Obscured from view

There’s been some controversy over presenting politically correct versions of European history. The other problem or rather the biggest problem is that African history outside of Egypt isn’t well known. Some of those African empires may even be Muslim like in Mali and Morocco whilst others like the Ashanti empire (precursor to both Ghana and Ivory Coast) and the Grassfield kingdoms are subjected to some degree of colonialism.

There’s one historically Christian African empire known as the Abyssinian empire (precursor to Eritrea and Ethiopia) but that too is subjected to a degree of Italian colonialism especially in WWII as I can remember. Almost as if the entire history of Sub-Saharan Africa to everybody else is viewed through the Slave Trade.

Though that’s also true, it also obscures the actual histories of these kingdoms and empires that are precursors to contemporary nation-states and regions. Modern day Cameroon is based on what’s left of the Muslim Hausa empire and Grassfield kingdoms as well as Fang kingdoms at that as both Cameroon and its neighbour Gabon have many of the latter. Nigeria itself is based on both Hausa empires and Yoruba and Igbo kingdoms.

Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Niger (practically almost any country with a substantial Berber population) were based on Berber kingdoms and dynasties. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Zambia are successors to the Kingdom of Congo. Even Egypt itself housed different kingdoms including that of the Nubians and historically included both Sudan and South Sudan.

Not necessarily entirely forgotten but obscure enough to be practically glossed over. It’s not people’s fault for why they think a lot about Egypt when it comes to African history because it’s the most famous. Indeed it houses the Nubians, who are related to Ethiopians if I recall going to Billy Gamba’s blog before. They could simply be ignorant of all the other African kingdoms and empires.

Non-Western empires in 2030

It’s been expected that both China and India will become the world’s largest economies in 2030…as they were centuries before. The same can be said of some African countries with relation to their histories as parts of kingdoms and empires. The Hausa empire spawned parts of contemporary Ghana, Sudan, Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and Niger.

The Ewe kingdom or empire encompassed parts of Cote d’Ivoire and Togo (conversely speaking, the Akan empire or kingdom encompassed both Ivory and Gold Coasts, the latter’s now called Ghana). The Kingdom of Congo begat the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Zambia. The Grassland kingdoms encompass Western Cameroon, Abyssinia begat modern Ethiopia and Eritrea.

There were big sultanates and chieftancies in the Philippines, which now exists in pockets. Ad infinitum. For a good portion in global history up to the 20th century, the West dominated the world. DRC, Rwanda and Burundi belonged to Belgium. Parts of the Arabic and Hausa empires seceded to British, German and French powers.

Now it seems many of them are regaining their pre-colonial, pre-Western powers at this point. One will wait till they’ll regain it for good.

Uncertain around dogs

There was a study stating that people love dogs more than any other animal though I suspect that would’ve been based on a limited sample and might not be applicable to every other place or community. Though this might not always exactly be the case, there are instances, attitudes and beliefs that determine the degree of attachment.

If dogs were often meant for more practical purposes and allowed to stay outside longer, it should be generally inevitable that one would have to be less attached to dogs especially if certain situations arise. There was a study in Botoku, Ghana about hunters who were attached to dogs had to let them go and they did.

I do recall a Ugandan account of people who make their dogs hunt by starving them and similar things happened in the Beng community in Cote d’Ivoire. Then you have religious beliefs that control this. Like I said, it’s not just Muslims that are uncertain around dogs but also Christians and Jews.

In fact, the Catholic Church banned nuns from owning animals (save for cats at least in England) and they banned them from owning dogs in 18th century Naples. The Armenian church at some point abhorred both dogs and donkeys as well as Armenian beliefs of the Devil appearing as a dog (very common in Western Eurasia especially in tandem with witch dogs).

The belief in demonic and witch-dogs is still around in Pentecostal or African Initiated churches in Uganda, Zambia, South Africa, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Democratic Republic of Congo. I remember a document where it mentions dogs being associated with hatred, prostitution and witchcraft.

