Transformation of African rock art fundamentals and element of African rock art form in the development of culture and communication

Abstract

The slowly disappearing cultural heritage which presents in cultural activities in Kenyan rock art is a worrying trend. The examples that exist in the rock art raises challenges to scholars and historians who may want to stress the need to preserve the special practices which can act as a resource for preservation of cultural heritage. It is said that most of the African culture as practised before the coming of the white man has disappeared and that whatever little that remains is slowly getting ignored and forgotten. African traditional practices, rituals, ceremonies have either been dismissed as primitive, barbaric and uncouth or have been relegated and replaced by new order from the West. Western religion, the precursor of colonialism dismissed African traditional practices as satanic and a new order was put in place. Education which had been passed on through oral tradition and socialization process was replaced by formal structures in exotic language. In time foreign cuisines had largely replaced African traditional dishes. Christianity assumed a leading role in civilizing the natives and keeping them away from any other form of worship. Dictatorship was practised in governance and in so doing cultural practices of indigenous peoples of Africa in general and Kenya in particular were thwarted and destroyed