Genesis: ideas of origin in African sculpture. (Exhibition Preview).

"... a fortunate blend of myth and history, penetrates even deeper into that area of man's cosmogonic hunger, one which leads him to the profounder forms of art as retrieval vehicles for, or assertive links with, a lost sense of origin."

Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature and the African World (1976:54)

In the beginning, there was Africa. It is the place where humankind began, between five and seven million years ago, and the drama of its development unfolded. Africa is also the fount of all artistic traditions. Until recently it was widely assumed that a "creative explosion" originated with the arrival of modern humans, Homo sapiens, in Europe approximately 40,000 years ago, about 60,000-110,000 years after they began their evolution in Africa. This long-held assumption has been disputed by new discoveries in South Africa, two hundred miles east of Cape Town. At the site of Blombos Cave, researchers have unearthed ochre engravings, finely made bone tools, and symmetrical stone spear points created more than 70,000 years ago. These aesthetic refinements served no utilitarian purpose. At present they are the earliest evidence of human creativity and the first known visual manifestations of abstract thought.

Blombos Cave at the southern tip of the continent and the Egyptian pyramids in the north represent a span of 5,000 miles and some 5,000 years about which little is known of the African traditions that have been formative of the world's art. We are obliged to deal with the tip of the iceberg, as our knowledge of the continent derives from some archaeological sites and several centuries of historical contact with the Western and Islamic worlds. The exhibition "Genesis" explores beliefs of origin as they are embodied in African sculpture. The examples on display make manifest the traditions that are the foundation of conceptions of origin and have profoundly informed a people's sense of identity.

The Greeks gave Western civilization the word most closely associated with Judeo-Christian concepts of the origin of the world: "genesis," derived from genesis kosmou, or "origin of the cosmos." All human societies define their identity through accounts of their origin that interweave elements of spiritual belief, myth, and historical fact. These accounts are invariably related to contemporary experience and circumstances. A people's aspirations concerning their place in the world develop out of such an understanding of their past. The historian Jan Vansina has noted that a worldview "is a representation of ultimate reality in all its aspects, visible and invisible" (1985:133). As such it is often intuitive to its proponents but difficult for outsiders to comprehend. Vansina suggests that one key to grasping a culture's worldview is to examine its religious system and its traditions of origin--"how the world began, how people were created, and how they became as they are now." These "mythical charters" complement the social structure that is in place, but they are subject to continual revision. They have in turn inspired visual forms of expression that are among the most celebrated monuments in the history of art.

How did the world begin? What is our ancestry? What is the source of agriculture, of kingship, of other societal institutions? African cultures have sought to provide answers to these questions through elaborate, interwoven traditions of oral history, poetry, and art. There is a danger of oversimplifying the 70,000 years of African art history and the thousands of distinct cultures found on the continent. Therefore, this exhibition includes an analysis of how artists in a broad spectrum of African cultures have interpreted ideas of origin and sought answers to questions central to their identities. Through comparative sculptures, the exhibition explores a range of cultural perspectives and their related local traditions. These outstanding artistic achievements serve as visual documents for considering several aspects of genesis and origins: theories about the creation of humankind; the source of precepts and social values fundamental to a culture's well-being; the origins of a collective heritage and common identity; genealogies that situate individuals within an extended history of descent; and the origins of a political system. Against this backdrop, the exhibition examines in depth the nuanced complexity of one noteworthy sculptural form, the ci wara antelope headdress of the Bamana people of Mali. In doing so it considers all the distinct regional and individual interpretations that have come to be associated with that form over the course of the last century.

Part I: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture

Vansina has noted that "every community in the world has a representation of the origin of the world, the creation of mankind, and the appearance of its own particular society and community" (1985:21). In The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa, the anthropologist Dominique Zahan suggests that the quest for an explanation of the creation of man "constitutes the supreme effort of the mind desirous of situating man in terms of certain coordinates--inorganic world, vegetable world, animal world, spiritual universe--and affirming thereby both his attachment to all these domains and his transcendent position relative to them" (1970:7). Vansina has further noted that stories of creation are by nature "reflexive, the product of thought about existing situations--they represent a stage in the elaboration of historical consciousness and are among the main wellsprings of what we often call culture" (1985:21). Those responsible for creating related works of art give individual expression to their culture's most profound collective ideas about its origins and identity.

