music and its dance ~ an Africa-centered s/hero's journey perspective

Posts tagged ‘Buganda Kingdom’

Panther Kings, Barkcloth & Milk

From ancient times to the present day, Africa’s collective imagination has to one degree or another been influenced by the leopard as a symbol of its cultural and spiritual potency. The black panther is the melanistic color variant of leopards in Africa, so perhaps the phenomenal success of the movie of the same name can be used as a current barometer of that potency. North, south, east, west, and diaspora – the leopard is a powerful symbol of African warriors, sages, magicians, priests, gods, goddesses, queens, and kings. In West Africa, sculptures from Ife and Benin portray the leopard as a symbol of wisdom. This statue from ancient North Africa depicting King Tutankhamun riding through the underworld on the back (more…)

Category:

African Culture, Colonial Experience, Hero's Journey, Oral Tradition, Shero's Journey

Tagged with:

Uganda: A Multiplicity of Experiences ~ Guest Post (cont’d) written by E. N. Bisamunyu

Eli Nathan Bisamunyu (RIP ~ May 6th, 2014)

Eli Nathan Bisamunyu
(RIP ~ May 6th, 2014)

My father, Eli Nathan Bisamunyu, was born into a poor family in 1928 in a remote region of Uganda before my district’s inclusion in Her Britannic Majesty’s Protectorate of Uganda. He survived childhood diseases such as dysentery and typhus that had killed 13 of his siblings. His unexpected appearance on the scene much later compelled his mother to wish for him a different existence from that which his siblings had not survived. In a pioneering experiment she sent him to school where he distinguished himself as a six-year-old pupil amidst a throng of 15-18 year-old boys. My grandmother Rebecca had hoped that that “modern education,” as it was known, would keep him out of harm’s way. (more…)

Category:

African Culture, Colonial Experience

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud