Christopher Columbus was ‘a damn blasted liar’
Self Editor’s Note: Next time you are asked who discovered the mighty Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, tell them that [my] great-great grandfather, Kimborido Kasei Righiria, born and raised at the foot of the mountain, lived with it before any white explorer set eyes on it — Swallehe Msuya, journalist, 1948-2009.
I get really fascinated by people who discover things. Things like the ones that make it possible for me to sit at my desk, write a few sentences, and with the strike of a few keys publish my ideas for the world to read. (I like to think the world is reading what I write). And the geniuses that who discovered that if you add yeast to fermented grain or bananas or whatever your people fermented to get the party going, you could have a really good beverage.
But I get so riled up when I hear people say that so and so – usually some European – discovered a mountain, or a river, or a lake, or an island and named it for some royal man or woman that sent him to do so. I get even more outraged when one man is credited with having “discovered” a continent. Finally, I get really, really pissed off when that “discovery” is people – Africans, Asians, Native Americans.
Today, thanks to real discoveries like the Internet, which have made free flow of information possible, we now can explain our outrage by sharing what we know. Here is an excerpt from “Columbus,” a song by Burning Spear, one of my favorite Gurus:
He’s saying that, he is the first one
who discover Jamaica
I and I say that,
What about the Arawak Indians and the few Black man
Who were around here, before him
The Indians couldn’t hang on no longer
Here comes first Black man and woman and children,
In a Jam Down Land ya
A whole heap of mix up and mix up
A whole heap a ben up, ben up,
We have fi straighten out,
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
And if you are saying, “Come on, Our Man in America! Do you expect us to believe an old, dreadlocked guy from Jamaica?” I suggest you read “1421: The Year China Discovered America,” a book written by a guy the Queen of England sent sailing around the world for 17 years in the British Navy.