tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145513072024-03-07T21:28:57.575-05:00The Fagalde Collection of West African Tribal ArtJean Fagalde grew up in Liberia and lived there for twenty five years. This is where he developed an interest in tribal art and became astute at finding pieces of great interest and value. His knowledge of the superstitions surrounding them and the uses to which they were put increased. Leaving Liberia when civil unrest made life there untenable, he moved to Nigeria where he spent eight years. During that time he continued collecting and some of the most important pieces came from this area.John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-41555886191559477802017-02-28T11:07:00.002-05:002018-10-02T14:38:48.112-04:00The Nkondi or Nkonde Nail Fetish<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF88vEsAkuFbh06Yn9yQxb0yIzUMWnVy_4EE8DkEzDHffwwTSXH5AV4lr0rzj-YkPZGANsg-7yzE-NZRae2X6hzXeKYxLX0P2SX7XGGhlWjgoCZ48J6Xg0SSF81EF5Wgo3XprMSQ/s1600/A+Superb+Kongo+Oath-taking+and+Healing+Figure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF88vEsAkuFbh06Yn9yQxb0yIzUMWnVy_4EE8DkEzDHffwwTSXH5AV4lr0rzj-YkPZGANsg-7yzE-NZRae2X6hzXeKYxLX0P2SX7XGGhlWjgoCZ48J6Xg0SSF81EF5Wgo3XprMSQ/s320/A+Superb+Kongo+Oath-taking+and+Healing+Figure.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kongo Oath-taking and Healing Figure</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Fetishes were protective figures used by individuals, families, or whole communities to destroy or weaken evil spirits, prevent or cure illnesses, repel bad deeds, solemnize contracts or oath-taking, and decide arguments. A diviner or holy person would activate the statue, using magical substances. Fetishes gained power and were effective because people believed in them.<br />
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The nkondi are the most powerful of the nkisi. They were used to identify and hunt down unknown wrongdoers such as thieves, and people who were believed to cause sickness or death by occult means. They were also used to punish people who swore false oaths and villages which broke treaties.<br />
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To inspire the nkondi to action, it was both invoked and provoked. Invocations, in bloodthirsty language, encouraged it to punish the guilty party. It would also be provoked by having gunpowder exploded in front of it, and having nails hammered into it. They were also used to literally "hammer out agreements"...with clear implications as to what would happen to people who broke the agreements.<br />
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Magic is practiced throughout Black Africa, but there are distinctions to be made among those who participate in it. The witch doctor is seen as someone who undertakes on his own account a personal communication with evil powers - suspected of casting spells, he is feared and rejected as the most dangerous individual in the tribe. The accusation of sorcery is a serious one.<br />
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The diviner, or fetishist, operates in principle for the good of all. His help is sought in times of need, for he is seen as the mediator between members of the tribe and all the powers of darkness. For this reason he also acts as healer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwm7AKxQmy_40iSH47CQ5LDwcSoXkMI6UC3-vACT01DKg6Qp8V0m6WvVmJTFleIy5axAcChi5qU6_ZeU5SrvMa7w5u_tNNbEbXec6U-HhdmK_ClIJQ2pf6u0XbSuVxhbJGoZa8A/s1600/Kongo_bakongo-481x413.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwm7AKxQmy_40iSH47CQ5LDwcSoXkMI6UC3-vACT01DKg6Qp8V0m6WvVmJTFleIy5axAcChi5qU6_ZeU5SrvMa7w5u_tNNbEbXec6U-HhdmK_ClIJQ2pf6u0XbSuVxhbJGoZa8A/s200/Kongo_bakongo-481x413.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
The various attempts to influence the fearsome powers of the supernatural through the mediation of statues or fetishes have acquired particular intensity in the regions round the mouth of the River Congo, home of the Kongo, Yombe and Vili tribes, and this is also the case in the east of Zaire, among the Songye.<br />
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Magical objects were for many years little known in Europe, as Christian missionaries working in Africa tracked them down and had them burnt. Certain statues which were brought back to Europe by religious men, allegedly for documentation, were kept in secret and could not be studied. They were much feared for they seemed, even to European eyes, to have real power, a belief almost universally accepted in 17th-century Europe. <a href="https://g.co/kgs/daecR7" target="_blank"><b>Olfert Dapper</b></a> was the first to look dispassionately at these "fetish" objects and to dare to describe them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_IntHbm-iSw0Mpsc6xvr7yL9OjMNSk7nzS3cTsEqa9ouMqDVrdt5OESfh65C-4wYhyRYfJg08UN2LtXyv2eSR5u_XuWpsjuqmB1p3DFipBRPEWOxzpVppfRPXez6oQNHEDkaZ3w/s1600/Property+from+the+Rosenberg+Collection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_IntHbm-iSw0Mpsc6xvr7yL9OjMNSk7nzS3cTsEqa9ouMqDVrdt5OESfh65C-4wYhyRYfJg08UN2LtXyv2eSR5u_XuWpsjuqmB1p3DFipBRPEWOxzpVppfRPXez6oQNHEDkaZ3w/s320/Property+from+the+Rosenberg+Collection.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Property of the Rosenberg Collection</td></tr>
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Recent work has led to a better understanding. They are wooden carvings, either anthropomorphic or zoomorphic, which are covered with a variety of objects such as nails or metal blades. The cavities in their back or stomach contain "medicines" - grains, hair, teeth or fingernails - which are held together with various binding materials. Pieces of fabric, feathers or lumps of clay are sometimes present.<br />
<br />
Finally, bits of mirror, shiny metal or shells are used to close the cavities or to mark the eyes. Very often the faces alone are carved in detail, while the rest of the body - destined to be hidden under these various additional features - is sculpted more summarily. The figure's genitals may even be missing, either because they have never been carved or because they have been removed by a zealous missionary.<br />
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These figures have only a remote ancestral connection and they are distinguished from reliquaries by the absence of skulls or large bones, although some may sometimes fit into either category.<br />
<br />
Generally grouped as Nkisi, they were the result of the combined work of two men, the carver and the fetishist. The former created the shape, but without the latter (the Nganga) the figure had no meaning. It was the Nganga who filled it with magic substances and completed the rituals which gave it supernatural powers.<br />
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<b>Article and images, courtesy of <a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/" target="_blank">Rand African Art </a></b><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Nkonde Nail Fetishes are often sold on eBay for around US$ 3,000 to US$ 5,000... </span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What's In Your Attic?</span></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-62528249676088741852017-02-13T14:59:00.000-05:002018-10-02T14:40:59.410-04:00The African Maternity Figures<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgNzd2yM6aDs_Dtfvk9o7BfKIibCF-IAAbbVsoJuCYwvxiDYthiiaPcCOl6rLbFkzaKVe0c1iH7bLN7gLasDXKbunxWyTJQNOEHr2bS1752_3gdpvkKXEquP2EL4J4hFHU3j6O2Q/s1600/Afo_maternity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgNzd2yM6aDs_Dtfvk9o7BfKIibCF-IAAbbVsoJuCYwvxiDYthiiaPcCOl6rLbFkzaKVe0c1iH7bLN7gLasDXKbunxWyTJQNOEHr2bS1752_3gdpvkKXEquP2EL4J4hFHU3j6O2Q/s320/Afo_maternity.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Afo peoples, Nigeria, 19th century<br />
(wood)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Since the 1940s, the excavations in the inland delta region of the Niger River near Djenne in Mali have yielded numerous sculptured terra-cotta, cast copper-alloy, and gold figures representing humans and animals. These sculptures originated in advanced, flourishing cultures that may have existed as early as the eighth century A.D. or as late as the seventeenth century.<br />
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Figures representing a mother and child seem to occur less frequently than other subjects, such as chiefs or warriors on horseback, reclining or kneeling females, or animals, especially snakes. The meaning of these ancient maternity figures is unknown. Perhaps such figures served as symbols of the primordial mother or another mythical figure in the history of a clan in which the sculpture originated. Regrettably, the stratigraphic context in which most of these objects have been discovered and other pertinent data are unknown. Even so, it is possible to date the objects.<br />
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The proliferation of decorative details on the figure includes serpents, which are depicted as zigzags. Snakes commonly occur in the visual arts as well as in the oral traditions of numerous peoples of the inland delta region. Snakes play an important role in the cosmology and mythical origins of the clan. For example, snakes are king makers, designating the successful candidate by touching him with the nose. Snakes are often considered to be symbols of immortality throughout sub-Saharan Africa because they "renew" themselves by shedding their skin.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhycjy3Jnf0ncHCfc_FZTQKD0Ig-ZoMrWxTXMfUJdtYzGWp2B5mbNbSfjBvs2R1jIAFKK-YqgZ8xJm_O7JmC5Me8WPH-mJ6yprvvciFfuYCcy2Ht1IVhzFE3e64v2MiIcUdz2NE2w/s1600/Asante_maternity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhycjy3Jnf0ncHCfc_FZTQKD0Ig-ZoMrWxTXMfUJdtYzGWp2B5mbNbSfjBvs2R1jIAFKK-YqgZ8xJm_O7JmC5Me8WPH-mJ6yprvvciFfuYCcy2Ht1IVhzFE3e64v2MiIcUdz2NE2w/s320/Asante_maternity.jpg" width="181" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Asante group, Akan peoples, Ghana<br />
19th-20th century (wood)</td></tr>
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Fertility and children are the most frequent themes in the wooden sculptures of the Asante. Thus the most numerous works are akua'ba fertility figures and mother-and-child figures. In traditional Asante society, in which inheritance was through the maternal line, a woman's essential role was to bear children, preferably girls to continue the matrilineage. Sculptured mother-and-child figures show the mother nursing or holding her breast, as exemplified by this figure. Such gestures express Asante ideas about nurturing, the family, and the continuity of a matrilineage through a daughter or of a state through a son.<br />
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This figure does not depict an ordinary mother. Rather, as indicated by her elevated sandaled feet, the figure represents a queen mother as she would sit in state on formal occasions. Such royal maternity figures were kept with the venerated seats of ancestral chiefs in special rooms, or they were housed in the shrines of powerful deities that were particularly concerned with the well-being of a royal person, perhaps a queen mother.<br />
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According to Yoruba belief, children are blessings from the gods. Before the advent of modern medicine, women petitioned certain deities for fertility and the birth of a healthy infant. The shrines to these deities - Erinle, Yemoja, Shango, Ogun, and others - were adorned with sculptured figures representing a mother and child, as exemplified by this figure. The absence of cult attributes makes specific identification of this figure impossible. The kneeling position is a gesture of respect, devotion, and submission. Thus the figure represented in the carving is probably a petitioner rather than a deity. The sculpture may have been a votive offering from a woman who had successfully petitioned for a child, a priest or priestess of a cult, or even the entire body of<br />
worshipers.<br />
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Afo maternity figures are thought to represent an ancestral mother and are owned by individual villages.These figures are brought out of their shrines once a year for the Aya ceremony. At this time, men pray for increased fertility in their wives and make gifts of food and money to the ancestor.<br />
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Extant maternity figures from the Afo are usually monoxylous, that is, carved from one piece, and are usually shown with only one child. It was customary in the grasslands Batufam Kingdom to have portrait statues carved of the new fon (king) and the wife who bore his first child. According to royal custom, the heir to the throne could not rule until he proved his fertility. The sculptures were executed within two years of the beginning of the reign and were used in the rites of installation of the successor.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHuwrVzSPsDF2JdflXmaTxEav_RGjNAe1jqNmtX8oIT9cl7apfN5HRu5AL-9LT_0y7EGu8RjUeBEx8Z2mxpsgdhT8yz5o0tdcjd1Gy3d_mK7VO9MaufEBlPuzLrPg7VQWSc7og-g/s1600/KongoFertility.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHuwrVzSPsDF2JdflXmaTxEav_RGjNAe1jqNmtX8oIT9cl7apfN5HRu5AL-9LT_0y7EGu8RjUeBEx8Z2mxpsgdhT8yz5o0tdcjd1Gy3d_mK7VO9MaufEBlPuzLrPg7VQWSc7og-g/s320/KongoFertility.jpg" width="198" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Female figure with child<br />
Kongo people, Congo<br />
(wood)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Kongo Kingdom flourished from c. 1300 to the mid-seventeenth century. The Kongo were the first people of Central Africa to make contact with the Portuguese navigators, who first arrived in 1482 and brought with them Catholic missionaries, merchants, and artisans. The Kongo aristocracy embraced Christianity and Western culture, and trade with Portugal resulted in increased wealth and military power. From the capital at Sao Salvador in present-day Angola, Kongo rule extended into portions of Zaire, Congo, Cabinda, and numerous small coastal and inland chiefdoms in Angola. Around the mid-seventeenth century, the once-powerful kingdom began to founder and shrink. Finally, it collapsed and became decentralized.<br />
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Among the symbols of rank belonging to Kongo kings and chiefs were scepters (mvuala) made of hardwood and usually topped by an ancestor figure carved of precious ivory. Very often the ancestor so represented was a female (Cornet 1971, 48). Because power was transmitted through the female line, rulers were selected from among the matrilineage. The king's mother was titled the "queen mother," and although she did not share rule with her son, she held a position of respect and privilege.<br />
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Article and images, courtesy of <a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/" target="_blank">Rand African Art </a><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A Kongo-Yombe Maternity Figure has recently been sold for US$ 3,525,000 by <a href="http://cbpirate.com/s/auction/biztips/afartblog" target="_blank">Sotheby's</a>... </span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What's In Your Attic?</span></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-17557591899241778162017-02-11T09:50:00.000-05:002018-10-02T14:42:14.543-04:00Head of a Queen Mother (Iyoba)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT6yg9FbTGXq5IFomj4tM6X_hlcs32Y5I-hJOebx2SC2yUSop8uBk5axYpWlbE-uj18v1WfOSaN-vTrpGLjMbvhf6pK4ZeXWhEohK3Q-wAXar_ED1gN9cc8-uICURGWMovHRi1Ew/s1600/Head+of+a+Queen+Mother+%2528Iyoba%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT6yg9FbTGXq5IFomj4tM6X_hlcs32Y5I-hJOebx2SC2yUSop8uBk5axYpWlbE-uj18v1WfOSaN-vTrpGLjMbvhf6pK4ZeXWhEohK3Q-wAXar_ED1gN9cc8-uICURGWMovHRi1Ew/s200/Head+of+a+Queen+Mother+%2528Iyoba%2529.jpg" width="151" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Head of a Queen Mother (Iyoba) <br />
1750–1800 - Nigeria, Court of Benin <br />
Courtesy: The MET Museum of Art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In the Benin kingdom, the iyoba, or mother of the oba (king), occupies an important and historically significant place within Benin's political hierarchy. The title was first conferred upon Idia, the mother of king Esigie, who used her political skill and supernatural abilities to save her son's kingdom from dissolution in the late fifteenth century. Ever since that time, queen mothers have been considered powerful protectors of their sons and, by extension, the kingdom itself. Because of the enormous esteem in which they are held, iyobas enjoy privileges second only to the oba himself, such as a separate palace, a retinue of female attendants, and the right to commission cast brass sculptures for religious or personal use.<br />
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Ancestral altars dedicated to past iyobas, like those of past kings, are furnished with cast brass commemorative heads. The heads of queen mothers are distinguished from those of kings by the forward-pointing peaks of their coral-beaded crowns. Commemorative heads of iyobas hold to the same stylistic chronology as those of obas. Earlier heads were cast with thinner walls and display tight beaded collars that fit snugly beneath the chin. Later versions have thicker walls, exhibit enlarged cylindrical collars that cover the face up to the lower lip, and are designed with a circular opening behind the peak of the crown to hold a carved ivory tusk. This head of an iyoba dates from the eighteenth century. While its high collar and pierced crown place it with later examples, the sensitive, naturalistic modeling of the face is reminiscent of the earliest commemorative heads.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Article: Courtesy of: The Metropolitan Museum of Art</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Image: Courtesy of: The Metropolitan Museum of Art</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Date:</b> 1750–1800</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Geography: </b>Nigeria, Court of Benin</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Culture:</b> Edo peoples</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Medium:</b> Brass</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Dimensions: </b>H. 16 3/4 x Diam. 11 3/4 in. (42.5 x 29.9 cm)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Classification: </b>Metal-Sculpture</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Credit Line:</b> Bequest of Alice K. Bache, 1977</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Accession Number:</b> 1977.187.36</span>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Benin bronze heads are easily sold for $12,000 upwards on <a href="http://cbpirate.com/s/auction/biztips/afartblog" target="_blank">eBay</a>... </span></b></span><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What's In Your Attic?</span></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-28168315320969913162017-01-31T02:07:00.001-05:002018-10-02T14:42:57.141-04:00Kalimba, or the "Thumb Piano"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvJyLFOH0KaGYk2cQaPJqr3TSXZVYmXxyXdzjTPTO0yU4pHCCGErkTc3ASBYeXPULnARnlugTUntVqJbbg2jtMbY8N51U9YMirihXE2Ibx8ANNvgpSGOEx-38Bn30cyd5bQ_b8hQ/s1600/Kalimba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvJyLFOH0KaGYk2cQaPJqr3TSXZVYmXxyXdzjTPTO0yU4pHCCGErkTc3ASBYeXPULnARnlugTUntVqJbbg2jtMbY8N51U9YMirihXE2Ibx8ANNvgpSGOEx-38Bn30cyd5bQ_b8hQ/s200/Kalimba.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/503679" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; color: #262626; font-family: MetSans, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; text-align: start;">Nyonganyonga</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "metsans" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">. Zambezi province, <br />Mozambique, ca. 1900. <br />Wood, shell, metal, beads. </span></td></tr>
