As we celebrate heritage month and enjoy all the festivities I would like us to take few minutes to ask ourselves how much we know about our heritage.
Where did you learn about it – was it from your parents or your family?
Do you know how to prepare traditional food?
Did you have to go to an initiation school of sorts to be trained about your tradition?
I often see people dressing up in different colourful traditional garments during this month
Is that what we have reduced our heritage to?
Don’t get me wrong: I think you look great in those clothes and images should be captured and put on display.
What I want to know is when did we get to the point where we associate our culture and heritage with these clothes?
I have been going down memory lane by reading about different cultures.
None of these garments existed in years gone by.
Our fore fathers wore animal skills, and ate wild fruits and vegetables unlike the processed food we consume.
Are we now teaching our children that tradition and heritage have evolved over the years and we will only celebrate what is recent.
I feel if we want to celebrate our heritage then we should do it in the right way.
We should start by teaching people about where their forefathers come from, customs in their tribes and rituals that need to be followed.
We cannot only share what we feel is necessary and leave other things out because this is how our heritages get diluted.
