Zambia's lost language invented by women but almost killed by colonialism
A wooden hunters' toolbox inscribed with an ancient writing system from Zambia has been making waves on social media."We've grown up being told that Africans didn't know how to read and write," says Samba Yonga, one of the founders of the virtual Women's History Museum of Zambia."But we had our own way of writing and transmitting knowledge that has been completely side-lined and overlooked," she tells the BBC.It was one of the artefacts that launched an online campaign to highlight women's roles in pre-colonial communities - and revive cultural heritages almost erased by colonialism.Another intriguing object is an intricately decorated leather cloak not seen in Zambia for more than 100 years."The artefacts signify a history that matters - and a history that is largely unknown," says Yonga."Our relationship with our cultural heritage has been disrupted and obscured by the colonial experience."It's also shocking just how much the role of women has been deliberately removed."
But, says Yonga, "there's a resurgence, a need and a hunger to connect with our cultural heritage - and reclaim who we are, whether through fashion, music or academic studies"."We had our own language of love, of beauty," she says. "We had ways that we took care of our health and our environment. We had prosperity, union, respect, intellect."A total of 50 objects have been posted on social media - alongside information about their significance and purpose that shows that women were often at the heart of a society's belief systems and understanding of the natural world.The images of the objects are presented inside a frame - playing on the idea that a surround can influence how you look at and perceive a picture. In the same way that British colonialism distorted Zambian histories - through the systematic silencing and destruction of local wisdom and practices.The Frame project is using social media to push back against the still-common idea that African societies did not have their own knowledge systems.The objects were mostly collected during the colonial era and kept in storage in museums all over the world, including Sweden - where the journey for this current social media project began in 2019.Yonga was visiting the capital, Stockholm, and a friend suggested that she meet Michael Barrett, one of the curators of the National Museums of World Cultures in Sweden.She did - and when he asked her what country she was from, Yonga was surprised to hear him say that the museum had a lot of Zambian artefacts."It really blew my mind, so I asked: 'How come a country that did not have a colonial past in Zambia had so many artefacts from Zambia in its collection?'"In the 19th and early 20th Centuries Swedish explorers, ethnographers and botanists would pay to travel on British ships to Cape Town and then make their way inland by rail and foot.There are close to 650 Zambian cultural objects in the museum, collected over the course of a century - as well as about 300 historical photographs.
When Yonga and her virtual museum co-founder Mulenga Kapwepwe explored the archives, they were astonished to find the Swedish collectors had travelled far and wide - some of the artefacts come from areas of Zambia that are still remote and hard to reach.The collection includes reed fishing baskets, ceremonial masks, pots, a waist belt of cowry shells - and 20 leather cloaks in pristine condition collected during a 1911-1912 expedition.They are made from the skin of a lechwe antelope by the Batwa men and worn by the women or used by the women to protect their babies from the elements.On the fur outside are "geometric patterns, meticulously, delicately and beautifully designed", Yonga says.There are pictures of the women wearing the cloaks, and a 300-page notebook written by the person who brought the cloaks to Sweden - ethnographer Eric Van Rosen.He also drew illustrations showing how the cloaks were designed and took photographs of women wearing the cloaks in different ways."He took great pains to show the cloak being designed, all the angles and the tools that were used, and [the] geography and location of the region where it came from."The Swedish museum had not done any research on the cloaks - and the National Museums Board of Zambia was not even aware they existed.So Yonga and Kapwepwe went to find out more from the community in the Bengweulu region in north-east of the country where the cloaks came from."There's no memory of it," says Yonga. "Everybody who held that knowledge of creating that particular textile - that leather cloak - or understood that history was no longer there."So it only existed in this frozen time, in this Swedish museum."
One of Yonga's personal favourites in the Frame project is Sona or Tusona, an ancient, sophisticated and now rarely used writing system.It comes from the Chokwe, Luchazi and Luvale people, who live in the borderlands of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yonga's own north-western region of Zambia.Geometric patterns were made in the sand, on cloth and on people's bodies. Or carved into furniture, wooden masks used in the Makishi ancestral masquerade - and a wooden box used to store tools when people were out hunting.The patterns and symbols carry mathematical principles, references to the cosmos, messages about nature and the environment - as well as instructions on community life.The original custodians and teachers of Sona were women - and there are still community elders alive who remember how it works.They are a huge source of knowledge for Yonga's ongoing corroboration of research done on Sona by scholars like Marcus Matthe and Paulus Gerdes."Sona's been one of the most popular social media posts - with people expressing surprise and huge excitement, exclaiming: 'Like, what, what? How is this possible?'"The Queens in Code: Symbols of Women's Power post includes a photograph of a woman from the Tonga community in southern Zambia.She has her hands on a mealie grinder, a stone used to grind grain.
