Divination Systems: Binary, Ifa, Sikidy

Historians categorized the writing schemes from Africa into the following groups: 

Xylographic Systems, Alphabetic Systems, Pictographic Systems, Petrographic Systems, Chromatographic Systems, and Philosophical Systems. So there were many different types of scripts. Nsibidi is a writing system of the Ejagham people of Nigeria. It is seen on tombstones, secret society buildings, costumes, ritual fans, headdresses, textiles, and in gestures, body and ground painting. 

Over 12,000 years ago, indigenous Africans developed Binary-based Oracle Divination Systems, based on the square of 16=16x16=256 = 2^8 corresponding to the vertices of an 8-dimensional hypercube and to the binary 2-choice Clifford algebra C1(8) and so to related ones such as C1(8)xC1(8) = C1(16). Since the number of sub-hypercubes in an 8-dimensional hypercube is 6,561 =81x81=3^8, the Oracle Divination Systems has N=8 ternary 3-structures as well as binary 2-structure.

According to many indigenous African legends “their gods once existed as humans and had their way of communicating.

  Prior to their disappearance, they left with the people a means to communicate with them in the outer realm (Oracle Divination Binary Systems).” The Chinese have mostly been using their binary combinatorics for philosophical and religious things.  This is also true for the African use of binary systems. There are actually at least three types of African binary divination techniques, all of which use four-bit combinations:

Ifa ((West Africa), Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, Caribbean, America)) the four-tablet system (South Africa) and Sikidy (Madagascar). The former two are quite straight-forward (randomise a combination and interpret its meaning), but Sikidy requires more advanced computation. The first step in Sikidy is to randomise four columns of four bits (a four-by-four matrix). The randomisation of one bit usually happens by grabbing a handful of seeds from a bag and removing two seeds at a time until only one or two seeds are left.

This gives a totally new meaning to the concept of "random number seed"). The one or two seeds are then placed in their proper position on the Sikidy board.  The image above shows an example of a completed Sikidy board. 

The randomised columns (called "Mother-Sikidy") are in the upper right corner. The values of the columns from right to left, bottom to top are 1010, 1001, 1011, and 0010. The next thing to do is to form the "Daughter-Sikidy" by rotating and flipping the matrix. 

The rightmost column of the Mother-Sikidy (bottom to top) becomes the top row (left to right) of the Daughter-Sikidy, and so forth. Our Daughter-Sikidy (placed to the left of the Mother-Sikidy) is therefore: 0110, 1101, 0000, and 0111. The rest is pure binary arithmetic. 

The columns below the Mother-Sikidy and Daughter-Sikidy are formed by eXclusive-ORing each pair of columns: 1010 XOR 1001 = 0011, 1011 XOR 0010 = 1001, etc. 

This process is then repeated to all the new lines until only one column is left (the bottom column, 0110 in the example). We now have a complete Sikidy tableau and what is left is the interpretation: each of the sixteen binary values has its own meaning, and each of the "memory slots" also has a designated meaning. The Sikidy system was also adopted by Arabs (under the name of "ilm al-raml", "the science of sand"), and from Arabs, it even transferred to Europe in the middle ages. 

In Europe, it was known as "Arabic geomancy", a small branch of Arabic occultism. 

All kinds of freaks extended to system to include relationships with astrology, numerology, tarot and other things. Our Daughter-Sikidy (placed to the left of the Mother-Sikidy) is therefore: 0110, 1101, 0000, and 0111. The rest is pure binary arithmetic. The columns below the Mother-Sikidy and Daughter-Sikidy are formed by eXclusive-ORing each pair of columns: 1010 XOR 1001 = 0011, 1011 XOR 0010 = 1001, etc. 

This process is then repeated to all the new lines until there is only one column left (the bottom column, 0110 in the example). We now have a complete Sikidy tableau and what is left is the interpretation: each of the sixteen binary values has its own meaning, and each of the "memory slots" also has a designated meaning. The Sikidy system  

Book: Bade Ajayi, A New Model of Ifa Binary System

Japan, Meadowcroft USA, Stone Age Binary Counting

Asia, China & Japan

En route to Australia from Africa our ancestors left behind colonies that made their own journey further to the east.

One group moved from Asia to China and beyond while another went west from India to Himalayans. Others went onto the vast Asia steppes while the remaining colonies went to Arabian Gulf. Hence the creation of the Middle Eastern Countries, Syria, Levant, Turkey, The Balkans and Europe. About 20,000 years ago our ancestors in India, South-east Asia, China, Mongolia and Siberia, Cross the Bearing Strait.

The African element in Japan is clearly recognisable by certain inhabitants with dark and often blackish skin, wide flat nose and frizzy to curly hair. African racial type skulls have been found in the island of Formosa and traces of this African element in the island of Liu-Kiu to the south of Japan, Les-Negritos Dela Chine. Batchelor points out, in his book Ainu Lite and Core, that 'the oldest known inhabitants of Japan are the 'Ainus'.

The Ainu people of Japan is notable for possessing almost exclusively Haplogroup D chromosomes In human genetics, Haplogroup D (M174) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup D are believed to have originated in Africa some 50,000 years before present. 

There is mention of black military commander Sakanouya Tamuramaro, in the very early stages of Japanese history. (Runoko Rashidi, 'Presence in Asian Antiquity, Nile Valley Civilisation).  According to a Japanese proverb: 'For a Samurai to be brave, he must have a bit of black blood: Cheikh Anti Diop 'Origin of Civilisation' (Myth of Reality).

