5 Great Love Stories From African Legend

For people of African descent all around the world, unity between the genders has been under attack. Why? Because a strong healthy family unit will always be the foundation for empowering our community. Africans of course knew the importance of this and went through great measures to ensure its acquisition. So I wanted to take a look at some of my personal favorite love stories from the African continent. What up African world, it's Home Team here and I'm back at it with another video of African history, culture, and worldview. And as always if you want to support the home team you can do so on patreon.com. I have some new rewards for you guys so be sure to check that out. Also, go to afrographics.com, a website where you can find unique illustrative infographics summarizing African history. All links to Patreon, Afrographics, and Home Team merchandise are in the description box below. As mentioned previously, Africans knew the importance of a strong family unit, especially one spearheaded by a healthy marriage. One of my favorite wedding ceremony traditions is called the tasting of the four elements from the Yoruba people. The Yoruba acknowledge that marriage does not always promise a state of euphoria or peace on a daily basis. In their tradition, couples participate in the tasting of the four elements of life, bitter, sweet, sour, and hot, as well as water to cleanse the palate. A tray of the five items, usually cayenne pepper, lemon, honey, vinegar, and water, is placed on the altar or a side table, and the officiant explains each flavor and what it represents. A brief example would be pepper representing passion and vinegar representing bitterness, the feeling of defeat that comes when a plan goes wrong, a goal has not been reached, or a vow that has been broken. And water represents rejuvenation and a cleansing, standing strong in the end. This is just a small example of what Africans knew about love, family, and marriage, and some of their legends make use of this knowledge. I'll be telling five legends that include stories about Africans following love, performing a strenuous task because of love, the pursuit of love itself, and doing something a Let's start this off with the controversial story. The story about a woman who fell in love with a warrior. This story is actually really rare because it's not told often by oral historians, because it involves an additional event concerning Sanjata Kita's wife. For those who may not know Sanjata, he was the founder of the Mali Empire. The story goes as follows. Sanjata Kita wanted to add a city to his empire and promise all his warriors that the man who helped him conquer this city will have anything they wanted from him. A man named Gane, the strongest warrior of Sanjata, took on this task. Gane took his army to the city, and he won, defeating the opposing army and killing their king. Thus, the city became a part of Sanjata's empire. Sanjata was very pleased with this and wanted to reward Gane. He told Gane in front of all his court to come tomorrow early in the morning to receive his gift. This, of course, was a huge promise. Tekaye, the youngest wife of Sanjata, absolutely loved Gane. She cherished him above all men. Her marriage with Sanjata was simply out of duty and not love. She was saddened because she knew her and Gane could never be together, and Gane would never go against his king to pursue Tekaye. But Tekaye, being the smart woman she was, saw Sanjata's promise to Gane as an opportunity to be with the one she loved. So early in the morning, she dressed herself as a new bride and sat in the middle of the royal court for all to see. Sanjata, Gane, and all the royal members were present to witness Tekaye in the middle of the court, ready to be received. So of course when Gane saw her, he thought that Sanjata had given him the greatest gift, to live with his love Tekaye happily ever after. Gane thanked Sanjata profusely with tears running down his eyes. Sanjata, being the dignified ruler he was, surely wasn't going to object in front of all the elites. He had to be a king of his word. So he smiled and smiled in front of Gane and Tekaye as he allowed her to leave. The people praised Sanjata for his generosity but he was absolutely furious and humiliated. Tekaye eventually told Gane the truth and they fled together to another village outside of the empire. Sanjata's army came looking for Tekaye and found her in the village while Gane was away hunting. But the people defended Tekaye from Sanjata's army and could not take her back. And so Gane and Tekaye were able to live in peace. This story is a classic case of, if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right. Our next story is more about the pursuit of love and basically not giving up on it. Kweisi Benafo is a hero of the Ashanti people. But Kweisi is not your traditional hero. He wasn't exceptionally strong, nor did he possess any special powers or anything like that. Kweisi had a lot of heart and his story is about never giving up on love. Over time, Kweisi had to marry four different wives, one after the other, because each of them died tragically. But in the mythology, we can't think of the wives as traditional relationships, but simply as times an individual gets their heart broken, stomped on, and mistreated. Kweisi Benafo's story is about the art of not allowing your heart to go dark. After all four of his wives died tragically, he journeyed to the underworld to see them. His journey represented him going to that dark place, revisiting his pain, and not letting it go. Upon visiting his four wives, they spoke with him and told him he should marry again. And this represented his growth. And he becomes brave because he's willing to give love another chance. And in that, he finds a new wife and lives happily ever after. Kweisi Benafo's refusal to remain in the underworld with his pain was a feat that most people can relate to. It's essentially the struggle of not allowing your heart to go dark. Our next love story is about how a princess who fell in love with a common man started a whole nation of people. Princess Yeninga was a beautiful 12th princess from Dagumba. She was highly favored in the kingdom and her father absolutely adored her. But like many women, she wanted to get married. This didn't really sit well with her father because on top of being the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, she was also one of the best warriors. Surely her father didn't want to lose such an excellent warrior and leader to marriage. So he refused to allow Princess Yeninga to get married. This pained Yeninga deeply. So to express how she felt, she planted a lush field of wheat and when the crop grew, she allowed it to rot. And when her father inquired about why she allowed such a beautiful field of wheat to rot, she said, you see father, as precious as you say I am, still, you let me rot like the wheat in this field. However, her father hardened his heart and locked her away in the palace. Fortunately for Princess Yeninga, a guard helped her escape, dressing her as a man. As she escaped, the guard gave his life to protect her against enemies along the journey. She eventually enters a village where a man named Rialei gave her shelter. At first, he didn't know she was a woman because she was dressed as a man. And Yeninga finally revealed herself to Rialei and they fell in love. Princess Yeninga became the queen mother of the Maasai people and a legendary warrior figure in West African history. Our next story involves an African goddess falling in love with a human man. In ancient times, a man named Kintu was wandering around the regions of southern Africa looking for sources of food. As Kintu went through the many trials and tribulations of surviving in Uganda, a sky goddess named Nambi began to admire him and fell deeply in love. She frequently visited him and Kintu was awestruck by her beauty. She went to her father to ask if she could marry him. Gulu, the sky god, was very confused as to why his daughter would want to marry a mortal man and didn't really take it serious. So he said that if Kintu is to marry you, he must pass some tests. Gulu then proceeded to create ridiculous tests after ridiculous tests and Nambi secretly aided Kintu in passing all of these tests and Gulu finally allowed the marriage. Our last story is my favorite. It's the story of Madi and Sia. It's the classic story of a man willing to risk his life to fight a great beast to save his love. The ancient empire of Wagadu flourished because of a great snake named Bida. Bida sustained the empire of Wagadu by raining down gold upon the land. But Wagadu had a price to pay for their riches. They had to sacrifice a girl to Bida annually to remain a powerful nation. One year, the elders chose the beautiful Sia to be sacrificed to the great snake. But Sia was engaged to be married to Madi. Although Sia was conflicted, she wanted to give herself to Bida so that her nation would thrive. Madi's love for Sia would not allow him to let her be sacrificed. So he cursed the elders and confronted Bida and slayed the beast. His love for Sia was greater than his love for Wagadu. Before the last blow from Madi, Bida proclaimed that Wagadu would fall. And fall it did. Madi risked his life and ended an empire just for his love of Sia. It's really one of the best African love stories when you read it. And definitely my all-time favorite. Well, I'm Ola guys. 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