In the last blog article, I wrote about schools teaching wrong information about the African fabric mudcloth. Here's one way that this mis-information about Africa gets started. One thing about African history that is different from western history is that it is normally not written down. There is a reason for this. When something is written down, it starts to seem much more true. If two people disagree about something in Africa, then it is important that they should both be able to give their side of the story. If it is all written down and taught from books (instead of orally), then the only story that anyone hears is the one from the person who writes his stuff down. So when someone from the West goes to Africa; and writes about how mudcloth is made; they I suppose they need to talk to a lot of different people to get the whole story. Not as much information gets passed down in Africa as in the West for this reason; but there's not as much mis-information getting passed down either. It makes a person wonder about what else has been written down about Africa, taught in schools, and is now believed to be the truth. By the way, mudcloth carries a lot of meaning. The meaning behind comes from this same African culture and traadition. Each piece can mean something different. You can find out the meaning behind mudcloth here.