Laurie heard the beating of a drum coming from the study.
Then she heard Grandpa call out, "Hear me, people, for I speak the truth!
Tell this story to your children so the name Sundiata—the Lion King—lives forever!"
"Grandpa!" Laurie pushed the study door open. "What are you doing?"
Grandpa sat on the couch with a large drum.
A stringed instrument was by his feet.
"I'm practicing for my African storytelling performance.
Hayside Elementary asked me to give a presentation to their third grade.
I'll be telling them about the golden age of Africa."
"But what are the instruments for?" Laurie asked.
"African storytellers play instruments while sharing their legends and histories.
It's usually this instrument called the kora and maybe a drum."
"That's cool. What's the story about?" Laurie asked.
"It's about three kingdoms of Africa—the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai kingdoms.
These developed on the edge of the Sahara Desert.
During the Middle Ages, some of the richest kingdoms in the world developed there.
Originally, people of the Sahara were desert nomads who wandered from oasis to oasis to find water and vegetation for themselves and their herds.
But legend says they always returned to one oasis, where they left their heavy belongings with a woman named Buktu.
Eventually this spot became a city called Timbuktu, named after the woman.
By around 1100 AD, Timbuktu was a major city along the trading route that crossed the Sahara and carried goods from Africa to Arabia."
"Isn't the Sahara Desert huge?" Laurie asked. "How did they cross it?"
"It is huge. Imagine that you have to journey through it for days and nights carrying loads of gold, fabric, iron tools, and clay pots.
What would you do?" Grandpa paused and looked at Laurie.
"Gather up your camels, of course! The Africans traveled by camel caravan.
These animals can walk through hot sand for days without food or water.
So traders loaded up about a hundred camels with goods and then set off into the desert.
Usually the trip to Arabia took about forty days.
Can you guess what made the Africans so rich during their golden age?" Grandpa asked with a smile.
"Gold!" Laurie responded.
"Right! Gold and . . . salt," Grandpa said. "Salt was so important back then that it had the same value as gold.
Salt is used to keep food from spoiling. It also makes food taste good.
But most importantly it is essential to human bodies. We can't live without salt!
And when you sweat, you lose a lot of salt, so it was especially important to Africans who lived in a hot climate and sweated a lot every day.
Salt and gold helped the first great African kingdom—the Ghana kingdom—come to power.
Ghana's cities became home to the best artists and scholars on the continent.
But eventually the Ghanaians were overrun by a group of Islamic Arabs.
Wars broke out as different groups tried to gain control over the cities.
Then a brave warrior named Sundiata, or 'hungering lion,' led his people to defeat the existing rulers.
In 1235 he established the next great kingdom—the Mali kingdom—and created a stable government with a tax system.
Under his rule, Mali grew richer and stronger every year.
Then in 1307 another great leader, named Mansa Musa, came to the throne.
He doubled the size of the kingdom and tripled its trade.
Gold was flowing from Mali to Arabia, and then into Europe.
Islamic Arabic traders had been trying to convert Africans to Islam for years, and Mali was the first kingdom to accept Islam as its religion.
In 1324 Mansa Musa, a devoted Muslim, made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of Islam.
This pilgrimage gave Arabs their first image of how rich Mali was.
Mansa Musa's caravan was the largest ever to travel across the Sahara.
Five-hundred slaves walked before the great king.
Mansa Musa, with his party of over fifty-thousand people, followed.
One-hundred camels walked behind them, carrying over thirty-thousand pounds of gold.
Mansa Musa was proud to present the riches of his kingdom to the Arabs.
Everywhere he went he gave out beautiful gifts.
He also went to markets and bought everything the merchants offered him.
And he always paid in pure gold. Mansa Musa left quite an impression in Arabia.
News of his incredible pilgrimage even traveled to Europe, where people were stunned by this rich king of Africa."
"Did it make Europeans want to go to Africa too?" Laurie asked.
"It did. But we'll get to that later.
Still one more great African kingdom arose after Mali—the Songhai kingdom.
Songhai was a territory that had been captured by Mali, and its people wanted their freedom back.
In 1468 a Songhai leader named Sunni Ali Ber took over Timbuktu and gained control of the Saharan trading routes.
The Mali kingdom fell apart, and the Songhai kingdom ruled West Africa.
But no golden age lasts forever. In 1591 Muslims from Morocco attacked the Songhai kingdom.
And you were absolutely right, Laurie. Learning about the rich African kingdoms made people want to take control of Africa.
In the 1600s the Portuguese and Dutch began setting up their own cities and colonies there. But that's another story."
"Wow, I never knew Africa had kingdoms like that," Laurie said.
"Yeah," Grandpa said sadly. "Most people only learn about the slave trade that brought Africans to the Americas.
But Africans have a much greater history to be proud of.
And I will be proud to tell it." Grandpa tapped his drum.
"Well, I have a great story of my own to tell."
Laurie moved the drum between her legs and tapped it.
"Listen to my story. Here are the adventures of a fourth-grader!"
And she began to tell Grandpa about a brave young girl named Laurie and her wise grandfather who studied the past.