Bamana: the art of existence in Mali. (exhibition preview).

The Museum for African Art, New York, and the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, have mounted related but separate exhibitions on the Bamana peoples of Mali. The Museum for African Art's "Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali" (September 13, 2001-May 19, 2002) is curated by Jean-Paul Colleyn and Catherine De Clippel. Frank Herreman, Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Publications, Museum for African Art, selected approximately 120 artworks from public and private sources in the United States and Belgium; the exhibition also includes 26 black-and-white photographs taken in the field by Catherine De Clippel, a photographer and producer and director of documentary films, and 4 video segments. At this writing, the Milwaukee Art Museum is scheduled to host the exhibition in spring 2003, and other venues are under consideration.

The selection for the Museum Rietberg presentation, "Bamana: Afrikanische Kunst aus Mali (September 9-December 9, 2001), was made by Lorenz Homberger, Deputy Director and Curator of Exhibitions, Museum Rietberg, who drew from works in European collections and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The two museums have collaborated on an exhibition catalogue, co-published by Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, Ghent. Edited by Jean-Paul Colleyn, it includes contributions by Mary Jo Arnoldi, Rene A. Bravmann, James T. Brink, David C. Conrad, Catherine De Clippel, Kate Ezra, Barbara E. Frank, Salia Male, and Patrick McNaughton, as well as Colleyn himself. Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali (256 pp., 230 color photos, 50 b/w field photos; $45 softcover, $75 hardcover) is also available in German (Bamana: Afrikanische Kunst aus Mali; 48 SF softcover, 90 SF hardcover); a French edition is forthcoming. Each edition includes photographs of works from the two exhibitions.

This preview is based in part on the catalogue text. Illustrations have been selected from both the New York and Zurich exhibitions.

BAMANA IDENTITY

The issue of ethnic identity is complex, but it can be scrutinized by posing a simple question: "Who is classifying whom?" When French colonizers interrogated their Fula, Arab, and Berber informants about the people living in the central Western Sudan, they were told that they were "Bambara." (1) This name was widely adopted after the French conquest in 1898, yet it was never used by the people in question as a term of self-reference.

The local name was "Bamana," and it has had shifting meanings. From precolonial times to the 1960s, the Bamana were distinguished from other Mande peoples such as the Soninke and Mandinka by their resistance to Islam. French colonial ethnography linked the name "Bambara" and the peoples of the Segou kingdom, who included Bamana, because of their opposition to the Fula Islamic state of Massina (1818-62) and to the holy war waged by al Hajj Umar Tal between 1852 and 1862. For these historical reasons, Segou developed a distinctive cultural and political consciousness that has to a certain extent continued to the present day. At a popular level, however, Bamanaya--the condition of being Bamana--refers not to a particular people but to certain religious representations and practices, to a way of explaining the world and acting on it through rituals in order to achieve a state of well-being. Bamana believe that elements of ordinary life--the shape of a cloud, the song of a bird--are signs that must be interpreted. Diviners and priests prescribe ritual actions and sculptures, for use in public or in private, to deal with the problems of everyday existence by eliminating negative conditions or forces, improving one's luck, or appeasing powerful deities.

In rural Mali, the people who claimed (and still do) to be Bamana refer only to the fact that they do not perform the prayers to Allah but remain faithful to the religion of their ancestors. Generally speaking, then, people who belong to initiation societies (jow, sing. jo; the plural may be indicated by a terminal w), who sacrifice animals upon "power objects," or boliw (Fig. 1), (2) and who communicate with ancestors through masked or possessed dancers may be called Bamana. It is this simplified meaning of Bamana that the Museum for African Art and the Museum Rietberg have chosen to adopt for their exhibitions and accompanying catalogues.

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We are aware, however, that the larger reality is far more complex, and that being Bamana is often a process of self-identification. For example, practicing Muslims in and around Segou may identify strongly as Bamana. For them, Bamanaya is located not just in the initiation societies and associated objects but more broadly in language, elements of secular culture, ways of looking at life, and shared lineages and community histories.

