| In our ancient and Afrikan tradition of communalism,
cooperation and collectivity, we open with Libations. By pouring
Libations, we recognize all who have gone before and on whose shoulders
we today stand and are obligated. With one person pouring water,
the substance of life, onto the ground or a plant, we all participate by
responding in an Afrikan tongue, in essence saying, "so be it, it is done."
We say it in an Afrikan tongue to reclaim and reconstruct our person/peoplehood,
our Goddess/God given humanity...far more important and superior to the
accident of our "citizenry" or place of birth. It can be said in
Yoruba (A shea), Akan (ya al), Meta netu (hotep), Zulu (ye bo), or any
Afrikan language of which you may have knowledge. "Amen" is also
an ancient Afrikan (Khemet/Egypt) word commonly used, but it's Afrikan
origin unrecognized. Amen or Ammon was Egyptian, a solar deity, he
personified the sun after it had descended below the western horizon and
thus hidden from sight. Call and response, we do it in our churches
and conversations all the time.
Memorium
Call: In the name of the great Afrikans
who began the march of mankind, in the womb of Mother Afrika's Great Lakes
Region, East Afrika, we ask these Afrikans to be with us to strengthen
us and give us a vision for the future.
Response: A Shea!
Call: In the name of the great Afrikans
who began the march of humankind, and marched down the Nile River, 4000
miles of the Nile River Valley, establishing their culture, their high
culture, and their civilizations, building their temples, their tombs and
their pyramids to their Goddess/God concepts, we ask these great Afrikans
to be with us, strengthen us, and to give us a vision for the future.
Response: A Shea!
Call: In the name of the great Afrikans
who opened up their culture of the Nile River Valley to other peoples,
spread it around Afrika, and helped Afrikans in other parts of Afrika build
the stone cities of Zimbabwe, the great empires of the Sudan, Ghana, Mali
and Songhay, to build the great city-states of the Yourbas, the BaCongos,
the Dogon, the Ashante and the Zulu.
The Afrikans who opened up Afrika to other peoples
from other parts...the ancient Hebrews coming into Afrika from other parts
and synthesizing Afrikaness and produced Judism, early Christians coming
into Afrika, also synthesizing Afrikaness & producing the first Christian
nations (Egypt and Ethiopia). The early Greeks who came into Afrika
to study at the feet of the Afrikans, going back to Greece, producing their
schools of knowledge. Later, the Prophet Muhammad's people, the Arabs,
coming into Afrika and sythesizing the knowledge, producing Islam.
We ask these great Afrikans who opened up their hearts, minds and spirits
to others and helped produce Judism, Christianity, Islam and Greek civilization
and culture, we ask these Afrikans to be with us, to strengthen us and
give us vision for the future.
Response: A Shea!
In the name of the great Afrikans who pulled out
of Afrika, but who kept the spirit of greatness in their hearts, and this
love of Goddess/God in their being, and who fought for liberty and justice
as they were put into the ships of enslavement, as they were brought across
the ocean in the Middle Passage, were brought to those shores...South America,
the Caribbean, and North America...and who left a legacy of struggle and
freedom the likes of no other people. To resist enslavement, they
went into the highlands of Palmaris (Brazil) and Created the first free
republic in the Americas (1600's), and into the backwoods of Surinam and
produced the Akan cultures and civilizations of the Surinamka. To
resist bondage, they went into the highlands and mountains of Jamaica and
other islands of the Caribbean and produced the Maroon communities, into
the swamps and backwoods of Florida and Georgia and linked up with the
Seminole Indians and produced the struggles for freedom of the Afrikan
peoples in North America. We ask these geat Afrikans to be with us,
in the tradition of Harriet Tubman, Sojourer Truth, Nat Turner, Marcus
Garvey, Gabriel Prosser, and Denmark Vessey. We ask these Afrikans
to be with us, strengthen us and give us a vision of the future.
Response: A Shea!
In the name of our immediate Afrikan forebearers,
Afrikans who renewed our contribution to science, who helped develop the
light bulb and telephone, electricity, agricultural science, the tradition
of opening up the United States' ideals to the realities of all of it's
peoples, we ask these great Afrikans to also be with us and give us a vision
for the future. We ask this in the name of our Afrikan future.
Response: A Shea!
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