Could be wrong though but there’s another document in that country where children accused of witchcraft were assumed to turn into dogs, alleged former witch-doctors using dogs and bewitching dogs biting people at least in Matadi. Similar beliefs occur in Cameroon and Ghana to whatever degree.

In that context, it makes sense why eighteenth century people were uncomfortable with owners who get too affectionate with their dogs, especially if they’re (made) useless almost as if the only real use for them at all is sexual. There’s the old stereotype of the old maid and her lapdog, probably best known to Hispanophones as Dona Clotilde from El Chavo del Ocho.

(There’s an earlier version of the stereotype where women are accused of witchcraft if they have sex with dogs, presumed to be demonic guises, at all.)

Keep in mind that in those days that even if dogs’ positive qualities were recognised, these were also equally undercut by beliefs in dogs being witches, demons or the Devil in disguise based on two French documents I’ve read. Dogs, like cats, arouse polarising attitudes in Abrahamic faiths best exemplified by that both clergy and witches own them.

Like I said, secularism has something to do with weakening negative attitudes to dogs. After all, European churches used to have the habit of driving away dogs by force and dogs are still forbidden in Orthodox churches. There’s an account where dogs are driven away in Pentecostal Ghanaian churches for fear that they’ll be demonically possessed.

Again this isn’t always the case depending on the individual itself but when taken as a whole there are glaring differences between how communities treat and view dogs. Christianity, like Islam, is rather ambivalent around dogs noting their positive qualities but still suspecting them of witchcraft and being in alliance with the Devil.

 

The weird thing

The weird thing about Early Modern Period European witchcraft and demonology beliefs is that they included a wider variety of witch familiars and guises. The demonic bestiary included dogs (which were sometimes the most common), cats, mice, owls, toads, wolves, monkeys and hares. A similar degree of variety’s still found in certain Zambian, Cameroonian, Kinois/Congolese, Ghanaian and Ugandan churches.

Though this depends on the locale but based on the Renaissance texts and studies I’ve read, it’s really that common for dogs to be witch familiars and guises. Even those that recognised positive traits in them still recognised or mentioned them as in alliance with the Devil. (But that could just be me.) At least based on two French texts I’ve read.

Most of the English texts I’ve encountered hardly note such qualities at all though I could be misremembering but I won’t doubt if Early Modern folklore diverged considerably from its 19th century counterpart especially in having a more diverse demonic bestiary.

 

Something strange

While some suggest that the idea of keeping a dog as a companion and the positive connotations with dogs may’ve started in the West, this is only partly correct especially when you bring up that dogs are frequently mentioned in earlier documents as both witches’ familiars and guises (as well as demons’ and the Devil’s favourite guise). A woman would be accused of witchcraft if she had sex with a dog.

Though the dogs’ demonic association eventually subsided, the suspicion (and disdain) towards excessive closeness to dogs still lingered especially towards lapdogs in the 18th century. It’s telling that even if keeping dogs for companionship’s increasingly common, there are still people who keep dogs for guarding and hunting as well as dog owners who let them stray/stay outside and owners who aren’t close to their dogs.

The belief in demonic and witch dogs still occurs in Ghana, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon among other places. Especially among Pentecostal Churches. Not that this hasn’t stopped people from owning dogs but it’s parsimonious to suggest that secularism may’ve helped turn the dog’s reputation around especially with Christianity’s decline in the West and rise in the South.

Historically, churches employed people to eliminate dogs and dogs are still forbidden in Orthodox churches. In the like manner, various African Pentecostal churches accuse dogs of witchcraft. Not necessarily always the case but it seems a strong belief in Christianity (though depending on the locale) has a profound effect on attitudes to dogs.

This also goes hand in hand with how socialised the dog is to people. If the dog’s owned but spends a lot of its time outside then it’s inevitable that people would be weirded out by excessive emotional attachment to dogs like it occurred in 18th century Europe.

