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