In the 1940s the French ethnologist Marcel Griaule pioneered research on the Dogon people of Mali, publishing what was then, and still remains, the most extensive existing literature on an African belief system. Beginning with his landmark Conversations with Ogotemmeli (1948), Griaule uncovered the worldview, cosmology, and philosophical system of the Dogon, analyzing his findings with an unprecedented sophistication and complexity. Additional versions of the Dogon creation myth were presented in his subsequent works. Scholars drew on these creation stories to interpret the imagery of Dogon sculptures (Fig. 2).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Griaule meant to demonstrate that African belief systems and theories of human experience parallel those of other civilizations, but his project has triggered major scholarly debate (Bedaux et al. 1991). Walter van Beek contends that Griaule attributed to the Dogon a cosmology and genesis that are unrecognizable in their contemporary society and resemble nothing else in African religions. He is critical of the alacrity with which these interpretations have been grafted onto an understanding of Dogon material culture. In his recent monograph that pays tribute to contemporary Dogon experience, van Beek dismisses Griaule's legacy:

   The Dogon have no creation myth, no deep story relating how the
   world came into being. (An anthropologist some decades ago probed his
   informants for creation myths so insistently that the Dogon, polite
   as ever, obligingly produced them. Some of his publications still in
   print as tourist guides perpetuate this mistake).

   (van Beek 2001:103)

It is difficult not to feel a certain ambivalence at this juncture in our understanding of Africa's heritage. Clearly the involved cosmogony that Griaule developed in his writings has little relevance to the lives of contemporary Dogon in Mali today. But did such a cosmology ever exist, perhaps as knowledge that was preserved orally by cultural elites and thus was vulnerable to loss? One is reminded of a saying attributed to Amadou Hampate Ba, a diplomat, historian, and writer who spent much of his life translating and transcribing African oral traditions, which laments, "When an old man dies, it's as if a library burns."

The Genesis of Humanity

In Senufo society, divine creation is commemorated by large, sculpted figural pairs that depict a timeless and ideally balanced archetype of humanity (Fig. 1). Such representations give material form to the idea of the primordial couple and emphasize the importance of the role that women play as the matrix of life, intermediaries with the supernatural world, and the founding members of extended families used to trace descent in Senufo communities.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The concrete, somewhat literal portrayal of genesis contrasts with the more abstract modes employed by other African societies. For example, in some cultures the artistic transformation of certain inert matter is a metaphor for divine creation. This significance is reflected in ideas underlying the humanism of the ancient terracotta heads and figures unearthed at the ancient Yoruba center of Ile-Ife (Fig. 3) as well as in the schematic reed, grass, and beaded fertility figures from southern Africa designed to enhance fertility. In yet another case, the actions of the creator are invoked ephemerally through the powerful movements of Bobo sacred masks. Those monumental sculptures make the ultimate force of creation tangible in performance. They require Bobo artists to mine their imaginations to create exalted forms. The highly abstract works are unrelated to anything known to their authors through their senses.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

Foundations of Kingdoms

The foundations upon which precolonial African states were built are invariably recalled in important oral narratives that may be retold countless times and complemented by visual forms of expression. Such works articulate a polity's distinctive ideology and play an important role in reinforcing an individual leader's ties to sources of legitimization. At the court of the Kuba people of the Congo, the king may participate in a royal masquerade performance in which he assumes the role of Woot, the first man and original leader of his people. On such occasions, members of the court reenact the drama that unfolded at the beginning of time to set Kuba history in motion and inform its political dynamics (Cover; Figs. 5, 6).

[FIGURES 5-6 OMITTED]

In Luba society, investiture rites transform a leader into a reincarnation of the first Luba king, Kalala Ilunga, who reigned during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and whose enlightened political order differed radically from the primitive, despotic regime it replaced. The instigator of this cultural revolution was a hunter-hero prince from the east, Mbidi Kiluwe, who introduced a noble reign of sacred kingship. This transfer of power is marked by the treasury of artifacts given to Kalala Ilunga that was emblematic of divine kingship (Figs. 6-8). While the treasury ensembles conferred upon subsequent Luba leaders are original creations of great power and beauty, they were conceived as reproductions of Kalala Ilunga's prototypes.

[FIGURES 7-8 OMITTED]

As Chokwe leaders nearby accrued regional power and influence during the nineteenth century, they adopted the Lunda hunter-prince Chibinda Ilunga as their role model and adopted his persona in a remarkable tradition of royal portraiture (Fig. 9). By conflating their identity with this larger-than-life mythical figure, they meant to enhance their prestige as temporal rulers and spiritual intermediaries.