Indeed, the fact that Bamanaya can be generally seen as a marker opposed to Islam does not mean that it has not been deeply influenced by it. Trimingham (1962) compares the process of conversion from the local religion to Islam to the embellishment of a textile with embroidery. Although Bamanaya--a religious system based on initiation societies--is what remains non-Muslim, it cannot be considered, in the form to which scholars have access, as a pure pre-Islamic religion. Indeed, in many places Bamana have mixed with Islamized populations (Bazin 1985:104; Tauxier 1942:33-35, 54-57; Raffenel 1856, vol. 1:363-65; Imperato 1977:48-52). Two contributions to the exhibition catalogue, by David C. Conrad and Rene A. Bravmann, establish the basis of the Islamic presence and its historical importance in shaping Bamana culture. Conrad traces the spread of Islam in what is now Mali and shows how the very principles of acquiring secret knowledge, notably the magic recipes (daliluw), are associated with the idea of pilgrimage to a sacred site. Many boliw are claimed to have been brought from Mecca by a famous hero called Fajigi, a claim which appears to be based on Mansa Musa's pilgrimage in 1324. This legend expresses the accommodation between indigenous religious practices and Islam.

Bamanaya also goes far beyond the relatively arbitrary boundaries of ethnic identity. Symbolic representations and art forms of the Bamana initiation societies are found among the Soninke (including the Marka), the Mandinka, the Bozo, and other neighboring peoples. The New York and Zurich exhibitions cover a large area of Mali where jow are encountered and where a common language, Mandinka-Bamana, is spoken--although in different dialectical forms or as a second language (among the Minianka and Senufo (3)).

The early ethnography on this part of Africa is French, based on the work of Marcel Griaule (1898-1956) and his followers, who saw in a codified mythology the foundation chart for Sudanese cultures (Dieterlen 1957; Zahan 1974). Later, Claude Meillassoux, Jean-Loup Amselle, and Jean Bazin called into question many of the early categories of mythology and cosmology and pointed the way toward a more pragmatic anthropology. Since the early seventies the Mande-Bamana world has been studied by American scholars, often trained in disciplines in addition to or other than anthropology, such as linguistics (Charles Bird), Islamic studies (Nehemia Levtzion), history (John O. Hunwick, David C. Conrad), and art history (James T. Brink, Rene A. Bravmann, Kate Ezra, Patrick McNaughton, Mary Jo Arnoldi, Sarah Brett-Smith). These scholars have enriched anthropological research by paying close attention to the contextualization of oral texts and recognizing a more flexible cosmology than that described by the French school of ethnography. Several of them have contributed to the exhibition catalogue, to which anthropologist and Bamana initiate Salia Male brings his specific expertise.

THE EXHIBITION

The New York and Zurich exhibitions are conceptually the same, following the organization of the catalogue. With the videos, Catherine De Clippel's photographs, taken in Mali over the last twenty years or so, provide a context for the art objects and convey the vitality of the culture. Visitors walk through sections on social and religious aspects of Bamana culture. The journey progresses from the public arena to the most sacred and secret levels, from the clear to the obscure.

Public Life

When entering a Bamana village, one is immediately confronted with an array of striking visual images seen in architecture, sculpture, and applied arts. Both exhibitions begin with photographs of the architecture, including houses and community structures (Figs. 4-6), and examples of household arts, among them doors with figural locks, stools, heddle pulleys, and ceramics (Fig. 7). These are open to public view. This section also includes various representations of leadership through photographs of secular and religious officials along with symbols of authority, such as hunters' jackets and staffs (Figs. 2, 3).

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Masks and Puppets of the Village Association

The village association (ton) comprises 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 (Figs. 8, 9). Sogobaw (big beasts) resemble small mobile theaters with a head and a wood-frame body (e.g., Fig. 10). Small puppets, expertly manipulated, emerge from the back of this "beast" (Figs. 11, 12).