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In conjunction with the exhibition Early American Guitars: The Instruments of C. F. Martin, on view through December 7, the Department of Musical Instruments is presenting a series of monthly concerts on Friday evenings in the Museum's Charles Engelhard Court. The next concert in this series will be held on May 16, featuring the guitarist, composer, and instrument designer Trevor Gordon Hall.<br />
<br />
Hall plays a rather unusual combination of two instruments, one that he calls the "kalimbatar." This hybrid instrument merges an acoustic guitar with a specially designed version of the West African kalimba.<br />
<br />
Kalimba is one name for a type of instrument known as a lamellophone, consisting of thin metal or split cane tongues mounted on a resonating board or box. Depressing the free ends of the tongues with the thumb produces a gentle ringing sound, which is sometimes augmented by jingling objects. An example of a similar instrument, possibly by the Barwe people—members of the Shona community in the Zambezi province of Mozambique—can be found in the Museum's collection.<br />
<br />
This example has thirty-one metal keys and disks made of snail shells that are pinned to the body and rattle when played. Tuning is accomplished by sliding the tongues in or out to alter their vibrating length and pitch.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrc16jiEDzJMrqEwd6JCRe7ERVYvo5KTAS_4U5eLDZnR2bQ5LWryaWqny_IACmRP9JG2b78A0A9zy5N7FIUCoEPz1iudTXqrePMgJjNNvgKmu6EOsoBDnA11-kcX0J-LesLo9WfA/s1600/Seated-Chief-Playing-Thumb-Piano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrc16jiEDzJMrqEwd6JCRe7ERVYvo5KTAS_4U5eLDZnR2bQ5LWryaWqny_IACmRP9JG2b78A0A9zy5N7FIUCoEPz1iudTXqrePMgJjNNvgKmu6EOsoBDnA11-kcX0J-LesLo9WfA/s200/Seated-Chief-Playing-Thumb-Piano.jpg" width="158" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seated Chief Playing Thumb Piano <br />
(Mwanangana). Angola, before 1869</td></tr>
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Lamellophones are found across sub-Saharan Africa and were brought to Latin America by enslaved Africans. They are known by many names that may be shared with xylophones, but, overlooking differences in construction, are generally identified by two regional terms: mbira or sanza. Depending upon the context and regional tradition, lamellaphones may be used to accompany narratives and children's songs, or to summon spirits and induce trance and spirit possession, thus bridging this world with that of watchful ancestors.<br />
<br />
The use of thumbs to play the instrument is the reason why the lamellophone is often known to Westerners as the "thumb piano."<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">- Article courtesy of The <a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_604958113">MET</a></span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/of-note/2014/kalimba" target="_blank">METmuseum.org</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>- Nyonganyonga. Zambesi province, Mozambique, ca. 1900. Wood, shell, metal, beads. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889 (09.163.6)</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">- Seated Chief Playing Thumb Piano (Mwanangana). Angola, before 1869. Wood (Uapaca), cloth, fiber, beads. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1988 (1988.157)</span></b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Lamellophones, or "Thumb Pianos", are regularly sold for $200 to $300 on <a href="http://cbpirate.com/s/auction/biztips/afartblog" target="_blank">eBay</a>... </span></b></span><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">What's In Your Attic?</span></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-930352661912830282017-01-26T23:26:00.002-05:002018-10-02T15:08:47.098-04:00The Dogon of Mali Way Of Life<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8T3mIk9hRb1IAuqyR8PtzkkPgqKlSK_NUglzmb2_I4ImtVWSBS-VAjPFf1LM7xZa36LQ_90pragUwAKpUaGirut4nQvqdxeLL-nGuw8I5VBgL8JPeFKqJqoOopFQTpIRXOJ6Xg/s1600/DogonMask.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8T3mIk9hRb1IAuqyR8PtzkkPgqKlSK_NUglzmb2_I4ImtVWSBS-VAjPFf1LM7xZa36LQ_90pragUwAKpUaGirut4nQvqdxeLL-nGuw8I5VBgL8JPeFKqJqoOopFQTpIRXOJ6Xg/s320/DogonMask.JPG" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Dogon Mask<br />
Courtesy of: http://www.hamillgallery.com</td></tr>
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<a href="http://marketing.net.catawiki.com/ts/i3266956/tsc?amc=aff.Catawiki.208166.218004.33112&smc=dogon&rmd=3&trg=https%3A%2F%2Fauction.catawiki.com%2Fdogon-art-auction%3Futm_content%3D208166%26amc%3D%23%7BADMEDIA_CODE%7D%26utm_source%3Dpn%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate" target="_blank"><b>Dogon statues</b></a> are conserved in the semi darkness of sanctuaries or of family homes. These objects are made to be touched rather than seen. Occasionally offerings and sacrifices are made to them. The statues are made by a blacksmith, who, if he has talent can create true works of art. The masks are sculpted by non specialists during the course of a ritual that takes place outside of the village.<br />
<br />
Dogon style has evolved towards a type of cubism with ovoid heads, square shoulders, slender limbs, pointed breasts, forearm and thighs in the same parallel plane, and a coiffure stylized by two or three incisions. Dogon statues express in particular religious values and feelings. They act as a support to initiation rituals and in explaining the world.<br />
<br />
The Dogon live in the south of Mali, a region which is made up of plains, a plateau and above all an escarpment. The Bandiagara escarpment is 260 km long and overhangs the plains. The Dogon cultivate millet, sorgho, fonio, rice and durum wheat at the edge of the cliffs and near the rare water points. They are not the first inhabitants of this region. The Dogon say that they came from Mande, or the Ancient Mali Empire to escape from Islamization. They probably started their migration between the 10th and 13th centuries and chased the Tellum from the cliffs. The memory of the Tellum is conserved in grain stores at the foot of the cliffs and rocky cavities where their dead were buried along with the statues.<br />
<br />
<b>Dogon Religion</b><br />
<br />
Before the world was created, there was a God called Amma who had the appearance of an egg. Amma created four male and four female creatures. The males are: Nommo Die, Nommo Titiyayne, O Nommo and Ogo and were created in the form of fish. But Ogo rebelled before he was fully finished, as he wanted to make the creation his own. O Nommo was sacrificed to pay back the error of his twin Ogo and came down to earth in the ark that carried men’s ancestors and all living beings. Ogo, rebelling against Amma, detached himself from Amma’s placenta, ripping part of it away, and came down to earth with the ark.<br />
<br />
In leaving Amma’s womb prematurely, he did not wait for the full gestation of his twin. He found himself weak and alone because Amma had transformed the piece of placenta torn out by Ogo, into our earth and the moon. Ogo, displeased with the earth, unfit for cultivation, went back up to the sky to interrupt Amma’s work and to retrieve the remains of his placenta. But Amma, wanting to put this piece of placenta out of Ogo’s reach, transformed it into our sun. Next, Amma transformed Ogo into a four legged creature, a pale fox that from that moment on would be the instrument of chaos in the universe. In accepting the opposition of the fox, and the chaos that he brought to the universe, Amma allowed psychological dualism and individualization to be created. In order to reorganize the universe that had been disturbed by the fox, Amma decided to sacrifice her twin brother O Nommo. His blood served to purify the earth and his body, cut into pieces, allowed the stars, the animals and the plants to appear. After this purification of the universe, O Nommo was brought back to life and sent back to earth by Amma, to give birth to humans and to reorganize life on earth. Amma had made men immortal, but following the chaos brought by the fox to the earth, death appeared. The ark in which Ogo had come down to earth became uncultivated land, and that of O Nommo the symbol for cultivated land. After all the beings had descended from the ark, O Nommo (or Nommo) returned to his fish like form and went to live in the great expanse of water (the oceans) that had been born of the first rainfall. It is in the water that Nommo reveals to man the words woven through his teeth.<br />
<br />
The Dogon religion is made up of the belief in Amma, distant and immaterial God, but which is realized through institutions and ongoing actions towards the ancestors:<br />
<br />
1° The cult of the immortal totemic ancestors.<br />
<br />
2° The Lebe cult, a great ancestor who died and was brought back to life in the form of a snake. Lebe is the great ancestor whose sons gave birth to the four tribes: Dyon, Dommo, Ono and Arou.<br />
<br />
3° The mask cult, mortal ancestors.<br />
<br />
<b>The Dogon Economy</b><br />
<br />
The Dogon are farming people, with a system of patrilineal descent and patrilocal residency. There is a division of labour. The men cultivate the fields and hunt albeit for a meager result (because of the lack of game) weave and make basket work. The women take care of the home, make pottery, spin cotton and dye fabric. The blacksmith doesn’t only work metal he also makes <b><a href="http://marketing.net.catawiki.com/ts/i3266956/tsc?amc=aff.Catawiki.208166.218004.33112&smc=dogon&rmd=3&trg=https%3A%2F%2Fauction.catawiki.com%2Fdogon-art-auction%3Futm_content%3D208166%26amc%3D%23%7BADMEDIA_CODE%7D%26utm_source%3Dpn%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate" target="_blank">objects out of wood</a></b>. He is an important person and belongs to a caste.<br />
<br />
<b>Social Organisation among the Dogon and Initiation rites</b><br />
<br />
Comprising several totemic clans, the Dogon village comes under the authority of the council of elders. The clans are subdivided into lineages, led by the patriarch, the guardian of the ancestral altar and responsible for the cult.<br />
<br />
There are other broader communities than the clan, these are the four initial tribes (Dyon, Arou, Ono, Dommo) each the respective descendant of the four mythical ancestors (Amma Serou, Libe Serou, Binou Serou, Dyongou Serou). In the beginning, they should have shared the Dogon country between them, but they were finally integrated into the same territory. It is at the heart of these tribal proceedings that the ‘Hogons’, or highest religious dignitaries and heads of a region, are named. They are in charge of the cult of the mythical snake Lebe and the cult of the ancestor Lebe Serou. Aided by the blacksmith, they preside over agrarian ceremonies. Masters of exchange and commerce they do not work the land and cannot leave their house, considered as a sanctuary. The supreme Hogon is the one that resides at Arou.<br />
<br />
In correlation to this hierarchical relationship there is also a system of grouping by age, whereby the members mutually owe each other lifelong help and assistance.<br />
<br />
Circumcision and excision open the door to adulthood and allows young people to marry and participate in social and ritualistic life.<br />
<br />
Masculine and feminine associations are responsible for the initiation which is carried out by age group. Members of each age group owe mutual and lifelong help to the other members of the group. A boy’s initiation begins after his circumcision. This begins with teachings of traditional myths, taught through the medium of drawings and paintings. The boys learn man’s place in nature, society and the universe. Dogon mythology is so complicated that a griot would need a week to tell it in its entirety.<br />
<br />
Blacksmiths and wood carvers form a separate caste. Their trade is mainly passed down from generation to generation. They are feared and respected by the community who attribute particular powers to them. They can only marry inside their own caste. The women take care of the <b><a href="http://marketing.net.catawiki.com/ts/i3266956/tsc?amc=aff.Catawiki.208166.218004.33112&smc=dogon&rmd=3&trg=https%3A%2F%2Fauction.catawiki.com%2Fdogon-art-auction%3Futm_content%3D208166%26amc%3D%23%7BADMEDIA_CODE%7D%26utm_source%3Dpn%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate" target="_blank">pottery</a></b>.<br />
<br />
<b>Great Dogon Ceremonies</b><br />
<br />
The masculine association or ‘Awa’ is responsible for initiation and equally organizes the great ceremonies that take place at the end of the mourning period. This period can last for several days and recalls the memories of people that have died within the last two or three years. Two main types of mask are made for these occasions:<br />
<br />
The ‘Sirige,’ or house with several storeys, is worn by a dancer who mimics the myth of creation and the descent from the ark. The Kanaga mask is crowned by a cross indicating the skies and the earth. They are accompanied by other types of <b><a href="http://marketing.net.catawiki.com/ts/i3266956/tsc?amc=aff.Catawiki.208166.218004.33112&smc=dogon&rmd=3&trg=https%3A%2F%2Fauction.catawiki.com%2Fdogon-art-auction%3Futm_content%3D208166%26amc%3D%23%7BADMEDIA_CODE%7D%26utm_source%3Dpn%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate" target="_blank">zoomorphic masks</a></b>: antelope, hyena, lion, hare, monkey, buffalo, bird, as well as other helm masks embellished with horns and a muzzle. These masks might be decorated in red, black or white.<br />
<br />
The grand Sigui ceremony takes place every 60 years. It is symbolized by a <b><a href="http://marketing.net.catawiki.com/ts/i3266956/tsc?amc=aff.Catawiki.208166.218004.33112&smc=dogon&rmd=3&trg=https%3A%2F%2Fauction.catawiki.com%2Fdogon-art-auction%3Futm_content%3D208166%26amc%3D%23%7BADMEDIA_CODE%7D%26utm_source%3Dpn%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate" target="_blank">snake mask</a></b>, and everyone in the community takes part in the event.<br />
<br />
<b>Dogon Sculpture</b><br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://marketing.net.catawiki.com/ts/i3266956/tsc?amc=aff.Catawiki.208166.218004.33112&smc=dogon&rmd=3&trg=https%3A%2F%2Fauction.catawiki.com%2Fdogon-art-auction%3Futm_content%3D208166%26amc%3D%23%7BADMEDIA_CODE%7D%26utm_source%3Dpn%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate" target="_blank">Dogon sculpture</a></b> is conserved in the semi darkness of sanctuaries or of family homes. These objects are <br />
made to be touched rather than seen. Occasionally, offerings and sacrifices are made to them.<br />
<br />
The masks are sculpted by non specialists during the course of a ritual that takes place outside of the village. The statues are made by a blacksmith who, if he has talent, can create true works of art in his house situated in a quarter reserved especially for professionals who work under the watchful eye of the population. The quality of the work also depends on the wealth of the person who commissions it.<br />
<br />
In this region of Mali, it is important to recognize the works of art that were made by the Tellum, the predecessors of the Dogon, who occupied the area in the 11th and 12th centuries.<br />
<br />
The main theme of the statues is the sacrifice of Nommo. The statues are created from a wood that is thought to be hard and powerful. They follow the relationship of Nommo and Amma at various periods of their lives.<br />
<br />
The signification of the different representations is mainly as follows:<br />
<br />
If the statue has one arm raised up it symbolizes the relationship between O Nommo and Amma before his sacrifice, but also of his role as the organizer of the world. Sometimes, he is hermaphrodite because Nommo is bisexual. When both arms are raised but separated, Nommo is praying to Amma to allow him to stay with her after his resurrection. If both arms are raised and joined together, Nommo is praying for Amma to come to him and protect him. When both arms are raised with the hands together and the palms facing up to the sky, Nommo is imploring the rain to fall. When both arms are down by the sides this position symbolizes Nommo’s descent to earth. With both arms spread out away from the body and with the palms facing forward, Nommo reveals his role of guardian of space. If Nommo has both hands placed on his thighs this means that he is relying on Amma.<br />
<br />
Throughout these different representations, the face is often very smooth signifying that the world must remain clean and organized like a smoothly shaved face.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsMGQxbv5a-lZRn8XCGNxygOrP4RHy92di5EUsrZzjXogJdK1F8AP__tL_gnqnxq3_QC-QJ5STpyxUQlYjpHedYWSIpZaLhLpX0rB6W1IiIZNg7fiv97y2a_YTw9zqOs8E9xvUw/s1600/DogonCouple.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsMGQxbv5a-lZRn8XCGNxygOrP4RHy92di5EUsrZzjXogJdK1F8AP__tL_gnqnxq3_QC-QJ5STpyxUQlYjpHedYWSIpZaLhLpX0rB6W1IiIZNg7fiv97y2a_YTw9zqOs8E9xvUw/s320/DogonCouple.JPG" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A couple of primordial ancestors.<br />
Courtesy of http://www.hamillgallery.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The figure of a man’s statue incorporates traits that are the essence of Dogon sculpture. They translate the monumentality that is obtained through a strict use of volume, reducing the physiognomy down to the essential (without superfluous detail), disturbing the serious face of the character with its long and extremely triangular nose.<br />
<br />
A couple of primordial ancestors, sitting side by side share the same characteristics. The faces are harsh and the rigidity of the pair is only broken by the gesture of tenderness of the man putting his arm around his companion’s shoulder.<br />
