An ancient writing system confounding myths about Africa

A woody hunters' toolbox inscribed with an past penning strategy from Zambia has been making waves connected societal media.

"We've grown up being told that Africans didn't cognize however to work and write," says Samba Yonga, 1 of the founders of the virtual Women's History Museum of Zambia.

"But we had our ain mode of penning and transmitting cognition that has been wholly side-lined and overlooked," she tells the BBC.

It was 1 of the artefacts that launched an online run to item women's roles successful pre-colonial communities - and revive taste heritages astir erased by colonialism.

Another intriguing entity is an intricately decorated leather cloak not seen successful Zambia for much than 100 years.

"The artefacts signify a past that matters - and a past that is mostly unknown," says Yonga.

"Our narration with our taste practice has been disrupted and obscured by the assemblage experience.

"It's besides shocking conscionable however overmuch the relation of women has been deliberately removed."

But, says Yonga, "there's a resurgence, a request and a hunger to link with our taste practice - and reclaim who we are, whether done fashion, euphony oregon world studies".

"We had our ain connection of love, of beauty," she says. "We had ways that we took attraction of our wellness and our environment. We had prosperity, union, respect, intellect."

A full of 50 objects person been posted connected societal media - alongside accusation astir their value and intent that shows that women were often astatine the bosom of a society's content systems and knowing of the earthy world.

The images of the objects are presented wrong a framework - playing connected the thought that a situation tin power however you look astatine and comprehend a picture. In the aforesaid mode that British colonialism distorted Zambian histories - done the systematic silencing and demolition of section contented and practices.

The Frame task is utilizing societal media to propulsion backmost against the still-common thought that African societies did not person their ain cognition systems.

The objects were mostly collected during the assemblage epoch and kept successful retention successful museums each implicit the world, including Sweden - wherever the travel for this existent societal media task began successful 2019.

Yonga was visiting the capital, Stockholm, and a person suggested that she conscionable Michael Barrett, 1 of the curators of the National Museums of World Cultures successful Sweden.

She did - and erstwhile helium asked her what state she was from, Yonga was amazed to perceive him accidental that the depository had a batch of Zambian artefacts.

"It truly blew my mind, truthful I asked: 'How travel a state that did not person a assemblage past successful Zambia had truthful galore artefacts from Zambia successful its collection?'"

In the 19th and aboriginal 20th Centuries Swedish explorers, ethnographers and botanists would wage to question connected British ships to Cape Town and past marque their mode inland by obstruction and foot.

There are adjacent to 650 Zambian taste objects successful the museum, collected implicit the people of a period - arsenic good arsenic astir 300 humanities photographs.

When Yonga and her virtual depository co-founder Mulenga Kapwepwe explored the archives, they were astonished to find the Swedish collectors had travelled acold and wide - immoderate of the artefacts travel from areas of Zambia that are inactive distant and hard to reach.

The postulation includes reed sportfishing baskets, ceremonial masks, pots, a waist loop of cowry shells - and 20 leather cloaks successful pristine information collected during a 1911-1912 expedition.

They are made from the tegument of a lechwe antelope by the Batwa men and worn by the women oregon utilized by the women to support their babies from the elements.

On the fur extracurricular are "geometric patterns, meticulously, delicately and beautifully designed", Yonga says.

There are pictures of the women wearing the cloaks, and a 300-page notebook written by the idiosyncratic who brought the cloaks to Sweden - ethnographer Eric Van Rosen.

He besides drew illustrations showing however the cloaks were designed and took photographs of women wearing the cloaks successful antithetic ways.

"He took large pains to amusement the cloak being designed, each the angles and the tools that were used, and [the] geography and determination of the portion wherever it came from."

The Swedish depository had not done immoderate probe connected the cloaks - and the National Museums Board of Zambia was not adjacent alert they existed.

So Yonga and Kapwepwe went to find retired much from the assemblage successful the Bengweulu portion successful north-east of the state wherever the cloaks came from.

"There's nary representation of it," says Yonga. "Everybody who held that cognition of creating that peculiar textile - that leather cloak - oregon understood that past was nary longer there.

"So it lone existed successful this frozen time, successful this Swedish museum."

One of Yonga's idiosyncratic favourites successful the Frame task is Sona oregon Tusona, an ancient, blase and present seldom utilized penning system.

It comes from the Chokwe, Luchazi and Luvale people, who unrecorded successful the borderlands of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yonga's ain north-western portion of Zambia.

Geometric patterns were made successful the sand, connected cloth and connected people's bodies. Or carved into furniture, woody masks utilized successful the Makishi ancestral masquerade - and a woody container utilized to store tools erstwhile radical were retired hunting.

The patterns and symbols transportation mathematical principles, references to the cosmos, messages astir quality and the situation - arsenic good arsenic instructions connected assemblage life.

The archetypal custodians and teachers of Sona were women - and determination are inactive assemblage elders live who retrieve however it works.

They are a immense root of cognition for Yonga's ongoing corroboration of probe done connected Sona by scholars similar Marcus Matthe and Paulus Gerdes.

"Sona's been 1 of the astir fashionable societal media posts - with radical expressing astonishment and immense excitement, exclaiming: 'Like, what, what? How is this possible?'"

The Queens successful Code: Symbols of Women's Power station includes a photograph of a pistillate from the Tonga assemblage successful confederate Zambia.

She has her hands connected a mealie grinder, a chromatic utilized to grind grain.

Researchers from the Women's History Museum of Zambia discovered during a tract travel that the grinding chromatic was much than conscionable a room tool.

It belonged lone to the pistillate who utilized it - it was not passed down to her daughters. Instead, it was placed connected her sedate arsenic a tombstone retired of respect for the publication the pistillate had made to the community's nutrient security.

"What mightiness look similar conscionable a grinding chromatic is successful information a awesome of women's power," Yonga says.

The Women's History Museum of Zambia was acceptable up successful 2016 to papers and archive women's histories and indigenous knowledge.

It is conducting probe successful communities and creating an online archive of items that person been taken retired of Zambia.

"We're trying to enactment unneurotic a jigsaw without adjacent having each the pieces yet - we're connected a treasure hunt."

A treasure hunt that has changed Yonga's beingness - successful a mode that she hopes the Frame societal media task volition besides bash for different people.

"Having a consciousness of my assemblage and knowing the discourse of who I americium historically, politically, socially, emotionally - that has changed the mode I interact successful the world."

Penny Dale is simply a freelance journalist, podcast and documentary-maker based successful London