Meadowcroft USA

Ohio River in Pennsylvania, the Meadowcroft rock shelter settlement site holds key archaeological clues to American ancestry. Meadowcroft is the oldest American sites. The Meadowcroft site contains artifacts dating to around 16,000 BCE. Some of the artefacts from Meadowcroft bore concise similarities to those discovered in China about 28,000 BCE. 

 The evidence from Meadowcroft and other American sites suggests that humans did not migrate to North America via one route as previously thought. That population bearing different genetic lines appeared to have entered North America through different routes and times, from Central Asia, China, Malaysia, Japan and Siberia.  

Books:  (Batchelor's Ainu Lite and Core), (Runoko Rashidi, 'Presence in Asian Antiquity, Nile Valley Civilisation), Cheikh Anti Diop, Origin of Civilisation

Stone Age Binary Counting

Many cultures have very strong relationships to the number two.

Two is the perfect number, and everything must come in pairs in order to stay intact. Odd numbers bring bad luck because they can't be divided in two equal halves.

If twins are born, they are considered sacred, more perfect than their "non-doubled" tribemates. Australian Aboriginal nearly extinct Gumbaynggir language is not very useful for counting large numbers. For example using the table in the image on the left to count up to 50 meant saying Bulari over 25 times.

When dealing with large numbers, some new concepts are desperately needed. If a mind that only knows about "one" and "two" wants to handle large amounts of things, the most natural way in my opinion is to form pairs, then pairs of pairs (groups of 4), pairs of pairs of pairs (groups of 8), and so on. If the mind gives names to these groups, it suddenly has the possibility of composing numbers from powers of two - a binary number system.

The number system of the Medlpa language spoken in Papua-New-Guinea as illustrated in the image on the left, is based on the addition of powers of two. What if you want to use fingers for counting in systems like this? Simple: just forget one finger from each hand and one toe from each foot, and you have a very beautiful octal or hexadecimal base.

DNA, Agriculture, Malaria, Melanesians & South American, Trail

It appears that Melanesians originated from at least two migrations from Africa. The first migration involved a group of people who travelled to S.E Asia from Africa along the coastline of Southern Asia, starting 100,000 years ago.

These people share their DNA with the Pygmies of the Congo area. Relics of this original population can be found on the Andaman Islands and in the highlands of New Guinea. As well as having common DNA markers, they brought with them the bow and arrow, Divination Systems and the Malaria parasite Plasmodiun falciparum.

Another migration, possibly 75,000 years ago, were a people similar to the Vedda of India, Batak of Lake Toba, Australian Aborigine and Ainu as well as people who once lived in the far reaches of Tierra del Fuego. A third migration of much taller Africans entered Melanesia, only 10,000 years ago, bringing with them the Malaria parasite plasmodium vivax, the bottle-gourd and jack bean. At this same time there appeared a large agricultural economy, with large irrigation canals, still visible today. This was totally out of character with the technological development of the rest of New Guinea.

Recent studies have shown a large amount of African genes, amongst the people of the Amazon River, dating back to about 10,000 years.

This is associated with extensive agricultural earthworks and pottery. Both earthworks and pottery are similar to sites of ancient civilisations of a similar age in Africa, around areas such as Lake Chad. Cultivated plants, including cotton, jack-beans, and the bottle-gourd, which appear to have reached South and Central America, from Africa before 7000 BCE, would have been essential for oceanic voyagers.

The cotton would have been used for rope and clothing, the jack beans for food and the Bottle-gourd (Large), for holding water and Palm-wine, as well as Bottle-gourd (Small), for holding plant medicine or magic potion. Schwerin1970; Simmonds 1976; Lathrap 1977. Wendel, Schnabel, and Seelanan (1995) have now established the identity, through DNA sequences, of 26 chromosome cotton variety grown both in Africa and in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, presumably a result of early human activity. This cotton is also found throughout the Pacific, yet the Polynesians don't use it.

There also appears to be a possible connection between early African voyaging and the very early pottery of the lower Amazon (10,000-8,000 BCE) reported by Roosevelt et al. (1991) and Hoopes (1994). Hoeppli (1969) identified African parasitic diseases that were present in early America and was able to distinguish them from those brought later by the slave trade. Some South American populations, especially the Ge groups of eastern Brazil, possess some seemingly African traits. Recent studies on the Malaria parasite gene have shown that small populations of Plasmodium Falciparum appeared in Africa and spread around the world with migrating populations, as much as 100,000 years ago.

Both the parasite and the mosquito underwent rapid evolutions about 10,000 years ago, forming Plasmodium vivax, which ranges widely through Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

Their coincidence with the development of settled agricultural societies seems to be a telling clue to the history of the disease and the movement of man around the world.

It appears that early African Agriculturalists have gone further than just the Amazon River. 10,000 years ago they crossed the Isthmus of Panama and their adventurous spirit led them into the Pacific Ocean, following the sun, with the wind behind them and a favourable ocean current, they cruised into the heart of Melanesia, searching for a big river, they established themselves on mainland New Guinea up the Wahgi valley.

Bringing with them the Bottle-gourd, jack bean, Malaria and an advanced agricultural society. Mr Tim Denham, in excavating the Kuk Swamp, in the Upper Wahgi Valley in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, in 1998 and 1999 uncovered mounds of earth, dated to 7000-6400 years ago, that were designed to aerate soggy soil so that it could be used for planting in areas that were poorly drained. This is a similar style of swamp farming used in the upper Amazon River, recently found by another team of archaeologists. Just as the Amazon Indians never chose to continue the civilisation that came their way, neither did the highlanders of New Guinea. If fact most of these Melanesia still practice the religion of Ancestral worship and divination probably in its most ancient form.

DNA:  Wendel, Schnabel, and Seelanan; Roosevelt et al, Hoopes, Hoeppli
Archaeologist: Mr Tim Denham