrogate the sacred and secular texts of Kemet, Ancient Egypt, as well as the texts generated by modern scholarship on this area of Afrika. The results show that the ritual insertion of placentas, navel strings and dead bodies of ancestors into the land was fundamental to its transformation and maintenance as Ancestral Land. Furthermore, Kemet oriented itself by its Ancestral Land, which the people knew to be their birthplace in the sacred south, in the heart of the continent. It was a powerful spiritual, psychological, and cultural reference point, the very foundations of their collective self. It is a reservoir of knowledge that is deeper than memory.