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African artsWest
Africa
Scholars divide the visual arts of West Africa into three broad areas: the
western Sudan, the Guinea Coast, and Nigeria. This is done partly to enable the
outsider to comprehend the diversity of styles and traditions within the region,
while recognizing that there are themes common to all of the areas. Western SudanThis is the name conventionally given to the savanna region of West Africa. It is an area dominated by Islamic states situated at the southern ends of the trans-Saharan trade routes. The sculpture here is characterized by schematic styles of representation. Some commentators have interpreted these styles as an accommodation to the Islamic domination of the area, but this is probably not an adequate explanation since Islam in West Africa has either merely tolerated or actually destroyed such traditions while exerting other influences. Among the better-known sculptural traditions of the western Sudan are those of the following peoples. Dogon
and Tellem
The Dogon inhabit the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali. Dogon sculpture is
intimately linked with the cult of the ancestors. Figures are made to house the spirits of the deceased on the family shrine, and
masks are used to drive the spirits away at the end of the mourning period. One
type of mask, called sirige, has a tall, flat projection above the face
(a feature found also in the
masks of the neighbouring Mossi and Bobo), which is said to represent a
multistory house. The grat mask, never worn and made anew every 60 years, represents the primordial
ancestor who met death while he was in the form of a serpent. Iron staffs topped
with human figures are also made, and some personal ornaments are cast in brass. Also found in Dogon territory are, possibly, the oldest wood sculptures to
survive (three have been dated by carbon-14 to the 15th to 17th century AD).
They were found in caves in the Bandiagara escarpment. The Dogon attribute them
to an earlier population, the Tellem. These figures, usually of simplified and
elongated form, often with hands raised, seem to be the prototype of the
ancestor figures that the Dogon carve on the doors and locks of their houses and
granaries; investigations have confirmed that the Tellem were ethnically a
different people from the Dogon, though the art style appears to have been
handed on from one people to the other. The Bambara live in the region around Bamako, the capital of Mali. Their
traditions include six male societies, each with its own type of mask. The Ntomo
is for young boys vertical
projections placed transversely over the human face, representing man as God
first created him. The Komo is the custodian of tradition and is concerned with
all aspects of community life--agriculture, judicial processes, and passage
rites. Its masks are of elongated animal form decorated with actual horns of
antelope, quills of porcupine, bird skulls, and other objects. Masks of the Kono,
which enforces civic morality, are also elongated and encrusted with sacrificial
material. The Tyiwara uses a headdress representing, in the form of an antelope, the mythical being
who taught men how to farm (see Djenné-MoptiThese are two towns situated on the inland delta of the Niger River, Mali. They are notable as centres of the cloth trade and for their architecture. Moreover, in their immediate vicinity many sculptures in pottery of uncertain age have been found. They may have some association with the empires of Ghana and Mali (7th-13th and 13th-16th centuries, respectively). For all their extensive trade contacts across the Sahara, these medieval empires did not significantly change the basic structure of society in the western Sudan.
