History of the Marka Masks of Mali, West Africa

Courtesy of Fondazione Passaré
Marks Masks of Mali

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.

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.

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.

Courtesy of Fondazione Passaré
Marks Masks of Mali

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

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African Puppets - Bamana Marionette Figures

Masks and Puppets of the Village Association

Bamana Puppet Farmer 

The village association (ton) comprises of female and male divisions and is organized according to age groups (flan-bolow).

One enters the ton after circumcision and leaves it at the age of about thirty-five. Every year the ton organizes a festival of theatrical performances in the village square. These include koteba and the puppets known as sogo bo in a succession of light-hearted sketches that satirize aspects of Bamana social and religious life. 

Prior to the public performances, ton members parade through the village streets accompanying masks (sogow) such as Ngon and Ntomo. Sogobaw (big beasts) resemble small mobile theaters with a head and a wood-frame body. Small puppets, expertly manipulated, emerge from the back of this "beast".

Traditions of the Bozo, Somono, Marka and Bambara

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) 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. 

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.

Bamana Farmer and Goat Marionette

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 masquerades representing lions, bush buffalos, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, wild cats, antelopes, and powerful bush spirits. In these communities the bush is defined as the domain of men and it is the locus of power. 

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.

The repertoire that a troupe plays in any year underscores a fundamental principle of youth theater which gives a positive value to innovation and change. The dramatic content of the youth theater is concerned with exploring the interplay between unity and rivalry, between the elders and youth, between the collective and the individual, and between tradition and change. 

Each season a troupe will choose to play many of the same characters 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.

When you pull the strings,
the child raises up and down
 in the mother's arms.

Troupes creatively exploit the full spectrum of arts—puppet masquerades, dances, drumming, and songs—to construct the dramatic characters in the fictional world of Sogo bo. These performances are important sites for the exploration of the moral universe. Like folktales and other theatrical forms, these masquerade performances throw cultural values and social relationships into high relief and open them up for public scrutiny. Even though they are 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 world and their lived experiences. 

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.

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 Rand African Art

The Bambara Tribe of Mali

The BAMBARA live in MALI on the Bani River and on both sides of the Upper Niger, and are an important MANDE speaking tribe. They number almost a million and are the heirs of two kingdoms, SEGU (1660-1881) and KAARTA (1670-1851). The BAMARA believe in the great light and creator god FARO, a kind of redeemer and organizer of the universe who is enthroned in the seventh heaven and sends rain which brings fertility. The sacred colour white is used in sacrifices and at one time, the most beautiful girl was richly adorned and sacrificed at the riverside each year as his bride. According to the myth, FARO bestowed upon man their conscience, order and purity, as well as a sense of responsibility. FARO also created female twins and through his messenger, the swallow he made them pregnant and brought into being the first BAMBARA. For this reason, twins are regarded as being the bringers of good fortune. The BAMBARA undertake nothing without first asking the will of FAR through an oracle.

Life in the villages is ruled by secret societies to which the male BAMBARA belong. There are six societies—the N’TOMO which protects the boys awaiting initiation, These boys belong, from their seventh year of life, to the N’TOMO Society, and once they have achieved manhood through circumcision ceremonies, they remain as an age group which will always be bound in mutual loyalty throughout life. The KOMO which has the smith as its head and exercises judicial power. The Smiths—NUMU were feared and also despised and lived alone, marrying amongst themselves. The same group provided the carvers who produced the sacred masks and figures. Besides them there are the KULE who are also carvers and who also live apart.

The carvings of the Bambara are of great number and variety and are of a monumental and elegant style. The world famous CHI WARA head dress for the antelope dance is amongst the most beautiful and ingenious works of African sculpture. The proud eland, the emanation of the creator god FARO is the tribal animal of the BAMBARA and the mythical spirit of work, for it once taught men how to cultivate grain.

The CHIWAA dances are closely connected with the magical relationship of the FARO to the fertility of their fields and women. The men will don the head dresses and dance a distinctive slowly weaving circular dance with constant respectful genuflections. The male and female antelope always form a pair and the great spirit would kill anyone who tried to separate them in the rite. They also dance after the conclusion of their puberty celebrations before the nubile girls who are richly adorned with cowrie shells.

The CHI WARA can be distinguished into three main groups:

1. The SEEGU-MINIANKA type of the eastern Bambara region, the structure of which is vertical. Above a small body rises a powerful curved neck with a broad mane of decorative openwork, a firm narrow head and slightly curved horns riding majestically above. The hind which belongs to this type has no mane, instead it bears a small kid upon its back and has straight horns. They are formed with powerful spiral curves.

2. The “Horizontal type” of the northwestern region around BAMAKO, There the antelope, its horns bearing spiral curves, leaps across horizontally. It is formed in two parts which are joined together at the neck with a metal ring. The surface of many of the CHI WARA is completely smooth, but that of others is entirely covered with a delicate pattern of curves, representing the pattern of the animals’ coat.

3. The SEGUNI type found in the villages around Buguni in the southern western Bambara region. Here we find the vertical abstract type, The interplay of forms between the zig-zag pattern, the horns and the curve of the neck, with the head growing to a point and the body of the antelope is sometimes arbitrarily joined to that of another animal (horse, chameleon) which as one of the first animals in creation is said to have been meant to bring immortality to the Bambara—or a lizard or gazelle. In some cases the figure of a woman may be on top which may refer to the myth in which the jealous twin brought evil. The dance for which the SUGUNI type is used is more wild than in the case of other types.