Zambia’s lost language invented by women but almost killed by colonialism

A box of wood hunters tools, inscribed with an ancient Zambia writing system, makes waves on social media.

“We grew up to us that the Africans do not know how to read and write,” says Samba Yonga, one of the founders of the Museum of the History Museum of Virtual Women.

“But we had our own way of writing and transmitting knowledge that are fully lined and neglected,” she told the BBC.

It was one of the artifacts that launched an online campaign to emphasize women’s roles in pre -colonial communities – and revived cultural heritage, almost erased by colonialism.

Another intriguing object is a complex decorated leather cloak that has not been seen in Zambia for more than 100 years.

“The artifacts mean a story that matters – and a story that is unknown to a large extent,” says Yongga.

“Our connection with our cultural heritage is disturbed and darkened by the colonial experience.

“It is also shocking how much women’s role is deliberately removed.”

But, says Yonga, “there is a resumption, need and hunger to contact our cultural heritage – and to regain who we are, whether through fashion, music or academic research.”

“We had our own language of love, for beauty,” she says. “We had ways we took care of our health and environment. We had prosperity, union, respect, intelligence.”

A total of 50 sites have been published on social media – In addition to their meaning and purpose, which shows that women were often at the heart of the systems of the beliefs of society and the understanding of the natural world.

The images of the objects are represented inside a frame – reproducing the idea that surround can influence the way you look and perceive a picture. In the same way, the British colonialism distorts the Zambian stories – through the systematic silence and destruction of local wisdom and practices.

The Frame project uses social media to return against the still common idea that African societies did not have their own knowledge systems.

The sites were assembled in the colonial era and are stored in museums around the world, including Sweden – where the trip for the current social media project in 2019 began.

Yongga visits the capital, Stockholm and friend suggested she meet with Michael Barrett, one of the cursers of National Museums of World Cultures in SwedenS

She did it – and when he asked her from which country she was, Yonga was surprised to hear him say that the museum has many Zambian artifacts.

“It really blew my mind, so I asked,” How did a country that had no colonial past in Zambia have so many artifacts from Zambia in its collection? “

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Swedish researchers, ethnographers and botanists would pay to travel on British ships to Cape Town and then make their way inside the rail and leg.

The museum has nearly 650 Zambian cultural objects collected over a century – as well as about 300 historical photographs.

When Yongga and her co -founder of the Virtual Museum Mulenga droplets explored the archives, they were surprised to find the Swedish collectors who traveled far and wide – some of the artifacts come from Zambia regions that are still distant and difficult to reach.

The collection includes cane fishing baskets, ceremonial masks, pots, waist belt of insidious shells – and 20 leather jackets in pristine condition, collected during the 1911-1912 expedition.

They are made from the skin of the antelope of the men from Batva and are worn by women or are used by women to protect their babies from the elements.

The outside is “geometric patterns, thoroughly, delicately and beautifully designed,” says Yongga.

There are pictures of women wearing the cloaks and a 300 -page notebook written by the person who brought the cloaks in Sweden – ethnographer Eric van Rosen.

He also draws illustrations showing how the cloaks are designed and take pictures of women wearing cloaks in different ways.

“He was making great pain to show that the cloak was designed, all angles and instruments used and () geography and location of the region from where it came from.”

The Swedish Museum had not done any research on the cloaks – and the National Museum Council in Zambia was not even aware that they existed.

Thus, Yonga and Kapveeps went to understand more than the community in the Bengulu area in the northeast of the country from which the cloaks come from.

“There is no memory of this,” Yonga says. “Everyone who kept this knowledge of creating this particular textile – this leather cloak – or realized that history was no longer there.

“So he only existed in this frozen time, in this Swedish museum.”

One of Yonga’s personal favorites within the project is Sona or Tusona, an ancient, sophisticated and now rarely used writing system.

It comes from the people of Chokve, Luchazi and Luvet, who live within Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Northwestern Zambia Northwestern region in Yongga.

The geometric models are made in the sand, on the fabric and the bodies of people. Or carved in furniture, wooden masks used in the masquerade of the ancestors Mackish – and a wooden box used to store tools when people were hunting.

Models and symbols carry mathematical principles, references to space, messages about nature and the environment – as well as instructions for the life of the community.

The initial guardians and teachers of the sona were women – and there are still alive elders in the community who remember how it works.

They are a huge source of knowledge of continuing confirmation of Yongga’s research done by SONA by scientists such as Marcus Mate and Paulus Gerdes.

“Sona was one of the most popular social media publications – with people who express surprise and great excitement, exclaiming,” As, what, what? How is this possible? “

Code Queen: The symbols of the female Power Post include a photo of a woman from the Tonga community in South Zambia.

It has hands on a mill, a stone used to grind grain.

Researchers from the Zambia History Museum have discovered during an excursion that grinding stone is more than a kitchen tool.

It belonged only to the woman who used her – she was not betrayed to her daughters. Instead, she was placed on her grave as a tombstone with respect for the contribution that the woman made for the community’s food security.

“What can only look like a grinding stone is actually a symbol of the power of women,” says Yongga.

The Women’s History Museum was created in 2016. To document and archive the stories of women and knowledge of the indigenous population.

He conducts research in communities and creates an online archive of objects removed from Zambia.

“We are trying to collect the mosaic without even having all the pieces – we are still hunting for treasures.”

Treasure hunting that changed Yonga’s life – in a way that she hopes that the Frame Social Media project will do for other people.

“To have a sense of my community and to understand the context of who I am historical, political, socially, emotionally – this has changed the way I interact in the world.”

Penny Dale is a freelance journalist, podcast and a documentary based in London