<br />
Again, the same characteristics apply for a statue of a <b><a href="http://marketing.net.catawiki.com/ts/i3266956/tsc?amc=aff.Catawiki.208166.218004.33112&smc=dogon&rmd=3&trg=https%3A%2F%2Fauction.catawiki.com%2Fdogon-art-auction%3Futm_content%3D208166%26amc%3D%23%7BADMEDIA_CODE%7D%26utm_source%3Dpn%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate" target="_blank">woman sitting on a stool</a></b> decorated with sculptures of the ancestors. The coiffure of the seated woman is more heavily refined, but the principal traits of the face are schematic: diamond shaped eyes, rectilinear nose in the form of an arrow, slit mouth. Sculptures of women with children are treated in the same austere and monumental manner. A woman crushing seeds is sculpted in the same synthetic manner, without any anecdotal features.<br />
<br />
Xylophone or balafon players are treated in the same hieratic way, full of nobility and severity.<br />
<br />
A great number of figures recall that Nommo pulled the ark towards a hollow filled with water by changing himself into a horse.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The Dogon create hermaphrodite, ‘Tellum type’ statues where the arms are raised and which are covered with a thick patina of blood and millet beer.</li>
<li>The four Nommo couples, mythical ancestors born of the God Amma, decorate stools, the columns of the men’s meeting houses, as well as locks and barn doors.</li>
<li>The primordial couple is represented sitting on a stool, of which the base represents the earth and the top tray the sky. Between the base and the tray Nommo is figured, the ancestor of all humans.</li>
<li>The feminine seated figures, with their hands on their stomachs, are linked to the fecundity cult and are the incarnation of the first dead ancestor that died in childbirth. They are the object of offerings and sacrifices made by pregnant women.</li>
<li>The kneeling statues of the protecting ancestors are placed next to the deceased’s head in order to absorb his spiritual force. They play an intermediary role with the afterlife by accompanying the deceased. They are then returned to the ancestral altars.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Dogon style has evolved towards a type of cubism with ovoid heads, square shoulders, slender limbs, pointed breasts, forearm and thighs in the same parallel plane, a coiffure stylized by two or three incisions. Dogon statues express in particular religious values and feelings. They act as a support to initiation and as an explanation of the world itself. Hidden in sanctuaries or in the Hogan’s dwelling, they act as vectors of knowledge for the initiate who will learn how to interpret the signs of the statue depending on his level of knowledge.<br />
<br />
<b>Dogon art also manifests itself in architecture, and both cult and domestic objects.</b><br />
<br />
Dogon blacksmiths also make ritual irons showing Nommo in various stances and situations as for the statues, but along with some fish like elements.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Article courtesy of <a href="http://african-art.net/">African-Art.net</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Images courtesy of <a href="http://www.hamillgallery.com/">HamillGallery.com</a> </b></span><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_807079632"><br /></a>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-76659404558991892042017-01-23T18:53:00.000-05:002018-10-02T14:44:43.361-04:00History of the Marka Masks of Mali, West Africa<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbxQAnfGdnFWyy9c7M0W3UZ9af9HXTQGMXibKM-EmsaEraAdDbiBF4uwXDmof8WJbCIXKcQqlE264hpvnOfXlBGT8dy5iEJ5-CLFzP4N0xwpnnYlglu3fiJL4LdLQolay25Od0VA/s1600/Fondazione_Passar%25C3%25A9_-_094_b_-_Mali_-_Maschera_etnia_Bambara_Marka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbxQAnfGdnFWyy9c7M0W3UZ9af9HXTQGMXibKM-EmsaEraAdDbiBF4uwXDmof8WJbCIXKcQqlE264hpvnOfXlBGT8dy5iEJ5-CLFzP4N0xwpnnYlglu3fiJL4LdLQolay25Od0VA/s200/Fondazione_Passar%25C3%25A9_-_094_b_-_Mali_-_Maschera_etnia_Bambara_Marka.jpg" width="149" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy of Fondazione Passaré<br />
Marks Masks of Mali</td></tr>
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The masks of the Marka (a Mande subgroup) originated in the landlocked country of Mali, West Africa. Long ago masks such as the Marka were thought to be extremely powerful and had the ability to frighten away evil spirits, convey messages from the spirit world and cure illnesses. The Marka would perform ceremonies devoted to fishing and farming, and their stylized masks would be danced to invoke the spirits to grant the community with abundant agricultural yields and a successful fishing season.<br />
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The masks of the Marka are narrow and austere, with a sharp chin. They are brightly painted or coated with metal along with raised ornamentation, achieving a fine decorative effect that is very distinctive and different from most other African mask styles. The men of the Marka, clad in costumes of colorful cloth, always appear in pairs to represent man's wooing of woman. The most characteristic deviation from the Bambara style is the cover of metal sheeting worked in conjunction with three metal bars attached to the forehead and red cotton at the end of each. The Marka society used this mask in two rituals, at the circumcision ceremony of adolescents, and when circumcised men advance from one grade to another. Along the Niger River the Marka used the masks in ceremonies related to fishing and farming.<br />
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This ethnic group is independent from the Bambara tribe but their styles show a strong Bambara influence. They live in the region that extends from the north of the Bambara to the Senegalese border. They live principally from agriculture with some subsidiary cattle rearing in the northern part of their territory. The dry savanna permits no more than a subsistence economy, and the soil produces, with some difficulty, millet, rice, and beans.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHbhsdjrh0zfmdPhH4xvDgyzl07daS-8_KQT0L-zZ2N0zykWIPjK1wCr9BHgVmOhn_g6WIMxCdpwBhosDxbh9adr6Fuw7gnatKhiau3a94Su-A7tb4hK-tpSBv_qWBsmA3H-tvQ/s1600/130a48dc024a0f4466a614e903ec81d9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHbhsdjrh0zfmdPhH4xvDgyzl07daS-8_KQT0L-zZ2N0zykWIPjK1wCr9BHgVmOhn_g6WIMxCdpwBhosDxbh9adr6Fuw7gnatKhiau3a94Su-A7tb4hK-tpSBv_qWBsmA3H-tvQ/s200/130a48dc024a0f4466a614e903ec81d9.jpg" width="134" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy of Fondazione Passaré<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Marks Masks of Mali</span></td></tr>
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Fertility played an important role in African Agricultural ceremonies. They were based on the idea that through the correct rituals, man could raise up the vital forces dwelling in a mask by gaining the blessing of his ancestor in order to help fertility and therefore achieve protection and primary security. The Agricultural Festivities the Africans celebrated were performed at different stages of the crop cycle. This crop cycle started with clearing of the land, then the planting, the reaping of the fruits, the harvest and finally the filling of the food stores. The concept of these festivals was the sacredness of the soil, which belonged to the ancestors, or the "masters of the soil". A successful harvest therefore depended on the thanksgiving of the ancestors or sometimes upon the good will of the goddess of the earth. African Masks<br />
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To see beautiful and affordable African Home Decor crafted by talented local African artisans, click on the following link: African Home Decor<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mike_Griffis/268004</b></span><br />
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-31397120774535435062017-01-17T05:41:00.000-05:002018-10-02T14:45:25.016-04:00The African Passport Masks<i><span style="color: blue;">This beautiful passport mask certainly contains Kaba Ko - an African term referring to marvellous things that can be looked upon without limit.</span></i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKbBhXwqOLatQRxZlUo1x9OK2z5Efm6FBA5fRW-ABUtAirBb8ULLtjLK2H1LKklH69j9kGP4aRuJxmCQ-IR-kiUVIEN8bebXrPuCFEOhhYN8ZpPoJESCL23UdhywRJVCnPpNb_w/s1600/BassaMask601.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKbBhXwqOLatQRxZlUo1x9OK2z5Efm6FBA5fRW-ABUtAirBb8ULLtjLK2H1LKklH69j9kGP4aRuJxmCQ-IR-kiUVIEN8bebXrPuCFEOhhYN8ZpPoJESCL23UdhywRJVCnPpNb_w/s200/BassaMask601.jpg" width="111" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bassa Miniature Mask<br />
Liberia</td></tr>
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African Masks are sacred objects. These passport masks functioned as a medium of communication between a person and their favoured ancestor. In their original context, miniature masks were integrated into a system of belief in which they functioned as spiritual guides and personal protectors.<br />
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The Dan believe that their world is split into two domains: the human domain which is represented by the village and its people, and the spiritual domain which is represented by the forest and its spirits.<br />
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These miniature masks were often carried for personal protection when living away from home, and in later years they were commonly understood to also function as a means of tribal identification. Asan Diop, of Abidjan, describes the role of passport masks:<br />
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Before Whiteman brought paper and pen to Africa, these small masks were the only form of identification that we Africans could carry with us. Each person owned a carving of himself and each tribe had its own kind of masks. This is the only way people could cross the frontier between tribal groups.<br />
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In a culture where hierarchy was based upon skill, carvers were highly respected. The masks were generally <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ngjpGpQIeRXSRRCXlLWiIlIQXQlR1NjqBQmD54DbZzDyC-eY0jEV3PsInc3QdzxTsh2Ah5s1Mr_6vnT4SZazE8pH0KDGSTy4oA2GXPMMShLtkl6yim88V-EhkoPkjKtmWIAW2A/s1600/DanMiniMask22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ngjpGpQIeRXSRRCXlLWiIlIQXQlR1NjqBQmD54DbZzDyC-eY0jEV3PsInc3QdzxTsh2Ah5s1Mr_6vnT4SZazE8pH0KDGSTy4oA2GXPMMShLtkl6yim88V-EhkoPkjKtmWIAW2A/s200/DanMiniMask22.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dan Miniature Mask<br />
Liberia/Ivory Coast </td></tr>
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carved from a local rubber tree and always dyed either black or brown. This was done according to a long and delicate process to which the Bassa artist remained faithful, using colour obtained by the decoction of forest leaves.<br />
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Respected carvers would not sand the surface, but instead use their blades obliquely over and over again, generally lifting off shavings invisible to the layman's eye. The masks often acquire celebrated 'natural patina', from their exposure to the elements or frequent handling.<br />
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The beautiful depth of patina and the marvellous ability for such a small figure to attract one's attention further emphasises the mystery and power of this ''passport''.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Article courtesy of FHE Galleries: <a href="http://www.fhegalleries.com/ethnological/showArticle.php?file=04_23_africandanpassportmask.xml&year=2013">http://www.fhegalleries.com/ethnological/showArticle.php?file=04_23_africandanpassportmask.xml&year=2013</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Images courtesy of the <a href="http://hamillgallery.com/">hamillgallery.com</a></b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: medium;">Used Old Jar Sold For $51,000 On <a href="http://cbpirate.com/s/auction/biztips/afartblog" target="_blank">eBay</a>... </span></b><b><span style="font-size: medium;">What´s In Your Attic?</span></b></h3>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-23751541961007572312017-01-06T12:36:00.001-05:002018-10-02T14:46:08.538-04:00African Batik Art<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaWc7oRyNKC36fLBOtHCDkGDGbDGV62XJyDkxluSfqAccPUNeeGYdLaQVX-e5uZQ3OLb_XT3Y-sT6WAsKzxsR_jHxF0HS8jPHqU2pZ5IjHj_TA_Tv_JaSaQpECPBcwgH5-7ZxiaQ/s1600/africanbatic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaWc7oRyNKC36fLBOtHCDkGDGbDGV62XJyDkxluSfqAccPUNeeGYdLaQVX-e5uZQ3OLb_XT3Y-sT6WAsKzxsR_jHxF0HS8jPHqU2pZ5IjHj_TA_Tv_JaSaQpECPBcwgH5-7ZxiaQ/s200/africanbatic.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
The art of batik or wax painting is an ancient craft and technique used in Africa and many East Asian countries for decorating fabrics. The batik images or effects are achieved through the principle of wax and water repelling each other, called resist dyeing.<br />
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The artistic expression of working with melted wax on dyes is similar to that of painting with watercolor, oils or acrylics and the designs can be as complicated or simple as the artist's desire.<br />
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Since batik is a method of painting "negative space", the artist has to envision the complete design in-between shapes and figures when deciding where to apply the next color and the next application of wax.<br />
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Wax is painted on to the fabric and the color is filled into the fabric between the wax. The most popular ways of applying wax are either by painting it on with a brush or by pouring the liquid wax on the cloth. With a series of dyeing, drying and waxing steps the individual colors of the batik are applied.<br />
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After the last dyeing, the fabric is hung up to dry. Then it is ironed between paper towels or newspaper to absorb the wax and reveal the vibrant colors and fine crinkle lines that give the batik its character.<br />
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African batiks are unique pieces of art handcrafted by talented artisans. If you like to decorate with textiles or showing off your love for unique fabrics, then African batiks are definitely for you.<br />
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From home decor to quilting and other crafts, batiks will enhance any project with true African flair. Frame a batik, transform a batik into a wall hanging by simply stretching it with bamboo poles, make a pillow case out of batiks, decorate a handbag, make a lamp shade or incorporate a batik into your quilting project.<br />
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Let the batik speak for itself and let the beauty be in the eye of the beholder.<br />
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Article and image courtesy of World Travel Art - Great selection of African batiks from Mozambique and Tanzania.</div>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-73200845792844872102017-01-05T12:12:00.002-05:002018-10-02T14:48:32.588-04:00African Rock Art<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLyyAXH41i3YzlROh05FbA2NSZdo_oHkNfNr_wW5c-nPlZWasmsBvXzEf7zjKpEJ_A1NIsXLWC6b9eMQ6gSbVymr9mTehl60EiEVYnymmnhnyyjy33YPx504uVww6DvA-Ya7O1g/s1600/KZN-rock-art-Drakensberg-Ce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLyyAXH41i3YzlROh05FbA2NSZdo_oHkNfNr_wW5c-nPlZWasmsBvXzEf7zjKpEJ_A1NIsXLWC6b9eMQ6gSbVymr9mTehl60EiEVYnymmnhnyyjy33YPx504uVww6DvA-Ya7O1g/s200/KZN-rock-art-Drakensberg-Ce.jpg" width="158" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy of<br />
Dr. Katherine Bolman<br />
Ahaafoundation, Honolulu, Hi 96822</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Rock paintings and engravings are Africa’s oldest continuously practiced art form.<br />
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Depictions of elegant human figures, richly hued animals, and figures combining human and animal features—called therianthropes and associated with shamanism—continue to inspire admiration for their sophistication, energy, and direct, powerful forms. </div>
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The apparent universality of these images is deceptive; content and style range widely over the African continent. Nevertheless, African rock art can be divided into three broad geographical zones—southern, central, and northern. </div>
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The art of each of these zones is distinctive and easily recognizable, even to an untrained eye.</div>
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Not all rock art in these three zones is prehistoric; in some areas these arts flourished into the late nineteenth century, while in other areas rock art continues to be made today.<br />
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In the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, a number of rock paintings depict clashes between San (Bushmen) people and European colonists mounted on horses and armed with rifles. Many of the Drakensberg works use subtle polychrome shading that gives their subjects a hint of three-dimensional presence.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="pstrongThe Linton Panelstrongbr Image courtesy of the South African Museum Cape Townp" height="118" src="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_rock_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Linton Panel<br />
Image courtesy of the South African Museum, Cape Town</td></tr>
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The product of many authors, time periods, and cultures, the flowing naturalism and lively sense of movement of the best rock art attests to the conviction of masterful hands and trained eyes.<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Article courtesy of: Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “African Rock Art.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rock/hd_rock.htm (October 2000)</b></span></span></div>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-8457940767081999992015-09-25T13:04:00.002-04:002018-10-02T14:57:03.566-04:00Art and the Fulani/Fulbe People<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: xx-small;"><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; z-index: 2;">Bowl, Geometric Pattern</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.25px; text-align: left;">, <br />19th–20th century; Fulani</span><br style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; z-index: 2;" /><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.25px; text-align: left;"> Fulani people; Mali, western Sudan</span></span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="color: blue;">Above all, Fulani people are known for their mastery of verbal art expressed in song and poetry.</span></i><br />
