WISHING YOU ALL HAPPY KWANZA FESTIVITIES ..................................................................................................................... Before the European Christian missionaries arrived on the shores of sub-Saharan Africa, the locals there had their own celebrations, these, especially soon after the harvests. Because there are two harvest seasons, the second harvest season was always spared for the celebrations. In this, they conducted singing contests, athletic contests among others. This second harvest season always fell in what is todays December and it was very coincidental that when the christian missionaries came with their Gregorian calender, the birth of Jesus fell almost at the same time as the end of second harvest season. So they started celebrating both the harvest season and the birth of Jesus. But as the Missionaries exerted more influence, somehow the harvest period celebrations began to disappear and emphasis was now put on the birth of Jesus. The slaves who got taken to the United States however continued to celebrate this season although it also later died out until when it started being popularised by Maulana Karenga, he researched and found out that among the Eastern African people, this season was called Matunda ya Kwanza to mean the first fruits of the harvest, since then many Africans in the diaspora especially in the United States who want to re-connect with their African roots do celebrate the Matunda ya Kwanza or to put it in todays term, the KWANZA festival. In this regard, i wish all of you a happy Kwanza festival !
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 12:02:08 +0000
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