Researchers from the Women's History Museum of Zambia discovered during a field trip that the grinding stone was more than just a kitchen tool.It belonged only to the woman who used it - it was not passed down to her daughters. Instead, it was placed on her grave as a tombstone out of respect for the contribution the woman had made to the community's food security."What might look like just a grinding stone is in fact a symbol of women's power," Yonga says.The Women's History Museum of Zambia was set up in 2016 to document and archive women's histories and indigenous knowledge.It is conducting research in communities and creating an online archive of items that have been taken out of Zambia."We're trying to put together a jigsaw without even having all the pieces yet - we're on a treasure hunt."A treasure hunt that has changed Yonga's life - in a way that she hopes the Frame social media project will also do for other people."Having a sense of my community and understanding the context of who I am historically, politically, socially, emotionally - that has changed the way I interact in the world."Penny Dale is a freelance journalist, podcast and documentary-maker based in London
More BBC stories on Zambia:
Grandma with chunky sunglasses becomes unlikely fashion iconHow a mega dam has caused a mega power crisisZambia made education free, now classrooms are crammedThe $5m cash and fake gold that no-one is claiming
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Raising school fees torments many Africans. Some expect the Catholic Church to do more to help
A crying parent with an unpaid tuition balance walked into the staff room of a Catholic private school and begged the teachers to help enroll her son. The school's policy required the woman pay at least 60% of her son's full tuition bill before he could join the student body. She didn't have the money and was led away. 'She was pleading, 'Please help me,'' said Beatrice Akite, a teacher at St. Kizito Secondary School in Uganda's capital city, who witnessed the outburst. 'It was very embarrassing. We had never seen something like that.' Two weeks into second term, Akite recounted the woman's desperate moment to highlight how distressed parents are being crushed by unpredictable fees they can't pay, forcing their children to drop out of school. It's leaving many in sub-Saharan Africa — which has the world's highest dropout rates — to criticize the mission-driven Catholic Church for not doing enough to ease the financial pressure families face. Legacy of Catholic education across Africa The Catholic Church is the region's largest nongovernmental investor in education. Catholic schools have long been a pillar of affordable but high-quality education, especially for poor families. Their appeal remains strong even with competition from other nongovernmental investors now eying schools as enterprises for profit. The growing trend toward privatization is sparking concern that the Catholic Church may price out the people who need uplifting. Akite hopes Catholic leaders support measures that would streamline fees across schools of comparable quality. Firm fee ceilings need to be set, she said. Kampala's St. Kizito Secondary School, where Akite teaches literature, was founded by priests of the Comboni missionary order, known for its dedication to serving poor communities. Its students come mostly from working-class families and tuition per term is roughly $300, a substantial sum in a country where GDP per capita was about $1,000 in 2023. Yet that tuition is lower than at many other Catholic-run schools in Kampala, where many students report later in the term because they can't raise school fees in time, Akite said. Late starts, long lines, extension requests One of the most expensive private schools in Kampala, the Catholic-run Uganda Martyrs' Secondary School Namugongo, maintains a policy of 'zero balance' when a child reports to school at the beginning of a three-month term. This means students must be fully paid by the time they report to school. Tuition at the school was once as high as $800 but has since dropped to about $600 as enrollment swelled to nearly 5,000, said deputy headmaster James Batte. On a recent morning, there was a queue of parents waiting outside Batte's office to request more time to clear tuition balances. Daniel Birungi, an electrical engineer in Kampala whose son enrolled this year at St. Mary's College Kisubi, a leading school for boys in Uganda, said the emerging risk for traditional Catholic schools is to cater only to the rich. There is hot water in the bathrooms, he said, describing what he felt was a trend toward levels of luxury he never imagined as a student there in the 1990s. Now, students are prohibited from packing snacks and instead encouraged to buy what they need from school-owned canteens, he said. That has 'put us under a lot of pressure,' he said. Tuition at St. Mary's College Kisubi is roughly $800 per term, and Birungi doubts he will be able to regularly pay school fees on time. 'You can go there and see the brother and negotiate,' he said, referring to the headmaster. 