Rkhty Amen Jhuty Interview

Part I

 (The editor's comments are for clarity only and placed in italics)

Int.: This is Atiba King; I am interviewing Sister Rkhty Amen Jhuty. Sister Rkhty is a Linguist and Egyptologist, she is the author of numerous articles including the “Female Horus is the Great Wife of Kemet” for the Journal of African Civilization volume IV in 1984, “The Calendar Project”, “The Kemetic Name Book” and “MDW NTR: The Writing System” plus she translated two of Dr. Cheik Anta Diop’s major works including “The Genetic Parentage of Pharonic Egyptians and the Languages of Black Africa”. As a scholar you’ve lectured at community forums and around the world. I’d like to thank you right now for taking time out for this interview for Tehuti Online. Now before we discuss your works, why don’t you let our readers know something about your academic background?

Rkhty: I attended several community colleges, I am from Chicago, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois where I studied as an undergraduate and graduated with a degree in linguistics. While I was there I became very interested in African languages where I studied several African languages at the University. Dr. Ben used to come there and lecture often and that’s really how I learned about Kemet and it was a little later on that I met Dr. Jacob Carruthers but anyway. I went directly to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and entered a graduate program in Egyptology and that’s my academic background.

Int: It’s not usually heard of for Black people to want to study linguistics. What made you want to study that? Cause you went there straight from basically high school right?  

Rkhty: Well actually I waited 7 or 8 years after high school. I was married and had children when I went to college and the University of Illinois.  

Int: That’s even more impressive! You must have had a drive, you know! 

Rkhty: It took me a long time to believe, that I could do what I wanted to do. I’ve always loved studying foreign languages. I just wanted the linguistics department was one opportunity to learn about language. While at the University I also studied several African languages. I had 3 years of Chinese as well. So, you know I just loved learning foreign languages to this day. 

Int: At the University of Illinois you didn’t have to specialize in one language and you took up 5 or 6. Wow! 

Rkhty: Actually at the University I went through the linguistics program, the graduate linguistics program but I studied Chinese for 3 years and that was the only official language I studied. The other languages I studied on my own. I would get African students; I would pay them actually to teach me to speak their language. I would get other students on campus to teach me their language.

Rkhty: And I would use that in my linguistics classes some of which were about how you learned language or language acquisition or how you learned language in the field. So I could apply, you know linguistically the whole process of learning languages. So what I was really interested in was other African languages.

Int: I’m really impressed with that! So many people just go to school just to get a better job or get a promotion. You were married and were a mother and just decided not to study a language but languages.

Rkhty: I wasn’t interested in going to school to get a job to make money and uh you know. I’ve never been interested in that.

Int:  Yeah, Yeah I know what you mean.

Rkhty: I have always been concerned in doing something that would benefit our people. And I guess I was just one of those people who had an opportunity to do that. Not everyone can do that, I had a situation in life that allowed me to do that.

Int: You know not just your family situation, but your educational situation as well. You said Dr. Ben turned you onto to…He was the first scholar to turn you onto Kemet. So, how did you meet Dr. Ben? Was it at one of his programs or public lectures or did he come to the school or what?

Rkhty: Every year Dr. Ben came to the University of Illinois to lecture. I guess the Black Student Union called him there. And um I would go and listen to his lecture. And you know, my first introduction to Kemet was from him.

Int: Dr. Ben turned, I guess you could say he turned the whole Black World onto Kemet, you know.

Rkhty: More or less most people I talk to had the same experience I did. They heard Dr. Ben or read one of his books and that’s really when they first realized (the truth) about Kemet. At that time I wasn’t really interested in studying the language. I didn’t really want to do that until after I met Dr. Carruthers and he said “ We ought to be learning MDW NTR”.

Int: In addition to the Chinese and other languages. Yeah I know when I got my bachelors in music from Wayne State we had to take up a foreign language. You know, for classical music and they wanted me to take ah…I had to choose between French, German and Italian.

Rkhty: Yeah, that so weird

Int: Yeah, I talked them into letting me take Spanish. I figured at least I’d have a chance to use Spanish. I had no plans to go to Italy or Germany.

Rkhty: Right, and actually I did study French and I did study German but only for one purpose and that was so that I could get into the University of Chicago. That was a requirement. Other than that I wasn’t interested.

Int: Yeah… So now Dr. Carruthers? What role did he play in helping you to decide to go to the University of Chicago?

Rkhty: Oh a big one. I really wasn’t planning on going to Graduate School number one. To think about it, I mean wasn’t planning to go to graduate school period. But the Kemetic Institute was just beginning and developing a Kemetic program and we needed to know more number two. We needed people in key places and we needed people that could do certain things and since I had the opportunity to go to the University of Chicago. I was offered a fellowship by the University of Illinois. He said go there and learn MDW NTR and that will help us! So that’s why I went there.

Int: So…so…now wait a minute you slipped something in there. You said that the University of Illinois offered you a fellowship to go to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

Rkhty: They offered me a fellowship to go to any University I wanted to go. Yeah.

Int: That was really nice! Were you a straight “A” student or what?

Rkhty: Yes, actually in linguistics I really was.

Int: Um hum…

Rkhty: We had a very small linguistics program and I was the only black student in it and um… everybody in the department. Maybe it was about seven students were all good. We probably all got fellowships. I don’t know if we all really did, but we probably all got fellowships. There were like only seven students in the department.

Int: Um-hum… That’s a good thing everything just, fell into line.

Rkhty: I think for me it was really just luck. Because I was not the best student as a young girl but I loved languages so much. I loved learning languages. One of the things I really want to do in the future is to set up and language lab some where, where people can come and listen to tapes and self teach African languages and other critical languages. I like the whole idea of the language lab is one of the things I want to establish. I think it would be real good and people would have an opportunity to come there and learn languages, languages without going to the University to do so.

Int: Right. The languages lab concept. Would that also entail classes too or would that be like going to the listening room at the library?

 Rkhty: Yes, it would like have classes and a listening room.

 Int: Yeah, well. I think it’s about just figuring out a plan.

 Rkhty: I’m gonna do that. The opportunity is beginning to present itself so I’m gonna do that.

Int: Yeah, I could see that working 

Rkhty: Some people like me who want to learn African languages and we just want to encourage that among you know among college students and other people to pursue and learn another language.