[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]

Family Origins

Throughout the continent, extended families derive a sense of cohesion from accounts that commemorate and honor their founding ancestors. Preservation of this precious knowledge is often accompanied by sculptural representations designed to impress both the ancestors and rival families. Works like these are the focal point of a community's spiritual life, prayers, and invocations for ancestral intervention. In some cultures a family's well-being and origins are linked to a nature spirit that is a carved mask. This type of relationship accounts for a rich corpus of masquerades sponsored by Bwa (Fig. 10), Mossi, and Kurumba families in Burkina Faso, as well as the awesome, monolithic serpent headdresses of the Baga peoples, who live in Guinea along the Atlantic coast (Fig. 11).

[FIGURES 10-11 OMITTED]

In central Africa, the importance placed on preserving family genealogies is reflected in a range of figurative traditions that idealize the human form according to local aesthetic conventions. Represented in the exhibition by works created by Fang (Fig. 12), Bwende, Tabwa (Fig. 13), Hemba, and Boyo sculptors, these sculptures straddle the boundary between history and myth and document their owners' connection to the past. At one end of the spectrum are the powerful and intense miniature depictions of Bwende founding ancestors. At the other are the monumental series of Boyo ancestor figures that honor a chief's collective forebears. The representation of one founding ancestor is the largest and most dominant, and the prototype for the likenesses of his successors.

[FIGURES 12-13 OMITTED]

Part II: The Invention of Agriculture: Ci Wara's Divine Gift

The world began and so it will end with farming.

--Bamana proverb

Westerners have been apt to see African art as formulaic, as restricted by static convention. In reality, each generation of African peoples has had its own artistic response to ideas about origins and has participated in a constant dynamic process of evolution. The tendency to consider African art as relatively immutable is exemplified by perceptions of one particular classic form often considered emblematic: the Bamana antelope headdresses generically referred to as "ci wara."

Ci wara headdresses are among the most widely known and admired of all the continent's art forms (Figs. 14-24). The genre derives from a region in Mall that has for a millennium been the wellspring of some of Africa's most outstanding artistic traditions. It is characterized by an elegant abstraction that is valued both in Bamana society and in the West, where it has inspired such artists as Brancusi, de Zayas, and Leger. In this exhibition a careful analysis of forty well-known and especially accomplished examples of the genre makes apparent that what in the scholarly literature is generally conceived to be a monolithic tradition is in fact a heterogeneous set of regional traditions and individual interpretations that respond to an overarching cultural ideal. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates how the term ci wara encompasses several distinct but related performative genres that developed in response to significant changes in Bamana cultural and spiritual experience.

[FIGURES 14-24 OMITTED]

Among the Bamana, the invention of agriculture and the understanding of earth, animals, and plants were at one time attributed to a mythical cultural hero, Ci Wara. In the last century; this knowledge was shared by members of a men's agricultural association of the same name. The association performs ceremonial dances that celebrate the skills and talents of exceptional farmers as well as the benevolent giver of agriculture. The term ci wara is literally translated as "farming animal" and is also used as a praise name for individuals who distinguished themselves as outstanding farmers (McNaughton 1988:39; Imperato 1970:8). The outstanding feature of ci wara dances was the appearance of a pair of gracefully designed sculpted headdresses in the form of antelopes (Figs. 15, 16).

Several Bamana accounts of creation have been recorded. The central protagonist of one documented by Dominique Zahan in the northern Bamana region is a supreme deity referred to variously as N'gala or Pemba (Imperato 2001:13). According to that version, at the time the earth was once devoid of living things, and God then manifested himself as a grain known as Pemba. This seed grew into a balanza tree (Acacia albida) that eventually withered and fell to the ground, becoming a wood beam known as Pembele. Pembele secreted mildew that he mixed with his saliva to create a new female being, Mouso Koroni Koundye, who is conceived as one of a series of divine manifestations that set about creating all manner of life, from plants to animals to human beings. Her creative endeavors extend to every aspect of existence, including the fostering of ideas that develop along with human consciousness.

Mouso Koroni's union with a cobra resulted in the birth of Ci Wara, a divine being half human and half animal, who taught the Bamana how to cultivate the land. According to myth, by tilling the earth with his claws and a stick of the sunsun tree (Diospyros mespiliformis), Ci Wara was able to transform weeds into corn and millet (Imperato 1970:8). Mortals became able and prosperous farmers under his tutelage, but gradually they turned careless and wasteful. In his disappointment, Ci wara is said to have buried himself in the earth. To honor his memory and lament his departure, men created a power object, boli, in which his spirit could reside, and they carved headdresses to represent him.

