Africa’s rich cultural history, assumedly ‘discovered’ by Westerners, was always distorted by the same Westerners. Look at how our traditional and rich medicinal culture was trashed by the West as being backward; the beautiful Umhlanga/Reed Dance by the Zulus and Swazi has become a laughing stock in the eyes of the West.
Editor,
RE: "Archaeologists discover ancient king’s artifact” (The New Times, October 11). It’s very encouraging news that we have local Rwandan archaeologists. Only Rwandans would understand and dig into the country’s rich cultural history and tell the stories in the most positive way. Like the saying goes, "until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter”.
Africa’s rich cultural history, assumedly ‘discovered’ by Westerners, was always distorted by the same Westerners. Look at how our traditional and rich medicinal culture was trashed by the West as being backward; the beautiful Umhlanga/Reed Dance by the Zulus and Swazi has become a laughing stock in the eyes of the West.
I would encourage the archaeologists to not only discover, but write books on these and other findings in Rwanda. I hope they are working with the Institute of National Museums of Rwanda to immediately gazette this site as a place of historic importance and turn it into a museum.
Kudos to the team.
Kigali Girl