Int: Right, right…and you know I’ve talked to several people from Africa who now live in the states about my studies of Kemet. (They always tell me that) it’s a good thing to study Kemet but Africa is still alive today and as I study the old Ancient cultures I should study the moderns ones too because the cultural connection is still there. Learning the African languages would be a very important part of that. Are there any organizations that you have joined that have assisted in developing in your progress?

Rkhty: Well, yes. There is ASCAC of course. The Association of Study for the Study of Classical African Civilization, The Kemetic Institute of which I am a founding member and there are independent schools in Chicago. I have belonged to a couple of religious organizations but never stayed with them for very long. I have along history of activism and community activism in Chicago from about 18 years old. But at that time I wasn’t interested in languages, colleges, or anything…when I was younger. Like I said I really started school pretty late. I don’t even know how old I was but really pretty late I already young children. Um there’s International Black Women Congress, I belong to that. Also the Kawaida Organization and over the years…

Int: That’s Maulana Ron Karenga’s organization

Rkhty: Um-hum. They’ve been very supportive of me over the years so I belong with quite a few organizations.

Int: I see, you know that’s what leads to how a community will help us as individuals. You know they saw the contributions you were making and the potential. So, I know the energy was shared between you and whatever organization you were with.

Rkhty: Right.

 Int: I first became aware of your work in the mid 90’s when I first started attending the ASCAC Conferences. Um when is the next ASCAC Conference coming up. Do you know?

 Rkhty: March 2005 in South Carolina, I don’t know the exact date but I do know it’s in March.

 Int: O.K., O.K. I know they do have a website I think its www.ascac.org. I have to go on there and get some details on it.

Rkhty: Right

 Int: I’m sure you’ll be making a presentation there maybe?

 Rkhty: I think I will be but I won’t be a plenary speaker this year but I will definitely be there. I am participating with a lot of people on the World History Project and will be happy to be attending a meeting concerning that. But you know that ASCAC is a central and a very profound organization in the work that they are doing. Because the main thing that they are doing besides The World History Project is spreading the news about Kemet to all of Black America and the Diaspora. That’s perhaps their most important goal and most important function, getting study groups everywhere and learning about Kemet and aware of it.

Int: I joined the Eye of Heru study group here in Detroit around 1996 and that's how I learned of ASCAC. ASCAC really jumped started my awareness of where to study and how to study about Kemet you know. I bought Budges Egyptian Hieroglyphics Part I & II and Osiris and the Resurrection in the 70’s. I had started reading them but it was really confusing and stuff. After attending the conferences and hearing the lectures and talking to the people I found out about other angles and other books that talked about Kemet as well and that really opened-up my whole Kemetic studies experience. Now you said that Dr. Jake (Jacob Carruthers) encouraged you to go to the Oriental Institute to study Kemet. As a child you didn’t have any grand goals of studying Kemet then?

Rkhty: No, I didn’t know anything about Kemet. I knew nothing about Kemet as a teenager growing up in Chicago until I went to school and heard Dr. Ben. From that point on I really dedicated my life to studying Kemet.

Int: And as part of your studies you learned how to read MDW NTR.

Rkhty: Right, Jake Caruthers, myself, and about four other people who started the Kemetic Institute just started teaching ourselves. We started by learning on our own before I even went to school and then after I went to the Oriental Institute I started teaching classes at the Kemetic Institute. Some of the other people started participating in other classes that were being held in Chicago. Chicago is like a hub, a center for the study of Egyptology because the University of Chicago is probably the number one university for the study of Egyptology in the country. They’ve got several museums near them in the city that have huge collections and teach classes to the public so there are a lot of opportunities for everybody. Anybody who wants to can learn MDW NTR or anything about Kemet in Chicago because of the Oriental Institute. We took advantage of all that.

Int: The Oriental Institute does have a lot of programs. I was on their website yesterday and today just looking at the lectures and symposiums that they’re going to be holding this year. It just makes me mad that I stay in Detroit and its just 4 or 5 hours away but that’s too far to drive to take a class but I’m going to have to make that trip because some of the classes are even free.

Rkhty: Right, it’s a good opportunity.

Int: How has reading MDW NTR helped your studies?

Rkhty: In order to really understand Kemet you have to read MDW NTR. Many translations of things are not at all adequate and you probably had a little experience with that from reading Budge’s books. You probably even realize when you’re reading translations that this stuff doesn’t sound right. In order to really know what’s being said in a language you have to be able to read the language. Once you read the primary sources you begin to learn things you didn’t know before and see things you didn’t see before or see them in different ways. Its complex in a sense that it’s unbelievable how different the primary sources are from the translations that Europeans have done. Another issue is that people who have written about Kemet have done so from their worldview and their perspective and it (what has been written) is not at all what the Africans of Kemet were thinking and saying. It’s not at all the African vision of their world and so once you can read primary sources you have a different view of world history and the history and culture of the people.

Int: Can you think of any examples that would illustrate the differences between the Eurocentric worldview and the African worldview of Kemet?

Rkhty: Yes, perhaps a real glaring one is the whole concept of MAAT and what it mean to Kemet and to the Kemites and how Europeans deal with the concept of MAAT which is almost not at all to be perfectly honest. When you read a lot of books written by europeans about Kemet they devote very little to no time explaining or discussing MAAT. But when you read the Kemetic primary sources it becomes a central part of their every thought and their everyday life. For example when you read a translation you may never see the word MAAT or you may just see the word MAAT five times in an entire book of 500 pages but if you were looking at the primary sources…what the europeans do is they always translate the word into something else. They always translate it out to many different things but if you could read it in context you would have a better understanding of what it meant.

Int: So in their attempt to translate the specific meaning in each instance of the term MAAT they don’t use the term MAAT at all? You’re saying they use a whole ‘nother word for it?

Rkhty: They use another word and usually the word is more inline with their own cultural thought like righteousness or justice. Those are two good translations that europeans always use. But the europeans themselves have their own definitions for justice and their own definitions for righteousness which are really not what we mean when we say MAAT. So they translate the words according to their own cultural thought. Another good example of that is the word NTR which they always translate as God. Of course the Kemetic concept of NTR and the euro-christian concept of god are two totally different things. They are not related in any way so you have no understanding when you read a translation and you see the word god. The Kemetic word behind it is NTR. NTR is not the same as the euro-christian-judaic god. They are two totally different ideas and if you read God you will totally miss the whole point of Kemetic text. You see what I’m saying?

