African His­to­ry Month is be­ing cel­e­brat­ed in T&T. Dur­ing cel­e­bra­tions in New York, con­sul Gen­er­al Rudrawa­tee Nan Ram­goolam stressed the im­por­tance of cul­ture in the lives of peo­ple. She lament­ed the cul­tur­al dis­con­nect by many of T&T's youth and urged them to re-ex­am­ine their rich cul­tur­al her­itage. Black His­to­ry Month is in­tend­ed to cel­e­brate the ac­com­plish­ments of the African di­as­po­ra.

The cir­cles

Africa is a con­ti­nent steeped in mys­tery. Re­bec­ca Hind's Sa­cred Jour­neys ex­plores the Stone Cir­cles of Senegam­bia. They were lo­cat­ed where the Sal­loum and Gam­bia rivers bor­der an area en­com­pass­ing the mys­te­ri­ous stone cir­cles of Senegam­bia. The high con­cen­tra­tion of an­cient stone cir­cles there is unique. The rings are set in four groups along a 350 kilo­me­tre stretch of the Riv­er Gam­bia. Lit­tle is known about their func­tion or their mak­ers, ex­cept they are grave mark­ers. Yet his­to­ri­ans and ar­chael­o­gists have dis­cov­ered they were built and used be­tween the third cen­tu­ry BC and the 16th cen­tu­ry AD. An ex­cerpt said: "Al­though they are no longer used in a for­mal fash­ion, the cir­cles are tra­di­tion­al­ly vis­it­ed and ho­n­oured with fruits and small stones that are said to glow at night. The cir­cles and nu­mer­ous bur­ial grounds re­late the dead were brought here, cer­e­mo­ni­al­ly, on their last cor­po­ral jour­ney be­fore de­part­ing to the next world."

About the stones

They are main­ly cylin­dri­cal, though some are square-sided or ta­pered and oth­ers have cupped hol­lows or spheres formed at the tops. The height varies from ring to ring, yet with­in each cir­cle the height is large­ly con­sis­tent, with the tallest stone mea­sur­ing 2 me­tres (61/2 feet). They num­ber about 1,000. They are small in com­par­i­sion to Eu­ro­pean stone cir­cles. These are up to six me­tres (20 feet) in di­am­e­ter with a max­i­mum num­ber of 14 stones. The pil­lars are cut from la­t­erite, which is easy to quar­ry yet hard­ens on ex­po­sure to air. They were fash­ioned to a so­phis­ti­cat­ed de­gree by iron tools. Their man­u­fac­ture in­di­cates an or­gan­ised so­ci­ety with suf­fi­cient sta­bil­i­ty to al­lo­cate the time need­ed to craft these cir­cles with care. Grave goods deal with iden­ti­ty and sus­te­nance-a cir­clet on the wrist, a weapon and some pot­tery.

Lan­guage of the stone cir­cles

In oth­er so­ci­eties, stone cir­cles in­di­cate cal­en­dri­cal func­tions. There is noth­ing to sug­gest as­tro­nom­i­cal align­ments. The late Is­lam­ic schol­ar Al­ha­ji Ke­mor­ing Jaiteh, ex­plained that close po­si­tion­ing of the two stones, one large and one small, marked a par­ent and child bur­ial. He even sug­gest­ed the V-shaped stones mark the sa­cred grave of two rel­a­tives who died the same day. The cir­cles rep­re­sents har­mo­ny, the ab­solute and per­fec­tion. It im­plies heav­en and eter­ni­ty. With­in the world of mag­ic and heal­ing, the cir­cle is pro­tec­tive against demons. Fur­ther­more, cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion at sa­cred sites is wide­spread, tak­ing the forms of pro­ces­sions and mi­cro-pil­grim­age. To walk a cer­e­mo­ni­al cir­cle is to fol­low the path of the sun, stars and plan­ets that con­sol­i­dates the cos­mic link be­tween heav­en and earth. It is spec­u­la­tive, but not un­re­al­is­tic, to sug­gest these cir­cles formed pro­ces­sion­al paths con­nect­ed with the fu­ner­ary func­tion. In con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety, a mu­se­um has opened at the Gam­bian site to try and solve the mys­tery of these in­trigu­ing stones, and to share ex­ist­ing knowl­edge with the hun­dreds of sci­en­tists and tourists who vis­it each year.