By Mike Kinney
A Contra Costa College professor of History and Africana Studies recently returned from conducting field research in Ethiopia and South Sudan to learn more about indigenous African ways of life and cultural traditions.
Professor Manu Ampim’s travels in the remote regions of Gambella served as part of his broader effort to write the “pioneering definitive history of Ancient Kush.”
In this case, Kush is not a descriptor for cannabis strains derived from the Hindu Kush mountain range. Rather, the professor’s work in Africa centers on the oldest of the classical African civilizations. The empire of Kush was a vast region centered in current-day Sudan. Ancient Kush dates so far back, its specific age isn’t known, but it was thought to have established during the Stone Age, prior to the emergence of Nubia and ancient Egypt.
‘Until now, there has been virtually no serious field research on the origins of Ancient Kush.’
“Until now, there has been virtually no serious field research on the origins of Ancient Kush,” Ampim said.
But the professor, who has previously conducted pioneering field research on African civilizations in 22 countries, intends to change that. In fact, he’s coined a new term of study: “Kushology.”
“The traditional beliefs and practices in these regions give us an important window into African antiquity and provide an unfiltered view of the ideas and ceremonies that link the past and present spanning at least four millennia,” Ampim said.
In the near future, the professor aims to establish a reliable timeline to more precisely pinpoint the age of the Kushite civilization.
He said current practices of various groups in southern Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan aren’t so different from ancient times, including beliefs and rituals involving puberty rites, marriage, new year festivals, funerals and the enstoolment of chiefs and kings.
“Even the sport of wrestling remains the most important regional sport in South Sudan and among the Nuba people in Sudan,” Ampim said. “While I was in South Sudan I was able to see the full array of Dinka cultural dancing and wrestling matches.”
Today, leopard skin is often worn by the champion wrestlers, a practice derived from ancient African kings and high priests due to the leopard being the most revered big cat in the region.
“Kush had such a profound impact that the ancient Greeks called it ‘Ethiopia,’ which is now the name of a modern East African country,” Ampim said. “Also, there are various modern East African groups that speak dialects within the Cushitic language family. So, the discipline of ’Kushology’ entails studying the link between Ancient Kush and the modern practices that link directly back to this ancient civilization.”
Ampim plans to return to Africa in the summer of 2025 to lead a two-week educational tour to Kemet (Egypt), followed by a tour of Ethiopia. The tours are part of the professor’s Classical Africa Educational Tour Series and are open to the public throughout the U.S., and to his students and colleagues at Contra Costa College.
“I have been leading these tours since the 1990s,” the professor said.
He is also finalizing a South Sudan educational tour, targeting winter 2025.
