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BBC News
4 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
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Geographic narcissism': the battle to fund aged care providers in rural Australia
In the final stages of Angiolina Moro's dementia journey, she would revert to speaking Italian. 'She was in her late 20s when she arrived in Australia,' her son, Joe Moro, says. 'So as her dementia creeped in, she lost the capacity to speak in English.' Angiolina died in February. She spent the final five years of her life at an aged care facility in Mount Kooyong, 50km north of Mareeba, the far north Queensland town where she had lived most of her life. Moro says his mother would have preferred to stay in Mareeba, where language wasn't as much of a barrier. Ten per cent of Mareeba's population is Italian. 'I know the staff [at Mount Kooyong] spent a lot of effort trying to communicate,' he says. 'I think they did a fantastic job. 'A lot of older people in the [region] are the first lot of immigrants who came back in the 50s and worked hard and are now deteriorating and ending up in homes. So language is a big barrier up here for getting good outcomes in care.' Sign up to receive Guardian Australia's fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter Moro says because of the relative isolation of the region there are limited options for aged care. Some travel to Cairns, about 60km from Mareeba, to fit in with their adult children's work schedules. But, Moro says, most of their elderly parents would prefer to stay in smaller communities. Ross Cardillo sold his business several years ago to help around the family lychee and longan farm at Mareeba. He and his sister are supporting their mother, 77, who is providing in-home care for their father, 83. 'There's just not sufficient care in Mareeba,' Cardillo says. '[Dad] wants to stay home, which is fair enough. If he goes to an aged care facility, he will die. And my mother won't let him die.' It is a common story in rural Australia. In-home aged care services are limited the further you travel from capital cities and regional centres. Cardillo has many friends who travel an hour to access aged care homes and the distances increase as you move further inland. Cardillo is the chairman of Mareeba and Communities Family Healthcare, a social, not-for-profit enterprise founded five years ago to provide improved medical services in the town. 'We are trying to cater for our ageing population with little or no support from anyone else,' he says. 'As a community, we see it as valuable and important and we're pursuing that. 'It's about opening up funding to more providers that are available up here.' In May, the enterprise set up an outreach clinic in Mutchilba, 35km south-west of Mareeba, to service the 600 locals. 'Most of them are elderly, so we didn't want them to travel as far,' Cardillo says. Moro, who is also the Mareeba Chamber of Commerce president, says Mareeba and Communities Family Healthcare was set up to focus on general medical services but could expand to aged care if there was adequate 'dollars, cents and expertise'. 'We have an overall shortage here,' he says. 'There are numerous councils trying to get investment and there's talk of something going to happen – at the end of the day it's an investment issue.' A 2023 report by the National Rural Health Alliance estimated that rural Australians missed out on $850 worth of healthcare services each year due to a lack of access to or availability of services in their local area – equating to a total annual rural health underspend of $6.5bn. The Alliance chief executive, Susi Tegen, says many communities have resorted to raising funds on their own. She described the failure of governments to adequately fund aged care in the regions as 'geographic narcissism'. 'Some communities are coming up with models that are much better and allow for support from the local community,' Tegen says. 'However, they are often not funded. They rely on volunteers and they are often not considered by government funding to be good enough. And yet, we seem to see a population that is being told by the lack of funding that they're not as important as urban people.' In New South Wales, the Snowy Mountains community of Bombala shot a nude calendar to raise funds to keep the Currawarna assisted living facility open after it closed due to staff shortages in 2022. Tegen says rural communities need a commitment from state and federal governments to ensure they receive equitable funding to keep pace with the ageing population. The number of Australians aged over 65 years is projected to almost double from 3.8m in 2017 to 6.4m in 2042, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Tegen says it is difficult to attract healthcare workers to move to regional areas because they 'feel they're not being supported'. 'They're having to beg and scrape, and they're having to jump through hoops to get the money that everyone else seems to be getting in the city,' she says. The federal government in March said it would invest $600m in in-home care in regional Australia and for people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences. There is also almost $1bn in the federal budget for the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program, which provides grants to build, extend or upgrade aged care services or to build staff accommodation where older Australians have limited or no access. But Cardillo says it seems as though that money never filters down to his community, and the people at the top do not understand the reality of those in regional communities. He says the community will keep doing what they need to do to cater for their ageing population. 'They get things done themselves and they do it themselves,' he says. Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
BreakingNews.ie
7 hours ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Carer who died in house fire was a 'son, brother, partner, friend and rock'
The funeral service for Kevin Kelly, who died in a house fire in Casla, Co Galway earlier this week has heard that he was born 14 days after his due date and did things his own way from that point on. Mr Kelly (31) died alongside Sunny Jacobs (76) when a fire broke out at her cottage at Gleannicmurrin in Casla on Wednesday morning. Advertisement Mr Kelly was a carer for Ms Jacobs. He also looked after her husband Peter Pringle prior to his death in 2023. Kevin's younger sister Jill told mourners at the Discovery Church on the Tuam Road this afternoon that he was a free spirit who lived to help others. Kevin was born in Dublin but moved to Inishmore with his family at the age of four. The Kelly family subsequently re located to Athenry. Jill said that Kevin loved 'the tranquil life surrounded by the community of Connemara". Mourners were told that Kevin loved dogs even though he was bitten in the face by one at a young age. Jill said that there was a lesson to be learned in how Kevin moved on from this frightening experience and ended up volunteering for the dog welfare charity MADRA. Advertisement Jill said that his time in MADRA was a 'life-changing experience' for her older brother. 'It was where his love of dogs was truly discovered and it was where he met his beautiful (partner) Sheree. Sheree told me this week that the first time she went out to MADRA to volunteer she got out of the car and she said to Kev 'Where do you keep the pit bulls? "And that was it. He was hook, line and sinker (in love). Sheree you and Kevin were made for each other and he loved you so much.' Jill added that they had lost 'a son, a brother, a partner, friend and rock". Kevin is survived by his mother Fiona, his father Ken, Ken's partner Maureen and her son Jonathan, Kevin's partner Sheree, his siblings Jill and Cúán, brothers-in-law Conor and Kal, his nieces and nephew, extended family, friends and neighbours. Following the service a cremation took place this afternoon in Shannon Crematorium at 4pm.
