good afternoon good afternoon it’s a
pleasure to be here I’m dr. Robin Renee
Sanders and I’m currently the CEO of
feeds which is an advocacy initiative
looking at global issues around the
world particularly development issues
and advocating for them and one of the
things that I did as a diplomat US
diplomat for 20 years so I tend to focus
on political and economic issues which
was part of my job but what I realized
and want to share with you today was
that I wasn’t paying as much attention
as I should have been to cultural
practices the rituals the songs what
they meant and what I want to share with
you today is that we have this challenge
in our global community there’s about
6,000 plus 6,000 plus languages words
associated with cultural practices and
the artistic motifs and patterns
themselves that are endangered today
think about that number 6,000 I know
that when I say the word extinction many
of you might have the same emotive
reaction to the word extinction that I
do you know that civilizations are
bygone there are lots of civilizations
that we’ve either seen or read about
that no longer exist today
and the message and the takeaway today
is we had that same challenge with
endangered cultural practices and their
artistic motifs and the languages and
the songs that go along with them and
when you think about that if I were to
tell you that in December 2016
the mighty giraffe that I had an
opportunity to see in Kenya in southern
Africa was put on the endangered species
list but we don’t have a same kind of
list globally for endangered practices
their songs their rituals and even the
words associated with them so what
happens when these things disappear it
means that they are gone forever that we
lose something as human common
and as a global community what I learned
when I was doing my research on this at
Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh
was it there there’s this transcendental
moment that takes place
nobody says let’s not teach this anymore
nobody says these words are not useful
to our community anymore it just sort of
happens and that period of time is
called moribund and i know that we all
know what the word moribund means but in
this particular case for cultural
practices and their artistic motifs the
word moribund means it’s no longer being
taught to the next generation so
whatever that vanguard generation is
rather they’re in their 50s their 60s or
70s or even in their 80s the practice
the words the rituals and the songs are
no longer being taught to that next
generation which means that when that
vanguard generation moves on to walk
with the ancestors those words those
rituals those artistic cultural
practices disappear so the example that
i want to talk to you about in depth my
own personal experience with it it’s
called uh lee and it was traditionally
done by the e bowl of southeastern
Nigeria what was traditionally their
home land area but in general worldwide
you have really two types of communities
that tend to be in this situation you
have hunter and gathering communities
yes they are a few of them still left in
the world
I’ve had the honor and I considered an
honor to have been in pygmy villages in
central Africa and the Republic of Congo
and Bushmen communities in the Kalahari
Desert in southern Africa but we also
have them here in the United States
particularly Native Alaskan communities
like the in you Pat in North Alaska in
the borrow area and then you of course
have them in the Amazon and you have
them in Southeast Asia and places like
Australia as well the only example I’m
going to highlight
today and you see some of the wonderful
creative and artistic motifs that are
part of this ritual I think is a good
example because it has a number of
elements when you think of cultural
practices and patterns it includes a lot
of things the rituals the songs the
dance and the words and Olli has all of
those things you will meet some of the
women that I had the honor to hear their
life stories about early with I called
them legends because they were in a
situation where they were trying to
protect something extremely important to
them that they had learned from their
mothers and their grandmothers wooly is
a matriarchal practice it is done on the
body it is done on the walls of deity
shrines and for me it was a very emotive
experience to hear these women talk
about how something very important to
them was being lost and so I called them
legends because they were fighting this
taboo not only a modernization
encroaching on their environmental
habitat because they had spiritual
connections to animals in flora and
fauna and reputa and reptiles but they
also had a to deities things that they
worshiped that were part of their
spiritual awakening so these were the
challenges they faced and I consider
them legends because they were trying
their very best to hold on to something
that was historically important to them
so when I talk to you about early today
it is several things
it is the overall cultural practice of
course it is the plant the plant itself
is called early from which the ink is
made from which the motifs then are made
that are then celebrated in the rituals
and the song and the dance and these are
the things that are disappearing in that
6000 plus number that I shared with you
in the beginning so listen to levy
Madame levy is in her late 80s she’s
telling me there about her mother and
her grandmother
the communal activities I was accepted
into the village and that’s something
that was really an honor for me to be
accepted into the village you see Madame
Martina been practicing you hear the
wonderful celebratory music and dancing
that is the start of the activity I
wanted to feel with the motifs and the
ink felt like on my hand and Madame levy
is they’re putting the motif on my hand
and then of course at the end there is
the celebration the dance for an
activity that is considered a
celebratory activity Huli is never done
for sad occasions it’s always done for
joyous occasions like the planting