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Fulani nomads do not change their fashion as frequently as other sedentary groups, thus traces of past aesthetic traditions tend to be perceptible in contemporary times. Fulani often entrust members of specialized castes or foreigners with the fabrication of their objects. Thus, the label "Fulani art" reflects ownership and not manufacture. Leather amulets, knife handles, sheaths, and sandals are decorated with geometric designs that reflect Fulani symbolism and bear the influence of Tuareg and Berber aesthetics. Objects are tinted in bright colors of red, yellow, or white and green, and often feature long fringes. Some of the designs are cross ethnic: the zigzag bordered by parallel lines, for instance, is shared by Fulani and Dogon alike.<br />
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Fulani aesthetic expression is, with exceptions, inscribed on objects or sites of an ephemeral nature. Above <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; z-index: 2;">Textile Blanket (Khasa)</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.25px; text-align: left;">, 20th century; </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.25px; text-align: left;"> Fulani people; Mali, western Sudan</span></span></span></td></tr>
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all, Fulani people are known for their mastery of verbal art expressed in song and poetry. They are also renowned for their elaborate art of body adornment. Men and women alike are fond of tattooing. They wear amulets (lohol) as both protective and decorative elements. Women wear heavy twisted gold earrings (dibi), gold necklaces (caaka), and copper or white metal bracelets, round or open with bulging extremities, and delicately engraved with dotted lines. Blacksmiths used to make heavy and thick anklets that gave young Wodaabe women a "cowlike" step, much appreciated in this herders' culture. Women from other Fulani groups wore copper or brass leg ornaments or anklets made by the lost-wax casting process. These rings might once have served as currency.<br />
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Men's clothing includes a conical herdsman hat—in red, black, and natural color—made of woven raffia and leather, with geometric design in the form of a cross, complete with a prominent button, the "Mount of the world." Men also wear leather or baggy fabric pants, and use woven blankets with geometric patterns. Wodaabe people are famous for organizing male beauty contests, know as yaake or gerewol.<br />
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Fulani women, who are in charge of building the family tents or temporary shelters, weave wall and floor mats. Besides nomadic architecture, they specialize in the decoration of calabashes and wooden bowls (la'al kosam). Calabashes are pyro-engraved with a combination of abstract and figural motifs and colored with pigments. In the cow-centered Fulani culture, milk bowls are also important objects for the household. They are used as storage containers for fresh, curdled milk and grains. An artifact, symbol of the pastoral life and of the cooperation between men who keep the herd and women who milk the cows, the la'al kosam encapsulates Fulani identity. Because of their delicate chiseling, smoke-derived patina, and exquisite decorative treatment, bowls and calabashes could be considered as the true focus of aesthetic efforts of the Fulani people.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Citation. Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. "Art and the Fulani/Fulbe People". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fula/hd_fula.htm">http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/fula/hd_fula.htm</a></span></b><br />
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<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-80729510387062108122015-09-11T21:07:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:05:01.189-04:00The Mende Helmet Mask "Bundu" or "Sowei" Mask of the Sande Society<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrm_fpvq4BCppk5GI2PU3EhzTX2Czip8uw59c7uIoRJTtlUCdQwpWrfupgQc1vxNW6rGxuxW_l3ZBM-52ah4ftYVTzCFGK9dxxpbcXQltK1W3JX3_ln8JhXWUwPzWefk9XOzgtg/s1600/BunduMask.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrm_fpvq4BCppk5GI2PU3EhzTX2Czip8uw59c7uIoRJTtlUCdQwpWrfupgQc1vxNW6rGxuxW_l3ZBM-52ah4ftYVTzCFGK9dxxpbcXQltK1W3JX3_ln8JhXWUwPzWefk9XOzgtg/s1600/BunduMask.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In sub-Saharan Africa only men are normally permitted on ritual occasions to wear wooden masks. This black helmet mask is worn exclusively by women. The practice of women wearing masks seems to have been brought to several populations of Sierra Leone and Liberia, such as the Temne, Gola and Vai, by the Mende and Mande-speaking people from the northern savanna. Because of the similarity of mask styles and the itinerant pathways of noted carvers, it is difficult to assign some masks to a particular ethnic group.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the 19th century the Mende were organized into independent chiefdoms; families and individuals were ranked according to their land-use rights. Industrious rice farmers, the Mende number approximately two million people. The rituals of their women's society, called Sande, require the appearance of masked figures. Within such a large population there are many variations in local practices and carving styles, but there is broad agreement on the nature of the mask itself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The mask presents an ideal of feminine beauty admired by the Mende: elaborate hairstyle, full forehead and small facial features.The gleaming surface signifies healthy, glowing skin. The swelling fleshy rolls alternating with deep incised lines at the neck or back of the head are considered marks of beauty and a promise of fecundity. The neck is broad to fit over the head of the woman who will wear it. Sande officials commission male carvers to produce the mask in secret. The surface is smoothed with the rough leaves of the ficus tree, then dyed black with a concoction made of leaves. Before use, it is anointed with palm oil to make it shine. (Modern carvers use black shoe polish.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With this confining mask, the wearer (who has to be a good dancer and an official of the Sande) puts on a </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAL85OkteTU4_lH5nVwsN0siC_bWXSLhXTFRjDFlG8ZOLC18-GaL6LpHtzlOCiEJwn_G6JQr_6MCWEaFCBMAQNXY_RhOovQV-vGZzhDFpi1zLQ1asBGbWMJ-W7ifBfNXbw1vH8Q/s1600/MendeMap.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAL85OkteTU4_lH5nVwsN0siC_bWXSLhXTFRjDFlG8ZOLC18-GaL6LpHtzlOCiEJwn_G6JQr_6MCWEaFCBMAQNXY_RhOovQV-vGZzhDFpi1zLQ1asBGbWMJ-W7ifBfNXbw1vH8Q/s200/MendeMap.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">thick cotton costume covered with heavy fibre strands dyed black. Her dances may last for over two hours. The sacredness of the mask lies in its deeper meaning as a representation of the long deceased founder of Sande society. In pre-colonial times women could hold the position of chief of a village cluster; until the 1970s women politicians continued to use the Sande society to support and further their careers in modern government. With increasingly rigorous Islamisation, however, the Sande society is being seriously modified or even disbanded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"The costume worn with the black mask is made of layers of raffia fibers that have also been dyed black. These are attached to the lower portion of the neck as well as to a black cloth shirt or gown worn over the body. The sleeves are sewn shut, and long stockings or men's shoes are worn. No part of the body is left exposed, for revealing the body would expose the human agency behind the mask to the eyes of nonmembers, and would also allow the spirit to enter the human dancer rather than the mask.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Masked dancing provides a festive mood appropriate to the completion of the several stages of initiation. Masks are seen in public at several key moments during the process. Their appearances serve to announce to families of initiates that certain stages have been successfully accomplished and that preparation of foods and gifts of money must be completed. A mask may collect food from the community to take back to where initiation is taking place. She comes into the community to announce the imminent coming out of the girls, and she leads them into town on their first visit after the process has started. Finally, she leads the richly dressed girls into town when they have completed their training and are released. This is the high point of the entire process, for the girls are now recognized as marriageable, adult women.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The mask may appear at other times to bring justice to offenders of Sande law, to perform in respect at the funeral of an important leader of the society, and to participate in ceremonies in which a new mask is initiated into the work of Sande. Nowö is accepted as a living presence. The spirit speaks not through words but through the language of dance, referring to moral and social doctrines of beauty, serenity, dignity, control, order, and balance. Dance movements exaggerate the powers of ordinary women and dramatize the ideals of feminine beauty."</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Excerpt above from: Poynor, Robin. 1995. African Art at the Harn Museum: Spirit Eyes, Human Hands. pp. 185-191. <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.286px;">Article from the </span><a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/" rel="noreferrer" style="color: #993322; line-height: 20.286px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b>Rand African Art</b></a><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.286px;"> website - Denver, Colorado</span></span></span></i><br />
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-85276224532675695972014-08-25T14:38:00.001-04:002018-10-02T15:12:51.600-04:00Côte d'Ivoire/Liberia; Dan peoples<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIxdFp10WUU85RUF4GrKqWfd5gj9W6EJhrmfcce1Awcp8qGjswsjkpSFLXchakSCnOmmvTStcF17X7hK_MF_6mblRqajLmnc5Z6Sx6WF14l_LHPnREEv40oupkxWuuOWwIgQi-g/s1600/Dan+Spoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIxdFp10WUU85RUF4GrKqWfd5gj9W6EJhrmfcce1Awcp8qGjswsjkpSFLXchakSCnOmmvTStcF17X7hK_MF_6mblRqajLmnc5Z6Sx6WF14l_LHPnREEv40oupkxWuuOWwIgQi-g/s1600/Dan+Spoon.jpg" width="132" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Wakemia (ladle)</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal;">H. 64.8 x W. 17.8 x D. 11.4 cm</span></h5>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 18px;">The Dan carve large spoons called <b><i>wakemiaor wunkirmian</i></b>, "spoon associated with feasts," that are carried by the most hospitable woman (<b><i>wakede</i></b>, called <b><i>wunkirle</i></b> in other reports) in a village neighborhood. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 18px;">"<b><i>Awakede</i></b> must be successful and industrious, and well accomplished in farming. She is the woman in her household who is responsible for the administration of food resources for the entire extended family. She must be of a generous and liberal disposition, a woman who gladly offers her hospitality to anyone at any time. She must provide food and lodging for guests; she must invite travelling musicians or other groups who are passing through the village to eat in her home... </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 18px;">In order to be able to achieve all this, the <b><i>wakede</i></b>, not surprisingly, needs the help of a spirit which incarnates as her large spoon -- just as [Dan] mask spirits are incarnated in face masks. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 18px;">The spoon-spirits are believed to animate the wakemia to the extent that it may move itself without human assistance" (<b><i>Fischer 1984:124</i></b>). </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 18px;">In many cases the handles of these spoons are carved to represent the owner of the spoon at the height of her physical beauty and fertility, and the bowl of the ladle takes the place of her belly,"pregnant with rice." </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 18px;">The <b><i>wakededances</i></b> through the neighborhood giving out bowls of rice or small coins to those she meets. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>Professor Christopher D. Roy, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa</i></b></span></span><br />
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-32590066750504025872014-07-20T15:43:00.001-04:002018-10-02T15:18:24.399-04:00Sacred Sites of the Dogon, MaliThe Dogon are an ethnic group located mainly in the districts of Bandiagara and Douentza in Mali, West Africa. This area is composed of three distinct topographical regions: the plain, the cliffs, and the plateau. Within these regions the Dogon population of about 300,000 is most heavily concentrated along a 200-kilometer (125 mile) stretch of escarpment called the Cliffs of Bandiagara. These sandstone cliffs run from southwest to northeast, roughly parallel to the Niger River, and attain heights up to 600 meters (2000 feet). The cliffs provide a spectacular physical setting for Dogon villages built on the sides of the escarpment. There are approximately 700 Dogon villages, most with fewer than 500 inhabitants.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://sacredsites.com/images/africa/mali/binu-shrine-01-500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://sacredsites.com/images/africa/mali/binu-shrine-01-500.jpg" height="212" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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The precise origins of the Dogon, like those of many other ancient cultures, are lost in mists of time. The early histories are informed by oral traditions (that differ according to thethe Dogon clan being consulted) and archaeological excavation (much more of which needs to be conducted).<br />
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Because of these inexact and incomplete sources, there are a number of different versions of the Dogon’s origin myths, as well as differing accounts of how they got from their ancestral homelands to the Bandiagara region.<br />
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The people call themselves Dogon or Dogom, but in the older literature they are most often called Habe, a Fulbe word meaning ‘stranger’ or ‘pagan.’ Certain theories suggest the tribe to be of ancient Egyptian descent. After living in the region of Libya, they are believed to have migrated to somewhere in the region of Burkina Faso, Guinea or Mauritania (different scholarly sources give different places for this period). Around 1490 AD, fleeing invaders and/or drought, they migrated to the Bandiagara cliffs of central Mali. Carbon-14 dating techniques used on excavated remains found in the cliffs indicate that there were inhabitants in the region before the arrival of the Dogon; these were the Toloy culture of the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC, and the Tellem culture of the 11th to 15th centuries AD.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://sacredsites.com/images/africa/mali/dogon-village-500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://sacredsites.com/images/africa/mali/dogon-village-500.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Dogon village of Songo, with mud mosque, Mali</span></span></td></tr>
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The earliest study of the Dogon was undertaken in 1903 by Louis Desplagnes, a lieutenant in the French colonial army. The first scientists to visit and study the Dogon people were the French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who initially made contact with the Dogon in 1931 and continued to intensively research them for the next three decades. Griaule and Dieterlen conducted detailed investigations of the complex Dogon rituals and symbolism, and the cosmological ideas of which they are an expression. Griaule’s two most important works are Masques Dogons (1938) and Dien d’Eau (1948). The latter work was published in English in 1965 under the title Conversations with Ogotemmeli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas.<br />
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The religious beliefs of the Dogon are complex and knowledge of them varies within Dogon society. Dogon religion is defined primarily through the worship of the ancestors and the spirits that they encountered as they slowly migrated from their obscure ancestral homelands to the Bandiagara cliffs. There are three principal cults among the Dogon; the Awa, Lebe and Binu. The Awa is a cult of the dead, whose purpose is to reorder the spiritual forces disturbed by the death of Nommo, a mythological ancestor of great importance to the Dogon. Members of the Awa cult dance with ornate carved and painted masks during both funeral and death anniversary ceremonies. There are 78 different types of ritual masks among the Dogon and their iconographic messages go beyond the aesthetic, into the realm of religion and philosophy. The primary purpose of Awa dance ceremonies is to lead souls of the deceased to their final resting place in the family altars and to consecrate their passage to the ranks of the ancestors.<br />
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The cult of Lebe, the Earth God, is primarily concerned with the agricultural cycle and its chief priest is called a Hogon. All Dogon villages have a Lebe shrine whose altars have bits of earth incorporated into them to encourage the continued fertility of the land. . According to Dogon beliefs, the god Lebe visits the hogons every night in the form of a serpent and licks their skins in order to purify them and infuse them with life force. The hogons are responsible for guarding the purity of the soil and therefore officiate at many agricultural ceremonies.<br />