Dan Ngere
The Dan-Ngere complex of styles is named after two extremes of stylistic variation: the smooth, restrained style of the Dan, De, and Diomande; and the grotesque style of the Ngere (or Guere), Wobe, Kran, and Bete, a less extreme form of which is found among the Kru and Grebo, who inhabit adjacent regions of Liberia, Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire. A single carver will produce masks in both of the extreme modes of the range of style. Miniature, easily portable masks, representing and sharing in the power of the larger masks, protect the owner when he is away from home. The carvers also produce the large anthropomorphic rice ladles used by the mother of the heir apparent at the harvest feast; chiefs' staffs; and female figures that seem to be prestige items, as are small figures cast in brass among the Dan and Kpelle. Ashanti and Baule
The Ashanti region of southern Ghana is a remnant of the Ashanti empire,
which was founded in the early 17th century when, according to legend, a golden
stool descended from heaven into the lap of the first king, Osei Tutu. The stool is
believed to house the spirit of the Ashanti people in the same way that an
individual's stool houses his spirit after death. The Ashanti also carve akua-ba
(dolls with disk-shaped heads embodying their concept of beauty and carried by
women who want to become pregnant) as well as staffs for royal spokesmen, which,
like the handles of state swords, are covered in gold foil. The success of the Ashanti empire depended on the trade in gold not
only with Europeans at the coast but also with the Muslim north. Gold dust was
the currency, weighed against small brass weights that were often geometric or
were representations recalling well-known proverbs. Ashanti weavers developed a
style of weaving of great technical mastery, incorporating imported silk (see Baule gold weights are similar to those of the Ashanti, but the Baule also have types of sculpture that none of the other Akan peoples possess: masks (which, like their low-relief doors, seem to indicate Senufo influence) and standing human figures, apparently sometimes used as ancestor figures. The figures and human masks, the latter reported to be portraits used in commemorating the dead, are elegant--well polished, with elaborate hairdressings and scarification. More roughly finished are the gbekre figures, representing minor divinities in human form with animal heads. Masks are made also to represent the spirits of the bush: antelope, bush cow, elephant, monkey, and leopard. Boxes for the mouse oracle (in which sticks are disturbed by a live mouse, to give the augury) are unique to the Baule, whose carvers also produce heddle pulleys, combs, hairpins, and gong mallets.
FonThe Fon Kingdom of Dahomey, with its capital at Abomey (now in the People's
Republic of Benin), was also founded in the early 17th century. The palace is
decorated with painted relief panels modeled in clay, representing the different
kings and the events of their reigns. The kings are represented also by iron
staffs and messengers' staffs with openwork iron symbols on a wooden haft, as
well as by a small number of large wooden statues combining human and animal
attributes. The thrones of the kings are similar in form to Ashanti stools but
are much taller and are preserved as cult objects. Small figures cast in brass,
often in groups, are prestige items employed also to decorate the royal
tombs. Brightly coloured appliqué cloth is used on state umbrellas and chiefs'
caps. A popular art is calabash carving. The greatest achievements of Fon art,
however, are the large sculptures for Gun,
the god of iron and war, made from sheets of copper or iron (see Nigeria
The northern and southern parts of Nigeria can be considered part of the
western Sudan and Guinea Coast, respectively; but, because of the wealth of
evidence for an artistic tradition of some 2,000 years, it is convenient to
consider Nigeria separately. NokThe earliest known sculpture of large size in the Sudan is that produced in
pottery by the Nok culture, which flourished extensively in northern Nigeria
from the 5th century BC into the early centuries AD (see Daima
and Sao
Not far from the Nok area but very different in style, at Daima near Lake
Chad, small, simple clay animal figures were by the 6th century BC being made by
a population of Neolithic herdsmen. A little later they began making animals
with more extended legs, and sometime after AD 1000 they started to make animals
covered with little spikes. The last are similar to examples found on sites of
the Sao culture in the Chari Valley, Cameroon, where more elaborate human figure
sculptures, thought to represent ancestors and probably spirits, have been
found. Carbon-14 dates for these sites range from the 5th century BC to the 18th
century AD. Ife
and
Yoruba
The Yoruba peoples inhabit a large part of southwestern Nigeria. Their art
traditions are of considerable antiquity. Excavations at Ife,
in central Yorubaland (the site of the creation of the world in some Yoruba
myths), have shown that naturalistic sculpture in brass and pottery was being
produced sometime between 1100 and 1450 AD. The sculptures may represent royal
figures and their attendants, and life-size portrait heads in brass were perhaps
used as part of funerary effigies. During this time, Ife appears to have had
widespread importance, and the naturalism of its art seems to have influenced
the basic development of Yoruba sculptural style. Throughout Yorubaland, human
figures are represented in a fundamentally naturalistic way, except for bulging
eyes; flat, protruding, and usually parallel lips; and stylized ears. The
evolution of these characteristics can be observed in a number of pottery
