Preface -- Origins and Prehistory -- Aim and Object of This Book -- Origin of the Negro Peoples of Africa -- Hypothetical Lemuria -- Oceanic Migrations -- Autochthonous Africans -- Peopling of Africa -- The Negroes of Africa at the Time of Herodotus -- Development of Negro Civilisations in Antiquity -- Paucity of Historical Documentation -- "Aggry Beads" -- Phoenician and Carthaginian Influence -- Abyssinian Semites and the Beni-Israel -- Romans and Berbers -- Negro Africa in the Middle Ages -- The Empire of Ghana -- The Almoravide Movement -- The Kingdom of Diara -- The Kingdom of Soso -- The Beginnings of the Songhoy Empire -- The Mandinka Empire -- The Mossi Empires -- West Africa from the 15th Century to Today -- More Abundant Documentation -- The Mandinka and Songhoy Empires -- The Askia Mohammed -- Koli-Tengella -- The Last Askias -- The Pashas of Timbuktu -- The Bambara Kingdoms -- The Tukulor Conquest -- The Wanderings of Samori -- The Peoples of the West Coast -- The Peoples of the Bend of the Niger -- The Negroes of Central and Eastern Sudan -- The Hausa Countries -- The Empire of Bornu -- The Bagirmi -- The Kingdom of Wadai -- Darfur and Kurdufan -- Rabah's Adventure -- Mahdism -- Populations in the Neighbourhood of Abyssinia and Those of the Eastern Point of Africa -- South Africa -- The Bantu -- The Congo -- The Ansika -- The Mataman -- The Bechuana -- The Monomotapa -- Kilwa and the Zanzibar Sultanates -- The Kingdoms of the Interior -- European and Christian Influence -- Material Civilisations -- Diversity of Material Civilisations -- Influence of Physical Environment -- Habitations -- Furniture and Utensils -- Clothing and Decoration -- Skilled Occupations -- Social Customs -- The Family and the Two Systems of Relationship -- The Patriarch -- Marriage -- Divorce -- Orphans -- Polygamy -- Individual and Collective Property.

Slavery -- Religious Beliefs and Practices -- Islam, Christianity, and Animism -- Individual Spirits of People and Things -- Vital Breath -- Priests -- Belief in a Supreme God -- Magic and Magicians -- Artistic and Intellectual Expression -- Negro Talents -- Human Figures and Gods -- Animal Representations -- lndustrial Arts -- Architecture -- Music -- Native Literature in Arabic -- Written Literature in Native Tongue -- "Griots" or Living Encyclopaedias -- Popular Oral Literature -- Origin of Popular Themes -- Genius for Story-Telling -- Moral Tales -- Refuting the so-called Intellectual Inferiority of the Negroes -- Appendix -- Selective Bibliography -- Old Primary and Secondary Sources -- Contemporary Texts of the Publication -- Index by ethnicity -- Notes.