ShmoopTube

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And here’s your shmoop du jour, brought to you by priest-kings.

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The empires of the Niger River weren't the only things West Africa had up its sleeve. [Army appears from mans sleeve]

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The West African Coast had a rash of independent towns, city-states, and mini-kingdoms.

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Some were military dictatorships.

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Some were towns ruled by priests. [Priests appear in a tribe]

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And some even had a little democracy happening.

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Unlike the US, the democratic ones thought up representative government without Greek

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and Roman crib notes.

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We could spend days going through the different peoples of the West Coast.

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But we’ve got some cookies in the oven, so uh…we’ll have to hit the highlights. [Men standing together and cookies shaking in a microwave]

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Let’s take a look at three very different West African societies: the Ife Kingdom, the

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Benin Empire, and the Igbo people.

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We’ll start with the city of Ife.

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This place was close to the coast of modern-day Nigeria, and it was a major religious pilgrimage [People using musical instruments]

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site back in medieval times.

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It was a regular god-superstore, with temples to hundreds of local deities. [Man enters deities r us store]

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It's actually still inhabited today.

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People have been living in Ife since at least 600 BCE.

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Which…is a pretty good run.

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Priests eventually took over the whole city—army, merchants, government, the whole kit and caboodle. [Priest King walking through city]

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By the 11th century, Ife was ruled by a bonafide priest-king.

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This guy used his control over the different religious priesthoods to boss around other

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cities.

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Although the priest-king never had direct control over an empire, pilgrims and religious [Priest King and people praying]

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leaders from hundreds of miles away followed his lead.

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Next door to Ife was the Benin Empire, which was also close to the coast of modern-day

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Nigeria.

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The Benin Empire was ruled by a priest-king the locals called the “Oba.” [Oba appears by Benin tribe]

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Unlike Ife's priest-kings, the Oba was sometimes elected instead of being born into the title.

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The Oba ruled a very large, very powerful city-state called Benin City.

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Even though he was technically a priest-king, the Oba of Benin was more of a military guy. [Oba transforms into warrior]

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We’d call him a priest-warrior-king, but that takes too long to say.

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To be a citizen in the capital of Benin City, you had to serve in the Oba's military. [Men in military enter benin city]

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If you couldn't serve because you…

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banged your foot on the bed or something, you might be forced to produce weapons or [Man creating a weapon]

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food instead.

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By 1500, the legions of Benin included at least 30,000 soldiers, armed with steel armor,

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pikes, warhorses, composite bows, and muskets. [Benin soldiers appear]

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Benin's empire was a basically a network of cities that paid money to Benin every year

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to avoid getting a beat down. [Man waving money at others]

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It was the classic protection money extortion scam.

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Ife and Benin City were powers that knew how to throw their weight around. [Ife and Benin in a boxing ring]

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But not all African kingdoms were total control freaks.

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Take the Igbo people, for example.

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They had a polytheistic religion like Benin City, but each town had its own temples.

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So nobody bothered centralizing things under one priest-king.

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Igbo towns actually worked like little republics.

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All the landowners in a town, including women, voted for representatives to lead everybody [Land owners appear]

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else.

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Elected representatives did all the boring government stuff, like keeping law and order, [People placing items into a canon]

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resolving disputes over property, and collecting debts.

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OK, that stuff is probably fun for some people…

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Compared to most other medieval societies, Igbo culture was also pretty advanced on women's [Igbo people in a field]

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rights.

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The ladies could own property, vote, and hold protests against rapists and wife-beaters.

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In some cases, marriage between two women was even legal, as long as one woman took [Women marrying each other]

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the role of head of the family.

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Igbo culture was a neat departure from the usual kingly extortion racket. [Men holding a man out of a window]

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It makes you wonder what other unique cultures were out there in historical Africa.

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There could’ve been whole societies ruled by… intelligent giraffes who governed with [Giraffe ruling over igbo tribe people]

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wisdom and fortitude.

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OK, that one’s unlikely.

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