sculptures at Ife, which, on stylistic grounds, are considered to be relatively
late. Within the basic canon of Yoruba sculpture, many local styles can be
distinguished, down to the hand of the individual artist. Individual cults, too,
have their own characteristic requirements of form and ethnography. Staffs for
Shango,
the thunder god, bear the symbol of a double ax. On his altars are placed carved
mortars, for the pounding of food in a mortar sounds like thunder; on the wall
behind hangs his leather bag, with a motif based on the extensive gesture of a
Shango dancer. Because Shango was king of Oyo, largest of the Yoruba kingdoms,
his cult is mainly restricted to areas that were once under Oyo domination. Typical of Ekiti is the Epa cult, which is connected with both the ancestors and agriculture. The mask
proper, roughly globular, has highly stylized features that vary little; but the
superstructure,
which may be four feet (122 centimetres) or more in height, is often of very
great complexity--for example, a king on horseback, surrounded by two tiers of
attendant warriors and musicians. The most widely distributed cult is of twins,
ibeji, whose birth among the Yoruba is unusually frequent. Their
effigies, made on the instructions of the oracle, are among the most numerous of
all classes of African sculpture. Carved doors and house posts are found in
shrines and palaces and in the houses of important men. Fulfilling purely
secular functions are bowls for kola nuts, offered in welcoming a guest; ayo
boards for the game, known also as wari, played with seeds or pebbles in
two rows of cuplike depressions; and stools, spoons, combs, and heddle pulleys. To the north is Esie, where about 800 sculptures in soapstone were found by
the local Yoruba population some centuries ago. Their origin is obscure; they
are by no means certainly Yoruba. The city of Owo,
to the southeast of Yorubaland near the frontier with the Edo-speaking peoples,
developed an art style--indeed, a whole culture--that is a blend of Yoruba and
Benin traditions. Ivory carving is especially important, and wooden heads of rams and
of humans with rams' horns are used on ancestral altars. Second-burial effigies,
life-size and naturalistically carved in wood, have been made during the 20th
century but were developed from wickerwork forms such as are still used in Benin
and in Igbo towns that were formerly under Benin influence. Excavations in 1971
revealed a large number of pottery sculptures that are clearly related to those
of Ife but with some Benin features. The site was dated by carbon-14 to about
the 15th century AD. According to tradition, the Kingdom of Benin was founded from Ife, whence, in
the late 14th century, knowledge of Brass casting may have been introduced into
Benin City for the manufacture of commemorative heads for royal altars. These
heads have been grouped in stylistic sequence from moderate naturalism through
increasing stylization. The brasses also include figures in the round, groups on
a common base, and plaques. The rectangular shape of the plaques, their
narrative content, and in some cases their attempt at perspective have been
attributed to the influence of illustrations in books carried by the Portuguese,
who were in contact with Benin from the late 15th century. The technique of
brass casting, however, had been introduced at least a century earlier. Bronze
bars had been imported, probably from the interior, as early as the 13th
century, but these were made into bracelets in Benin City only by smithing and
chasing techniques, not by casting. There were certain limitations on the use of
brass, and also ivory. Cult objects (such as memorial beads) were made of wood
when intended for non-royal purposes but of brass for the king. Regalia, if made
for the king, were of ivory, but otherwise of brass. The regalia of king and
chiefs also included coral
beads and red cloth, the colour red signifying a mystical threat to the enemies
of the kingdom. Wood was used for staffs commemorating ancestors, and these were
placed on their altars. Pottery heads were made for shrines in the brass
casters' quarter; and life-size groups of royal figures in mud are still made
for the cult of Olokun, divinity of the sea and of wealth. Outside Benin City, the Edo peoples live in villages that have many localized
cults of nearby topographical features and founder heroes. The Ekpo masquerade, occurring to the south and east of Benin, is performed by the
warrior age group in ceremonies to purify the village ritually and to maintain
health. At Ughoton, to the southwest of Benin, a different type of mask is used,
in the cult of the water spirit Igbile. Both the cult and the sculptural style
seem to have derived from the Ijo. A number of bronze castings found in Benin have been classified tentatively
as the Lower Niger bronze industries. They include pieces from Tada and Jebba in
the region now inhabited by the Nupe people, who regard them as relics
associated with their own mythical ancestor, and other pieces from various parts
of the delta of the Niger River. The Niger Delta is occupied by Ijo fishermen, whose masks for the cults of
the water spirits are made in the form of aquatic animals, especially
hippopotamus and crocodile. The western Ijo use ejiri figures, in which
the head of the household is represented upon a highly schematic quadruped that
is said to represent the guardian spirit of the family. Similar objects are made
by the Edo-speaking Urhobo, to the north of the Ijo, where they are used in a
cult of aggressiveness by the warriors. Among the eastern Ijo, shrines for the
water spirits have figures that are often large though frequently kept hidden.
