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Eclipse Maps

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Richard Gray
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Extract

These maps show the paths of central eclipse for 164 total solar eclipses visible in Africa in the period A.D. 1000 to 2000. It is hoped that they may suggest periods and areas where records of eclipses might be found in oral tradition or other sources, and also that they, or their originals, will assist in at least the preliminary stages of identifying such a record with a particular eclipse. The originals have been drawn on a scale of 1: 10,000,000, and photographic copies of these and the master grid are available, on indestructible plastic, price £7. 10s. the set, from the Editors of the Journal of African History.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , November 1965 , pp. 251 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

1 Th. von Oppolzer, , Canon der Finsternuse, Vienna, 1887 (English trans. by Gingerich, O., Dover Publications, New York, 1962).Google Scholar

2 I am most grateful to Dr Porter both for very considerable help in drafting this article and for his great kindness in taking the leading part in this project.Google Scholar

3 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1961 ed., article ‘Eclipse’.Google Scholar

4 Crabbe, J. R., ‘The Total Eclipse of the Sun, Uganda, May 1947’, Uganda J., xii 1948, 99–100.Google Scholar

5 Fotheringham, J. K., Historical Eclipses, 1921, p.26.Google Scholar

6 Bruce, J., Travels to discover the source of the Nile, II, 1790, 193–4. Bruce wrongly quotes the eclipse as occurring on 24 Jan. rather than 14 Jan.Google Scholar

7 Sir Gray, J. M., ‘Early History of Buganda’, Uganda J., ii, 1935, 268.Google Scholar

8 Torday, E., On the Trail of the Bushongo, 1925, pp. 541–2.Google Scholar Elsewhere Torday in fact makes it clear that he restricted his search for an eclipse to ‘the last half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th’: Torday, E. and Joyce, T. A., Notes Ethnographiques sur les Peuples communérnent appelés Bakuba, ainsi que les Peuplades Apparentées. Les Bushongo, Brussels, 1910, pp. 34–6.Google ScholarCompàre also Vansina, J., ‘Recording the Oral History of the Bakuba: II. Results’, J.A.H., 1, 2 (1960), 258.Google Scholar

9 These calculations are based on the early twentieth-century positions of Mushenge as shown on the map in Torday and Joyce, op. cit.Google Scholar

10 Budge, E. A. Wallis, A History of the Ethiopians, II, 1928, 408. I am grateful to Mr D. E. Crummey for this reference.Google Scholar

11 The celebrated eclipse seen by Olimi I at Biharwe may refer to the annular eclipse of 1492.X.21: Sir Gray, J. M., ‘The Solar Eclipse in Ankole in 1492’, Uganda J., xxvii, 1963, 217–21;Google ScholarSykes, J., ‘The Eclipse at Biharwe’, Uganda J., xxiii, 1959, 44–50.Google Scholar The eclipse marking the beginning of the reign of Mibambwe III Sentabyo in Rwanda might also have been an annular eclipse: Kagame, A., La Notion de Génération appliquée à la généalogie dynastique et à l'Histoire du Rwanda des Xe–Xe Siècles à nos Fours, Brussels, 1959, pp. 74–80;Google ScholarVansina, J., L'Evolution du Royaume Rwanda des Origines à 1900, Brussels, 1962, pp. 52–3.Google Scholar