this warms the cockles of my afro-hippy heart!
(Source: bobolo)
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Western incursion into Africa brought with it a repudiation of everything original to the continent. The African way of doing things were classified as backward, unscientific and barbaric. To the point of death from malaria, the westerners that first set foot on Africa refused to drink the herbal remedies offered by the kind natives to alleviate their suffering. Indigenous knowledge was regarded as baseless and summarily dismissed as superstition.
Intuition, metaphysics, sixth sense and other sources of knowledge long depended on, tried and tested by Africans were de-emphasized and western “scientific” method was upheld as the ultimate. The outdoor learning culture of Africans was scoffed at and African children were made to seat in classrooms just like in Europe, to learn the history of the Europeans, the Geography of Europe and the language of the colonialists.
Education became an enigma for the young and impressionable African child, who looked on with confused eyes as his blue eyed teacher explained that Mungo Park discovered the source of the Niger River in 1796. Unable to comprehend, the young child ponders over the fact that the source of the Niger River is just a stone throw away from his home, and yet his forefathers, who lived, fished and farmed on the edge of the river, could not “discover” it. Ashamed of his lineage, the African boy considers the Europeans heroic to have traveled thousands of miles to ‘discover’ a river just by the nose of his own people. He dreams of being like the Europeans, the great discoverers, and understandably looses any regard for his ‘ignorant’ people. The deep rotted inferiority complex leads him to dismiss whatever is African; cloth, food, culture, values, speech, technology and medicine as inadequate and in that same mind-set, he rears his children.
— Education in Africa: Whose Education, anyway? (via cosmicyoruba)
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from the Return to the Land of Souls documentary on Akan ancestral beliefs.
pictured are Komians who preside over the ceremonies.
Ivory Coast
You cannot truly understand the history of a people without understanding their spirituality & spiritual beliefs. As everything comes form the spirit. We most not disregard our ancestors in favor of other people ancestors. We must remember & understand the spirituality of those that came before us.
A major error in western history is that they (A good proportion) of people automatically disregard indigenous peoples beliefs as barbaric or uncivilized. But these same historians come from societies that exploit the resources & damage the natural environment of their own countries and especially the countries of the indigenous people. Furthermore these same civilized (by their own opinion) countries have A routine of indoctrinating people to follow their models of society.
There is more than one way to do something, brilliance comes from diversity & heterogeneity. Most ancestral beliefs tie a people to their land & hold the Nature (Natur=God) in with certain reverence.
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7 Random Uses for Used Tea Bags
ooh i’d love to try a green tea bath
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Davis was a man of few words. When he did speak, his words often had a similar effect to a hand grenade being lobbed into the room. In 1987, he was invited to a White House dinner by Ronald Reagan. Few of the guests appeared to know who he was. During dinner, Nancy Reagan turned to him and asked what he’d done with his life to merit an invitation. Straight-faced, Davis replied: “Well, I’ve changed the course of music five or six times. What have you done except fuck the president?
— Miles Davis: his wardrobe, his wit, his way with a basketball …
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Ghanaian Architect Joe Osae-Addo’s Eco-friendly residence in Accra, Ghana.
Part II.
(via ghanailoveyou)
Want