'I am planning to go there and see him and ask for that consideration.' The effects of a private education system The World Bank reported in 2023 that 54% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa rank the issue of paying school fees higher than medical bills and other expenses. That's partly because education is largely in private hands, with the most desirable schools controlled by profit-seeking owners. Schools run by the Catholic Church are not usually registered as profit-making entities, but those who run those schools say they wouldn't be competitive if they were run merely as charities. They say they face the same maintenance costs as others in the field and offer scholarships to exceptional students. Regulating tuition is not easy, said Ronald Reagan Okello, a priest who oversees education at the Catholic Secretariat in Kampala. He urges parents to send their children to schools they can afford. 'As the Catholic Church, also we are competing with those who are in the private sector,' said Okello, the national executive secretary for education with the Ugandan bishops conference. 'Now, as you are competing, the other ones are setting the bar high. They are giving you good services. But now putting the standard to that level, we are forced to raise the school fees to match the demands of the people who can afford.' Across the region, the Catholic Church has built a reputation as a key provider of formal education in areas often underserved by the state. Its schools are cherished by families of all means for their values, discipline and academic success. In Zimbabwe, the Catholic Church operates about 100 schools, ranging from dozens in impoverished areas where annual tuition is as low as $150 to elite boarding schools that can charge thousands of dollars. But a legacy of inclusion is under pressure in the southern African nation due to fee increases at boarding schools and efforts by Catholic leaders to fully privatize some schools. Many boarding schools already charge tuition fees between $600 and $800, prohibitive for the working class in a country where most civil servants make less than a $300 per month. Privatization will raise tuition fees even higher, warned Peter Muzawazi, a prominent educator in Zimbabwe. Muzawazi, who attended Catholic schools, once was the headmaster of Marist Brothers, a top Catholic school for boys in Zimbabwe. That school in Nyanga is among those earmarked for privatization. 'I know in the Catholic Church there is a lot of space for reasonable fees for day scholars, but for boarders there is need to be watching because the possibility that they would be out of reach for the vulnerable is there,' he said. The church needs to be actively engaged, he said. 'How do we continue to guarantee education for the poor?' Efforts to privatize church-founded schools have sparked debate in Zimbabwe, which for years has been in economic decline stemming in part from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and others. Authorities say privatizing these schools is necessary to maintain standards, even as critics warn Catholic leaders not to turn their backs on poor people. 'Schools have now turned into businesses,' Martin Chaburumunda, president of the Zimbabwe Rural Teachers' Union, told The Manica Post, a state-run weekly. ' Churches now appear only hungry for money as opposed to educating the communities they operate in." Rather than privatizing old mission schools, the church should invest in building new ones if it's useful to experiment with different funding models, said Muzawazi, a lay Catholic who serves on the governing council of the Catholic University of Zimbabwe. 'The bright people who advance the cause of countries are not the rich ones,' he said. 'We want every church and every nation to tap the potential of every person, regardless of economic status.' ___ Mutsaka reported from Harare, Zimbabwe. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
BBC News
7 hours ago
- BBC News
Zambia's lost language invented by women but almost killed by colonialism
A wooden hunters' toolbox inscribed with an ancient writing system from Zambia has been making waves on social media."We've grown up being told that Africans didn't know how to read and write," says Samba Yonga, one of the founders of the virtual Women's History Museum of Zambia."But we had our own way of writing and transmitting knowledge that has been completely side-lined and overlooked," she tells the was one of the artefacts that launched an online campaign to highlight women's roles in pre-colonial communities - and revive cultural heritages almost erased by intriguing object is an intricately decorated leather cloak not seen in Zambia for more than 100 years."The artefacts signify a history that matters - and a history that is largely unknown," says Yonga."Our relationship with our cultural heritage has been disrupted and obscured by the colonial experience."It's also shocking just how much the role of women has been deliberately removed." But, says Yonga, "there's a resurgence, a need and a hunger to connect with our cultural heritage - and reclaim who we are, whether through fashion, music or academic studies"."We had our own language of love, of beauty," she says. "We had ways that we took care of our health and our environment. We had prosperity, union, respect, intellect."A total of 50 objects have been posted on social media - alongside information about their significance and purpose that shows that women were often at the heart of a society's belief systems and understanding of the natural images of the objects are presented inside a frame - playing on the idea that a surround can influence how you look at and perceive a picture. In the same way that British colonialism distorted Zambian histories - through the systematic silencing and