season like the harvest season like the
beginning of the new year in the ebo
traditional calendar there are only
seven months in a new year and for
naming ceremonies for a new child born
into the village so I had an opportunity
to go to four villages and meet the
women that I call legends
you’ve already met Madame Levy and
you’ll meet the others as well getting
to the villages very difficult
environment very difficult to get there
very difficult environments that these
women live in on a daily basis in the
first village the motifs were about
reptiles they celebrated the reptiles in
the flora and fauna in their area
because that’s where they believe the
spirits lived and it was very very
important to them in terms of keeping
these motifs alive remember the songs
remember the music remember the history
here she’s putting the Kola nut on my
hand which is a traditional acceptance
by an evil village that you are welcomed
into the village it represents evil
unity it represents hospitality and you
see her very delicate early motifs and
that picture there which I learned how
to draw I learned how to draw all the
symbols that you saw today because I
felt that for me to really understand
not only did I need to feel it I need to
understand how to to make
how to draw them and I did that second
village was called Inari and they’re
celebratory motifs were a little bit
different they were huge they were six
feet tall actually and they were around
deity shrines in this particular case
you see the motifs behind me their deity
was a Python and the Python was to
celebrate the beginning of the new year
the harvest seizing the planting season
all the joyous occasions of a village
the last two women you’re going to meet
Madame Martina and Madame ISA foe for me
they had the most difficult challenge
because in their case they didn’t have
two three four other women with them in
the community who was still Pratt who
was still practicing they were by
themselves I used to call them the solo
courage of Olli in their villages and
their facing the taboos that I talked to
you about that this is a pagan activity
so we don’t want to move it forward we
want don’t want to share that with the
next generation and you see she had very
delicate very delicate motifs that
represented the historical economic
practice of her village which is palm
wine you see the calabash there it is
the dual razors for circumcision during
a naming ceremony in a village and the
last woman that I met and had an
opportunity to hear her story is Madame
Iza foe and what touched me about Madame
Iza foe and also Madame Martina is they
were facing these taboos by themselves
Madame Martina told me the story that
her daughter wouldn’t even come near the
kitchen would that she was refurbishing
every year with the old motif she was by
herself and I actually had an
opportunity to witness that because as
she was telling me this story there were
two women on their way to to do fishing
and when they saw her practicing and
putting Olli on her home they they both
stopped in their tracks like they were
going to be tainted by this this
horrible activity
and they made this wise why a wide swath
around her so they wouldn’t be tainted
by it Madame Iza foe had the same
challenge being by herself in her
village in fact her family tore down her
traditional clay home and they put up
the cement structure that you see there
behind her and they thought if we do
this
she will not practice anymore because
she can’t put these motifs on a cement
structure and I remember her chuckling
to me when she was telling me this story
scene I fooled them all I still was able
to put early on my home and you see the
signs and symbols there on her home and
she asked me to take an official pose an
official picture of her which is what’s
there because I want to be remembered
for this early when I passed on and she
passed on to walk with the ancestors in
2014 and I sent this picture and that
quote back to her village so that it
would appear in her obituary because I
promised her that I would always
advocate for disappearing and endangered
signs and symbols her patterns look more
like this like it was a complete textile
and this is made from cassava paste
which is like a yam in the u.s. context
and from the natural plant indigo both
things in particular grow in the
southeastern part of Nigeria but indigo
with another endangered plant just like
Olie isn’t a danger plant so it made me
think how far could I find any reference
to Ely and I was able to go back to 1745
and I found a journal written by as luck
would have it a Nigerian who had been
taken from his village in 1745 he was
thinks he’s about nine years old at that
time he was taken to the Caribbean in
the slave trade and then on to Britain
where his master then taught him how to
read and write so he started writing
this journal to try to remember his
history and in the first chapter he
references Ely and how important it was
to his mother to the community to the
all of that and it was very very
important for me to understand that that
how deep it was embedded in the
community and some of the research shows
that it goes back way into the 1600s and
earlier you know every time in life
every now and then we have a concentric
circle moment and when I went to the new
Smithsonian music Museum of African
history and art when you go through the
first chamber there it’s about the slave
trade and the first name on the wall was
the same young man that I had read the
Journal of 1745
hola dao aquino and that was a very
emotive concentric circle moment for me
so this goes back to show you just how
important these things are and i think
that you know when you think about all
of the cultural practices and patterns
that are in jeopardy today that 6,000
number i hope that we as a community
take that as seriously as we take the
extinction and the endangerment of
animal life and wildlife and i would
like to see us do the same kind of thing
to have an endangered list of languages
practices and their patterns thank you