Int: Yeah, I’ve had discussions with people on that subject because when I’m talking about a Kemetic text I purposely don’t use the term god and I always explain what NTR is but the people I’m talking to still think of NTR as god even though I’m saying NTR. Would you say that the way the Kemetic people used the term NTR is more specific in its spiritual intent than the term god is?

Rkhty: It’s very different, it’s totally different. First of all everything that exists is probably NTR because the Kemites themselves used the word NTR in reference to all kinds of things. Human beings, concepts and principles, plants, animals, stars, rivers, trees just all kinds of things are referred to as NTR. When you think about god that’s not the case. A tree is not god or the river is not god and the man is not god and the plant is not god. So you can see they’re two totally different things and we’re not just talking about the modern christian idea that god is in everything. That’s not what the Kemites are saying. They’re saying that these living things are NTR so that’s really a completely different concept. If you look at ancient, pre-colonial African history and you look at the words that the African people used for the spiritual aspects of their society like their ancestors or the trees or the lakes, the rocks, the stones, the stars or even their supreme being its different than the euro-judeo-christian idea of this big-old-one-god. It’s totally different!

Int: So it sounds like there might be somewhat of a relationship between the Kemetic idea of NTR and the way its used and the Native American spiritual idea about the creator’s in everything and there is a spirit of the rocks and a spirit of the tree that kind of thing.

Rkhty: Yes its very, very much like Native American spirituality very, very much and like traditional African ways of seeing the world as well. Like I said before in pre-colonial times the Native American and African vision of the world and how they saw life was very different from the judeo-christian conceptualization of life, very different. The Kemetic one is very much like how the Native Americans saw the world and saw life.

Int: That leads me to ask you this then. Do you think it’s possible that there is a biological as well as cultural connection between the people of Africa, specifically Kemet, and the Native Americans?

Rkhty: Probably, as Ivan van Sertima spent a lot of time trying to prove, Kemites came to America very early way long before Columbus and settled here and established cultures here and established nations here but there were also other people who came from Asia who may or may not have been of African descent but just Asian descent who came here and established cultures here as well. So I think that what you have in America is you have a lot of different people from different parts of the world actually came here in ancient times and settled here. The African element is definitely here but there are others too and if you study Native American culture and just look at all of it it’s all so similar. And I’m sure that they all influenced each other to a great deal.

Int: I assume that there was a free flowing exchange of people, information, and ideas just all around the Earth within a band that’s close to the equator where the weather is warm. Like you said Ivan van Sertima has done a lot of work in that area.

Rkhty: He’s published the works of all the scholars who’ve been doing those particular studies.

Int: Are you presently teaching any classes in Egyptology?

Rkhty: At the moment I’m not because I’m temporarily living in California and so I’m not doing anything out here. We’re getting ready to move and when I get back to a place that I can call home I’ll be able to go back into teaching which I’m definitely going to do. (This interview was conducted in January of 2005. Rkhty is living in Mississippi now and organizing classes. Details will be given later.)

Int: The way you said “when I get back to a place that I can call home…” so you aren’t sure where you’re going to be moving to yet?

Rkhty: Exactly but we will be leaving here shortly. California was very temporary.

Int: So you’re not even teaching MDW NTR right now?

Rkhty: No I’m not but since I’ve been here I’ve gone to Detroit. The MDW NTR study group in Detroit always brings me there.

Int: Yeah with Bonotchi and Jackie

Rkhty: I went there just before the beginning of summer (2004) but that and a few meetings with groups out here and that’s about it.

Int: From my website I’m always telling people that they have to learn how to read and write MDW NTR to get the correct sense out of what our people were doing and I always refer them to this book “How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphics” by Collier and Manley. As someone who has taught MDW NTR is it difficult to teach MDW NTR using correspondence courses?

Rkhty: I’ve done that in the past. I had a correspondence course.  I did it maybe 7 years ago or something like that and I learned a lot of things that I could do better. I think if I could get it more prepared that I’d be able to use it better. It takes time and its work and when I was doing it…I understand that that was work for a lot of people and it would be a very good thing and that’s something that I may look at in the future.

Int: You know, from my studies with Bonotchi and Jackie I’ve found that I can sit up at home by myself and work myself into a cul-de-sac and I’ll just get so blocked up trying to find a definition by looking through three or four books at once. When I’m studying with somebody because we have different areas that we’re good at and we’re finding different things the lessons seem to flow a lot better. So if you were to do a correspondence course again I would suggest that you make sure that each student has at least one person that they could study with.

Rkhty: That’s really critical isn’t it?

Int: Yes ‘cuz to sit up here by yourself trying to get it can be so frustrating. Lots of times I would think that the answer is not there and I would turn to my partner and they’ve already found the answer

Rkhty: It’s much better working with someone and today with the internet hopefully, Bonotchi would be a good person to develop a program on the internet to learn MDW NTR because that’s a really good tool and it can reach a lot of people.

Int: Why don’t you give your email address so that people can get it touch with you to discuss different things and maybe you can drum up some more students and get this correspondence course going?

Rkhty: My email address is sndj@bellsouth.net and my name, Rkhty Amen Jhuty, has no vowels in it following the Kemetic principles.

Int: Don’t you wish you could just use the glyphs and people would know what you’re talking about?

Rkhty: Right and that’s a problem because when people are speaking MDW NTR sometimes you don’t know what they’re saying. You wish you could tell them to write it out because the vowels are dialectical and they change from different dialects and the ways that people speak. For example just the word Amen can be Amen, Amon, Amun, or Amunet. It can be so many different things depending on what vowel you put in it but once you write it there can be only one thing because it’s what the glyphs say not what the vowels are. So there can be many different pronunciations for one group of consonants (the transliterations of the glyphs). We need to learn to accept different pronunciations of the MDW NTR because the vowels that you put in the words, the vocalic pronunciation, doesn’t matter. What matters are the consonantal structures and the glyphs that are used to spell the words.

