Northern and Western Africa Test
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Created by:
hardcastleb on March 25, 2012
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34 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 basins | depressions; through each plateau lie several of these |
| Nile River | world's longest river; flows more than 4,000 miles through Uganda and Sudan, into Egypt |
| rift valley | land sank to form these; long, thin valleys |
| Mount Kilimanjaro | Africa's highest mountain; volcano |
| escarpment | steep slope with nearly flat plateau on top |
| Sahara | largest desert in the world; 3,000 miles across continent; Atlantic Ocean to Red Sea; in North Africa |
| aquifer | huge stores of under ground water |
| oasis | areas where aquifers have come to the surface; supports vegetation and wildlife |
| Serengeti Plain | a grassland in northern Tanzania |
| canopy | uppermost layer of branches, 150 feet above ground |
| Niger delta | region that contains most of Nigeria's soil |
| Sahel | means "shore of the desert," narrow band of dry grassland that runs east to west along the southern edge of the Sahara |
| desertification | expansion of dry conditions into moist areas that are next to deserts |
| Aswan High Dam | dam on Nile River in Egypt, completed in 1970, increased Egypt's farmable land by 50% and protected it from droughts and floods |
| silt | loose sediment material containing very small rock particles, formed by river deposits and very fertile |
| Carthage | one of the great empires of ancient Africa, situated on a triangular peninsula on the Gulf of Tunis on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea |
| Islam | monotheistic religion based on teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and the biggest cultural and religious influence in North Africa |
| rai | kind of popular Algerian music developed in the 1920s by poor urban children that is fast-paced with danceable rhythms; was sometimes used as a form of rebellion to expose political unhappiness |
| Goree Island | an island off the coast of Senegal that served as a major departure point for slaves during the slave trade |
| stateless society | one in which people use lineages, or families whose members are descended from a common ancestor, to govern themselves |
| Ashanti | a people who live in what is now Ghana, in West Africa, and who are known for their artful weaving of colorful asasia, or kente cloth |
| orishas | various Yoruba deities who are the main objects of ritual attention; including Orisha-nla- creator god; Ogun- god of iron and war; Esu- trickster figure |
| trickster figure | type of supernatural beings who tends to disrupt the normal course of life, found among many primal people; ex= Esu |
| diviners | ritual practitioners who specialize in art of divination |
| divination | use of various techniques, such as throwing bones or shells and then interpreting the patter in which they fall, for gaining knowledge about individual's future or about the cause of a personal problem |
| Mansa Musa | ruled kingdom of Mali from 1312-1337; went on Hajj to Mecca and promoted education, trade and commerce |
| Shawabtis | statuettes buried with the dead to perform duties that might be asked of the dead |
| Anubis | embalming god; protector of mummies |
| Osiris | god of underworld |
| canopic jars | jars that the dead's organs were placed in; different organ per jar |
| Bartolomeu Dias | in 1488 he rounds Cape of Good Hope |
| Colonel Muammar Qaddafi | assassinated in libya |
| Zheng He | in 1414, he came from China and brought back treasures to Africa; 7 voyages |
| Cataract | waterfall |
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