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The exhibition presents Ngon (monkey) masks, a selection of puppets, and photographs of performances. The visitor may also watch a puppet performance on large-screen video monitors. The footage includes the audience's reactions and interactions during the entertainment.

The Sacred and the Secret

Bamana jow have a tremendous importance in social and religious life. The exhibitions in both New York and Zurich explore the role of these initiation societies (some authors have called them brotherhoods) through a wide range of objects used in their rituals, including wooden masks, iron staffs, and power altars. In jow like Komo, Kono, Nama, and Ci-wara, among others, one gains access to secret knowledge by traveling and working for a reputed master (soma). Some villages may not have even a single jo, while in many others several societies may coexist and compete with one another.

Although jow are considered men's organizations, (4) in numerous cases women may make offerings to and even seek help from one of the jo deities. Furthermore, each jo has one female official who may perform important ritual functions, though she is not supposed to know the society's secrets. Bamana rely on their jow for social interaction and as a means to address such problems as sickness, misfortune, and mystical aggression. While these societies are influential in political and judicial matters, today most of their power is overshadowed by state institutions and Islam.

The Jo Society

The Jo (a specific society, not to be confused with the generic name for these organizations) has become a sort of framework for other initiation societies, like Ci-wara, Namakoro, and Nya. Until a few decades ago, initiation was obligatory for every young male. (5) As with the Kore, Jo initiations take place every seven years, after candidates receive six years of special training. During this time, the young men go through a ritual death and live one week in the bush before returning to the village. There they publicly perform the dances and songs they have learned in the bush, and receive small presents from spectators. After a ritual bath that signals the end of their animal life, the new initiates become "Jo children."

Among the sculptures in the exhibitions are those called Jomooni (small person of the Jo) and Jonyeleni (small, beautiful young lady of the Jo). Representing beautiful young women, they often display decorative motifs on the face and body that were fashionable as scarifications before 1930 (Figs. 13, 14), and some are dressed and decorated with jewelry. Numerous washings and applications of oil have imparted a lustrous black color to some of these sculptures. This section also exhibits crest masks and musical instruments used during Jo rituals.

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The Ntomo and Kore Societies

Ntomo and Kore societies exist throughout the Niger Valley. (6) Initially Ntomo, which leads to Kore, was a society for uncircumcised boys. Today it closely resembles various Western associations in its bureaucratic structure and its administrative and membership fees. The exhibitions feature Ntomo masks whose thin mouths underscore the virtue of silence and the importance of controlling one's speech (Figs. 15, 16, 17). In general, during their time in Ntomo the boys learn to accept discipline. They do not yet have access to the secret knowledge related to Kore and other initiation societies.

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Bamana people perceive Kore as the "father of the rain and thunder." Every seven years a new age-set of teenagers experiences a symbolic death and rebirth into the Kore society through initiation rituals whose symbols relate to fire and masculinity. Initiations take place in the sacred wood, where the youths are harassed by elders and the clown-like performers called koredugaw. (7)

Until the 1940s, initiates practiced a form of ritual dueling with whips. Today, however, the rituals are less severe. Furthermore, while many original types of Kore masks have been phased out and distinctions between ritual groups made less evident, initiates traditionally belonged to a several different groups, each having its own masks (Figs. 18, 19). In their general form and detail, a group of Kore masks in the two exhibitions conveys concepts such as knowledge, courage, and energy through the representation of hyenas, lions, and other animals.

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The Komo and Kono Societies

Komo and Kono are other secret societies that can be found in Bamana regions. These jow form political networks that transcend the limits of the village. Their masks and boliw are said to symbolize an association, or marriage, with the supernatural entity. (8) In contrast to Komo masks, which are covered with feathers, horns, and teeth (Figs. 21, 22), those of the Kono society are elegant and simple (Figs. 23, 24).