Int: So then let me ask you…Is it legitimately Kemetic to replace the letters in our names with the corresponding MDW NTR symbols that’s listed in Gardiner’s Kemetic Alphabet? You know like I’ll see people say my name is Atiba and they’ll take the glyph for “a” and the glyph for “t”, “I”, “b”, and “a” and spell out Atiba like that and say well that’s Atiba. Is that legitimately Kemetic to do that?

Rkhty: Well it’s legitimate to do that its legitimate to write your name with the MDW NTR alphabet, absolutely. It doesn’t mean your name is Kemetic all of a sudden its not. You could write your name using the Ethiopian alphabet. You could write your name using the Chinese alphabet it’s still going to be what it is. You’re just using a different system to write your name and that’s fine.

Int: Now you wrote a Kemetic name book. Where did you get the names from?

Rkhty: All of the names were taken from papyrus, every last one of them. Some of the names are the names of the Nisw Bity, some are people in the old biographies, a lot of them come directly from the old Kemetic biographies so they all came from the text.

Int: You used the term Nisw Bity. You should explain what that means to our readers.

Rkhty: Nisw Bity is what the leader of the country was called.

Int: Not Pharaoh?

Rkhty: Not Pharaoh. As a matter of fact the Kemites themselves never used the word Pharaoh in any text that we’ve seen. From the greco-roman period on you find “pr-aa” written which means “Great House” and the greco-roman pronunciation for “pr-aa” is pharaoh. It was never really used by the Africans but by foreigners. So we need to stop saying that because Africans never said that and never would have said that.

Int: Right.

Rkhty: King is another term that I don’t like either, King and Queen. Those are actually terms that refer to the kingships of europe so they have a slightly different connotation.

Int: So leaders on the African continent weren’t…

Rkhty: They were not kings, they were not emperors, and they were not pharaohs. The leader of Kemet was called the Nisw Bity.

Int: Can you spell that please?

Rkhty: Right, A lot of biographies and autobiographies especially from the Old Kingdom on to the Middle Kingdom, there are so many biographies, that I just basically went through the biographies and wrote down all the names of the people. Not all of them actually ‘cuz there’re many more than I use but the biographies are a good source.

Int: Did you also list the meaning of the names too?

Rkhty: Yes, all the names have the meanings given with them.

Int: OK, Is this book available? How can we get it?

Rkhty: No unfortunately it’s not. We stopped printing it. It was printed by the Kemetic Institute and they stopped printing it years ago. It would be a good thing actually to reprint the book and add more names to it.

Int: Yeah it really would be ‘cuz over the past year I’ve been asked several times for Kemetic names. People want to know where can they find a book on Kemetic names. What can we do to help the process of getting that book printed? It needs to be done.

 Rkhty: One of the things we can do is since the Kemetic Institute published the first one when we go to the ASCAC Conference this year we should talk to them about re-publishing it. That’s where I would start first.

Int: Yeah, you really should continue to use them as a resource.

Rkhty: and also I would like to add to it, to add more names.

Int: I had asked Bonotchi about doing a Kemetic name book and he has compiled a few names himself.

Rkhty: Well we ought to just work together then. Just take the names that he has and the names that are in the name book we already have. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel.

Int: I’ll be talking to him before the ASCAC conference and that’s something I’m definitely going to be beating the drums to get done.

Rkhty: Very good that’s very good.

Int: Because I’m lecturing about Kemet all the time and I have a small temple here some people have asked me to give them a Kemetic name. I’m not into naming people like that. I tell them I will try to give you enough insight and show you enough meditation so that you can go within and find out what your name should be but for me to be outside of you and say that I feel your spirit is blah-blah-blah I don’t feel comfortable doing that. Having a name book would really shorten the process for a lot of people.

Rkhty: Yes that would be a very good thing.

Int: What’s your opinion on the practice of using the english translations of MDW NTR symbols to suggest a connection to modern day languages and cultures?

Rkhty: I think there are some very culturally specific terms that cannot be translated. I think that any language has these culturally specific terms and actually that’s what I talked about at the last conference in Detroit when I spoke before that small group. Words such as NTR for example, it would be totally wrong and unjust to translate that as god because they’re not the same thing. So if someone in western culture asks you: “Well do you have a concept of god?” Or: “Is there a concept of god in Kemet?” It’s not right for you to say: “Well NTR is something like god” because it’s not true. It would be very wrong to translate NTR as god and vice versa. These terms are culturally specific. It’s so specific to that culture that there is no translation for it. Another term is MAAT. You can translate MAAT and people translate it in so many different ways but (for example) to just take one way to translate it maybe you would say well MAAT means truth. But it doesn’t. It does not mean truth.

Int: Wait a minute, wait a minute hold on because that is what most people think.

Rkhty: There is no one to one correspondence with any english word for MAAT. You have to use several different words to translate MAAT into english and then you have to hope that one of those several different english words that you’re using actually corresponds to what it really means in Kemet. You may or may not be even close. They’re very culturally specific terms that you cannot translate from one language to another. You can’t translate culture from one culture to another. Cultures are very specific in their belief systems, in their way of life, their traditions…everything. You don’t really translate cultures one from another. So you can’t translate culturally specific terms one from another either.

Int: So when learning how to read and write MDW NTR then you’ll also learn the culture and the societal practices of Kemet then. Is that what you’re saying?

Rkhty: Yes, when you can read the language you’ll get a much deeper understanding than if you have to rely on translations that were done usually by europeans.

Int: Since you’re not doing your classes right now and I know people are reading us discuss the necessity of reading and writing the MDW NTR. What would you suggest would be a way that our readers can begin the process of learning how to read MDW NTR until you get your classes going? I ask this because; just to pick up Gardiner, Faulkner, or Budge is like working a jigsaw puzzle.

Rkhty: You can get bored with them very quickly and I don’t know if that’s the best idea anyway. Some African scholars have really attempted to put some grammars together and perhaps looking at some of our own work would be a good place to start like “Let the Ancestors Speak” is a grammar book that was written by an African scholar. He has explanations and things in there that are from an African perspective or at least an African-American perspective.

Int: That’s a book dealing with the MDW NTR language?

Rkhty: Yes, the grammar of the language.

Int: Can you give us the name of the author?

