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| Rendition of Imhotep and Mut |
Rather then writing a new answer each time I am asked, I have decided to create this short blog post and just refer people to it, to save some wear and tear on my digits.
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| Htp = Hotep (Hetep) |
The word comes from Classical African Civilization, Kemet (Ancient Egypt) from a time going back more then 6,000 years. It is still used today by those who have some knowledge of the ancient traditions of our ancestors. For Cultural Soldiers it is the standard greeting.
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| The Name Imhotep in Metu Neter (Hieroglyphics) Bird = M Feather = I Let's Go To The Video Tape |
It should be noted that CultureGraphically Cultural Citizens and Sleeping Giants in the Black community would typically not be familiar with this term. Most Non-Blacks are also not familiar with the term. One of the reasons Cultural Soldiers utilize the term in conversations with these individuals, is in an effort to raise Cultural Literacy regarding Blacks and thus improve Cultural Health in the general population.
Hetep means peace, not just saying peace, but also sending peaceful energy. It has been my experience that if you start a conversation with peace and respect it is more likely to be mutually beneficial.
The respect aspect of my greeting is taken from a famous radio personality Bob Law who use to have a show out of Washington D.C. He would greet his callers (it was a call in radio show) with "I Respect You" and often the callers would respond in kind. It alway struck me how remarkably well his conversations went, even on the most difficult topics. So it has been my practice to combine some of the ancient wisdom with some of Mr. Law's modern wisdom to aid me in my small Cultural Health contributions.
As a wikipedian many years ago I put up a Hetep stub on wikipedia. It is remarkable to see how that puny stub has grown. For more information on hetep see the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotep
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6 comments:
I knew the meaning of the word, but no the origin and that it, for lack of a better word, also blesses the recipient with peace as well. Very informative post, thanks.
I'd never heard of the word before.
I'm just thinking how many conversations would start off so much better if you were greeted with "I respect you."
Great post!
hetep man,nice blog!
Update:
2010 Cultural Terrorist have used NPOV as an excuse to rewrite the page taking out most of the most valuable contributions authors have made over the years. There are certain advantages to being a wikipedian. A bright wikipedian added a standard =In Popular Culture = section which, is out of the reach of NPOV as it deals with contemporary facts in reality related to the article subject . I added the appropriate information in this section.
As a matter of historicity one must check this wikipedia article from time to time keeping a sharp eye for the Cultural Terrorist.
thanks for sharing the word hotep which is also use as a greeting for peace... I'll be using it in my article, a character... inspired from Dreamworks cartoon Prince of Egypt.
~Champs Ulysses Cabinatan
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