destruction of local wisdom and Frame project is using social media to push back against the still-common idea that African societies did not have their own knowledge objects were mostly collected during the colonial era and kept in storage in museums all over the world, including Sweden - where the journey for this current social media project began in was visiting the capital, Stockholm, and a friend suggested that she meet Michael Barrett, one of the curators of the National Museums of World Cultures in did - and when he asked her what country she was from, Yonga was surprised to hear him say that the museum had a lot of Zambian artefacts."It really blew my mind, so I asked: 'How come a country that did not have a colonial past in Zambia had so many artefacts from Zambia in its collection?'"In the 19th and early 20th Centuries Swedish explorers, ethnographers and botanists would pay to travel on British ships to Cape Town and then make their way inland by rail and are close to 650 Zambian cultural objects in the museum, collected over the course of a century - as well as about 300 historical photographs. When Yonga and her virtual museum co-founder Mulenga Kapwepwe explored the archives, they were astonished to find the Swedish collectors had travelled far and wide - some of the artefacts come from areas of Zambia that are still remote and hard to collection includes reed fishing baskets, ceremonial masks, pots, a waist belt of cowry shells - and 20 leather cloaks in pristine condition collected during a 1911-1912 are made from the skin of a lechwe antelope by the Batwa men and worn by the women or used by the women to protect their babies from the the fur outside are "geometric patterns, meticulously, delicately and beautifully designed", Yonga are pictures of the women wearing the cloaks, and a 300-page notebook written by the person who brought the cloaks to Sweden - ethnographer Eric Van also drew illustrations showing how the cloaks were designed and took photographs of women wearing the cloaks in different ways."He took great pains to show the cloak being designed, all the angles and the tools that were used, and [the] geography and location of the region where it came from."The Swedish museum had not done any research on the cloaks - and the National Museums Board of Zambia was not even aware they Yonga and Kapwepwe went to find out more from the community in the Bengweulu region in north-east of the country where the cloaks came from."There's no memory of it," says Yonga. "Everybody who held that knowledge of creating that particular textile - that leather cloak - or understood that history was no longer there."So it only existed in this frozen time, in this Swedish museum." One of Yonga's personal favourites in the Frame project is Sona or Tusona, an ancient, sophisticated and now rarely used writing comes from the Chokwe, Luchazi and Luvale people, who live in the borderlands of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yonga's own north-western region of patterns were made in the sand, on cloth and on people's bodies. Or carved into furniture, wooden masks used in the Makishi ancestral masquerade - and a wooden box used to store tools when people were out patterns and symbols carry mathematical principles, references to the cosmos, messages about nature and the environment - as well as instructions on community original custodians and teachers of Sona were women - and there are still community elders alive who remember how it are a huge source of knowledge for Yonga's ongoing corroboration of research done on Sona by scholars like Marcus Matthe and Paulus Gerdes."Sona's been one of the most popular social media posts - with people expressing surprise and huge excitement, exclaiming: 'Like, what, what? How is this possible?'"The Queens in Code: Symbols of Women's Power post includes a photograph of a woman from the Tonga community in southern has her hands on a mealie grinder, a stone used to grind grain. Researchers from the Women's History Museum of Zambia discovered during a field trip that the grinding stone was more than just a kitchen belonged only to the woman who used it - it was not passed down to her daughters. Instead, it was placed on her grave as a tombstone out of respect for the contribution the woman had made to the community's food security."What might look like just a grinding stone is in fact a symbol of women's power," Yonga Women's History Museum of Zambia was set up in 2016 to document and archive women's histories and indigenous is conducting research in communities and creating an online archive of items that have been taken out of Zambia."We're trying to put together a jigsaw without even having all the pieces yet - we're on a treasure hunt."A treasure hunt that has changed Yonga's life - in a way that she hopes the Frame social media project will also do for other people."Having a sense of my community and understanding the context of who I am historically, politically, socially, emotionally - that has changed the way I interact in the world."Penny Dale is a freelance journalist, podcast and documentary-maker based in London More BBC stories on Zambia: Grandma with chunky sunglasses becomes unlikely fashion iconHow a mega dam has caused a mega power crisisZambia made education free, now classrooms are crammedThe $5m cash and fake gold that no-one is claiming Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Did Welsh Rarebit start out as a joke by the English?
