niverse. While
this religion might be described as primitive, it cannot be viewed as
simplistic. It involved a series of complex ideas about fetishes,
ancestors, and deities which required a high degree of intelligence.

The intricacies of theology, law, medicine, and politics made it
necessary to develop a complex system of oral education. Europeans, who
tended to identify knowledge with writing, had long assumed that, because
there was no written language in early Africa, there could be no body of
knowledge. After the arrival of Islam, Arabic provided a written form
within which West African ideas could be set down.

Only recently have scholars become aware of the libraries and the many
publications to be found in West Africa. Two of these books were
responsible for providing historians with detailed information about the
customs and social structure of the area. One was the Tarikh al-Fattiish,
the chronicle of the seeker after knowledge, written by Mahmud Kati in
the early fifteenth century. The other was the Tarikh al-Sudan, the
chronicle of the Western Sudan, written by Abd al-Rahman as-Sadi about
the beginning of the seventeenth century.

The society of West Africa was stratified in several different ways. It
was divided in terms of differing occupations: farmers, merchants,
priests, scholars, laborers, and a wide variety of craftsmen. The social
ranking assigned to these occupation divisions varied according to the
importance of each occupation.

Society was also divided in terms of clans, families, and villages. At
the same time, there was a hierarchical division based on the varying
degrees of political power each group exercised within its society. Some
had the power to become chiefs and rulers. Some had the right to choose
and depose rulers, and others could limit and define the rights of the
rulers. However, almost everywhere there was a clear trend toward
increasing centralized authority and decreasing popular participation.
The centralization of power in West Africa never reached the extremes of
absolute monarchy which occurred in Europe, and there was never the same
need for revolutionary social changes to revive democratic participation
within African society.

In an old Asante ritual, connected with the enthronement of a ruler, the
people pray that their ruler should not be greedy, should not be hard of
hearing, should not act on his own initiative nor perpetuate personal
abuse nor commit violen