ANANSE

 

During the Pre-Colonial period, Africa was very famous for their culture and tradition. The belief that the ancestors played prominent roles in the maintenance of morality in the community hardly dies. Even after the colonization many believes there is no death for their religion. African’s traditional belief, God is the explanation of all things.

     African loss their shallow language and their history. Mostly, African spent half their time learning and mastering the languages, culture and religion of their oppressors. During the era of colonization their words and original accent were disappeared from use and circulation. Also their meanings are lost and misrepresented. The colonizers had forced Africans to withdraw their own native languages. Through this the colonizers can find the archetype of the enslaver. This gave Africans a false sense of belongings; a soothing determination to be seen to belong and yet not be a part of a distorted sense of purpose in helping advance the economic upliftment of their oppressors while gaining little gaining little else other than a part on the black.

     During the 18th century Edwin Smith in his missionary explained about the racism and slavery of Africa. He wrote in detail about European colonizers suppression towards Africa. His book ‘The Golden Stool’ describes how European destroyed the institutions, traditions and religion of the people. The colonizer ruined the customs and traditions of Africa. One of the primary fact is that the colonizers initially disassociate those people from their God , their spirituality, their culture, and their history. With these the cultures and traditions lessened and finally disappeared.

Discussion:

                 Ananse is an imaginal character in Caribbean folktales. This character appear as a mythical spider in the human form. Inorder to highlight the African origin, Braithwaite chose Ananse as the title. Here the poem portrays the dilemma of the Africans who were tortured and suppressed by the colonizers. They lost many of their of their traditions and customs. Through the poem ‘Ananse’ the reader can feel the rage of the African towards the colonizers. The poem picturizes the social relevance of Ananse particularly in the site of transformative discriptions like revolts and rebellions.

     “memories trunked up in a dark attic, he stumps up the stares  of our windows, he stares, stares             he squates on the lips. Of our language black burr of conundrums eye corner of ghosts, ancient histories.  An attic, a storing area for conjures up an idea of web-filled place, the common haunt of spiders. Thes lines deals with the ancesteral memory. The memory evoked here is the African heritage the slaves brought with them to the Caribbean, those are the ancient histories of various tribes transported from Africa,. Only the proverbs, riddles, ‘Conundrums’ kept the African language alive. The influence of foreign language killed many of the African dialects. He spins drum, beats, silver skin webs of sound through the villagers; tacky heard him and L’Coverture all the hungry dumb-bellied chieftains.

     The ancient way of life resonant with drums beating to convey messenger from one village to another. The colonizers occupied the peaceful life of the villagers. Tacky and L’ouverture exploits in popular slave rebellions ‘Cheiftains’ also placed. Intrigue practised by them was required for the overthrow of colonial slavery. This is equated with the ability of the spider to spin webs which enshares unsuspecting victims. In west African culture traditional story-tellers,griots, often narrate stories to the villagers gathered around a fire. Wallaboo tree is native to this region. The colonizers captured  all the good things from the native and destroyed poor lives.

Who spat

Their death into the grounds

            Goare, Port-au-Prince, Half Moon Fort,

            Villagers,

            Dead lobstor-pot crows,

            Wire red, sea shells, coconut trees’ hulls,

            Black iron bells, clogged,

            No glamour of moon on man

                 This carries history with emotions of war between colonizers and the west African slaves, ‘lobstor-port crews’ were the first casualties of war. Their “nodding skulls” are floating on the water, the colonially imposed religion abondoned their lives.

                 Brathwaite brings out the fervour which was seen on the eyes of West Africans to rebuild their lost culture. The black snake in the poem refers to the blackman. The revolt begins.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UNSPOKEN GRIEF OF AFGHANIAN WOMEN DEPICTED BY KHALED HOSSEINI

  ABSTRACT- The persistent conditions of conflict and violence in Afghanistan, continuing for almost fifty years now, has caused huge destruction in terms of human and material losses. It has also led to a radical transformation in its socio-cultural fabric almost irreversibly. Because of their vulnerable position in its society, the Afghan women have endured a tough existence as they came to grips with a double subjugation in the form of patriarchal authority and the oppression emanating from the persistent conditions of the conflict. However, there is often a tendency to cast Afghanistan and its people in essentialist terms both in academic and non-academic endeavours. This paper studies the vital subject of Afghan women’s experience as narrated in Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. In the light of this novel, this paper argues how during a critical phase in Afghanistan’s history, the conditions of violence and conflict magnified the oppression on its women. By contextu...
Read more

Educational Philosophies Definitions and Comparison Chart

 Within the epistemological frame that focuses on the nature of knowledge and how we come to know, there are four major educational philosophies, each related to one or more of the general or world philosophies just discussed. These educational philosophical approaches are currently used in classrooms the world over. They are Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism, and Reconstructionism. These educational philosophies focus heavily on WHAT we should teach, the curriculum aspect. Perennialism For Perennialists, the aim of education is to ensure that students acquire understandings about the great ideas of Western civilization. These ideas have the potential for solving problems in any era. The focus is to teach ideas that are everlasting, to seek enduring truths which are constant, not changing, as the natural and human worlds at their most essential level, do not change. Teaching these unchanging principles is critical. Humans are rational beings, and their minds need to be deve...
Read more

THE METHODS/MODELS FOR PREVENTING STUDENT MISBEHAVIOUR IN THE CLASS ROOM ENVIRONMENT

  With the changing attitudes toward the use of punishment-based disciplinary procedures, schools have looked for alternative models of student discipline. These models were and are aimed at developing and maintaining appropriate student behavior. The authors of these models try to describe why they work. Unfortunately, many of them have overlooked some important fundamentals; that is, they ignore the effects on students and fail to use scientific, functionally based definitions in their models. Following are brief descriptions of some of the various behavior management models used in schools. Table 1.1 provides a sample of the most commonly used models. Model Key Aspects Assertive Discipline Teachers have the right to determine the environmental structure, rules, and routines that will facilitate learning. Teachers have the right to insist that students conform to their standards. Teachers should prepare a discipline plan in advance, including statements of their expectations, r...
Read more