More from Google Books

You Can Defeat Demons: A Practical Guide to Casting out Evil Spirits

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=1466957972
Emmanuel M. Nsofwa – 2007 – ‎Preview – ‎More editions
A Practical Guide to Casting out Evil Spirits Emmanuel M. Nsofwa. send a demon of lust to him. The demon … If he heard aparent calling achild ‘a dog’, he would send demons to enter the child and make him behave like a dog because the parent had opened adoor by calling him adog.Mukendi gave another exampleof amanwho … The woman confronted him, saying “Youarea witch,”and continued, “God toldus thatyou practise witchcraft.Repent.” He was shocked, but managed to say, …

 

Zambian lore via Google Books

Zambia Then And Now: Colonial Rulers and their African Successors

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=1135784434
William Grant – 2009 – ‎Preview – ‎More editions
Sucha strength of beliefin the power ofevil and the fearthatwent withit playedintothe handsof unscrupulous blackmagic witch doctors (thealozi)who claimed to beableto remove thespell. So, too, did the Africantendency to attribute everything to being caused by a human agent. This wasevident intheuse of language. ALunda wouldnot say,’I havebeen bitten by adog.’ He would say,’Anansumi kudi kawa,’ which means, ‘They have bittenme bya dog.’ Inother words, the dog was sentby evil …
Bitterness (An African Novel from Zambia): – Page 63

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=159569031X
Malama Katulwende – 2005 – ‎Preview
He rubbed into the bleeding cuts a powder concocted from different things such as barks, herbs, roots, a cobra’s head, and the excreta of a dog. Besa was given a witchcraft antidote to swallow – the taste of which made him queasy. ‘One important thing,’ said the herbalist. ‘There are some prohibitions that must be followed every day of your life. You shall not sleep with another man’s wife or a pregnant woman unless she is your wife, or eat any food prepared by a woman who has seen …
Zambian Myths and Legends of the Wild

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=9982848003
Kenneth Kangende – 2001 – ‎Snippet view – ‎More editions
ZAMBIAN MUSIC LEGENDS – Page 284

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=1470953358
Leonard Koloko – 2012 – ‎Preview
After being a roadieboy for several big bands including the Great WITCH he settled down with an enterprising band in Luanshya where he found a job as an electrician on the mines. Based at … However his stint with Osadabwa did not last long as he left to join the Zambia Army where he played for the Green Buffaloes Combos led by He She Mambo in Kabwe. On one of the … He is first to kill their only child after that he is asked to kill a dog and make soup using its ears. He is further …
Spirits And Letters: Reading, Writing and Charisma in African …

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=0857453912
Thomas G. Kirsch – 2013 – ‎Preview – ‎More editions
Frank talk about witchcraft, in contrast, was an indication that nobody present was locally suspected of being a witch.2 In the case of suspicions of witchcraft, delegation of responsibility was also connected with Zambian national law. Like the Witchcraft … He disclosed that a dog had appeared in his visions (leubona ebilengaano rnurnuya usalala [to see a vision through the Holy Spirit]), which he explained as signifying that the affliction had been induced by witchcraft. Instead of giving …
Witches, Westerners, and HIV: AIDS and Cultures of Blame in Africa

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=1315415712
Alexander Rödlach – 2016 – ‎Preview – ‎More editions
Mwanza, Allast 1999 Social Policy in an Economy under Stress: The Case of Zimbabwe. Harare: Sapes Books. Nadel, S. F. 1970 Witchcraft in Four African Societies. In Witchcraft and Sorcery: Selected Readings. M. Marwick, ed., pp. 264¥79. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Nangati, Fanuel 1991 ZINATHA Community Based Health Education Programme on HIV/AIDS: Report on Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Traditional Healers (Gutu District Baseline Survey), pp. 46. Harare.
Glimmers of Hope : A Memoir of Zambia – Page 104

