Zambia’s Secret Language: Women & Colonialism’s Impact
- A virtual museum in Zambia is using social media to highlight the roles of women in pre-colonial communities and revive cultural heritages that were almost erased by colonialism.
- The Women's History Museum of Zambia is showcasing artifacts like a wooden hunters' toolbox inscribed with the ancient Sona writing system.
- Samba Yonga, one of the museum's founders, said that Africans had their own ways of writing and transmitting knowledge that have been overlooked.
Uncover the untold story of women in pre-colonial Zambia.A virtual museum is leveraging social media to spotlight the roles of women and their erased impact due to colonialism on their cultural heritage, using artifacts like the ancient Sona writing system and a 100-year-old leather cloak. Founded by Samba Yonga, the museum counters the common narrative that African societies lacked their own knowledge systems, revealing a rich history of intellect, respect, and prosperity frequently enough centered on women. learn how the project’s founders discovered hundreds of Zambian objects collected by Swedish explorers, showcasing the systematic silencing of local wisdom. News Directory 3 brings this story to life. Discover what’s next as the museum further challenges colonial narratives.
Zambian Museum Highlights Women’s Roles in Pre-Colonial Society
A virtual museum in Zambia is using social media to highlight the roles of women in pre-colonial communities and revive cultural heritages that were almost erased by colonialism.
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The Women’s History Museum of Zambia is showcasing artifacts like a wooden hunters’ toolbox inscribed with the ancient Sona writing system.
Samba Yonga, one of the museum’s founders, said that Africans had their own ways of writing and transmitting knowledge that have been overlooked.
Another intriguing object is an intricately decorated leather cloak not seen in Zambia for more than 100 years.
Yonga said the artifacts signify a history that matters and is largely unknown, adding that colonialism disrupted the relationship with cultural heritage and deliberately removed the role of women.
Yonga said there is a resurgence, a need, and a hunger to connect with cultural heritage and reclaim who we are through fashion, music, or academic studies.
She added that they had their own language of love and beauty, ways to take care of health and habitat, and had prosperity, union, respect, and intellect.
The museum has posted 50 objects on social media,alongside data about their meaning and purpose,showing 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, likewise 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, were the journey for this current social media project began in 2019.
yonga was visiting Stockholm and met Michael Barrett, a curator at the National Museums of World Cultures in sweden.
When he asked her what country she was from, Yonga was surprised to hear him say that the museum had a lot of Zambian artifacts.
She asked how a country that did not have a colonial past in Zambia had so many artifacts 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 past photographs.
When Yonga and her virtual museum co-founder Mulenga Kapwepwe explored the archives, they were astonished to find the Swedish collectors had traveled far and wide.
What’s next
The Women’s History Museum of Zambia plans to continue using social media to share the stories behind these artifacts and challenge colonial narratives.