Rkhty: Umm…I can’t think of his name off hand and most of my books are packed away so I can’t check it out.

Int: OK, well I’m sure that when they go to amazon.com or the library and ask for “Let the Ancestors Speak” the book will be there. Even for me I’ve seen the book but I can’t think of his name right now.

Rkhty: So that book is a good start probably.

Int: Is it Ankh Mi Ra?

Rkhty: Yes it is and of course if you live in Chicago they have a lot of classes all the time, free classes at the museums. The Natural History Museum, the Oriental Institute they have classes all the time and sometimes they’re free. And even though there are european teachers teaching it you can still learn a lot about the basic grammar and that would be good. I also recommend reading Kemetic translations that some of us Africans have done like the Husia that Maulana Karenga did or the one that Jacob Carruthers wrote. I’m trying to remember the name of it now. The first book he wrote where he talked about a lot of the Kemetic terms and what they really mean. Just reading some of the works on Kemet by our own scholars like Molefi Asante and others, that’s a good start because they talk a lot about different words and terms and concepts and ideas.

Int: Umm…the book by Dr. Carruthers is that MDW NFR?

Rkhty: No, that’s not the one I’m talking about. I’m talking about a very early book. One of the first books he wrote. I’m sorry I don’t know what it is at the moment.

Int: I’ll look it up and print it as an addendum to the interview. (The Book is “Essays in Ancient Egyptian Studies.”) It’s funny; when I first put my website together I did it because there weren’t a lot of Black websites out there giving information out. It’s like everybody’s trying to sell a product. Thinking about, “Since they don’t know I’m Black now I can be color blind and make a lot of money” and it’s like come on now. This is the information superhighway let’s get some information out here.

Rkhty: There are a lot of websites where they teach MDW NTR. The internet is overflowing with them. Some of them are good and others are not. But there’s a lot on the web in terms of learning MDW NTR.

Int: There’re quite a few where you can download the MDW NTR glyphs and stuff too. The interest in Kemet and Kemetic culture has definitely grown over the last ten years.

Rkhty: It has but it’s still young and it’s still in its early stages. We still haven’t had time to actually train a lot of scholars in the language to do a lot of translations. We still haven’t had the time to do very much except learn. Because it’s still very early (there hasn’t been a lot of time) since we re-discovered MDW NTR and Kemet.

Int: Like you said the process has just begun. I fully expected it to be like, I believe it’s the 100^th monkey syndrome where after x-number of us learns (to read MDW NTR) a critical mass will be reached and the interest and development of our knowledge of Kemet will just explode. But those of us who are making the effort now also have to get the word out to people on why this is important and why it will work and how it will help.

Rkhty: Right

Int: One of your publications that goes a long way to promoting that goal is The Calendar Project. You first published it independently and later ASCAC published it as a chapter in the African World History Project. Tell us the subject and the purpose of The Calendar Project?

Rkhty: The Calendar Project came out of the Kemetic Institute of Chicago. We needed to begin to really live Kemet. We needed to make it an essential part of our lives and the whole concept of time is something that we found was very different in Kemet than in the Western world. Just one of a list of things that was very, very different and that is the whole concept of time. In order to begin to realize the African concept of time we knew that the calendar was the right thing to do but also we realized that from a historical perspective the calendar project was critical because the western calendar that we’ve always been using was created and developed by Africans in Kemet. Therefore that was something really important that African people needed to know. So I took on the calendar project myself because I found it to be very intriguing and we really reproduced the ancient Kemetic calendar according to the primary text and also we began to use it ourselves in our everyday life. Another thing I did was I made sure I explained the African concept of time in the Calendar Project Book that I wrote because you can’t get that from looking at the calendar so I really explained exactly what it was. In Chicago we used the calendar for reorganizing our lives in a lot of ways. For example the Kemetic New Year is in August. So in August we celebrated the New Year instead of celebrating it in January. We celebrated some of the Kemetic holidays like the Feast of the Valley Pie-enee (the word is pronounced like pie-enee so I’m spelling it phonetically for the time being) which is the ancestors’ day. We also celebrated the winter solstice which is the raising of the Djed Pillar and the high holidays in Kemet so we basically started (observing Kemetic cultural signposts) and it gave us an opportunity to change our lives in a lot of ways. Ritualistically, time wise, and mentally it helped us to be Africans and not just function along in this western system of social structure that we’ve been born into.

Int: Um-hmm, now I gotta back up a minute. You said the Feast of Pienee you said?

Rkhty: Yes pienee which is…

Int: Could you spell Pienee first?

Rkhty: For pronunciation sake Paini.

Int: You know I need to spell it because I’ve got to transcribe this interview so that’s why I had to ask. So what is that festival? What’s significant about it?

Rkhty: The Feast of Paini was very special in Kemet. It was the day that they actually celebrated their ancestors. Since the burials were on the West Bank in Kemet, that’s where the desert land is, the people would cross over in boats to the west bank and they would spend the day there and they would have feasts or picnics, if you wish, in the graveyards with their ancestors. I’ve found that practice in the Caribbean and in other parts of Africa as well. That’s something that you can find sometimes in the South among African-Americans. That is going to the cemetery and having a picnic right there at the grave site of your ancestor. So that’s a carryover from Africa period. That’s what they did for the Feast of Paini and then they would travel back to the East Bank. So that’s why I called that an Ancestors’ Day celebration. In Chicago what we used to do is we would go out in front of the DuSable Museum and we’d start on the east side of the park and the men of the Temple made a boat and they would carry the boat across the park to the west side and that’s where we would have a huge picnic and feast and rituals, libations, and prayers and hymns to our ancestors. We would all bring out our family albums and talk about our mothers and fathers who have passed away. It was just a wonderful occasion and at the end of the day we would carry the boat back to the other side. The few Priests who were still there at the end of the day we would do a couple of rituals (to close out the ceremonies). Every year we did this. It was a wonderful celebration.

Int: You know, it’s just something…I see where you could not have done this without reconstituting the Kemetic Calendar.

Rkhty: Exactly, cuz that’s where the information is. By learning, reading, and studying the calendar and the rituals in it is where I learned about the Feast of Paini. I mean I hadn’t read about it any where else. The Kemetic Calendar, now they had a lot of ritual calendars so they had these calendars that would go through the 365 days of the year and they would have all the rituals that were done on each day. They would have a lot of temple calendars with all the rituals that the priests were supposed to do each day. I looked at all of those of course and some of the rituals are more important than others. Paini is a very important one. So is the winter solstice.