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=0557097487
Mark Burke – 2009 – ‎Preview – ‎More editions
A dog ? Even running around the house I could never find anything, and witchcraft stories started to play in my head. Eventually Sondashi passed by one night and upon hearing the wheezing, assured me it was an owl that must have taken up residence in my chimney. Having another rat and snake killer around was fine with me, and the great bird was left undisturbed. I was sorry later one day to see one of the great owls dead by the Brothers Residence. The great talons were at least …
The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns – Page 64

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=1134679424
Bassey Andah, ‎Alex Okpoko, ‎Thurstan Shaw – 2014 – ‎Preview – ‎More editions
Domestic dog has also been identified by Peters (1985—6) in his reassessment of the fauna from Esh Shaheinab (c. 3300 BC) and from the predynastic site of Toukh in Upper Egypt. No certain identifications of dog remains, south of the equator, are known until the first millennium AD. From Fagan’s iron age excavations at Isamu Pati Mound, Kalomo in Zambia, Degerbol (1967) identified the remains of seven domestic dogs which are dated to AD c. 950—1000. More recently, dog has …

Some Zambian Beliefs

Dreams in the African Literature by Nelson Osamu Hayashida:

Dream Symbols: Like the traditionalists, members of the AICs (African Initiated Churches) considered symbols essential to dream interpretation though even for traditionalists many revelations were straightforward enough. We do not find among the Christians the tendency to interpret the opposite to what is seen and heard in the dream or vision as we do wit the traditional cultures. Many AIC revelations take on Biblical objects, characters and symbolism. Yet we are quickly reminded how for one AIC God can be revealed in lightning, a snake or some other creature; and for another AIC group witchcraft or evil spirits are conveyed in owls, rats, dogs, cats, and cows. It is safe to say that in the membership of AIC, a mixture of old and new dream and vision symbols can be found. Seeing the ‘Bible’ or hearing Jehovah’s ‘voice’ is new. The ‘dying’ and ‘returning’ to life that diviners or ngangas often undergo, the Christian prophets sometimes undergo as well.

You Can Defeat Demons: A Practical Guide to Casting Out Evil Spirits by Emmanuel M Nsofwa:

Native witches usually turn into such animals as lions, leopards, tigers, hyenas, crocodiles, snakes or domestic animals like dogs or cats. These man-animals can be defeated in the name of Jesus because he has given us power over them.

Some attitudes to dogs

Like I said many times before especially in parts of Europe and Africa, dogs were/are associated with witchcraft so much so that European churches used to get rid of them a lot. In Orthodox churches, dogs are forbidden. This isn’t always the case but the suspicion and even hatred of dogs among Christian churches might be more common than one realises so it’s not just a Muslim thing when you think about it.

It’s also parsimonious that the cultures or rather countries most likely to esteem dogs more tend to be non-Abrahamic. Maybe not always the case and consistently so but the attitude to dogs in secular and Biblical/Christian contexts can be very jarring. Moreso if you compare contemporary Western attitude to dogs that of their early Modern and 20-21st century church attitude to dogs.

A good number of Ghanaian Pentecostal churches associate dogs with witchcraft, a sentiment agreed with Zambian African initiated churches and Early Modern demonology reports. (I do recall a report on Zambia where people would stone cats and dogs for fear of witchcraft.)

Though there are reports of canine witchcraft in a predominantly non-Abrahamic nation like Japan, it’s not as frequent as in countries with majority Abrahamic beliefs at least to my knowledge. The Bible and to some extent, the Koran, have also dwelt on the dog’s predatory and territorial inclinations to the point of comparing its behaviour to evildoers.

In fact in both mainstream Islam and Orthodox Judaism, owning a dog is fine for as long as it’s done within reason like guarding houses. Though there are Christian folk beliefs and Muslim sects that do esteem dogs well, this is also coupled with constant negativity around them and similar things can be said of cats to some degree.

