Bámiṣé 🏳 🌻

YouTube video by Bamise Kongo and Portugal: An Alliance of Death

🚨 New Video! 🚨

From the early days of pre-Bantu peoples to the turbulent reign of Álvaro III, explore the rise, dominance, and decline of the Kingdom of Kongo.

Power, ambition, and resilience—this is a story you won’t want to miss! 👑🔥
youtu.be/_m3sOwD6daU

Dropping Soon!

I’m diving into the history of the Kingdom of Kongo, one of Africa’s most powerful states. Often mistaken for modern-day D.R. Congo or Republic of Congo, Kongo was primarily in northern Angola and thrived long before European interference.
#BlackHistoryMonth #KingdomOfKongo #Bamise

Basketwork boxes decorated with interlocking geometric patterns were produced in the Congolese region and adjacent Angola well into the 20th century. Such containers were used for the storage of luxury wares including raffia textiles and ivory accessories. Some were exported to Europe as early as the mid-17th century and became part of the collections of royals and wealthy aristocrats. Restricted gift of Jamee and Marshall Field; Pauline S. Armstrong Endowment

Container https://www.artic.edu/artworks/180495/

The long, pointed ears, bulging eyes, pronounced snout, and delicate and muted incised decorative elements along its face define this Bamana koredugaso (wooden horse head). This head would have been attached to a long pole at its neck and used as a puppet in Kore society performances. Ntomo and Kore societies exist throughout the Niger Valley; Ntomo was a society for young boys to learn discipline before being initiated into the more secretive Kore society as adolescents. Bamana people understand Kore as the “father of the rain and thunder,” and therefore as related to agriculture—one of the key elements of knowledge to which boys are exposed to in their initiation into Kore. This head may have been used in performances for initiation ceremonies, which take place every seven years, the more frequent dances enacted to bring about rain for farming, or perhaps both. –Permanent Collection Object Description African and Amerindian Art Purchase Fund and Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf

Horse Head (Koredugaso) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/20577/

Honestly, I am trying my best not to see anything coming out of US politics but god be with yall, the things I have seen in the last 2hrs are very scary

I swear I'll focus this page on History... but it's that fact which motivates me to retweet this. We are in a period where information is easier than ever to fake. Full stop. Please stay vigilant, because this is as relevant for history as it is for anything else.

It's a relevant issue to bring up, I now spend a significant amount of time making sure the historical images I'm looking at isn't AI. very scary days ahead

Hello, Bámiṣé here!

I'm working on a video about the Kingdom of Kongo and would love help from anyone who speaks Kikongo, Kituba, or Swahili. If you can help with correct pronunciations of names and places, or know someone who can, please DM me.

Thank you!

Handcoloured copperplate engraving by Antonio Sasso from Giulio Ferrarios Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1843

king Garcia II of Kongo (seated) receiving a Dutch embassy (kneeling), in 1642

17th-century engraving colourized in 1843
#ethnographxt

I started Story boarding for my next video about the Kingdom of Kongo and I think I want to try something different .........🙃

I'm going to try to tweet something every day, make be 2 or3 times a day... hoping to actually grow an audience somewhere

We must lead the world or be damned To get us from the back of the global bus to its steering wheel, pan-Africanism needs to be internationalist too.

It’s easy to be sceptical of pan-Africanism. The notion that Africa isn’t just a geographical space but a metaphysical entity whose population, though genetically the most diverse on earth, shares culture, heritage and a common fate, can seem dubious. But, the idea is bred of necessity not genetics.

diverging fortunes:

at the time when King Leopold was forcing Congo's population to produce rubber, the neighboring kingdom of Kongo, which was still independent, was experiencing a rubber boom, and the majority of the wealth was retained by the African producers.

thread with some graphs:

You're a life saver, I'm on my bed angry because I couldn't find this data

I definitely want to grow another following somewhere else, and this place seems like a good place to do so..

I’m loving it here, a lot less messy than twitter

Medieval Nubian Fashion Brought to Life

www.medievalists.net/2024/11/medi...

I have generally taken a step back from all social media, and Twitter became a hellscape for me

I was about to beg you to come over... welcome

Do you prefer to be here than Twitter?

“bluesky won’t have any debate because it’s all left-leaning folks” - person who has never been in a room with two leftists

Found you