It's a beloved national dish of Wales and is found on restaurant menus across the country, but did Welsh rarebit actually start life as a joke played by the English?Toasted bread smothered in a rich, cheesy sauce - what's not to love? But the origin stories of this nostalgic comfort food are as varied as the recipes you can use to make credit poor farmers using a clever substitute for meat while others think English pubs coined the name as a joke, mocking the Welsh for not affording real which of these cheesy tales cuts the mustard? Welsh food historian and author Carwyn Graves said rarebit was "clearly associated with cultural and ethnic Welshness", with cheese being a vital part of European diets for a long time, especially in regions like Wales, where the dairy industry the Middle Ages, before refrigeration, cheese and butter were essential for preserving milk from the spring and summer for use during the colder was also a vital source of protein for poorer communities, particularly in areas like Wales and the Alps, where meat was scarce. In Wales, melted or roasted cheese became popular across all social classes, eventually evolving into Welsh 1536 Act of Union, incorporating Wales into England, saw Welsh migrants bringing melted cheese dishes to English Graves said the English saw it as an ethnic curiosity, even joking about 16th Century tale sees Saint Peter trick Welshmen with the call caws bobi - Welsh for roasted cheese - which he said reflected the dish's cultural ties to name Welsh rarebit appeared much later, with early English cookbooks, such as Hannah Glasse's in 1747, using terms including Welsh rabbit and Scotch rabbit for similar cheese on toast Mr Graves said there was no historical evidence linking the name to actual rabbits and he said the theory that poor people couldn't afford rabbit meat and used cheese instead was unproven. Kacie, from The Rare Welsh Bit food blog said Welsh rarebit, also known as Welsh rabbit, originated in the 1500s as a popular dish among Welsh working-class families who couldn't afford meat like rabbit, using cheese on toast as a substitute. According to her, the dish was first recorded in 1725 and over time, the name shifted from Welsh rabbit to Welsh rarebit, possibly to move away "from patronising connotations associated with the nature of the dish as a poor man's supper". Katrina from Real Girls Travel explained "nobody's quite sure how the name came about", but it's generally believed "Welsh rarebit" likely began as a joke about the poor people of south Wales, who were thought to live on rabbit and ale. She added that many mistakenly think Welsh rarebit contains rabbit because the dish was originally called "Welsh rabbit" in 1725. According to Katrina, the name probably changed because, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the English often gave humorous or fanciful names to regional foods, making the change "an attempt to make it a more fitting dish"."I personally think it was a language barrier or a strong Welsh accent that gave the dish its name," she added. In Sarah Fritsche's blog the Cheese Professor, she explained the word "Welsh" was used as an insult in 1700s Britain, similar to how "welch" functioned as a pejorative. According to Ms Fritsche, "rabbit" was used humorously because only the wealthy could afford real rabbit, making the cheesy toast a "poor person's substitute".She added "rarebit" was a corruption of "rabbit" and is unique to this dish, first appearing as "rare bit". Rose Geraedts, originally from the Netherlands, has lived in Brecon, Powys, for 20 years and runs the International Welsh Rarebit opened the business eight years ago after noticing cafes and pubs in the area were not serving it, despite high demand from tourists. "I thought it was crazy that a national dish wasn't on the menu. I think many saw it as old-fashioned," she took over a disused Victorian school building, renovated it and made Welsh rarebit the star of the show."It seemed mad not to do it - but a lot of people think I'm nuts," she cafe now offers six varieties and Ms Geraedts said customers loved the dish's rich, comforting flavour, seasoned with cayenne pepper, nutmeg, paprika and Worcestershire sauce. Ms Geraedts said she had welcomed visitors from around the world, from Australia to America, and even served celebrities including Jonathan Ross and rugby legend Gareth added: "People love it because it's nostalgic. They remember their mother or grandmother making it."It's much more than just dry cheese on toast."Ms Geraedts believes rarebit became popular due to Wales' connection to cheese-making, despite its name being a sarcastic "patronising" English joke. University lecturer, dietician, cook and food writer Beca Lyne-Pirkis said she first learned to make Welsh rarebit with her grandparents so it brings back "nostalgic memories".The 43-year-old, from Cardiff, said it was a great first dish to learn as it's "more complicated than cheese on toast" but not too Lyne-Pirkis said she has two versions - a rich, roux-based recipe with cheddar, beer, mustard and Worcestershire sauce and a quicker one mixing egg, cheese, and seasoning to spread on toast. The dish stayed with her through her university years and is now a favourite with her children."I fell in love with the flavour," she said."When I eat it I get the nostalgic childhood feeling as I have so many fond memories of eating it. That's where my love of food came from."Whatever the roots, Ms Lyne-Pirkis said rarebit was now a timeless, adaptable national dish rooted in family stories and experimentation."Every recipe has its own story, which helps keep the recipe alive."