The Christian negativity to dogs in Western Europe gradually faded with not only the arrival of dog breeds en masse but also changes in pet keeping and secularism, especially the Enlightenment. There was an old belief that if you kill a dog, suffer from nearly a decade of misfortune and that the Devil would alternate between cat and dog forms.

Secularism did these away to some extent (depending on whoever recalls those beliefs as human memory’s fallible anyways) but that’s a big factor in determining how people feel around dogs anyways even if it’s not always the case as it depends on the community regardless if they’re African, European, Christian or Muslim.

I suspect

I suspect that there might be many other reasons why dogs aren’t well-liked in Abrahamic religions, beyond what most followers would realise if we take dogs’ association with witchcraft and sensuality into account. It’s not just dirtiness but also dogs’ apparently inherent moodiness that makes it a bad fit for Abrahamic devotion and piety so a more obedient animal has to take its place.

Unsurprisingly, churches historically not only violently warded off dogs (which Orthodox churches still do today) but also associated them with witchcraft which would’ve been more common than most people would realise. In fact according to two books, they even outnumber cats in animal witchcraft accusations. These could be mistaken or something but oddly confirms Koranic and Biblical disdain, sometimes mild suspicion of them.

This was especially prevalent in the Renaissance at least when it came to the many surviving demonology reports at the time when printing was becoming more commonplace outside of East Asia. (I also suspect these beliefs were even older, also in line with dogs being hated for their association with paganism once Christianity arrived in Europe.)

Unsurprisingly, some surviving Francophone demonology reports remember dogs’ close association with Hecate who’s also linked with witchcraft. (The same book also described dogs as terrestrial demons as well as reports of witches turning into dogs themselves.) Another, Discours des Spirits, describes the Devil as alternating between cat and dog forms and some texts agree however with sorcerers and demons in general.

Such beliefs survive in some Ghanaian, Zambian, Ugandan, Congolese and Cameroonian Pentecostal churches which would’ve given a better idea of how prevalent and serious they were in Early Modern France (some parts of Belgium too) and England (their would-be colonisers). Some of them are also the same places where dogs are associated with promiscuity, which magnifies their suspicion and even disdain.

Now here are excerpts:

The cults of the dog – Page 383

https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=7V3XAAAAMAAJ
M. Oldfield Howey – 1972 – ‎Snippet view
… following allusion to witches who, when shape-shifting, at times took canine form: “Thus Witches, Possest, even their deaths deluded, say They haue been wolues, and dogs.” (Act V, last scene). This alleged faculty of metamorphosis identifies the witches with the Daughters of Diana, and it seems probable that animal masks and skins were worn by the members of the cult when they performed the ritual of the Coven, even as was the practice in ancient Greece, where the same power …

The moon: myth, magic, and fact – Page 93

https://books.google.com.ph/books?isbn=0760707820
Diana Brueton – 1998 – ‎Snippet view – ‎More editions
This fearsome old creature was originally the ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft, but later came to be associated with the Moon and other Moon goddesses. The Romans depicted her enthroned in triple form, with three hands and three pairs of arms, holding daggers, whips and torches, and with serpents at her feet. She was also shown with howling dogs, probably because dogs howl at the Moon, and she is often invoked by magicians and witches for her underworld connections.
The Witchcraft World – Page 26

https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=qux9AAAAMAAJ
Geoffrey Leslie Simons – 1974 – ‎Snippet view – ‎More editions
Jerome Cardan wrote of witches in his De Rerum Varietae (1557) and noted: ‘They [witches] adore the ludi Dominant [the Lady of the Games] and sacrifice to her as a god.’ The Lady was Diana and the games were … was often identified with Diana and Artemis. She was also regarded in ancient Greece as a goddess of witchcraft. … Hecate was often shown accompanied by howling dogs, possibly because dogs are often seen howling at the moon. The ancient Gnostic philosophers …