Located in western Africa, the Niger River is the third largest river on the continent, flowing eastward approximately 2,600 miles (4,180 km) from the Futa Djalon Mountains through present-day Mali, Niger, and Nigeria to the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean.
In Yoruba cosmology, the Niger River is the domain of the goddess Oya, and the river itself is called Odo Oya, or “container of Oya.” Oya was the favorite wife of Chango (or Shango), the god of fire, thunder, and lightning. In addition to its spiritual and cultural meanings to the peoples who lived near it, the Niger River was an important link between these peoples and the rest of the Atlantic world. The Niger was a major means of travel and transportation on the southern leg of the trans-Saharan trade routes. It carried GOLD, spices, cotton, ivory, salt, and slaves between important regional market centers such as Timbuktu and Djenne (see Djenne-Djeno) and the Atlantic Ocean. Control of the Niger River was disputed several times during the early modern period, resulting in a succession of several empires, including Ghana, Mali, and SONGHAI. The gold mined in Bure, at the headwaters of the Niger, stimulated the rise of the Mali Empire in the 13th century; over the next two centuries the Mali Empire gained power and wealth from control of both trade on the river and the resources found near it. The Niger was also a means of spreading cultural and religious traditions. Trade and political disruption along the river contributed to the spread of ISLAM in the region and to the establishment of Islamic centers in the cities along its course.
Further reading: Robert Fay, “Niger River,” in Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, eds. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 1,438; Jacob U. Gordon, “Yoruba Cosmology and Culture in Brazil: A Study of African Survivals in the New World,” Journal of Black Studies 10 (1979): 231-244.
—Lisa M. Brady
World History
