Cultures Up Close Archive

The invention of kente cloth is often attributed to the Ashanti people in Ghana. An Ashanti legend called The Spider Weaver tells how two young men were taught to weave kente cloth by a spider. You can listen to the story here. However, the […]

To celebrate Native American Heritage Month here’s a game to play with loved ones during the holidays. The origins of many Native American games are related to spiritual beliefs. Games were played ceremonially to bring rain, ensure good harvests, cure illness, expel evil spirits, or […]

Dating back to the Spanish Colonial period, nichos are a type of folk art popular throughout Central and South America. They began as an adaptation of the Roman Catholic ‘retablo’, which is a painting of a patron saint on wood or tin. In different places, nichos […]

To celebrate summer, this month we’re going to have fun learning about and making spinning tops. History Spinning tops developed independently in cultures all over the world. They are among the oldest recognizable toys found by archaeologists and have been found on every continent except […]

To celebrate May being Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, this segment explores a few more of the museum’s objects from Papua New Guinea. You can see our previous post about how to make a drum from Papua New Guinea here. Papua New […]

For centuries the Yoruba people have shared a common language and culture but have never been a single united group.  It is believed they migrated from Central Africa to their present locations in West Africa over a thousand years ago. The Yoruba established numerous kingdoms, […]