pleasure to be here I’m dr. Robin Renee
Sanders and I’m currently the CEO of
feeds which is an advocacy initiative
looking at global issues around the
world particularly development issues
and advocating for them and one of the
things that I did as a diplomat US
diplomat for 20 years so I tend to focus
on political and economic issues which
was part of my job but what I realized
and want to share with you today was
that I wasn’t paying as much attention
as I should have been to cultural
practices the rituals the songs what
they meant and what I want to share with
you today is that we have this challenge
in our global community there’s about
6,000 plus 6,000 plus languages words
associated with cultural practices and
the artistic motifs and patterns
themselves that are endangered today
think about that number 6,000 I know
that when I say the word extinction many
of you might have the same emotive
reaction to the word extinction that I
do you know that civilizations are
bygone there are lots of civilizations
that we’ve either seen or read about
that no longer exist today
and the message and the takeaway today
is we had that same challenge with
endangered cultural practices and their
artistic motifs and the languages and
the songs that go along with them and
when you think about that if I were to
tell you that in December 2016
the mighty giraffe that I had an
opportunity to see in Kenya in southern
Africa was put on the endangered species
list but we don’t have a same kind of
list globally for endangered practices
their songs their rituals and even the
words associated with them so what
happens when these things disappear it
means that they are gone forever that we
lose something as human common
and as a global community what I learned
when I was doing my research on this at
Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh
was it there there’s this transcendental
moment that takes place
nobody says let’s not teach this anymore
nobody says these words are not useful
to our community anymore it just sort of
happens and that period of time is
called moribund and i know that we all
know what the word moribund means but in
this particular case for cultural
practices and their artistic motifs the
word moribund means it’s no longer being
taught to the next generation so
whatever that vanguard generation is
rather they’re in their 50s their 60s or
70s or even in their 80s the practice
the words the rituals and the songs are
no longer being taught to that next
generation which means that when that
vanguard generation moves on to walk
with the ancestors those words those
rituals those artistic cultural
practices disappear so the example that
i want to talk to you about in depth my
own personal experience with it it’s
called uh lee and it was traditionally
done by the e bowl of southeastern
Nigeria what was traditionally their
home land area but in general worldwide
you have really two types of communities
that tend to be in this situation you
have hunter and gathering communities
yes they are a few of them still left in
the world
I’ve had the honor and I considered an
honor to have been in pygmy villages in
central Africa and the Republic of Congo
and Bushmen communities in the Kalahari
Desert in southern Africa but we also
have them here in the United States
particularly Native Alaskan communities
like the in you Pat in North Alaska in
the borrow area and then you of course
have them in the Amazon and you have
them in Southeast Asia and places like
Australia as well the only example I’m
going to highlight
today and you see some of the wonderful
creative and artistic motifs that are
part of this ritual I think is a good
example because it has a number of
elements when you think of cultural
practices and patterns it includes a lot
of things the rituals the songs the
dance and the words and Olli has all of
those things you will meet some of the
women that I had the honor to hear their
life stories about early with I called
them legends because they were in a
situation where they were trying to
protect something extremely important to
them that they had learned from their
mothers and their grandmothers wooly is
a matriarchal practice it is done on the
body it is done on the walls of deity
shrines and for me it was a very emotive
experience to hear these women talk
about how something very important to
them was being lost and so I called them
legends because they were fighting this
taboo not only a modernization
encroaching on their environmental
habitat because they had spiritual
connections to animals in flora and
fauna and reputa and reptiles but they
also had a to deities things that they
worshiped that were part of their
spiritual awakening so these were the
challenges they faced and I consider
them legends because they were trying
their very best to hold on to something
that was historically important to them
so when I talk to you about early today
it is several things
it is the overall cultural practice of
course it is the plant the plant itself
is called early from which the ink is
made from which the motifs then are made
that are then celebrated in the rituals
and the song and the dance and these are
the things that are disappearing in that
6000 plus number that I shared with you
in the beginning so listen to levy
Madame levy is in her late 80s she’s
telling me there about her mother and
her grandmother
the communal activities I was accepted
into the village and that’s something
that was really an honor for me to be
accepted into the village you see Madame
Martina been practicing you hear the
wonderful celebratory music and dancing
that is the start of the activity I
wanted to feel with the motifs and the
ink felt like on my hand and Madame levy
is they’re putting the motif on my hand
and then of course at the end there is
the celebration the dance for an
activity that is considered a
celebratory activity Huli is never done
for sad occasions it’s always done for
joyous occasions like the planting
season like the harvest season like the