Int: So wait a minute. You’re saying that there are papyri from the different temples that list the festival days?

Rkhty: Yes, not just papyri but on the temple walls. There are lots of temples in Kemet where the inscriptions on the temple walls are calendars listing all the rituals that are done on the different days of the year.

Int: But you never get that from reading books on Kemet.

Rkhty: No not really. I think a lot of authors don’t think it’s so important. But it really is, culturally it’s real important.

Int: Um-mm-mm! I mean, we’re doing this interview over the phone so you can’t see me but my face is just twisted up in shock and amazement cuz it’s…it’s just real important for us to know this. Whenever you see a picture of a temple wall or a papyrus in a book they’ll say, “Man facing Amun or man facing Osiris”

Rkhty: Oh yeah, they have whole calendars, huge drawings. You know that anything that’s going to cover 365 days is huge. Especially if they’re listing all the rituals and festivals and the Kemites were very much into rituals and festivals which is very African, very Native American even. Ritual is very, very important and please read the book “Ritual” by Malidoma Some’ because he’s a modern day African who is explaining the importance of rituals to African people.

Int: Yeah it is and it’s funny that you mention that. I’ve done a lecture on how Kemetic Astronomy is the basis for Modern day Astrology. This lecture was given in Philadelphia just a few weeks ago. (You can get it from the TEHUTI/online video page.) I gave the same reason that you just stated that how the people in Kemet named the planets differently. They were dedicated to different NTR. There wasn’t the Venus and Mercury thing at all. I have to refer to your calendar project when I do part two of that lecture because I know you got some details I there that I need to get out (to the public).

Rkhty: I am planning on doing a calendar for August for ASCAC. I am working on that. I am in desperate need of an artist.

Int: Well hey, I’ll make sure that I put it out there to help you find an artist ‘cuz we have to help each other. Like I been telling people yeah Ausar was like the NTR of resurrection and blah-blah-blah but…he didn’t put himself together! Auset and Nbt-Het with the help of other NTRW found the pieces and put him back together. He didn’t do it by himself. He was cut up…according to the story by the greeks anyway.

Rkhty: The point is very important and very relevant and I know that for African people it’s community, it’s the collective. The individual is totally not in our way of perceiving the world. It’s the collective and the community. That’s what Kemet was all about and that’s what Africa is all about and African people. The individual and the individualistic idea are totally western and so we need to work together. I am not an artist. I can do the calendar but I can’t draw a picture, borders, or make it look pretty. I don’t even have any color concept.

Int: Yeah I know, we can’t do everything…even with you being what I consider a renaissance woman there are some things that you just can’t do cuz you gotta let other people come in and help you out. By doing that you’re free to grow in your direction and you can help them grow and they can help you grow. I really see where the Kemetic calendar and understanding the Kemetic calendar would be a unifying force for people of African heritage. How do you think that people of other cultures would relate to a proper use of the Kemetic calendar?

Rkhty: I think that…one thing, the Ethiopian calendar which is used today is the old Kemetic calendar. They actually used the same calendar. And that’s just a small group of people in one place Ethiopia. Different people have continued to use their own calendars. The Jews of course have their own calendar, the Arabs have their own calendar, (and) the Chinese have their own calendar. Different cultural groups continue to use their own calendars because that’s their culture. We would be doing the same thing. We would be using the calendar because that’s our culture, that’s our history. Never expect that the whole world is going to use it because they’re not. Even though the calendar that’s hanging on your wall is the Kemetic calendar but it’s so changed around from the way the Africans had it that this western calendar is definitely an expression of western culture. Our calendar would definitely be an expression of African culture.

Int: To expect others to want to use that would be…

Rkhty: Wrong. They’re not going to want to use it because like I said calendars are cultural tools. They really are. So the western world is never, can never use an African cultural tool to run its society by. But for us it’s very important.

Int: Yeah, well I ask that because I find a lot of western organizations, scientific and spiritual, using Kemetic ideas and concepts to power their organizations. I did a study on the Unity Temples and they don’t use the cross as the symbol of their organization. They use the winged sun disk of Heru Behutet. They say it’s the emblem of an ancient Egyptian mystery school that’s more emblematic of the christian concept than the cross is. Even the “http” on your computer address is Hetep, the binary system (which consists of zeros and ones) for computers is like the Kemetic number system as well from what I’ve heard.

Rkhty: Yeah they do take our symbols and they can be empowering. I guess I don’t or can’t see them ever changing. The days of the week and the days of the month or the organization of the calendar…I mean it is our calendar anyway. It is the ancient Kemetic calendar just with cultural changes made in it.

Int: That’s the perfect way of looking at it. That’s actually what it is. It’s still just 365 days but they shifted the days around.

Rkhty: For political, and all kinds of economic reasons they changed it all in their calendar project. The names of the greek gods and the roman gods for the months and the days, the number of days in each month, a lot of that had to do with economic reasons. But it’s still our calendar and I think it’s important to know that African people invented this calendar. We did that and we knew the truth about the rotation of the earth and how important that was.

Int: Now (your) Calendar Project is part of the book The African World History Project: The Preliminary Challenge published by ASCAC so I’m going to have to make sure that I give out the ASCAC website so people can go there and get it. (www.ascac.org) I do know that they have a paperback version of the book out now. I have a hard cover copy that you and a couple of other scholars (who contributed to the book) autographed for me. While doing my research for this interview I found that you’ve done a whole lot in your life. You mentioned earlier that you started college late but I think that was a good thing because when you went, you went because you wanted to and you went for a purpose and you’ve been dedicated to that purpose.