[FIGURES 21-24 NOMITTED]

Komo sanctuaries have spread throughout present-day Mali as well as Guinea, southern Mauritania, eastern Senegal, western Burkina Faso, and northern Cote d'Ivoire. Their style strongly reflects the influence of Arab mosques, palaces, and other types of Sudanese architecture. Traditionally led by blacksmiths, each sanctuary once exerted significant political influence, using the voice of a masked dancer to communicate messages to villagers. Again, Kono and Komo masks and boliw figures on view in both exhibitions are contextualized by video footage and photographs.

The Ci-wara Society

Ci-wara is a society related to agricultural fertility. Its performance, which incorporates the characteristic antelope headcrests and other sculpture, is based on the Bamana respect for the union of male and female. Just as human reproduction is the result of the sexual union between man and woman, so agricultural fertility is attributed to the union between the sun, an expression of the male principle, and earth and water, an expression of the female principle (Brink 1981:25). Through farming, the man manipulates the sun and brings "him" to inseminate the earth. According to Dominique Zahan, "This union is the model for the association between the man and wife and for their reproduction" (1960:34). A large ensemble of Ci-wara figures in the exhibitions, presented with video footage and field photographs, illustrates the creative range of their Bamana makers in representing antelopes, anteaters, chameleons, pangolins, and hybrid zoomorphic creatures (Figs. 25, 26, 27).

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We hope that the exhibitions at the Museum for African Art and the Museum Rietberg, and the accompanying publication, will offer insight into the practices and representations used by the Bamana to face the problems of daily life. The exhibition catalogue brings together the research of African, American, and European scholars, and while modest in light of the range and complexity of the subject, it nonetheless permits us to measure the distance we have come since the pioneering work of Robert Goldwater (1960) in his landmark exhibition and catalogue for the Museum of Primitive Art.

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(1.) The term "Bambara" is also the French name for a local dialect of Mandinka, the language of the people from "Mande," which was widespread in the Empire of Mali between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Since Mali's independence, Bamana (bamana kan) has become the nation's vernacular language.

(2.) McNaughton (1979a) and Bazin (1985) use this expression to designate these objects which embody the powers of deities.

(3.) The Minianka, too, had their name imposed by the French administration, but they call themselves Bamana. In Mali, Senufo who are not Muslim and are affiliated with the jow rather than the Poro religious complex consider themselves Bamana.

(4.) Because of their capacity to give birth, women are suspected of having secret knowledge, and thus are feared. According to Bamana legends and myth, women originally owned all boliw, but they were unable to maintain and control them. A principal function of male initiation societies is to protect members against witchcraft, an area where women are thought to excel. When one speaks of an individual who has betrayed the secrecy of the cult, one says that "he has given himself (as prey) to the women." Allusions are made to female initiation societies, the most famous being the Gwan or Nyagwan (hot eye) that existed within the Jo.

(5.) In some parts of the Bamana area, the Ntomo and the Kore do not exist. They have been replaced by the Jo society, a global structure that incorporates other jow such as Ci-wara and Namakoro but excludes the Komo. Between 1950 and 1970, the Jo society was located in a large area bounded on the east by the Bagoe River, on the south by the city of Odienne in Ivory Coast, on the north by the town of Dioila, and on the west by the Baoule River. Today a strong concentration of villages still practices Jo initiation in the Baninko region south of Dioila.

(6.) Identifying the institutions that compose the jow is not a straightforward process. Much of the literature excludes Ntomo and Kore, apparently because they do not sacrifice to a boliw (Arnoldi 1995:192; McNaughton 1979a:5).

(7.) The koredugaw form a special class by themselves. They often belong to groups distinct from the Kore. These ritual buffoons participate in public events and imitate hunters and warriors with pretend guns and wooden horses. As powerful people, the latter are expected to tolerate the mockery.

(8.) Boliw, with their strange forms, attracted the attention of Western modern artists in the 1930s; a photo of a boli was included in the important avant-garde journal Minotaure. The aesthetic value of these objects, currently so fascinating to artists, psychologists and anthropologists, has long been denied. Boliw have rarely been exhibited, as their ritual power is deemed too secret to allow their public display.