beginning of the new year in the ebo
traditional calendar there are only
seven months in a new year and for
naming ceremonies for a new child born
into the village so I had an opportunity
to go to four villages and meet the
women that I call legends
you’ve already met Madame Levy and
you’ll meet the others as well getting
to the villages very difficult
environment very difficult to get there
very difficult environments that these
women live in on a daily basis in the
first village the motifs were about
reptiles they celebrated the reptiles in
the flora and fauna in their area
because that’s where they believe the
spirits lived and it was very very
important to them in terms of keeping
these motifs alive remember the songs
remember the music remember the history
here she’s putting the Kola nut on my
hand which is a traditional acceptance
by an evil village that you are welcomed
into the village it represents evil
unity it represents hospitality and you
see her very delicate early motifs and
that picture there which I learned how
to draw I learned how to draw all the
symbols that you saw today because I
felt that for me to really understand
not only did I need to feel it I need to
understand how to to make
how to draw them and I did that second
village was called Inari and they’re
celebratory motifs were a little bit
different they were huge they were six
feet tall actually and they were around
deity shrines in this particular case
you see the motifs behind me their deity
was a Python and the Python was to
celebrate the beginning of the new year
the harvest seizing the planting season
all the joyous occasions of a village
the last two women you’re going to meet
Madame Martina and Madame ISA foe for me
they had the most difficult challenge
because in their case they didn’t have
two three four other women with them in
the community who was still Pratt who
was still practicing they were by
themselves I used to call them the solo
courage of Olli in their villages and
their facing the taboos that I talked to
you about that this is a pagan activity
so we don’t want to move it forward we
want don’t want to share that with the
next generation and you see she had very
delicate very delicate motifs that
represented the historical economic
practice of her village which is palm
wine you see the calabash there it is
the dual razors for circumcision during
a naming ceremony in a village and the
last woman that I met and had an
opportunity to hear her story is Madame
Iza foe and what touched me about Madame
Iza foe and also Madame Martina is they
were facing these taboos by themselves
Madame Martina told me the story that
her daughter wouldn’t even come near the
kitchen would that she was refurbishing
every year with the old motif she was by
herself and I actually had an
opportunity to witness that because as
she was telling me this story there were
two women on their way to to do fishing
and when they saw her practicing and
putting Olli on her home they they both
stopped in their tracks like they were
going to be tainted by this this
horrible activity
and they made this wise why a wide swath
around her so they wouldn’t be tainted
by it Madame Iza foe had the same
challenge being by herself in her
village in fact her family tore down her
traditional clay home and they put up
the cement structure that you see there
behind her and they thought if we do
this
she will not practice anymore because
she can’t put these motifs on a cement
structure and I remember her chuckling
to me when she was telling me this story
scene I fooled them all I still was able
to put early on my home and you see the
signs and symbols there on her home and
she asked me to take an official pose an
official picture of her which is what’s
there because I want to be remembered
for this early when I passed on and she
passed on to walk with the ancestors in
2014 and I sent this picture and that
quote back to her village so that it
would appear in her obituary because I
promised her that I would always
advocate for disappearing and endangered
signs and symbols her patterns look more
like this like it was a complete textile
and this is made from cassava paste
which is like a yam in the u.s. context
and from the natural plant indigo both
things in particular grow in the
southeastern part of Nigeria but indigo
with another endangered plant just like
Olie isn’t a danger plant so it made me
think how far could I find any reference
to Ely and I was able to go back to 1745
and I found a journal written by as luck
would have it a Nigerian who had been
taken from his village in 1745 he was
thinks he’s about nine years old at that
time he was taken to the Caribbean in
the slave trade and then on to Britain
where his master then taught him how to
read and write so he started writing
this journal to try to remember his
history and in the first chapter he
references Ely and how important it was
to his mother to the community to the
all of that and it was very very
important for me to understand that that
how deep it was embedded in the
community and some of the research shows
that it goes back way into the 1600s and
earlier you know every time in life
every now and then we have a concentric
circle moment and when I went to the new
Smithsonian music Museum of African
history and art when you go through the
first chamber there it’s about the slave
trade and the first name on the wall was
the same young man that I had read the
Journal of 1745
hola dao aquino and that was a very
emotive concentric circle moment for me
so this goes back to show you just how
important these things are and i think
that you know when you think about all
of the cultural practices and patterns
that are in jeopardy today that 6,000
number i hope that we as a community
take that as seriously as we take the
extinction and the endangerment of
animal life and wildlife and i would
like to see us do the same kind of thing
to have an endangered list of languages
practices and their patterns thank you
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