Eglash on African Fractals: Architecture, Design, Binary, and Divination

I finally got around to watching Eglash's TED talk on African fractals and I was blown away. It shatters so many of the stereotypes of African cultures as 'primitive' and lacking advanced mathematics or scientific innovation. As an amateur Africanist, I of course knew better (the stunning skill and quality of African metallurgy, for instance, or manuscripts from West Africa in Arabic or using the Arabic script for African languages for analyzing astronomy, geometry, philosophy, Islamic law, and history), but it's always fascinating to see examples of African contributions to mathematics and science. 

My fascination with the subject of fractals began with this random discovery of this BBC video on the use of binary for multiplication in ancient Ethiopia, which was similar to that used in Egypt. That led me to Ron Eglash's video, which is excellent for an introduction to debunking so many stereotypes of the African continent. Sure, some of the binary math rooted in doubling in various African societies can be found elsehwere in the world, but what struck me the most about Eglash's work is his claim for an African origin of 'geomancy' or divination that reached medieval Europe through the Islamic world. Eglash himself focuses on fractals and specific algorithims used in different African societies (through architecture, design, mancala, etc.) and  the Bamana sand divination's use of binary with a specific algorithim that reflects deterministic chaos theory.

Although his evidence for his claim is not too strong, Eglash believes African divination practices such as that of the Bamana spread to the Muslim world (which may have some support from the long coexistence of Islam and local religions in West Africa and North Africa) and through Islamic alchemy spread to Europe (via Hugo Santalia, Ramon Lull, and other alchemists) as geomancy. In turn, these ancient African divination practices influenced Leibniz, computational theory, and helped give the world computers.

For an interesting study on how Yoruba Ifa divination compares to computer science, check this out. Expect future posts on similar subject material and how it pertains to African Studies, history, and Black History Month.