A historian once characterised the lowland/highland dynamic in Abyssinia as hinging on an uneasy alliance between the 'people of the camel' (ferrying in and out goods from places such as Gendebelo, from the low arid country and the coastal ports), and the 'people of the mule' (and donkeys), beasts of burden that were required for goods being transported over the Ethiopian plateaus.
The Gedeon Force that liberated Ethiopia from the Italians had many thousands of camels, that apparently all died in short order from the cold and wet of the highlands.
It makes one wonder how the Romans managed to used these animals, quite extensively from the maps presented here, in Europe.
I guess Camels should be able to survive better in Europe than in the lower latitudes of Africa, because of the tse-tse, but the problem would be how to feed them, because there aren't a lot of thorny shrubs in the west. However, I wouldn't put it past the Romans to carry those with them.
For the Sahara, one of the reasons the "replacement" happened is that colonial developmental policies were decidedly biased against desert/nomadic communities in the desert, where most of the trade and travel on camelback occurred. Today, some of those oasis towns that previously harboured thousands of people now have barely a few hundred. The demographic shift to the south transformed the Sahara, and the use of the Camel.
I saw a camel-driven mill for grinding sesame seeds to oil in Barentu, western Eritrea in 1972. The mill consisted of a large mortar made from a hollowed out olive wood trunk & a pestle also made of olive wood, resting in the mortar, to which was connected a long counterweighted pole to which a camel was harnessed. As the camel walked around the mortar, the pestle would slowly press oil from the sesame seeds. There was no way of determining how ancient this technology was, but nearby I saw a shadoof, an implement that dates to ancient Egypt, being used for irrigation.
Researching this, I was surprised that a lot of these technologies actually originated from rural contexts, rather than from the more educated urban elite. It's possible that these technologies were spread along these "informal" peripheral networks between semi-nomadic populations that are often ignored in most traditional historical writing.
The East African mills I mentioned in this essay probably only came to the attention of writers when they were incorporated into the growing trade for commodities, but there's reason to believe that, at least in the drier regions of the north, such devices were in place for longer, and may not necessarily have been used in commercial agriculture.
An amazing article, rich in descriptive text, appropriate illustrations and scrupulously referenced, as usual.
IMHO, a tour de force. - Kudos, Sir.
Been spit on by camels a number of times while "answering the call of nature", as it were, just off the major road north from Isiolo towards Archer's Post and Marsabit in the NFD of Kenya. I worked on cattle African trypanosomes at an institute outside Nairobi from 1983-1993 and spent a fair amount of time in the bush.
In one instance, you mentioned that camels couldn't (or shouldn't) go into tse-tse areas, which is absolutely correct.
Thus, as a retired microbiologist who worked primarily on the African trypanosomes (spread by their vector, the tse-tse fly) and malaria, a thought came that an exploration of the influence of African trypanosomes (both human and animal species), as well as malaria, on human migration patterns, sustained occupancy of some areas, cattle rearing, farming, etc. might be very illustrative of the ingenuity and resiliency of African populations in what is arguably some of the most harsh environments on Earth.
Human-infective trypanosomes are, generally, opportunistic infections acquired during human movement (of various causes) through tse-tse areas (riverine or savannah), cattle infections are more endemic to certain areas, usually delineated by the tse-tse species.
One Africa solution is the use N'Dama cattle which are "trypano-tolerant". We had some N'Dama at the institute I worked at outside Nairobi, which were brought in as frozen embryos from West Africa and implanted into Zebu and/or Boran females. N'Dama are gorgeous cattle.
It would be a big endeavor but, IMHO, worthwhile and illustrative of African adaptation and ingenuity.
Very interesting.
A historian once characterised the lowland/highland dynamic in Abyssinia as hinging on an uneasy alliance between the 'people of the camel' (ferrying in and out goods from places such as Gendebelo, from the low arid country and the coastal ports), and the 'people of the mule' (and donkeys), beasts of burden that were required for goods being transported over the Ethiopian plateaus.
The Gedeon Force that liberated Ethiopia from the Italians had many thousands of camels, that apparently all died in short order from the cold and wet of the highlands.
It makes one wonder how the Romans managed to used these animals, quite extensively from the maps presented here, in Europe.
