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AsheGHOST — Hero I: Throne of Fidelity
Published: 2008-05-16 18:20:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 824; Favourites: 7; Downloads: 5
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Description
I decided to add some tradtional work. This is a 30 x 40 inch mixed media drawing of a series entitled "HERO." This is part one in a series of four. The subtitle of it is called "Throne of Fidelity." I captures the story of Nzinga, Kween of the Matamba people in the Congo area of Africa. She led a successful campaign against Portuguese colonizers. When meeting with their Councilers, they didn't want to offer her a seat because the Portugese saw Africans as a souless people made to be conqured. Already anticipating the attitudes of the Councilers, Nzinga's warriors rolled out a carpet and one of them offered himself as a seat for his Kween.The models were my wife and myself. (she's sitting on my back!)
This was done with graphite, prisma color pencils, charcoal pencils, and acrylic.
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Comments: 3
It's a good drawing but your history is a bit sketchy. Nzinga wasn't as successful as some might believe. Her greatest successes against the Portuguese occured when the Dutch had taken Luanda and the Portuguese were confined to a city in the interior. Before and after that her success was somewhat lukewarm (at best). And the Portuguese never viewed the Africans as having no souls; they just didn't care about them at all (indeed, the Portuguese didn't care much about Angola itself, a dumping ground for criminals of the worst type).
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Oh...and the "souless people comment" that is acurate because Europeans used Christianity as one of the reasons to enslave others and conqure other nations. Believing that it was a manifest destity from God. Because Africans, or Native Americans for that matter, did not worship the same way, or what they worship, that they felt that by conquring these people they were christianizing them and saving them from themselves. Which is BS and just using a a peaceful belief to spread to build their empire.
When those who are not opened minded look at Africa, they tend to think that Africans don' have , and never had, a civilization. They don't even give Africans credit for Egypt (Kemet). Some scholars go so far as placing Kemet in the Middle East. The same was done for the structure Great Zimbabwe Wall. Because westernized scholars viewed africans as savages, they gave any and everyone else credit for building that structure. That is my explation of the souless comment.
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Thank you for your clarification. Unfortunately to write the whole story of Nzinga that would take too much of a post. If I could rewrite the information on explaining Nzinga for that particular drawing I would (and maybe I will.) To me she was successful, from an African American point of view who only grew up never hearing stories about her as well as great leaders (for lack of better terms) like Nana Yaa Asantewa. So maybe her success was lukewarm, but being part of a people where their history is often hidden, distorted, or destroyed, even lukewarm is something to celebrate. Being a part of a people who were (and still are) forced to learn about others who in reality were murderers and thieves (Columbus, Alexander the Great, Fernando Cortez) I will celebrate Nzinga like here success was more than lukewarm.
And Angola and other places weren't just a dumping ground for criminals of the worst type. It was a civilization also. Just like Australia was a civilization before it became a so-called "prison" island. People have the wrong misinterpretation of Africa as well as how the slave trade began. They love saying that Africans sold themselves into slavery, but they never tell you about those who tried to prevent it (Nzinga). They also try to equate the Slave trade with slavery of other civilizations. What Africans had were war prisoners, criminals, etc. They were still treated as human beings and also gained their freedom. In my opinion, slavery of any kind is evil. But when the Europeans entered the slave trade, it took on not just physical bondage, but mental bondage as well. There are numerous sources for this.
Thank you for comment and clarification and any is welcomed.
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