Rkhty: Exactly, we tried to put my daughter in college when she first got out of high school. She went but she ended up dropping out. I did wait until I really knew what I wanted to do and I really believed in what I studied. Although I have to say this…I don’t encourage young Black people to go to college. I believe that almost anything that you want to learn you can teach yourself, you can learn on your own if you’re really totally dedicated to it. You can become whatever you want to become without credentials from universities. If you wanted to become an engineer that you can study and learn the type of engineering that you want to be. If you know your skills very well people will hire you because you know it. I don’t believe that we should continue to believe that we need to be certified by europeans. That we need their stamp of approval (saying that) “you passed our courses” in order to do the things that we want to do in life. As a matter of fact I have a real serious problem with that. People are always telling us that we need their certification. The first people who gave degrees didn’t have degrees. And that’s not so long ago! First let’s look at the early egyptologists. They were just people who loved Egypt so much that they went over there and worked and studied and what not. At the time that they were doing that there wasn’t even a field of Egyptology. Then they started teaching classes and they started giving the first degrees. Look in the1960’s in Black Studies. Before they started teaching Black Studies in this country they had to get some people to teach it to others so that they could build departments. So they took people off the streets who were community activists and people who were like self taught historians to teach classes in the universities to train the first group of graduates who when they graduated and got their PhD’s put their teachers out of a job because now they had a credential but the person who gave them the credential and gave them the knowledge didn’t have it. So I don’t believe in participating in this european system of education. I think it’s a joke because when you go to school they only teach you want they want to teach and you only do well if you can reverberate what they tell you. It’s a waste of time plus you give them thousands and thousand of dollars of your money to go to school enriching them and not doing much for you. Except allowing you to have a credential saying that you can get a job but these days you can’t even get a job! So I think that I really discourage young Black people from going though this for political reasons and economic reasons and I just think that it’s a joke. I really wish that we could get to the point where we could see that we can learn the things we need to learn to do (what we want) and make really good money doing it without feeling that we have to go through six years of college and their universities to be certified by them. For them to say, “Now you can do it!” It doesn’t take that long to learn what you want and I knew that when I was going to college. When I went to college I never planned on graduating and getting a degree. I only went to college because I wanted to go to a place where I could learn languages. That’s it, that is the only reason that I went there. I didn’t go to get a degree so I could make money. As a matter of fact the things I went to study my father was always saying, “You’re not going to ever make any money doing that. Why are you doing that?” I did it because I want to do something that’s going to benefit my people and that’s the attitude that I think we all need to have.

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Rkhty: Right, depending on what you’re studying for.

Int: Yeah, but you know my masters is in sociology and the originators, the giants in the field of sociology were philosophers and economists and everything else. They weren’t sociologists. So if you know what you want to study just go at it and you’ll learn it.

Rkhty: Absolutely and you can get a job doing it too. I know lots of people who are self taught who are making millions of dollars without having to go to school. Just look at the white people a lot of their computer geniuses, like Bill Gates for example, they don’t have college degrees and you don’t need it to do what you want to do in life and accomplish what you want to accomplish. Even some of the greatest inventors that we know were home schooled kids who never went to college. Take Thomas Edison for one of them, I even have a list some place of great european philanthropists, inventors, and scientists who never went to college who were home schooled people. It seems to me that when you’re in school the creative aspect of your being is taken away from you because you just have to pass tests and do all this rote learning and memorize what the teacher told you and the creative aspect of a person is usually lost in a college situation. When you’re not in there you can create forever and think of so many great and wonderful things that you can make money off of as well. They tell me the only people that need to go to school are doctors of medicine. All the other stuff, to me, I don’t see it (being an advantage or necessary to go to a school).

Int: You’re right! Even with medicine, if you truly wanted to know how to heal people and cure people and to make them strong enough not to get sick you would become a wholistic practitioner. That would be an entirely different type of school with a lot of hands on work because you would find yourself dealing with natural herbs and things like that.

Rkhty: We all know that the first open heart surgery was performed by a Black Man Vivien Thomas who was not a doctor he was a janitor.

Int: Wait a minute, no, I didn’t know that.

Rkhty: They play this program on PBS all the time. His name was Vivien Thomas. He was a janitor for a very famous white doctor who used to cleanup the doctor’s office and organize the things in his office for him. Vivien Thomas used to always listen and watch everything that the doctor was doing very carefully and he actually learned about the heart and its workings and surgery. He learned a lot of things now this was in the early days of surgery when doctors were barely washing their hands.

Int: So you’re talking the late 1880’s then?

Rkhty: The turn of the century. You need to see this program and just read about this man when you get a chance. At the time the white doctor was studying the issue (condition) of blue babies, that’s some kind of heart defect that was killing a lot of children at the time and he just didn’t know what to do but Vivien Thomas had a lot of ideas of what could be done because while the doctor wasn’t there he would be reading the books and he actually told the doctor some of the things that could be done. He told him that you ought to try this. He and the doctor had become friends so the doctor would listen to him. Actually the doctor would always talk to him because he knew how much Vivien knew. They talked about everything. So one day a baby came in critically ill, dying and Vivien said, “You know what? We can help this baby if we do A, B, and C and I’ve even been making some tools on the side that we could use in a surgical operation.” So the white doctor said, “OK, let’s go let’s do it.” The only thing was the white doctor really didn’t know how to do the surgery. The problem with this was that Vivien was not allowed upstairs on the regular hospital floor because Black people were not allowed in the hospital. They had all these conversations in the doctors’ office which was in the basement. Vivien was only the janitor so because he wasn’t allowed upstairs the doctor fixed up his office in the basement, they brought the baby down there, and Vivien talked him through the surgery. Talked the white doctor through the surgery! They used the tools that Vivien had made and they saved the babies life. From that moment on everybody started bringing their babies to the hospital but Vivien wasn’t allowed upstairs in the surgery room.

Int: So they would bring the baby to the hospital and the white doctor would use the tools and Vivien would continue to tell him what to do and how to do it?

Rkhty: Right, he could not do the operation in the beginning. He could not do the operations at all without Vivien being there because he didn’t know how to do it and Vivien talked him through it step by step.

Int: I gotta do an internet search on that! MAN, umm-mm-mm.

Rkhty: In all of his life he never got paid anything more than a janitor’s salary.

Int: Aw man, come on…no!

Rkhty: Yes, it gets worse and I’m going to tell you the worse part. When he was older like maybe in his sixties, the white doctor was dead by then, he wanted to go to school to be a doctor so he went up to Howard and he applied for the medical school there. The Black man behind the desk told him, “Well, in order to get in this school you’ve got to go through all these little basic courses.” Vivien said, “But I already know that. I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve been doing open heart surgery for years.” They said, “You don’t have the prior courses that you need to start here at Howard. So therefore we can’t admit you.” They didn’t admit him, that’s just criminal.