They also have masks, similar to those of the western Ijo, worn by men of the
Ekine society. In addition, there are shrines that contain sculptures for the
village heroes and ancestors. In some Kalabari communities, rectangular screens are fashioned by carpentry into a low-relief
frontal group in which a commemorated ancestor is flanked by supporting
figures--much like the king in Benin plaques, by which the screens may have been
inspired about two centuries ago. All Ijo sculpture exhibits a four-square
schematic style that contrasts starkly with the relative naturalism of
surrounding styles, such as those of Yorubaland or Benin. Igbo
On both sides of the Niger, but mainly to the east, live the Igbo.
Traditionally, they have lived in small and often isolated settlements scattered
through the forest. Only on the northern and western edges of the area, under
influence from Igala and Benin, are hereditary rulers found. In Igbo society
there is strong social pressure toward individual distinction, and men can move
upward through successive grades by demonstrating their achievements and their
generosity. One of the traditional representations of this was the ikenga,
that part of oneself enabling personal achievement, with cult figures
representing the attributes of distinction. The lack of overall centralization among the Igbo-speaking peoples has been
conducive to the development of a great variety of art styles and cultural
practices. The earliest sculpture known from Igboland is from the village of
Igbo-Ukwu, where the grave of a man of distinction and a ritual store, dating
from the 9th century AD, contained both chased copper objects and elaborate
castings of leaded bronze. The earliest artistic castings from black Africa,
these pieces consist of ritual vessels and other ceremonial objects with
intricate surface decoration, often small animals and insects represented in the
round. A very great variety of masks is found among the Igbo. The masks, of wood or
fabric, are employed in a variety of dramas: social satires, sacred rituals (for
ancestors and invocation of the gods), initiation, second burials, and public
festivals, which now include Christmas and Independence Day. Some masks appear
at only one festival, but the majority appear at many or all. Best known are
those of the Northern Igbo Mmo society, which represents the spirits of deceased
maidens and their mothers with masks symbolizing beauty. Among the Southern Igbo,
the Ekpe society, introduced from the Cross River area, uses contrasting masks
to represent the maiden spirit and the elephant spirit, the latter representing
ugliness and aggression and the former representing beauty and peacefulness. A
similar contrast is found in their Okorosia masks, which correspond to the Mmo
of the Northern Igbo. The Eastern Igbo are best known for masquerades associated
with the Iko okochi harvest festival, in which the forms of the masks are
determined by tradition, though the content of the play varies from year to
year. Stock characters include Mbeke, the European; Mkpi, the he-goat; and Mba,
which appear in pairs, one representing a boy dressed as a girl mimicking
the behaviour of a girl, the other representing the girl being satirized. Most impressive are the ijele masks of
the Northern Igbo, which are 12 feet (366 centimetres) high. Consisting of
platforms six feet in diameter, supporting tiers of figures made of
coloured cloth and representing everyday scenes, they honour the dead to ensure
the continuity and well-being of the community. Wooden figures are carved for ancestors of both sexes, varying from less than
one to more than five feet in height. Those representing founders of the village
are kept in a central shrine and sometimes become patrons of the market. A great
many other decorative wooden objects are made, including musical instruments,
doors, stools, mirror frames, trays for offering kola nuts to guests, dolls, and
a variety of small figures used in divination. Shrines called mbari,
which contain elaborate
tableaux of painted, unfired earth, are made in honour of the earth spirit in
villages near Owerri in southern Nigeria; and in Igbo communities to the west of
the Niger, elaborate pottery groups representing a man and his family are made
for the yam cult. There seems to be no tradition of pottery sculpture in other
Igbo groups. Among the oldest sculptures of tropical Africa are several hundred ancestor
figures, called ekpu, of the Ibibio coastal
trade centre of Oron,
some of which are thought to date from the late 18th century. They are bearded
figures, three to four feet high, and are so individual as to suggest
portraiture, despite their schematic style. Oron is one group of Ibibio-speaking
villages. As with the Igbo, Ibibio is not a single group but several networks of
independent communities, with local unity represented by secret associations and
their masquerades. The Ekpo society uses black masks, often of naturalistic appearance and with movable
jaws, to maintain social order and propitiate the ancestors; some of these masks
represent disease and deformity. Ekoi The Ekoi-speaking peoples (Anyang, Boki, Ejagham, Keaka, and Yako) are best
known for their large, skin-covered masks, which have two or even three faces,
and for their smaller headpieces, which represent a head or an entire figure.
