posted
Apparently it was widespread til the early 1900s. By 1910 when this book,'with a prehistoric people,the Akikuyu' by a missionary was written the code had been all but forgotten by all except the elderly. He says only a man a few km away was able to interpret the script. As you can see it explains common daily activities suggesting it was frequently used among all Kikuyus.Interestingly the writer,Scoresby Routledge surmises its a vestige of a more detailed script like the Vai. The accompanying translation: This is the ONLY EXAMPLE of gichande I've found.At the NMK,National Archives,universities or the net there are no other photos. The overwhelming majority of historians,even Kikuyus themselves here are totally unaware of gichande and mindlessly parrot the standard Euro line'literacy came to Africa with whites'. IDK if these are ideograms or pictographs. How would they be classified? Real researchers,step in!
Posts: 433 | From: nairobi | Registered: Oct 2011
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quote:Originally posted by kikuyu22: Apparently it was widespread til the early 1900s. By 1910 when this book,'with a prehistoric people,the Akikuyu' by a missionary was written the code had been all but forgotten by all except the elderly. He says only a man a few km away was able to interpret the script. As you can see it explains common daily activities suggesting it was frequently used among all Kikuyus.Interestingly the writer,Scoresby Routledge surmises its a vestige of a more detailed script like the Vai. The accompanying translation: This is the ONLY EXAMPLE of gichande I've found.At the NMK,National Archives,universities or the net there are no other photos. The overwhelming majority of historians,even Kikuyus themselves here are totally unaware of gichande and mindlessly parrot the standard Euro line'literacy came to Africa with whites'. IDK if these are ideograms or pictographs. How would they be classified? Real researchers,step in!
The type of writing could tell a lot of Kikuyu's true origins,which are still a mystery. There's talk of Mesopotamia,Egypt ,Ethiopia and of course the Cameroonian migration story. So,please,lion,clyde and marc give me the benefit of your knowledge of early African scripts.
Posts: 433 | From: nairobi | Registered: Oct 2011
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posted
The calabash isn't very clear but you can still make out the detail. [img] file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/twelve/Desktop/New%20Image.JPG [/img]
The translation: Posts: 433 | From: nairobi | Registered: Oct 2011
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quote:Originally posted by kikuyu22: The calabash isn't very clear but you can still make out the detail. [img] file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/twelve/Desktop/New%20Image.JPG [/img]
The translation:
I don't think you can post images from your desktop computer. Over here, unless you have it on a server.
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
Kikuyu I got the pictures. They are posted below:
The script appears to be made up of dots. The number of dots appear to represent phrases, instead of single words. These dots along with shells appear to make up the text.
It would be helpful to find additional calabash text. A comparison of the phrases from the separate text would allow us to develop a enough phrases to understand this interesting writing system.
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