True.
I guess Camels should be able to survive better in Europe than in the lower latitudes of Africa, because of the tse-tse, but the problem would be how to feed them, because there aren't a lot of thorny shrubs in the west. However, I wouldn't put it past the Romans to carry those with them.
I did some digging and found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMhZwn2Ki94
(CAMELS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. A NEW APPROACH TO THE ORIGIN OF CAMELS USING STABLE CARBON)
Amazing post!
I travelled The Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin.
It looks like a railway story. But it is really a camel story.
Before steel tracks, camels made the interior repeatable.
They turned distance into routes, wells into nodes, and uncertainty into trust.
The railway did not replace anything. It formalised what the cameleers had already made possible.
That is the lesson for financial inclusion.
Agents, merchants, airtime dealers, cash handlers, and informal liquidity brokers are not “legacy infrastructure.”
They are the camel layer.
The first system that makes trust, liquidity, and movement repeatable.
Digital rails do not scale by deleting the camel layer. They scale by repricing its coordination work.
True.
For the Sahara, one of the reasons the "replacement" happened is that colonial developmental policies were decidedly biased against desert/nomadic communities in the desert, where most of the trade and travel on camelback occurred. Today, some of those oasis towns that previously harboured thousands of people now have barely a few hundred. The demographic shift to the south transformed the Sahara, and the use of the Camel.
I saw a camel-driven mill for grinding sesame seeds to oil in Barentu, western Eritrea in 1972. The mill consisted of a large mortar made from a hollowed out olive wood trunk & a pestle also made of olive wood, resting in the mortar, to which was connected a long counterweighted pole to which a camel was harnessed. As the camel walked around the mortar, the pestle would slowly press oil from the sesame seeds. There was no way of determining how ancient this technology was, but nearby I saw a shadoof, an implement that dates to ancient Egypt, being used for irrigation.
Researching this, I was surprised that a lot of these technologies actually originated from rural contexts, rather than from the more educated urban elite. It's possible that these technologies were spread along these "informal" peripheral networks between semi-nomadic populations that are often ignored in most traditional historical writing.
The East African mills I mentioned in this essay probably only came to the attention of writers when they were incorporated into the growing trade for commodities, but there's reason to believe that, at least in the drier regions of the north, such devices were in place for longer, and may not necessarily have been used in commercial agriculture.
I thought it might be too much including all the permutations and possibilities.
Would make a good thesis topic for an advanced degree in African Studies.
Thanks for your reply.
An amazing article, rich in descriptive text, appropriate illustrations and scrupulously referenced, as usual.
IMHO, a tour de force. - Kudos, Sir.
Been spit on by camels a number of times while "answering the call of nature", as it were, just off the major road north from Isiolo towards Archer's Post and Marsabit in the NFD of Kenya. I worked on cattle African trypanosomes at an institute outside Nairobi from 1983-1993 and spent a fair amount of time in the bush.
In one instance, you mentioned that camels couldn't (or shouldn't) go into tse-tse areas, which is absolutely correct.
Thus, as a retired microbiologist who worked primarily on the African trypanosomes (spread by their vector, the tse-tse fly) and malaria, a thought came that an exploration of the influence of African trypanosomes (both human and animal species), as well as malaria, on human migration patterns, sustained occupancy of some areas, cattle rearing, farming, etc. might be very illustrative of the ingenuity and resiliency of African populations in what is arguably some of the most harsh environments on Earth.
Human-infective trypanosomes are, generally, opportunistic infections acquired during human movement (of various causes) through tse-tse areas (riverine or savannah), cattle infections are more endemic to certain areas, usually delineated by the tse-tse species.
One Africa solution is the use N'Dama cattle which are "trypano-tolerant". We had some N'Dama at the institute I worked at outside Nairobi, which were brought in as frozen embryos from West Africa and implanted into Zebu and/or Boran females. N'Dama are gorgeous cattle.
It would be a big endeavor but, IMHO, worthwhile and illustrative of African adaptation and ingenuity.
Thank you. I would have loved to break down the different species and cross-breeding, but it would have been too wordy
Great article thanks
Wow! A hidden treasure & gift, Thank you for expanding knowledge.