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The cult of Binu is a totemic practice and it has complex associations with the Dogon’s sacred places used for ancestor worship, spirit communication and agricultural sacrifices. Marcel Griaule and his colleagues came to believe that all the major Dogon sacred sites were related to episodes in the Dogon myth of the creation of the world, in particular to a deity named Nommo. Nommo was the first living being created by Amma (the sky god and creator of the universe) and he soon multiplied to become four sets of twins. One of the twins rebelled against the order established by Amma, thereby destabilizing the universe. In order to purify the cosmos and restore its order, Amma sacrificed another of the Nommo, whose body was cut up and scattered throughout the universe. This distribution of the parts of the Nommo’s body is seen as the source for the proliferation of Binu shrines throughout the Dogon region.<br />
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In addition to containing parts of Nommo’s body, Binu shrines house spirits of mythic ancestors who lived in the legendary era before the appearance of death among mankind. Binu spirits often make themselves known to their descendants in the form of an animal that interceded on behalf of the clan during its founding or migration, thus becoming the clan’s totem. The priests of each Binu maintain the sanctuaries, whose facades are often painted with graphic signs and mystic symbols. Sacrifices of blood and millet porridge (millet being the primary crop of the Dogon) are made at the Binu shrines at planting time and whenever the intercession of the immortal ancestor is desired. Through such rituals, the Dogon believe that the benevolent force of the ancestor is transmitted to them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Binu shrine near Arou-by-Ibi, Bandiagara, Mali</span></span></td></tr>
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In the late 1940’s, Dogon priests greatly surprised the French anthropologists Griaule and Dieterlen by telling them secret Dogon myths about the star Sirius (8.6 light years from the earth). The priests said that Sirius had a companion star that was invisible to the human eye. They also stated that the star moved in a 50-year elliptical orbit around Sirius, that it was small and incredibly heavy, and that it rotated on its axis.<br />
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All these things happen to be true (the actual orbital figure is 50.04 +/- 0.09 years). But what makes this so remarkable is that the companion star of Sirius, called Sirius B, was first photographed in 1970. While people began to suspect its existence around 1844, it was not seen through a telescope until 1862. The Dogon beliefs, on the other hand, were supposedly thousands of years old. The Dogon name for Sirius B (Po Tolo) consists of the word for star (tolo) and "po," the name of the smallest seed known to them. By this name they describe the star's smallness -- it is, they say, "the smallest thing there is." They also claim that it is "the heaviest star," and white. The tribe claims that Po is composed of a mysterious, super-dense metal called sagala, which they declare is heavier than all the iron on Earth. Not until 1926 did Western science discover that this tiny star is a white dwarf, a category of star characterized by very great density.<br />
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Many artifacts were found describing the star system, including a statue examined by Dieterlen that is at least 400 years old. The Dogon also describe a third star in the Sirius system, called Emme Ya. Larger and lighter than Sirius B, this star revolves around Sirius as well. Around the star Emme Ya orbits a planet from which the mythic Nommos originally came. To date, however, astronomers have not identified Emme Ya. Will our celestial observation devices one day be powerful enough for us to find this legendary planet, thereby adding still more mystery to the extraordinary - seemingly impossible - astronomical knowledge of the Dogon?<br />
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In addition to their knowledge of the Sirius group, the Dogon mythology includes Saturn's rings and Jupiter's four major moons. They have four calendars, for the Sun, Moon, Sirius, and Venus, and have long known that planets orbit the sun. The Dogon say their astronomical knowledge was given to them by the Nommos, amphibious beings sent to Earth from Sirius for the benefit of mankind. The word Nommos comes from a Dogon word meaning, "to make one drink," and the Nommos are also called Masters of the Water, the Monitors, and the Teachers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFxI2pxk7ntt9Kc9e5vrapFlxjzkbZ-vYddiU7Oz4tSYcNOYH0lJ7WE7gipXZ15bOX0bftGGrY1DfxB4nyn5QD7F7AvebGOK90YKuWp8h_Ses0zjEeYJQ4SXgtboGFPCEeA4aPg/s1600/nummo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDFxI2pxk7ntt9Kc9e5vrapFlxjzkbZ-vYddiU7Oz4tSYcNOYH0lJ7WE7gipXZ15bOX0bftGGrY1DfxB4nyn5QD7F7AvebGOK90YKuWp8h_Ses0zjEeYJQ4SXgtboGFPCEeA4aPg/s1600/nummo.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The Nommos were more fishlike than human</span></td></tr>
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The Dogon myths tell the legend of the Nommos, who arrived in a vessel along with fire and thunder. After they arrived here - they put out a reservoir of water onto the Earth then dove into the water. There are references in the oral traditions, drawings and tablets of the Dogons, to human-looking beings who have feet but who are portrayed as having a large fish skin running down their bodies. <a href="http://tribart.blogspot.fr/2012_08_01_archive.html#7608757696269147337" target="_blank">The Nommos were more fishlike </a>than human and had to live in water. They were saviors and spiritual guardians: "The Nommo divided his body among men to feed them; that is why it is also said that as the universe "had drunk of his body," the Nommo also made men drink. He gave all his life principles to human beings." The Nommo was crucified and resurrected and in the future will again visit the Earth, this time in human form. Similar creatures have been noted in other ancient civilizations -- Babylonia's Oannes, Acadia's Ea, Sumer's Enki, and Egypt's goddess Isis.<br />
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The photographs show Binu shrines near Sangha and Arou-by-Ibi (the ostrich eggs atop the roof spires symbolize fertility and purity). Readers wishing to study the Dogon in more detail are encouraged to consult the writings of Marcel Griaule, Pascal Imperato, Robert Temple, and Shannon Dorey listed in the bibliography. Portions of the foregoing information were taken from these authors.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://sacredsites.com/images/africa/mali/rite-passaage-01-500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Rite of passaage ceremonial site" border="0" src="http://sacredsites.com/images/africa/mali/rite-passaage-01-500.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #5c626b;">Rite of passaage ceremonial site for Dogon boys becoming men, </span><br style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #5c626b;" /><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #5c626b;">near village of Songo, Bandiagara</span></span></td></tr>
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Contributions with thanks from:<br />
<a href="http://sacredsites.com/africa/mali/dogon.html" target="_blank">Places Of Peace And Power</a><br />
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<a href="https://siterubix.com/a_aid/05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-70379768462920234932013-07-09T02:51:00.001-04:002018-10-02T15:20:42.260-04:00The Headdress Of The Baga People<br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-15fa4c65-c232-35d7-5d86-7f2b4855c46b"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">H. 46 1/2 in. (118.1 cm)</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-15fa4c65-c232-35d7-5d86-7f2b4855c46b"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This colossal wooden headdress, measuring nearly four feet in height, is known as D'mba among the Baga peoples of the Guinea coast. D'mba's flat, pendant breasts are a symbol of motherhood and reveal the selfless dedication with which she has nursed numerous children to adulthood. Her coiffure consists of intricately braided rows of hair and a high crest down the center. This hairstyle is not a characteristic of the Baga, but rather one of the Fulbe people, who inhabit the Futa Jallon mountains, where the Baga ancestors once lived. The coiffure serves as a reminder to the Baga of their origins in the Futa Jallon. The face, neck, and breasts of the bust are decorated with linear patterns: a horizontal line from the cheek to the ear, a curved line from the ear along the jawline, a line connecting these two lines, all ending at a circular line that surrounds the entire face. Often on each cheek, just below the eyes, there are two short carved lines—the mark of Baga ethnicity. Embellishments are sometimes added as well, including painted wooden ornaments attached to the ear or pendants attached to the nasal septum.<br /><br />Unlike masked representations from other African cultures, which may represent ethereal spirits or ancestors, D'mba is not a "spirit," but instead is loosely described by the Baga themselves as simply an "idea." D'mba is an abstraction of the ideal of the female role in Baga society. She is honored as the universal mother and is the vision of woman at the zenith of her power, beauty, and affective presence. Although D'mba is not a spiritual being in the Baga sense of the term, nor a deity, she is a being of undeniable spiritual power. The Baga conceive of D'mba as a servant of sorts—inspiring young women with the strength to bear children and raise them to adulthood, inspiring young men to cooperative excellence in agriculture, and inspiring the ancestors to contribute toward the continuance of community well-being. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">During performances, the massive headdress is worn with a costume of raffia and cloth. In the past, the D'mba masquerade was performed at least twice a year before the rainy seasons. D'mba would also appear to dance at festive occasions such as marriages and funerals, and in honor of special guests. In contemporary Baga culture, D'mba performances have not been as widely embraced as in the past, so they are rarely witnessed today.<br /><br />The origins of the D'mba headdress, like many other aspects of Baga material culture, remain the subject of conjecture. Most Baga elders suggest that D'mba was not brought by their nomadic ancestors, but rather created after their arrival to their current home in Guinea's coastal region. Interestingly enough, the cloth shawl worn by D'mba during performances, usually dark indigo or black, has always been cotton cloth imported from Europe, never of African manufacture. In fact, it seems that many Baga masquerades developed in the twentieth century use European factory printed cloth for the costume.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-15fa4c65-c223-dff7-c992-4ee0ccd764f0">Article from the </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-15fa4c65-c22d-c9d7-b05d-5068a61ce5a6"><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">HEILBRUNN TIMELINE OF ART HISTORY</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-28837957268396537822012-11-10T06:58:00.000-05:002018-10-02T15:33:44.285-04:00African Puppets - Bamana Marionette Figures<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Masks and Puppets of the Village Association</span></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuIvB8gElerXXk1AE9m4ermsONkZ6ztXvTlkKJ0c3u60yQpRdgk0jy-TBfftnjWHCGdwacLxeTwLEhw2dAJuI7yWCl86GULKA3qaiT9YBZ4N3mxDncZCUIG22QgwCXbfq4RGo8gg/s1600/Bamana+farmer+African+puppet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Bamana Puppet Farmer" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuIvB8gElerXXk1AE9m4ermsONkZ6ztXvTlkKJ0c3u60yQpRdgk0jy-TBfftnjWHCGdwacLxeTwLEhw2dAJuI7yWCl86GULKA3qaiT9YBZ4N3mxDncZCUIG22QgwCXbfq4RGo8gg/s320/Bamana+farmer+African+puppet.jpg" title="Bamana Puppet Farmer" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Bamana Puppet Farmer </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The village association (ton) comprises of female and male divisions and is organized according to age groups (flan-bolow).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One enters the ton after circumcision and leaves it at the age of about thirty-five. Every year the ton organizes a festival of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">theatrical performances in the village square. These include koteba and the puppets known as sogo bo in a succession of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">light-hearted sketches that satirize aspects of Bamana social and religious life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Prior to the public performances, ton </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">members parade through the village streets accompanying masks (sogow) such as Ngon and Ntomo. Sogobaw (big beasts) </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">resemble small mobile theaters with a head and a wood-frame body. Small puppets, expertly manipulated, emerge from the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">back of this "beast".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Traditions of the Bozo, Somono, Marka and Bambara</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Twice a year, the Bozo, Somono, Marka and Bambara populations of Central West Mali perpetuate a long tradition of sogo (animal) mask dances, sometimes accompanied by jiri maanin (little wooden people). The purpose of these festivals, called Sogo bo (animal outings) or Tyeko (the thing of men) </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">or Do bo (the manifestation of the mystery), is to enact original myths, legends, the cosmos and ancestors, as well as all the new things in the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They also depict the psychology of the human character. The youth in the villages are responsible for performing the masquerades based on the information they learn from the elders.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhifOJ8Mh9GuGQEv23PCl1GRK-Rpismx_EvnmwD7-1hjsWp6K9y-P_8opO76Sv8aAfGZ0Y_Honh8nfov-XzogmOGvKyc9k28xZV1urmotXLfpsXWvNJ_4FI4dWvhLnqvbAZQW6HRg/s1600/Bamana+Marionette.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Bamana Farmer and Goat Marionette" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhifOJ8Mh9GuGQEv23PCl1GRK-Rpismx_EvnmwD7-1hjsWp6K9y-P_8opO76Sv8aAfGZ0Y_Honh8nfov-XzogmOGvKyc9k28xZV1urmotXLfpsXWvNJ_4FI4dWvhLnqvbAZQW6HRg/s320/Bamana+Marionette.jpg" title="Bamana Farmer and Goat Marionette" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Bamana Farmer and Goat Marionette</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The oldest Sogo bo characters are bush animals and they still enjoy a special place in the theater. During any performance it is not uncommon to see </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">masquerades representing lions, bush buffalos, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, wild cats, antelopes, and powerful bush spirits. In these communities the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">bush is defined as the domain of men and it is the locus of power. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The interpretation of the theater's bush animal characters are informed by beliefs and values associated with hunting and with hunters as men of action and society's heroes. It is the world of the hunter and the association of hunting with heroic behavior that young men in the youth association, the owners of the masquerades, choose to identify with, and to celebrate through the performance of these bush animal masquerades.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The repertoire that a troupe plays in any year underscores a fundamental principle of youth theater which gives a positive value to innovation and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">change. The dramatic content of the youth theater is concerned with exploring the interplay between unity and rivalry, between the elders and youth, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">between the collective and the individual, and between tradition and change. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Each season a troupe will choose to play many of the same characters </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">popularized by their fathers and grandfathers before them. But each new generation of young men is also charged to create new characters to rival those of their elders. While the community invests a high value in unity through the maintenance of tradition, it also recognizes that creative rivalry energizes these performances, in the same way that people understand the necessity for innovation and change in order to move the society forward.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLcZDSqgmQhKXsCxovnEyddsHACYxlL2wOckg2PeM_QSdl8uP2hEWlWYzVKepI4T0YVlaBhPlyDF-XfLlQEdcmMaOBQddegGeIj1OaaCmIp-VOqk3uC92pOzxvjQaMCoRXywxPw/s1600/Bamana+puppet+Mother+and+child+on+antelope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Bamana Puppet Mother and Child " border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLcZDSqgmQhKXsCxovnEyddsHACYxlL2wOckg2PeM_QSdl8uP2hEWlWYzVKepI4T0YVlaBhPlyDF-XfLlQEdcmMaOBQddegGeIj1OaaCmIp-VOqk3uC92pOzxvjQaMCoRXywxPw/s320/Bamana+puppet+Mother+and+child+on+antelope.jpg" title="Bamana Puppet Mother and Child " width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">When you pull the strings, <br />the child raises up and down<br /> in the mother's arms.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Troupes creatively exploit the full spectrum of arts—puppet masquerades, dances, drumming, and songs—to construct the dramatic characters in the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">fictional world of Sogo bo. These performances are important sites for the exploration of the moral universe. Like folktales and other theatrical forms, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">these masquerade performances throw cultural values and social relationships into high relief and open them up for public scrutiny. Even though they are </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">defined as entertainment, young men and women proceed with a seriousness of purpose, often mediated by wit and humor, to examine the nature of their </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">world and their lived experiences. