African art and history

  African artist wearing traditional Adinkra Cloth, standing in front of his work. Ghana, West Africa. Adinkra (ah-DEEN-krah) cloth is a hand-printed fabric made in Ghana. Developed by the Ashanti people, Adinkra cloths were traditionally made for royalty to wear at religious ceremonies. Through the years, people have also decorated the cloths to tell a story or to express their thoughts or feelings. ADINKRA The Asante peoples of Ghana use adinkra to express the connection between the verbal and the visual in Akan culture. Adinkra symbols appear on wooden prestige objects, jewelry, brass weights and, most prominently, as two-dimensional stamped designs ornamenting cloth. Historically, adinkra was reserved for Asante kings. Over the years, however, its use has expanded to the general Akan population who wear adinkra cloth on significant occasions, the most important of which are funerals. Of the hundreds of adinkra signs and meanings that have been documented, the older symbols are ...

  Upper part of a statue of King Menkaure and the queen. He reigned circa 2490-2472 BCE under the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. His name is most famously associated with the third and smallest of the Giza Pyramids, which was built to be his tomb. The two figures stand side-by-side with the queen embracing the king, but neither shows any emotion to the other, while they both gaze into eternity. The sculpture is made of greywacke, which is a dark coarse-grained sandstone. This masterwork (11.1738) is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA. Photo: The Museum of Fine Arts.   It is useful to recognize that the essence of ancient Egyptian style in most respects was set during the early Old Kingdom, with full maturity reached in the 4th Dynasty.   "The Old Kingdom, which lasted for 500 years around the middle of the third millennium BC, did not encompass all the accomplishments of ancient Egyptian civilization. But in all essentials it was the matrix of the entire culture...

  CONTINUED HORUS I am the Lord of the Sky. I will enter the celestial waters -- Horus TRANSFORMS back into a Falcon and redoubles his efforts, again thrusting into the CLOUDS... ...until, with a final burst of strength, he BREAKS THROUGH -- EXT. RA’S BOAT The Falcon LANDS on the deck, TRANSFORMING back into Horus. What looks like a man in his 50s sits sharpening his SPEAR on a GRINDSTONE... Sparks spit and pop off the shining blade. Battle-scars mark his sinewy body. Deep crows-feet line eyes fierce as a storm. He is RA Lord of the Cosmos. Majestic and mighty, moral and wise. He does not look up as Horus drops to a knee and bows. HORUS Hail, thou Great God Ra. RA Normally when a bird lands on my boat uninvited I kill it before it can shit. HORUS Forgive me, grandfather. I would only ask something of you... RA In that case I’ll stop what I’m doing and heed your bidding. HORUS I mean no disrespect -- RA You don’t know the difference. Ra’s keen eyes plumb the SHADOW brewing on the ...

  OVER BLACK: We hear the voice of THOTH. A voice that knows all things: THOTH’S VOICE Listen, if thou wouldst be wise. Weigh my words and hear their truth -- though I’ve ceased being surprised by the inability of some to listen when wisdom speaks. The RISING SUN crests the PEAK OF A PYRAMID. Not an ancient ruin. It’s BRAND NEW, smooth as glass. THOTH’S VOICE Egypt was not always as you know it now, dry and unforgiving. PULL BACK to reveal towering FORESTS that stretch to the horizon. The air is lush with the breath of life. This Egypt is Edenic, primordial -- with no sand to be seen. THOTH’S VOICE Before history began, Egypt was a paradise worthy of the gods who created it. So the gods decided to live there themselves amongst their other, lesser creation... Men. The Pyramid is just a small part of a glittering PALACE COMPLEX. THOTH’S VOICE Egypt was divided between two mighty brothers... EXT. GREAT PALACE ON THE NILE - DAY what looks like a handsome MAN walks along the shore of ...

  The philosophy symbolized by the mythical Sankofa bird of the Akan tribe in Ghana is that you need to know where you come from in order to know where you are going. The bird flies resolutely forward while casting its head back regularly. In Africa, colonization  was accompanied by the erasure of history. Part of renewal, of renaissance is to once again connect to that history. In this Africa Month edition of The Journalist, we build on the efforts to achieve that. History has bequeathed Africa an unequal and inferior status. The characterization of Africa as a dark continent that required civilization was integral to the process of colonization. This mythology was vigorously advanced by the colonizer and even internalized by the colonized. Western historians advanced the notion of Africa as a place with a scant history and very little or no achievements. In the post-colonial period efforts have been made to address this historical injustice. In this Africa Month, it is ...

  Two young ladies arrived a Meeting wearing clothes that were quite revealing their body parts. Here is what the Chairman told them: He took a good look at them and made them sit.Then he said something that, they might never forget in their life. He looked at them straight in the eyes and said; "ladies, everything that God made valuable in this world is well covered and hardly to see, find or get. 1. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. 2. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. 3. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers of rock and to get them, you have to work hard & dig deep down to get them. He looked at them with serious eyes and said; "Your body is sacred & unique" You are far more precious than gold, diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too."So he added that, if you keep your treasured mineral just lik...

  A couple was invited to a masked costume Halloween party. The wife got a terrible headache and told her husband to go to the party alone. He, being a devoted husband, protested, but she argued and said she was going to take some aspirin and go to bed, and there was no need for his good time to be spoiled by not going. So he took his Batman costume (mask) and away he went. The wife, after sleeping soundly for about an hour, awakened without pain, and, as it was still early, decided to go to the party. In as much as her husband did not know what her costume was, she thought she would have some fun by watching her husband to see how he acted when she was not with him. She put on a Goldilocks costume (mask). So she joined the party and soon spotted her husband enjoying himself on the dance floor, dancing with every nice woman he cuddled and occasionally giving a little kiss here and there. His wife went up to him and being a rather seductive woman herself, his husband left his new pa...

  The tricky part about teaching Afrakan liberation, is that your relentless adversaries trying to destroy your scholarship will not be from other races, but your own. This is why your greatest rival as Ausar is not of a different race, but your own brother Setekh whose mission is to kill you and your productivity (symbolized as your son Heru, the hero). Sometimes Setekh will be from obvious Eurocentric Blacks, but often it will come from within the camp via agents masked as Afrocentric scholars. They will spend all of their energy trying to debunk whatever teachings an Afrakan scholar presents. Sometimes, they are not even conscious that they are agents; they just suffer from the Crabs-in-a-barrel syndrome that causes them to obsess with attacking Blacks who are getting out of the barrel. Often they will argue with you simply because your following is larger and they are trying to steal some of your steam. Sometimes they've even published books and feels that makes them "a...