Analysis Of The Poem Decolonizing The Mind - 1109 Words

Response: Ngugi â€Å"Decolonizing The Mind† is an essay on language and how it communicates the culture of it’s users. Ngugi begins his essay by telling the reader about his life growing up in Kenya. He states they all spoke â€Å"Gikuyu†, and all told many stories about animals or humans. The overarching theme of these stories were about the â€Å"apparent† weak outwitting the strong, or how a disaster forces cooperation (998). He continues to describe what makes a good story-teller. A good story teller, according to Ngugi, is one that is able to use language to make the same story seem interesting, and make stories told by others more exciting (998). Ngugi then goes on to describe the intruding colonization that occurred. Rapidly, everything he knew†¦show more content†¦NOTE: Variants in other African languages are: Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter (Igbo, Nigeria). Until lions start writing down th eir own stories, the hunters will always be the heroes (Kenya and Zimbabwe). Hunters are powerful and respected personalities in their communities. They are believed to have some supernatural powers. They often have great stories to tell that emphasize their achievements and their hunting skills. People often praise them and celebrate their exploits. This is especially true when they come home with big animals like an elephant or a lion. Even though people celebrate their stories, they are also aware that they will never know all that goes on in the forest. When a hunter brings home a lion (or any animal) it may very well be due to the hunter s skills, but it may as well be due to pure luck. The lion might have been sleeping or injured. No matter in what circumstances the lion is killed, a hunter will always tell a story that makes the hunter shine. Is the hunter telling the true story or just bragging? No one will ever know. This Ewe-mina Proverb refers to this unknown part of the struggle between the lion and the hunter because we Africans know well that a story is never complete until one hears from both sides. The one who does not have the voice is often the loser. This loser might well be the lion to the hunter, theShow MoreRelatedRastafarian79520 Words   |  319 PagesJamaicans regard as their cultural contribution to the world. Later I will return to these issues and will demonstrate how they contribute to the routinization of Rastafari in Jamaica. The nature of this book dictates a heavy reliance on documentary analysis. My focus is interpretation not ethnography. Therefore, I have not sought to generate primary data on the movement but to analyze and re-analyze the growing body of scholarly and popular literature on the movement, including sociological and anthropological