Zolderopruiming: bewaren/weggooien? Naked savages!


LIFE
OCTOBER 1,
1956 INTERNATIONAL EDITION
BEGINNING A MAJOR 'LIFE' SERIES
THE U.S. NEGRO AND SEGREGATION
NETHERLANDS 105 CENTS:
WEAVING
with locally
grown cotton: craftsmen
work with a hand~ loom of ancient design
making strips of cloth about three inches wide,
which are stitched side by side into a single large garment.
Also stool-making was, and still is, a highly developed skill among the Ashanti people:
craftsmen with adzes are fashioning wooden stools for royalty. The nearly completed stool is intended
for use in the household of the present Ashanti king, Nana Otumfu Sir Prempeh II:
carver Asmana Kramo has worked on it for three days and will get about $7 for it
when it is finished. They used to live in compounds still standing today
as in slaving days: as protection against raiders their round dwellings,
some unroofed and empty now, were joined on the outside
by mud walls. The interior of a compound dwelling is hard
and bare in our eyes. A farmer has usually two houses
and two wives; each has six children: a husband
stays in one house & the families take one-
week turns living with him. The Gold Coast,
whence the ancestors of many American Negroes
came as slaves, is today {1956!} a British colony rapidly pro-
gressing toward complete self-government. About a third the size of France,
it has a population of over four million. The most numerous single group is the Ashanti people,
whose inland kingdom occupies about a third of the whole territory.
In recent years the Ashanti have made great material progress.
But mingled with thier 20th Century civilization can be seen
some aspects of the native culture that existed 170 years
ago during the height {1886} of the slave trade.
This way we may see what the life of an Ashanti
was like before he was brought to the New World.
The Ashanti had a nonliterate but not properly "primitive" society
and there was a complex government structure headed by a king,
beneath whom were paramount chiefs & subchiefs down to the heads
of individual compounds. There was a well-defined system of taxation;
there were courts of law and an army. The symbols of kingly or chiefly authority
were wooden stools of ornate design; the kingdom itself, as a residence for its national spirit,
had a golden stool which was never sat on or permitted to touch the ground. Polygamy
was practiced among the Ashanti by those who could afford it, as it is today.
Religion was polytheistic and had a highly developed priesthood.
The principal occupation was farming and the principal crop yams,
which grow abundantly in the forest clearings. Handicrafts, particularly weaving,
were well developed among the Ashanti. Traditionally weaving was done only by men,
who produced beautiful fabrics with standardized patterns ~ each pattern had a name and often represented a clan or social status of its weaver, much like a modern club necktie.
The Ashanti had a civilization which differed greatly from the European or American ideal
but was not for that reason inferior. The description of them as "naked savages,"
often used by slave traders trying to
justify themselves, was
not true
......

Wat
zat er
verder eigenlijk allemaal achter:
welke oorzaken & gevolgen
tot op de mydidag
van vandaag?

Toen ik nog
op de lagere school zat
in de eerste helft van de jaren vijftig van de vorige eeuw
stonden er in de meeste toenmalige tijdschriften ook nog regelmatig [meestal!]
cartoons met naakte zwarten die om een grote kookpot
op het brandende vuur dansten met daarin
een vette blanke kolonist compleet met
tropenhelm & de inboorlingen
hadden botjes door
hun neus
......

engel
20 mei 2010 - bewerkt op 20 mei 2010 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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