The Sunday News
Tafadzwa Gwetai
FROM as far as the memory of Africa can be traced, Africa has always been a place full of heritage and overflowing with incredible traditions.
Africa was characterised by diverse powerful empires that had histories and visions of their own. Africa had “secrets” that has fascinated and still intrigues foreigners from across oceans.
In the beginning Africa was branded as the Dark Continent as a result of the foreigners lack of understanding and appreciation of what our cultures meant to our very own existence.
The European entered Africa with an explorer and missionary agenda. The term “Dark Continent” was born out of a lack of knowledge and fear of what Africa had to offer. The European decided to “illuminate” Africa with Christianity and new cultural habits.
Over the years, people have given lots of reasons why Africa was called the Dark Continent. Many people think it is a racist phrase but can’t say why, and the common belief that the phrase just referred to Europe’s lack of knowledge about Africa makes it seem out-dated, but otherwise benign. Race does lie at the heart of this myth, but it is not about skin colour.
The myth of the Dark Continent referred to the savagery that Europeans said was endemic to Africa, and even the idea that its lands were unknown came from erasing centuries of pre-colonial history, contact, and travel across Africa.
The term ‘“Dark Continent” also stemmed from the “secrets” that the Europeans found intriguing to some and too dark to understand to most. Africa was seen as in desperate need for saving. Saving us from ourselves.
To those that were intrigued by Africa, they were faced with many truths and mysteries that they found fascinating and complicated to translate
It was within African cultural nature to protect their individual tribal “secrets” of their “gods”, their enemies and their stories of origin. These layers fascinated some explorers who were more than curious about the power that Africa had. “Secrets” were the corner stone of African heritage as the idea was to preserve their stories and not sharing their life’s “secrets” was central to their survival.
The colonial agenda focused on the deconstruction of Africa’s values and beliefs by taken away what we believed in. Upon taking our traditional “gods” the colonialist and the missionary had a great advantage in achieving their financial and consumer hungry mission. Upon learning the secrets of Africa and how Africans thought did the colonial agenda find its roots in Africa.
Our stone sculptures, wood carvings and cave paintings narrate the ways of life and tell the “secrets” of the past. Europeans have always found great fascination in the stories that Africa’s creations have to tell.
They tell a story of how they perceive the dawn of civilisation from the African perspective.
The symbols used to create a provocative sculpture that suggests a class of people that had sophisticated lines of thought concerning existence. African art forms and “gods” were inspired from nature and the animals that they revered at the time.
Our very own Zimbabwe bird and the Nyami Nyami are mythical creatures that have found significance and physical form to both Zimbabweans and the world at large. The nature elements such as the Bold eagle, the crocodile chevron designs are interconnected to our African strength.
Our totems are an extension of this line of thought where nature finds its way in preserving our almost lost ancient ways. Through our totems such as Mhofu, Shumba, Moyo, Ndlovu, Ncube, and Mbizi we can trace our lineage and sources of our past and purpose as a being. A totem can help unlock certain secrets to where and how one became to be of a certain tribe.
We exist in a time where the sense of secrecy is viewed as being selfish.
The global village and the advent of the internet has created platforms that are core to research about many cultures. We live in a world where knowledge is constantly being published on the internet and made open to the “public domain”. Africa however, comes from a history where they would pride themselves for preserving their knowledge.
History has taught Africa to be selfish and guard their heritage as Africa has been betrayed several times by the European colonialist.
Foreign researchers, curators and international museums still have a deep rooted intrigue into why and how we operate as Africans and our artists are still a great source of these untold histories and state of mind of the African.
The artists are the eyes for the European and our art has always been a great wealth of information for the foreigner.
Africa needs to guard what they have left with pride and share what knowledge they have with our fellow African brothers and sisters to slow down the constant export of our African “secrets”. [email protected]/[email protected]