Int: You know…good gracious!!! That’s what happens when you believe in those rules that are totally arbitrary but it doesn’t matter what race, nationality, or what ever if you believe in those european rules…

Rkhty: That’s what I’m talking about

Editor’s note: I looked up more info on Vivien Thomas. Vivien Thomas lived from 1910 to 1985. He graduated from high school in 1930 during the depression and took a job at a hospital where he met Dr. Blalock. The PBS series American Experience did the special. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/partners/legacy/l_colleagues_thomas.html

 An extremely sanitized version of the events of Vivien Thomas’ life can be read at http://www.princeton.edu/~mcbrown/display/thomas.html

HBO made a film on him named ‘Something the Lord Made’ starring Alan Rickman and Mos Def http://www.hbo.com/films/stlm/cast/

Int: I agree with you on your views on attending college especially when you’re young. When you’re older you can make your way through it because you’re stronger and you know who you are. Now Rkhty you’ve done a lot in and out of the college situation. I was reading where you went to Senegal in 1985 and studied with Dr. Cheik Anta Diop. What was that experience like? He was a giant in so many fields.

Rkhty: I had translated one of his works before I went there and that was Parentage Genetique… (The Genetic Parentage of Pharonic Egyptians and the Languages of Black Africa) on the genetic relationship of African languages and had translated it years before and I corresponded with him for several years.

Int: (Laughing) Hold on, I gotta interrupt you. You translated it for publication or just for the fun of it?

Rkhty: Just for the fun of it.

Int: (Really laughing now) OK

Rkhty: That’s why I translated it…because nobody at the Kemetic Institute spoke French at the time but everybody wanted to read the book and I thought, wow, everybody needs to read this book and I spoke French and I had the time so I just did it period. Then I had corresponded with him over several years about eventually publishing the book. I wanted to go to Africa, it was a dream that I always had and I just really knew that I had to get to Africa. I had a window of opportunity as far as my time and my children’s place in school and all that kind of stuff and I just really sold everything I had, got the money together and went to Africa. Dr. Diop knew that I was coming. He had told me that once I got there we could get together and work and do things together so I was looking forward to that plus I knew somebody in Senegal so that’s why I chose Senegal. I didn’t choose to go there just to see Dr. Diop but I felt I knew him but I knew I needed to know somebody (on a personal basis) where I was going. So I went there and it was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot of things there. I got a chance to work with him in his lab most days. When I got there I discovered that he wasn’t teaching at the university because they wouldn’t allow him to teach. He was not allowed to teach anything. He just had a lab there. He was too political and actually he was on trial, one of the many times that he was on trial. He was on trial for his political activities and ideas.

Int: So the government of Senegal put him on trial?

Rkhty: Right: He was not allowed to teach at any university because of his partially anti-Islamic ideas and they were just totally against the cultural ideas that he was writing about and teaching about. The government didn’t agree with it so he was not allowed to teach there. He just ran the radiocarbon lab in the school. So I had a chance to spend a lot of time with him.

Int: I didn’t find out about Diop until the 1990’s.

Rkhty: I guess it was Jake (Dr. Jacob Carruthers) obviously who told me about Diop in the beginning. Of course we read all of the books he had written as part of our Kemetic Institute studies. A lot of things that he wrote were in French. I had read “Civilization or Barbarism” and several other books long before they were published in english.

Int: Let me ask you this because this is something I always wonder when I read books that are translated from another language. Was there a major difference between the original French and the English translation?

Rkhty: Not major differences but minor differences for sure.

Int: I always wonder when I read books by R. A. Schwaller deLubicz because his books have been translated from French to English and I know he was an academician but the writing is so stiff in English. I just wonder what is it like in the original language.

Rkhty: It sounds different on the original language but what it’s actually saying isn’t different. Although some translators do make some glaring… not mistakes but cultural interpretations.

Int: And they tend to “lose the phenomenon”. So your translation of Diop’s book the Genetic Parentage of Pharonic Egyptian and the…

Rkhty: Is not available. It’s not published, it was never published because many years later after Diop passed away the French people came to me and they said, “We have another book that we think is better.” That’s the other one that I translated, the other linguistics book. They said, “We think this is better. Do this one and we’ll publish this one.” So I started it and I got three quarters of the way finished with it but I didn’t finish it. I guess one of the reasons that I didn’t finish it is because I really didn’t think that it was as good as the other one and I was wondering all along why are they publishing this one instead of the other one.

Int: What do you think? Do you think it was for political reasons?

Rkhty: No, I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what the reasoning behind it is but I know that now neither one of them have been published in English and they are still sitting here. I still have them in my drawer. I have shared the manuscript with other people over the years. So lots of people have the English manuscript but it’s not published.

Int: If you found a publishing house that would put it out there then it could still be published?

Rkhty: Only if, I would assume, only if the Diop family would want it published because they own the rights to all his works. So I can’t publish a translation of Diop’s work without the permission of his family.

Int: And these are two of his books that have not as yet been published in English. Wow…Umm-hmm-hmm.

Rkhty: I think ‘Parentage Genetique’ is a very good book. It’s a wonderful book and I think people would like it. The other one…and I’m a linguist (and I) just don’t think that that’s the book. I think the first book is far better.

 Int: What’s the name of the second book?

Rkhty: Oh…I don’t remember off hand.

Int: But you say it’s just not as interesting…

Rkhty: I’m three quarters of the way finished and stopped. I just used to just translate books (laughing). I would never, never do that again but I would definitely finish one of them completely if it was going to be published.

Int: I tell you, I feel you on translating books just because because. When I was a musician I would practice three or four hours a day and then I would start writing songs with no intent of really having them played but I got these ideas you know. So I might write twelve songs and only take two or three tunes to the band. I would still have the rest of them written out on paper.

Rkhty: I don’t have that kind of time any more.

Int: Yeah, I know.

Rkhty: I would never do that again. I used to do translations for Jake when he was doing the Haiti book, “The Irritated Genie”. That was a lot of fun.

Int: That was the first book of his that I read. It was really nice seeing the history of Haiti from an African Centered viewpoint.