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For generations, this theater has constituted one important public avenue through which young men and women have gained access to knowledge, instruction, and experience by commenting upon the critical beliefs and values within their communities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">References: The Sogow by Mary Jo Arnoldi in Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali. New York: Museum of African Art - Mary Jo Arnoldi - Playing With Time - Art and Performance in Central Mali and <a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/index1.html" target="_blank"><b>Rand African Art</b></a></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://siterubix.com/a_aid/05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" /></a></div>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-78452116516379258392012-10-30T17:00:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:37:51.276-04:00Headrests (barkin) from the Boni or Somali people of Somalia<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Headrests</span></h2>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlkSFaNflUxm0RyXy_SySUdA-DPyFJvt9Bstbo_wqeIO9CMzcN-M_YtU1Q6LJDSDRQgpWRHWWZgP97a3010U1mj9i9JhetEp4qzpqyVOzpjAPNzpbuPSElCOktUlOl7k7Y6ICDSg/s1600/Boni_headrest_N__012_1_-451x600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Boni or Somali headrest (barkin)" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlkSFaNflUxm0RyXy_SySUdA-DPyFJvt9Bstbo_wqeIO9CMzcN-M_YtU1Q6LJDSDRQgpWRHWWZgP97a3010U1mj9i9JhetEp4qzpqyVOzpjAPNzpbuPSElCOktUlOl7k7Y6ICDSg/s200/Boni_headrest_N__012_1_-451x600.jpg" title="Boni or Somali headrest (barkin)" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Boni or Somali headrest (barkin)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Men in East Africa use headrests both as pillows and as indicators of status. This type of man's headrest is used by the Boni of northeastern Kenya </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and southern Somalia and by Somali nomads. Men's headrests generally feature a smaller base that makes them somewhat unstable to sleep on, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">while the rectangular bases of women's headrests are usually more stable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The small, easily unbalanced base has made the headrest an emblem of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">alertness and the ability to wake to action. Made of sturdy but relatively light wood, the headrests are used on beds and are carried by herdsmen, who </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">also use them to rest while keeping an eye on their herds. Boni shepherds rest while standing on a single leg, with their head lying on the neckrest set </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">on their shoulder. These neckrests symbolize vigilance because since their base is so small, the resting person could not fall asleep without falling </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">over.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The patterns on Somali and Boni headrests probably reflect the Islamic influence in the region. Some scholars interpret the patterns and iconography </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">as a "form of shorthand for a prayer," to ensure God's protection of the sleeper. Headrests also play an important role in the nuptial ceremonies of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Somali nomads. On his wedding night, the groom places the tubash (a sum of money) under the bride's headrest. The morning after the marriage is </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">consummated, the bride will use this money to purchase an amber necklace, the symbol of her new status.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjE568zJtrlrZwB77C_a5TViwqv9i2Zp8R3X6r7xwUYHkKC6orWdmdWmdjm6HFthrDT9vNWB8GYE8wrrKAXGd1-bN_53QNAA8wNpWSmBzftQMDhVvZnTD8znd1ezKc1so_i0ZBA/s1600/Boni_Somali_headrest_NMAFA_double_post-442x600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Headrest (barkin)" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjE568zJtrlrZwB77C_a5TViwqv9i2Zp8R3X6r7xwUYHkKC6orWdmdWmdjm6HFthrDT9vNWB8GYE8wrrKAXGd1-bN_53QNAA8wNpWSmBzftQMDhVvZnTD8znd1ezKc1so_i0ZBA/s200/Boni_Somali_headrest_NMAFA_double_post-442x600.jpg" title="Headrest (barkin)" width="146" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Headrest (barkin)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The headrests are carved from a single piece of fine-grained wood known as hagar in Somali, or also yucub wood. The wood is usually left its natural </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">color, but is sometimes painted red or black by its owner. They may be carved by the owner or commissioned from an artist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Somali and Boni nomads make use of two types of headrests; one with a single cylindrical supporting column and one with a double column. It appears </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">that the different styles are for men of different status, with the single-columned variety for young men and the double-columned variety reserved for </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">elders. The more elaborate the headrest is, the higher the status is of its owner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Subtle, curvilinear forms are combined with intricate, incised patterns in this exquisite headrest from eastern Africa. With a crescent-shaped upper platform, small circular or oval base, and two flattened supporting columns, is this style of headrest is found among the nomadic Somali of both southern Somalia and eastern Kenya.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Headrests are used by both Somali men and women while resting or sleeping. It is popularly believed that the headrest serves a protective function by elevating the head off the ground during sleep, thereby preventing any possible attack by snakes or scorpions. Men's headrests, such as this one, generally feature a smaller base that makes them somewhat unstable to sleep on, while the rectangular bases of women's headrests are usually more stable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Scholars suggest that this instability is purposeful as it prevents the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">user from falling into a deep sleep while guarding the herds at night. It is in this sense that the headrest itself has become a symbol of vigilance among Somali nomads. In this example, the surface decorations of both supports are identical and feature interlaced rope motifs on the top and bottom interrupted by a honeycomb-like relief in the middle. The patterns on this and many other Somali headrests probably reflect the Islamic influence in the region. Some scholars interpret the patterns and iconography as a "form of shorthand for a prayer," to ensure God's protection of the sleeper. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Headrests also play an important role in the nuptial ceremonies of Somali nomads. On his wedding night, the groom places the tubash (a sum of money) under the bride's headrest. The morning after the marriage is consummated, the bride will use this money to purchase an amber necklace, the symbol of her new status.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oNsyd9kur60na-jfCRNW7Sj0IluUBcSpoedzOcJW3bk6tniXYuxremYRdBRpf-1ToQfOr2moXb-t0DaJExDFjqKMYlUvKWY3AAClSa_6N9-CAtsHJ2fkQQat5jUcQHGSg0_Pyw/s1600/Tribal_gathering_London_Boni_headrest_single_post.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oNsyd9kur60na-jfCRNW7Sj0IluUBcSpoedzOcJW3bk6tniXYuxremYRdBRpf-1ToQfOr2moXb-t0DaJExDFjqKMYlUvKWY3AAClSa_6N9-CAtsHJ2fkQQat5jUcQHGSg0_Pyw/s200/Tribal_gathering_London_Boni_headrest_single_post.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The headrests are carved from a single piece of fine-grained wood known as hagar in Somali, or also yucub wood. The wood is usually left its natural color, but is sometimes painted red or black by its owner. Somali nomads also make use of another type of headrest with a single cylindrical supporting column. It appears that the different styles are for men of different status, with the single-columned variety for young men and the double-columned variety, as seen here, reserved for elders.</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Boni headrest from Somalia</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>References- National Museum of African Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>and</i><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><b> <a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/index1.html" target="_blank">Rand African Art</a></b></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-64630635587351851402012-09-29T13:43:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:40:29.746-04:00The Asante Akua'ba Doll<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ASANTE (ACHANTI, ASHANTE, ASHANTI) Ghana</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDd90m_O-Ziismla7KQZrDcOKbmUpw1MMaqS32LvQgNFpOfTLDnaD4dgeA8U7_cpaQ74RVUS06_3m7nykjS3Giet5uJnb-3knsHHxdCffm7jvRCM3FkEuMlfoQYU6oTxl4OIphzQ/s1600/Asante+akua%E2%80%99ba.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Asante Akua'ba Doll" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDd90m_O-Ziismla7KQZrDcOKbmUpw1MMaqS32LvQgNFpOfTLDnaD4dgeA8U7_cpaQ74RVUS06_3m7nykjS3Giet5uJnb-3knsHHxdCffm7jvRCM3FkEuMlfoQYU6oTxl4OIphzQ/s320/Asante+akua%E2%80%99ba.jpg" title="The Asante Akua'ba Doll" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Asante akua’ba</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The legend of the origination of the Akua'ba doll comes from the story of a woman named "Akua" (many variations of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the name are found as there are many variations of the spelling of "akua'ba") who could not get pregnant and went to </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">a local diviner or priest and commissioned the carving of a small wooden doll. She carried and cared for the doll as if </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">it were her own child, feeding it, bathing it and so on. Soon the people in the village started calling it "Akua" "ba" - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">meaning "Akua's child", since "ba" meant child. She soon became pregnant and her daughter grew up with the doll.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The legend and tradition still live on today...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If an Akan/Asante woman had difficulty conceiving she would be encouraged to visit a local shrine accompanied by a </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">senior woman in her family. There she might purchase a figure such as this, which would be placed for a period on </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the altar, later to be reclaimed by the woman along with certain medicines. The sculpture was then carried, fed, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">bathed, and otherwise cared for by the woman as if it was a living baby. It was thought that in doing this the woman </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">would have a better chance to have a healthy and beautiful baby. Once the woman conceived and had a successful </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">delivery, she would return the figure to the shrine as a form of offering. If the child died, the akua’ba might be kept by </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the woman as a memorial.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The symbolism of these dolls is specific: “The flat, disk like head is a strongly exaggerated conception of the Akan </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ideal of beauty:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ_qXQQh709yByY6yCwOfr5d5DMcdsEa1UWgwEKMrltDpnb0M_cAwx2TWHjCDZ35gInBHnWZxxLmQIWBPntc9V7N5HPXH-mHwmvcAdMCA0uCOSxTxpLmHYT1lVzptLbaQAHuGwcw/s1600/Asante+akua%E2%80%99ba+doll.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The Asante Akua'ba Doll" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ_qXQQh709yByY6yCwOfr5d5DMcdsEa1UWgwEKMrltDpnb0M_cAwx2TWHjCDZ35gInBHnWZxxLmQIWBPntc9V7N5HPXH-mHwmvcAdMCA0uCOSxTxpLmHYT1lVzptLbaQAHuGwcw/s320/Asante+akua%E2%80%99ba+doll.jpg" title="The Asante Akua'ba Doll" width="233" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Asante akua’ba doll (Ghana)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Round or oval shaped heads are considered ideal and this is accomplished in actual practice by the gently modeling </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">of an infant’s soft cranial bones. The flat profile of these figures is also more practical when they are carried against </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the back wrapped in the woman’s skirt. Also standard is the ringed neck, a convention for rolls of fat and hence </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">beauty and prosperity…the small scars seen on the faces of many akua’ba are those made for medicinal purposes as </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">protection against convulsions. Most Asante akua’ba have abstracted, horizontal arms and a cylindrical torso with </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">breasts and a navel, but ending in a base rather than human legs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sources: Sotheby's, AFRICA - The Art of A Continent, The Royal Art of Africa, and </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/index1.html" target="_blank">Rand African Art</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/a_aid/05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" /></a></span><br />
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-1139108305847734292012-09-14T09:20:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:41:59.047-04:00The Baga Nimba at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaQpn5BUHBme0M4xWmTLV4QY6wXoVHx3qruzWe5BzZgWzjybPNigrbcclcOTyxYgabjbGEn5jjpTX1rpntVk7A_UgXbweOFLkLDy8WV50yMr-bWdkwo-Q5hg-QAaP0QTxaanVHWA/s1600/The+Baga+Nimba+Headdress,+19th%E2%80%9320th+century.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaQpn5BUHBme0M4xWmTLV4QY6wXoVHx3qruzWe5BzZgWzjybPNigrbcclcOTyxYgabjbGEn5jjpTX1rpntVk7A_UgXbweOFLkLDy8WV50yMr-bWdkwo-Q5hg-QAaP0QTxaanVHWA/s320/The+Baga+Nimba+Headdress,+19th%E2%80%9320th+century.jpg" width="257" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Headdress, 19th–20th century</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Baga peoples; Guinea</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Wood; H. 46 1/2 in. (118.1 cm)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.17)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This colossal wooden headdress, measuring nearly four feet in height, is known as D'mba among the Baga peoples of the Guinea </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">coast. D'mba's flat, pendant breasts are a symbol of motherhood and reveal the selfless dedication with which she has nursed </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">numerous children to adulthood. Her coiffure consists of intricately braided rows of hair and a high crest down the center. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">hairstyle is not a characteristic of the Baga, but rather one of the Fulbe people, who inhabit the Futa Jallon mountains, where the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Baga ancestors once lived. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The coiffure serves as a reminder to the Baga of their origins in the Futa Jallon. The face, neck, and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">breasts of the bust are decorated with linear patterns: a horizontal line from the cheek to the ear, a curved line from the ear along </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the jawline, a line connecting these two lines, all ending at a circular line that surrounds the entire face. Often on each cheek, just </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">below the eyes, there are two short carved lines—the mark of Baga ethnicity. Embellishments are sometimes added as well, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">including painted wooden ornaments attached to the ear or pendants attached to the nasal septum.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHuIAGnuM2_jIzVSj5vBAdXMJ81EY3PrYihTDOWHOWkgceRHiVyt18xUXdyic6afRt0Q28Q7B-5BnI21mE9h7JexOhhKOCVnOhX4VQJdyIZlzYdhTK7Atl3MdnuUqPDIoKba597g/s1600/Shoulder+Mask+(Nimba).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHuIAGnuM2_jIzVSj5vBAdXMJ81EY3PrYihTDOWHOWkgceRHiVyt18xUXdyic6afRt0Q28Q7B-5BnI21mE9h7JexOhhKOCVnOhX4VQJdyIZlzYdhTK7Atl3MdnuUqPDIoKba597g/s1600/Shoulder+Mask+(Nimba).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Shoulder Mask (Nimba) Guinea<br />Late 19th -early 20th century<br />Wood 45 in. (114.3 cm)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Unlike masked representations from other African cultures, which may represent ethereal spirits or ancestors, D'mba is not a "spirit," </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">but instead is loosely described by the Baga themselves as simply an "idea." D'mba is an abstraction of the ideal of the female role </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">in Baga society. She is honored as the universal mother and is the vision of woman at the zenith of her power, beauty, and affective </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">presence. Although D'mba is not a spiritual being in the Baga sense of the term, nor a deity, she is a being of undeniable spiritual </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">power. The Baga conceive of D'mba as a servant of sorts—inspiring young women with the strength to bear children and raise them </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">to adulthood, inspiring young men to cooperative excellence in agriculture, and inspiring the ancestors to contribute toward the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">continuance of community well-being.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">During performances, the massive headdress is worn with a costume of raffia and cloth. In the past, the D'mba masquerade was </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">performed at least twice a year before the rainy seasons. D'mba would also appear to dance at festive occasions such as marriages </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and funerals, and in honor of special guests. In contemporary Baga culture, D'mba performances have not been as widely </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">embraced as in the past, so they are rarely witnessed today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The origins of the D'mba headdress, like many other aspects of Baga material culture, remain the subject of conjecture. Most Baga </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">elders suggest that D'mba was not brought by their nomadic ancestors, but rather created after their arrival to their current home in </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Guinea's coastal region. Interestingly enough, the cloth shawl worn by D'mba during performances, usually dark indigo or black, has </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">always been cotton cloth imported from Europe, never of African manufacture. In fact, it seems that many Baga masquerades </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">developed in the twentieth century use European factory printed cloth for the costume.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" title="" /></a></span></div>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-4514761153481276692012-09-08T15:47:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:43:19.485-04:00African Maternity Figures<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgurpVH8rmFyK1dLjOBc1f8Ftl6Oy1B0vW06i8zMHulQEjP5hAwr42QGl8MqyrJVgnQmg0W50J3J2MA_j3-pgOUkvEIS28eJnfn5Co96uhrEzQJdT87OppiIpLMThKe5j6R6nY1HA/s1600/Akan+brass+maternity+figure+on+stool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Akan brass maternity figure on stool" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgurpVH8rmFyK1dLjOBc1f8Ftl6Oy1B0vW06i8zMHulQEjP5hAwr42QGl8MqyrJVgnQmg0W50J3J2MA_j3-pgOUkvEIS28eJnfn5Co96uhrEzQJdT87OppiIpLMThKe5j6R6nY1HA/s320/Akan+brass+maternity+figure+on+stool.jpg" title="Akan brass maternity figure on stool" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Akan brass maternity figure on stool</span></td></tr>