The headpieces and masks have metal teeth, inlaid eyes, and frequently pegs to
represent hair, which, alternatively, may be carved in elaborate coils. They are
used by several masking associations. In the northern Ekoi area, around Ikom,
are found circles of large stones, akwanshi, from one to six feet high,
carved in low relief to represent human figures. They are thought to be no
earlier than the 16th century. The Fulani are in origin nomadic pastoralists who range from Senegal to the
Cameroon grasslands. They are particularly known for their body decoration and for their engraved milk gourds. In
addition, in Mali they have settled groups of artists such as goldsmiths,
leatherworkers, blacksmiths, weavers, and potters. Northern Nigeria has long been dominated by the Muslim Hausa who, since the
19th century, have been ruled by Fulani amirs (emirs). For centuries
their buildings have been decorated inside with molded and painted low-relief
decorations, which have more recently been applied to the exteriors. Both
decorative and of a high technical standard are their crafts: leatherwork for
saddles, bags, hilts, and sheaths; gold and silver jewelry; ironwork; pottery;
weaving and embroidery. The Nupe have been Muslim for some centuries and are best known for their
weaving, embroidery, beadmaking, wood carving, and sheet metalwork. They have
produced many doors carved in low relief in a blend of decorative designs.
Carved and painted masks are made for the elo, a purely secular
performance intended only to entertain (nowadays on the Prophet's birthday). The
elo mask has a human face with a motif (sometimes a human figure) rising
above it, flanked with stylized horns. The gugu masquerader wears a cloth
mask decorated with cowrie shells, but sometimes Yoruba masks are used. The ndako
gboya appears to be indigenous; a spirit that affords protection from
witches, it is controlled by a small secret society that cleanses communities by
invitation. The mask consists of a tall tube of white cotton supported inside on
a bamboo pole about 12 feet long. That Nupe art should have been influenced by the Yoruba is not surprising.
Yoruba live among the Nupe, and there are bronzes in the Nupe villages of Tada
and Jebba--one
of them apparently an Ife work, and another in a more recent Yoruba style.
Others of this group, which include the largest castings ever made in black
Africa, share features with Benin sculpture and have other elements that are
widely distributed in time and space on the Lower Niger. Nupe tradition says
these sculptures were taken from Idah, the Igala capital, in the early 16th
century. Many were probably already ancient, but nothing is known of ancient
Igala bronze casting. Other groups in northern Nigeria There is a great diversity of sculptural tradition among peoples inhabiting the Niger and Benue valleys, the mountainous regions around the Jos Plateau in the centre of the area, and Adamawa to the east. This is altogether an area of astonishing diversity little understood beyond a confusing list of "tribal" names. Some of the better known traditions include the Igala, Idoma, Afo, Tiv, and Jukun, all of the Benue Valley Maybe you prefer to buy books on african art:
or chat with me personally if I am behind my computer: Or send an email: David Norden African Antiques |
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