References cited

Arnoldi, Mary Jo. 2001. "The Sogow: Imagining a Moral Universe Through Sogo bo Masquerades," in Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali, ed. Jean-Paul Colleyn, pp. 77-93. New York, Zurich, and Ghent: Museum for African Art, Museum Rietberg, and Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon.

Arnoldi, Mary Jo. 1995. Playing with Time: Art and Performance in Central Mali Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Bazin, Jean. 1985. "A chacun son Bambara," in Au cour l'ethnie: Ethnies, tribalisme et etat en Afrique, eds. J.-L. Amselle and E. M'Bokolo. Paris: Decouverte.

Bravmann, Rene A. 1983. African Islam. Washington, DC, and London: Smithsonian Institution Press and Ethnographica.

Bravmann, Rene A. 1995. "Islamic Spirits and African Artistry in Trans-Saharan Perspective," in Islamic Art and Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa, eds. Karin Adahl and Berit Sahlstrom. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell International.

Bravmann, Rene A. 2001. "Islamic Ritual and Practice in Bamana Segou--The 19th Century `Citadel of Paganism,'" in Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali, edited by Jean-Paul Colleyn, pp. 35-43. New York, Zurich, and Ghent: Museum for African Art, Museum Rietberg, and Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon.

Brink, James T. 1981. "Antelope Headdress (Chi Wara)," in For Spirits and Kings: African Art from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection, ed. Susan Vogel, pp. 24-25. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Conrad, David C. 2001. "Pilgrim Fajigi and Basiw from Mecca: Islam and Traditional Religion in the Former French Sudan," in Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali, ed. Jean-Paul Colleyn, pp. 25-33. New York, Zurich, and Ghent: Museum for African Art, Museum Rietberg, and Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon.

Dieterlen, Germaine. 1957. "The Mande Creation Myth," Africa 27, 2:124-39.

Ezra, Kate. 1983. "Figure Sculpture of the Bamana of Mall," Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University.

Ezra, Kate. 1986. A Human Ideal in African Art: Bamana Figurative Sculpture. Washington, DC: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution Press.

Frank, Barbara E. 1994. "More Than Wives and Mothers: The Artistry of Mande Potters," African Arts 27, 4:26-37, 93-94.

Frank, Barbara E. 2001. "More Than Objects: Bamana Artistry in Iron, Wood, Clay, Leather and Cloth," in Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali, ed. Jean-Paul Colleyn, pp. 45-51. New York, Zurich, and Ghent: Museum for African Art, Museum Rietberg, and Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon.

Goldwater, Robert J. 1960. Bambara Sculpture from the Western Sudan. New York: Museum of Primitive Art.

Imperato, Pascal J. 1977. African Folk Medicine Practices and Beliefs of the Bambara and Other Peoples. Baltimore: York Press.

McNaughton, Patrick R. 1979a. Secret Sculptures of Komo: Art and Power in Bamana (Bambara) Initiation Associations. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.

McNaughton, Patrick R. 1979b. "Bamana Blacksmiths," African Arts 12, 2:65-71, 92.

McNaughton, Patrick R. 1988. The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power and Art in West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Raffenel, Anne, 1856. Nouveau voyage au pays des negres, 2 vols. Paris.

Tauxier, Louis. 1927. La religion bambara. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste.

Tauxier, Louis. 1942. Histoire des Bambara. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste.

Trimingham, J.S. 1962. History of Islam in West Africa. London and New York: Oxford University Press.

Zahan, Dominique. 1960. Societes initiation de Bambara, le Ntomo, le Komo. The Hague: Mouton.

Zahan, Dominique. 1974. The Bambara. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

JEAN-PAUL COLLEYN, anthropologist and filmmaker, has conducted fieldwork in Mali, Togo, and Ivory Coast since 1972. He teaches visual anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where he is a member of the Centre d'Etudes Africaines.

LAURIE ANN FARRELL, Associate Curator at the Museum for African Art, New York, received her M.A. in art history from the University of Arizona. While working on current exhibitions, she is also curating an exhibition of contemporary African art for 2003.