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<!--INFOLINKS_OFF--><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In almost all African societies, the most important role of women is to bear children. Whatever else – farming, cooking, or their role in women’s </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">associations – their primary responsibility is to produce and nurture children. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is, as Cole puts it, a “biological imperative” or, as Dennis Warren </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">states, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">a </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“cultural duty" (1974, 2.37). Indeed, certain groups, such as the !Kung, "do not consider a marriage consummated until the birth of a child" (Fried and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fried 1980, 29).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"A person who has no descendants in effect quenches the fire of life, and becomes forever dead since his line of physical continuation is blocked if he </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">does not get married and bear children" (Mbiti 1969, 133).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Unhappy is the woman who fails to get children for, whatever other qualities she might possess, her failure to bear children is worse than community </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">genocide: she has become the dead end of human life, not only for the genealogical line but also for herself. . . . the childless wife bears a scar which </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">nothing can erase. She will suffer for this, her own relatives will suffer for this: and it will be an irreparable humiliation for which there is no source of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">comfort in traditional life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In such a setting, it is not surprising to find great numbers of images of women with children in Africa. The earliest known are several terracottas from Nok </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">in northern Nigeria possibly dating as early as the sixth century B.C. Bernard Fagg writes, "There are two or three pieces, and the frieze of figures . . . </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">which may possibly be representing the concept of motherhood" (1977, 38). The frieze has "repetitive modelling of what is probably a 'mother and child' </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">motif".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Images of women holding children may reflect a number of ideas, for example, they may represent ancestors and serve as "symbols of lineage or clan </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">forbears, the generalized and incarnate dead" (Cole 1985, 8). It can only be conjectured that the Djenne example with its "mother" and adult "children" </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">may be an instance of such a meaning.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6yhzHeZTKtthTA6LaNnhQ-peDNXwvRuFqVWUQH8lrpTPugrIoi0_Rnx22EanYYtOAcPxgd4oJD6RQBtUgqu0wP8P-u_hd4JlhcNm9fP2Hj2Nf-fWzab7v0swkweWcRqZya6m6NQ/s1600/Afo+Maternity+Figure+(Nigeria+19th+Century)+wood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Afo Maternity Figure (Nigeria 19th Century) wood" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6yhzHeZTKtthTA6LaNnhQ-peDNXwvRuFqVWUQH8lrpTPugrIoi0_Rnx22EanYYtOAcPxgd4oJD6RQBtUgqu0wP8P-u_hd4JlhcNm9fP2Hj2Nf-fWzab7v0swkweWcRqZya6m6NQ/s320/Afo+Maternity+Figure+(Nigeria+19th+Century)+wood.jpg" title="Afo Maternity Figure (Nigeria 19th Century) wood" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Afo Maternity Figure<br />(Nigeria 19th Century) wood</span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In most cases, the child or children are not identifiable; indeed, they are often amorphous or even caricatural in form. William Fagg refers to the "unwritten </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">law on the portrayal of mothers and children in sculpture, a law so general that it must surely have a philosophical basis. This is the rule that children are </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">not given a personality or character of their own, but are treated as extensions of their mother's personality" (in Vogel 1981, 1x4).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Others, such as Vogel, note: </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Because children are not fully "civilized" (or socialized), productive members of society, their depiction in art makes little sense. Infants, in contrast, often </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">appear in a secondary role, representing the productivity of the mother. To cite a parallel from life, one often sees a woman dressed up and carrying a </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">child (not necessarily her own) as a sort of costume accessory. A woman looks better with a baby. (1980, 13)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Thus we come at once to a major contrast between African maternity images and Christian images of Mary and the Christ child. In the latter, the primary </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">focus is on the infant, and the mother is definitely a secondary figure. This is clearly the reverse of the roles of child and mother in African examples. The </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">child, as a symbol of maternity, supports and reinforces the role of the mother as genetrix for the family and the group.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Examples are known where the mother is standing , kneeling, or sitting; the child may be suckling or may be held on the lap or carried on the back, and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">there may be more than one child. In contrast, scenes of birth are rare, and the rituals surrounding birth rarely make use of sculpture.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjigosfwUBDEHQB0flKzihVn1N7ji5gfxMKXS4OHh_QQLoIl1oCU64BAhZ2d9v6DlPcZlAGJN08Sab6htQjCxb27wVenx9mESdBadr7YgB0JlVGIlNTezUiBbCyDHF8vYAKffZzcQ/s1600/Akan+Maternity+Figure+-+Ghana+-Mid-late+20th+century.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Akan Maternity Figure - Ghana -Mid-late 20th century" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjigosfwUBDEHQB0flKzihVn1N7ji5gfxMKXS4OHh_QQLoIl1oCU64BAhZ2d9v6DlPcZlAGJN08Sab6htQjCxb27wVenx9mESdBadr7YgB0JlVGIlNTezUiBbCyDHF8vYAKffZzcQ/s320/Akan+Maternity+Figure+-+Ghana+-Mid-late+20th+century.jpg" title="Akan Maternity Figure - Ghana -Mid-late 20th century" width="186" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Akan Maternity Figure - Ghana<br />Mid-late 20th century</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Henry Drewal (1978, 564) has pointed out that among the arts of the Yoruba, "Mothers shown nursing or carrying children represent the long weaning </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">period (approximately two years), a time of sexual abstinence and suppressed menstruation . . . which is seen as a state of purity or ritual cleanliness." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Elsewhere he states, "Pregnant and nursing women achieve a state related to that of elder women," who are past menopause and therefore free of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">pollution of menses. Thus mother and child images denote a state of natural purity; for during the long nursing period . . . when the child is carried on the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">back, a woman's menstruation is suppressed and she practices sexual abstinence. . . . Thus images of women in ritual contexts and mother and child </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">figures represent much more than symbols of fertility. They communicate sexual abstinence, inner cleanliness, ritual purity, female forces and spirituality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Some Yoruba figures are shown kneeling, "a position of respect, devotion, and even submission to the gods. This posture is appropriate [because] most women in Yoruba sculptures represent royal wives or worshipers, not gods themselves" (Cole 1985, 19).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is evident that although the specific meaning of images of maternity may vary from group to group and be associated with nature deities, ancestors, the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">group genetrix, or divination, they all ultimately and surely refer to human fertility and the future of the group that is grounded in that fertility.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are images that are specifically approached when a woman wants to conceive. Such images are found on Yoruba doors or as shrine images in </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ghana in the town of Anyinabrem where the sculpture of a mother suckling a baby was visible and, "when barren patients come to the shrine and see this </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">statue they know the god can help them to get a child" (Warren 1974, 386).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Much more common in southern Ghana among several groups are akua'ba images, which are believed to relate directly to human fertility. These may be </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">used by a priestess, as Warren reports (ibid., 388), to help barren women have children, or they may be carried by a woman after she conceives to </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ensure that she will have a healthy and handsome child. Others, quite similar in form, may help a woman "keep" a child that has been born several times </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">but has not lived. It is believed that the intervention of the fertility deity will ensure a successful birth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Roy Seiber</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">From: African Art in the Cycle of Life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Article from the <a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/" target="_blank"><b>Rand African Art</b></a> website - Denver, Colorado</span><br />
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-69172841468999168582012-08-31T11:39:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:44:52.845-04:00The Awèlé Board Game (with rules)<span style="color: #003300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "sans" serif;">Awale (known as: oware, awèlé</span><span style="color: #003300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "sans serif";"> or wari) is a very ancient board game that comes from Africa. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfzGDvf_jT92MHgVLPwLY302sgs9PODpQ5Wg9knF8EW2DbcR7bbBGEC_DmLGaXeCglLq1MZD3KYYm_L1DpwJ8AimM4sYqBoS5lwyINSWBHabbMu4lY5pezaFBL00T9UoBsx5zHg/s1600/Awhale+Game+from+Liberia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="An Awèlé Board Game" border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfzGDvf_jT92MHgVLPwLY302sgs9PODpQ5Wg9knF8EW2DbcR7bbBGEC_DmLGaXeCglLq1MZD3KYYm_L1DpwJ8AimM4sYqBoS5lwyINSWBHabbMu4lY5pezaFBL00T9UoBsx5zHg/s200/Awhale+Game+from+Liberia.jpg" title="An Awèlé Board Game" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">An Awèlé Board Game</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #003300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "sans serif";">It belongs to the big group of mancala games. In all these games the player must transfer pieces from one bin to another of the board during each turn. It is a fast and a dynamic game. The luck is not there implied. Only the practice allows to arrive at a domain high level. The rules of Oware game are simple and the game is really easy-to-learn. The origin of the game gets lost in the night of the times.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #003300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "verdana" , "sans" serif;">Oware or awalé with many names as for example: ayo, awale, awalete, awele, oware, wari, woli,... is played in western african countries as Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. Also in the West Indies and in the Americas as for example: Surinam, Guyana, Grenada, Barbados, Sta. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Antigua and St Kitts, Dominican Rep., Brazil, etc. as a result of the slave trade that came from this part of Africa. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxX6YgqeUzoMQd9lfu4mHHcLr7mRWuaAhk_oVV-UnsHQZy6mTteH2scTk94jfYUyL55lZ7cvJTOt0dYzjVurq1D8MHPu05YkuBZy-KlIIaAsMUhPF9Ngbt5Kh2Ti-8cm24Gm7KDw/s1600/Mancala.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="An Awèlé Board Game" border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxX6YgqeUzoMQd9lfu4mHHcLr7mRWuaAhk_oVV-UnsHQZy6mTteH2scTk94jfYUyL55lZ7cvJTOt0dYzjVurq1D8MHPu05YkuBZy-KlIIaAsMUhPF9Ngbt5Kh2Ti-8cm24Gm7KDw/s200/Mancala.jpg" title="An Awèlé Board Game" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Rules</span></b><br />
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<b>The aim of the game:</b></div>
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To capture more seeds than your opponent. At the end of the game, the player who has captured the most seeds wins.</div>
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<b>Rules of the game:</b></div>
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The board is divided into two areas, hollowed with 6 holes each. At the beginning, 48 seeds are distributed among the twelve holes (4 seeds in each hole). Therefore, the players need for play a 2x6 or 2x6+2 board.<br />
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The top row belong to opponent player. You own the bottom row.</div>
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<b>The game turn:</b></div>
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Every player plays alternately. The first one to play is chosen at random.<br />
The player takes all the seeds in a hole of his/her area and distributes them counter-clockwise, one in each hole.</div>
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<b>Capture:</b></div>
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If the last seed to be distributed falls into one of the opponent's holes, containing already 1 or 2 seeds, the player captures the 2 or 3 seeds.<br />
The hole is left empty. The captured seeds are taken off the board or collected into the player's loft (if the players play with a 2x6+2 board).<br />
Therefore, the hole can be captured only if, after distributing the seeds, it contains two or three seeds.</div>
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<b>Multiple capture:</b></div>
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If a player captures 2 or 3 seeds, and the preceding hole also contains two or three seeds, they are captured too, and so on.<br />
Capturing is only allowed in the opponent's area.</div>
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<b>Loop:</b></div>
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If the number of seeds taken in the starting hole is greater than 11, it constitutes a loop: the starting hole is left out every time in the distribution loop, and therefore, always left empty.</div>
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<b>Feed the opponent:</b></div>
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A player is not allowed to "starve" his/her opponent: a player can't play a hole that leads to capturing all the seeds in his opponent's area. A player can be left with no seeds at all only if is impossible to feed him/her.</div>
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<b>End of the game:</b></div>
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The game ends if a player has n seeds anymore in his/her area, and therefore can't play.<br />
In this case, the other player captures all the remaining seeds.<br />
Or the game ends if the game is "looping" (after some turns, the same board configuration is obtained again).</div>
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More information on the game is given by <a href="http://www.awale.info/?lang=en" style="color: purple;">http://www.awale.info/?lang=en</a></div>
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Contributions with thanks from:</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/african-art/index.html" target="_blank">African-Art</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://webfacil.tinet.org/jtc">http://webfacil.tinet.org/jtc</a></b>
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<a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-31905575106213204812012-08-29T16:30:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:46:19.718-04:00Benin Oba Commemorative Heads<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOW0l8lPiTu7O-omDEjaWlhae_GkPdlDhziI2UWH09NeXzcATz3OxabVJ7QTONqauPiruLzXSpk-wLmfKcLMDKwS06CaNRCojKuMDKXIh_QwU_chzt1yJeEzDGccbAY9oydEqetQ/s1600/Head+of+an+Oba,+16th+century+(ca.+1550).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOW0l8lPiTu7O-omDEjaWlhae_GkPdlDhziI2UWH09NeXzcATz3OxabVJ7QTONqauPiruLzXSpk-wLmfKcLMDKwS06CaNRCojKuMDKXIh_QwU_chzt1yJeEzDGccbAY9oydEqetQ/s200/Head+of+an+Oba,+16th+century+(ca.+1550).jpg" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Head of an Oba<br />
