DEAF PEOPLE IN AFRICAN HISTORIES

ARCHAEOLOGY, FOLKLORE, HISTORICAL TEXTS

Evidence of deafness exists from the twenty-fifth century BCE in North Africa, when hearing loss in old age was lamented (Erman 1927). The Ebers Papyrus shows that deafness was well understood 3,500 years ago, and clinical knowledge had developed in ancient [Page 354]Egypt (Nunn 1996; Pahor 1992). Mention of “one who is deaf and does not hear, to whom men make (signs) with the hand” appears in the Koller Papyrus dated ca. 1200 BCE (Gardiner 1911). Among the earliest named and located deaf people was Munah the Deaf (in Arabic: “Munah al-Asamm”), house-owner and head of family at Tutun in the Fayyum province of Egypt. Two sale contracts dated 962 and 963 CE mention the house belonging to “the heirs of Munah the Deaf,” which delineated one border of properties that were being sold (Frantz-Murphy 1981).

The African theologian Augustine, writing at Tagaste (now in Algeria) in the late fourth century CE, gave perhaps the earliest clear and positive description of deaf people using sign language in Africa, “to ask and answer questions, to teach and make known either all their wishes or, at least, a good many of them” (Augustine [ca. 389]). Sixteen hundred years would pass before governments in Africa began to take sign language as a serious medium for education and communication.

HOW MUCH FOR THAT DEAF GIRL?

Folk legends from the southern Bantu people mention the woman Luojoyo communicating by sign with her one hand. The “deaf-mute” Muwende-Lutanana and others also used signs (Mutwa 1998). Signed communication was a recognized activity in these stories handed down over centuries. Folklore and also current African literature sometimes portray deaf people as “dumb,” meaning stupid and useless (Odebiyi and Togonu-Bickersteth 1987; Sarr 1981; Naniwe 1994; Oteng 1988). Yet some Malian folk tales involving a deaf wife suggest the need for patience and understanding rather than denouncing stupidity (Calame- Griaule 1987). Deaf Africans were also found useful as servants. At Kuka, capital of Bornu, west of Lake Chad, deaf slave girls fetched high prices to serve the wives of businessmen in some Arab countries (Nachtigal 1971-1987). Some deaf people were presented as valuable gifts to the Ottoman Sultan, who was traditionally served by deaf people (Gaden 1907).

The balance of abuse and exploitation, as against everyday acceptance and integration, is hard to estimate. Abusive treatment of deaf people certainly happened and was sometimes recorded, while any amount of “ordinary life” passed unnoticed, as it does today. For example, in 1848, Charles Orpen, minister at Colesberg, South Africa, saw that the chief constable had an excellent African servant, “sober, honest, and faithful.” The servant also happened to be deaf, and this was noticed by Orpen, who had earlier founded a deaf school in Ireland (Le Fanu 1860). Many other deaf servants probably remained “invisible.”

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