16th century (ca. 1550)<br />
Brass; H. 9 1/4 in. (23.5 cm)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The leaders of the kingdom of Benin in present-day Nigeria trace their origins to a ruling dynasty that began in the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">fourteenth century. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The title of "oba," or king, is passed on to the firstborn son of each successive king of Benin at the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">time of his death. The first obligation of each new king during this transition of rule is to commemorate his father with a </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">portrait cast in bronze and placed on an altar at the palace. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The altar constitutes an important site of palace ritual and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">is understood to be a means of incorporating the ongoing influence of past kings in the affairs of their descendants.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Though associated with individuals, this highly stylized genre of commemorative portraiture emphasized the trappings </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and regalia of kingship rather than specific facial features. In the Edo world view, the head is considered the locus of a </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">man's knowledge, authority, success, and family leadership. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The burden of providing for his family and seeing them </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">through times of trouble is often described as being "on his head." The oba is often called by his praise name "Great </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Head," accentuating the head of the living leader as the locus of responsibility over and for the Benin kingdom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The idealized naturalism of this work reflects conventions of depicting the king at the prime of his life. The </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">straightforward gazing eyes, which would have included iron inlays, possess the ability to see into the other world, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">communicating the divine power of the oba to survey his kingdom. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The beaded headdress and collar are depictions of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the king's coral regalia. Coral is of particular importance to the Edo because of its associations with the ancestral </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">realms of the sea and to the immense wealth of the oba gained through ocean-going trade with Europe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The relatively minimal amount of brass used to make this light cast and the proportionately small amount of regalia </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">depicted indicate that the head was created during the earlier half of the sixteenth century. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Art historians have </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">suggested that over the centuries, as greater quantities of brass became available, casters had less incentive to be </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">economical with the material, and the trappings of office worn by the kings of Benin became more ostentatious.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Document borrowed from the <a href="http://www.randafricanart.com/" target="_blank">Rand African Art.com</a> website</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" title="" /></a></span></div>
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<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-76087576962691473372012-08-12T17:11:00.001-04:002018-10-02T15:47:57.425-04:00The Dogon Tribe of West Africa and the alien connection<br />
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Dogon tribe can be found in a region in Mali south of the Sahara Desert. French anthropologists Drs Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen studied the tribe from 1931 to 1956. Dogon mythology is only known by a hand full of their priests. This is a very hard to understand system, not easily given to even the friendliest of strangers. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The culture of the Dogon tribe in West Africa centers around a star in our gallery. Sirius A is a big, bright star, has two and a half times the mass of our sun. Sirius, or actually its companion star, Sirius B. Sirius B has ninety-five per cent of the mass of our sun The Sirius Star is in the Canis Major Constellation. Sirius is visible with the naked eye, its companion is not. Now what is really fascinating about this is how these people knew about this, after all they have no telescopes. Sirius B wasn’t even visible with telescopes until 1862, or photographed until 1970. Dogon astronomical lore is dated back to 3200 B.C.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">According to the Dogon legend the tribe was visited by a race of people called the Nommos, which come from the Sirius system. The Nommos resembled ugly amphibious beings. It is believed that the Nommos gave the Dogon tribe knowledge about their solar system. For instance: Jupiter has four major moons, Saturn has rings, and the plants revolve around the sun, and not vice versa. These facts weren’t known until Galileo invented the telescope. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After they landed, the Nommos released a body of water which they later inhabited. They could live on land, but preferred the sea. Oral stories, drawing and tablets, depict the Nommo with large fish skin running down their bodies. The Nommos were regarded as saviors and spiritual guardians.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Carl Sagan believes that our modern knowledge of the Dogon tribe came from westerners or Europeans, who discussed astronomy with the tribes’ priests. Sagan believes that if Europeans came to the Dogon tribe, they most likely would have discussed “astronomical matters”, and talked about the brightest star in the sky. This however doesn’t explain a 400 year old artifact that shows the Sirius configuration. It also doesn’t explain how the Dogon tribe knows how dense Sirius B is.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They also tell us that Sirius B has a 50-year elliptical orbit around Sirius.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Dogons refer to Sirius B as Po Tolo. “Tolo”, means small, and po means star. The tribe claims that Po is composed of a material known as sagala, a mineral heavier then all of Earth’s iron.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While many parts of the legend are considered true ,there are some parts in question. For example, the Dogons’ believe that Sirius B once occupied the spot where our sun is now. Physics disprove this. Also, if the Dogon believe that Sirius A orbits Sirius B every 50 years, then why do they have their celebrations every 60 year? The Dogons believe there is a third star called "Emme Ya" . So far this is yet to be discovered. According to legend, the Nommo breath through holes in their collarbone.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Dogon are not the only people that have a strong connection with Sirius, Sumer, Babylonia's Oannes, Acadia's Ea, Sumer's Enki, and Egypt's goddess Isis. The Egyptian goddess Isis which is said to be mermaid –like. The ancient Egyptians also believed Sirius was significant . Their calendar was based on the rising of Sirius. Even thou there is no solid evidence of a third star, in 1995 French researchers, Daniel Benest and J.L. Duvent, published an article which states that it is possible that Sirius is a triple star.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #494949; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.ufodigest.com/article/dogon-tribe-west-africa-and-alien-connection">Article by heckell31 - UFO Digest</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://siterubix.com/?a_aid=05a7f08a" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgu9Tcvqxho9zXhCy3tv1St2DT43DfNGGSJVgRXnB2BoL7IZKHZq3PmFOrGuF3_SBHR1hnH4EVJoS6grn_-rTeK5Etg2iuGL8J4oBPdYbK8JOkPXwWYJyrGeln90ESC0FtQce2Q/s320/HowToStartAneBayEmpire.jpg" title="" /></a></div>
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<br />John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-76879195866712653702011-08-14T11:49:00.006-04:002018-10-02T15:49:34.386-04:00The Baulé Tribe Of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) ...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Baulé belong to the Akan peoples who inhabit Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. Three hundred years ago the Baulé people migrated westward from Ghana when the Asante rose to power. The tale of how they broke away from the Asante has been preserved in their oral traditions. During the Asante rise to power the Baulé queen, Aura Poku, was in direct competition with the current Asante king. When the Asante prevailed, the queen led her people away to the land they now occupy. The male descendant of Aura Poku still lives in the palace she established and is honored by the Baulé as their nominal king.<br />
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The Baulé grow yams and some maize as primary crops. They are also exporters of cocoa and kola nuts, which are grown on local plantations using large numbers of exploited migrant laborers, most from Burkina Faso. Many locally grown crops were introduced from the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade. These include maize, manioc, peppers, peanuts, tomatoes, squash, and sweet potatoes. They also raise farm animals including sheep, goats, chickens, and dogs. Markets which are primarily run by women take place every four days and are the center of the local economy. Local produce and craft items are sold alongside imported goods from all over the world.<br />
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The Baulé create art in several media, including wooden sculpture, gold and brass casting similar to their Asante ancestors, and mask and figure carving, which have been greatly influenced by their Senufo and Guro neighbors.<br />
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The Baulé have a highly centralized government with a king or chief at the top who inherits his position along matrilineal lines. There are various subchiefs in charge of his local populations, and all the chiefs rely on political advisors who help in the decision making process. The Goli association is the primary mask association, which provides social order among the Baulé.<br />
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Religion includes both ancestor worship and a heirarchy of nature gods. Nature spirits and spirit spouses are often represented in sculpture. Their creator god is Alouroua, who is never physically represented.<br />
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<a href="http://www.lotusmasks.com/category/baule-tribe-ivory-coast.html">Article and image borrowed from Lotus Masks & World Imports</a></span></span><br />
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John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-21021151669792350762011-06-03T15:52:00.000-04:002011-06-03T15:52:30.696-04:00The Senufo Horse Figure of Ivory Coast ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVc24xm-NmTq72W-U7B5GXq3vVZ5R_9FNUrKTowVoZKEbfXW3996YtEd45Bm_p1rrMjktVxGS8mvLChkSWR6w3wka2EVENio6dkMEgq4ExOAqdY5NjYBB9oPHUhd4uJVEYITcq6w/s1600/Senufor+horse+figure+Fisher+Auktionen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVc24xm-NmTq72W-U7B5GXq3vVZ5R_9FNUrKTowVoZKEbfXW3996YtEd45Bm_p1rrMjktVxGS8mvLChkSWR6w3wka2EVENio6dkMEgq4ExOAqdY5NjYBB9oPHUhd4uJVEYITcq6w/s320/Senufor+horse+figure+Fisher+Auktionen.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #454545; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the life of the Senufo, resident in the Ivory Coast, this important equestrian figure belonged to a fortuneteller and was called “siyonfolo” or “master of the horse”<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #454545; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The horse stands for wealth and is associated with a chief or a rich man. The expressive figure symbolizes a bush ghost who, in connection with the fortune-teller, helped with important decisions. The contrasting colours of the equestrian and the body of the horse and his legs, which resulted from plants during usage, can be recognized clearly.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #454545; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The headpiece resembles an abstract hornbill, this “calao” is ever-present in many figures and masks of the Senufo and suggests the mythological origin of the tribe.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #454545; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The abstract composition of the piece, which comes from the region of Korhogo in the populated north of the country, is outstanding. Whereby simple bush ghost figures, “tugubele”, are often to be seen in trade, the high-quality equestrian figures are considered very rare. The slightly tilted head lends the object additional liveliness.</span><br />
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</span>John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14551307.post-58911132831269156492011-02-26T14:18:00.003-05:002011-02-27T04:50:20.316-05:00The Princess Odudua, the chief goddess of the Yorubas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL1bkNGvemujRiv2-tZZuhbUiMVDwernNQ2Rwa3pTbkp9N1FyIkS6-_uYdu9eE6DVulJbvUBJGLmfUWXKd0r4zbpiKfMtjGYSXQt2DuPh4VhGRhmG1TUWaioWxh5v-cY-j_I0W4w/s1600/Afo+or+oduduwa++front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL1bkNGvemujRiv2-tZZuhbUiMVDwernNQ2Rwa3pTbkp9N1FyIkS6-_uYdu9eE6DVulJbvUBJGLmfUWXKd0r4zbpiKfMtjGYSXQt2DuPh4VhGRhmG1TUWaioWxh5v-cY-j_I0W4w/s320/Afo+or+oduduwa++front.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>Odudua, or Odua, who has the title of Iya agbe, The mother who receives," is the chief goddess of the Yorubas. The name means "Black One" (dit, to be black; dudit, black), and the Yoruba consider a smooth, glossy, black skin a great beauty, and far superior to one of the ordinary cigar-colour. She is always represented as a woman sitting down, and nursing a child.<br />
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Odudua is the wife of Obatala, but she was coeval with Olorun, and not made by him, as was her husband. Other natives, however, say that she came from Ife, the holy city, in common with most of the other gods, as described in a myth which we shall come to shortly. Odudua represents the earth, married to the anthropomorphic sky-god. Obatala and Odudua, or Heaven and Earth, resemble, say the priests, two large cut-calabashes, which, when once shut, can never be opened. This is symbolize in the temples by two whitened saucer-shaped calabashes, placed one covering the other; the upper one of which represents the concave firmament stretching over and meeting the earth, the lower one, at the horizon.<br />
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According to some priests, Obatala and Odudua represent one androgynous divinity; and they say that an image which is sufficiently common, of a human being with one arm and leg, and a tail terminating in a sphere, symbolizes this. This notion, however, is not one commonly held, Obutala and Odudua being generally, and almost universally, regarded as two distinct persons. The phallus and yoni in juxtaposition are often seen carved on the doors of the temples both of Obatala and Odudua; but this does not seem to have any reference to androgyny, since they are also found similarly depicted in other places which are in no way connected with either of these deities.<br />
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According to a myth Odudua is blind. In the beginning of the world she and her husband Obatala were shut up in darkness in a large, closed calabash, Obatala being in the upper part and Odudua in the lower. The myth does not state how they came to be in this situation, but they remained there for many days, cramped, hungry, and uncomfortable. Then Odudua began complaining, blaming her husband for the confinement; and a violent quarrel ensued, in the course of which, in a frenzy of rage, Obatala tore out her eyes, because she would not bridle her tongue. In return she cursed him, saying "Naught shalt thou eat but snails," which is the reason why snails are now offered to Obatala.<br />
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Odudua is patroness of love, and many stories are told of her adventures and amours. Her chief temple is in Ado, the principal town of the state of the same name, situated about fifteen miles to the north of Badagry. The word Ado means a lewd person of either sex, and its selection for the name of this town is accounted for by the following legend: Odudua was once walking alone in the forest when she met a hunter, who was so handsome that the ardent temperament of the goddess at once took fire. The advances which she made to him were favorably received, and they forthwith mutually gratified their passion on the spot. After this, the goddess became still mora enamoured, and, unable to tear herself away from her lover, she lived with him for some weeks in a hut, which they constructed of branches at the foot of a large silk-cotton tree. At the end of this time her passion had burnt out, and having become weary of the hunter, she left him; but before doing so she promised to protect him and all others who might come and dwell in the favored spot where she had passed so many pleasant hours. In consequence many people came and settled there, and a town gradually grew up, which was named Ado, to commemorate the circumstances of its origin. A temple was built for the protecting goddess; and there, on her feast days, sacrifices of cattle and sheep are made, and women abandon themselves indiscriminately to the male worshipers in her honor.<br />
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Article by IfaBite<br />
<a href="http://www.awonifa.com/orishas/113-odudua">http://www.awonifa.com/orishas/113-odudua</a>John Fagaldehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459791093325542563noreply@blogger.com0