Pascal James Imperato notes that in recent times ci wara has become the least secretive of all the Bamana religious, political, judicial, and philosophical fraternities (dyow, sing. dyo) concerned with the maintenance of social, spiritual, and economic harmony (Imperato 2001:10). By 1970 dyow no longer existed in most villages, and as a result, the metaphysical and religious ideas they once promulgated were dying out (Imperato, p.13). The demise of these institutions has been attributed to the spread of Islam, the shift to a cash economy, and the many significant social developments that followed colonial rule, including migrant labor and urbanization.

The dyow imparted esoteric and ritual knowledge to its adult initiates. In addition, a community's circumcised youth were grouped together in associations known as ton (Imperato 2001:8-11). The ton were a source of both collective labor and entertainment. Male members farmed the fields of families that lacked the necessary manpower or resources. The ton was compensated through payments of cash, food, or livestock, which would be used to sponsor secular communal celebrations. In some places charitable communal work was also performed by men's voluntary associations known as gonzon (Imperato, p. 72). Because of their involvement with agricultural projects, ton and gonzon commissioned antelope headdresses that appear in the theatrical dances that they sponsor. Those headdresses take their inspiration from the ci wara association. Without contextual documentation it is often difficult to distinguish which of these three entities--ci wara, ton, or gonzon--originally performed a particular headdress.

The poetic eloquence and seemingly infinite variety of the ci wara headdress are described by Zahan in his celebrated monograph Antilopes du soleil (1980); the study, devoted to examining the full extent of this sculptural genre, includes a catalogue raisonne of more than five hundred examples. Zahan also explores the headdress's iconography, significance in Bamana myth and spirituality, its relation to agricultural practices, and its role in the initiation association. One of the limitations of his study, however, is his failure to address regional stylistic differences or the development of distinct but related sculptural genres that came to either coexist with or replace ci wara. Zahan's somewhat ahistorical approach to this material stands in contrast to the more empirical documentation provided by Imperato, which suggests a tradition continually responsive to changes in Bamana society.

Imperato observes that "like all other dances of the Bamana that of [ci wara] was never static.... the development and change took place somewhat independently in each region and indeed in each village, finally leading to local differences which ... one finds considerable" (1970:13). By the time of the earliest documented ci wara performances, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the dance apparently still had a ritual dimension; however, it was no longer exclusively performed in the company of dyo members but rather included audiences outside the association.

With the disintegration of the dyow and the increased influence of Islam, some of the ritual dances and masks once associated with the initiation societies, including ci wara, were gradually passed to the ton. In that context their religious content was de-emphasized in favor of encouraging the younger ton members to be good farmers and to serve as popular entertainers (Imperato 1970:13). Imperato suggests that these transformations first occurred in the eastern Bamana region in the district of Segou, where the influence of Islam was most intense (p.72). Subsequently the relevance of the ton also diminished in certain regions: the increasing migration of young men to cash labor markets affected the timing of their festivals, which in some communities were abandoned entirely.

The ton's appropriation of the ci wara headdress is one example of how ci wara came to be integrated into other distinct performative traditions. Part II of this exhibition examines several of the individual, regional, and historical influences that informed the different contexts in which "ci wara" headdresses appeared. Works that have previously been identified as examples of the ci wara genre are identified and discussed as representatives of discrete subgenres, including sogoni koun (Figs. 19-21), n'gonzon koun (Figs. 22, 23), and nama tyetye (Fig. 24). It is useful to consider some of the sequences of events that have informed the different contexts in which these antelope headdresses have appeared. While recognizing that every performance is a unique event in its own right and that no single description of a particular dance can ever reflect an entire tradition, one must rely to a certain extent on the limited number of published accounts.

The earliest surviving visual documents of such performances date from the first quarter of the twentieth century (Geary 1995:116-17). In 1970, drawn by the reputation of the antelope headdress as African art's most familiar icon, the celebrated American photographer and African-art amateur Eliot Elisofon photographed ci wara performances in Mali (Geary, pp. 104-13). Christraud Geary notes that the tens of thousands of images of African art and culture taken by Elisofon from the late 1940s to the early 1970s profoundly informed attitudes and perceptions of the continent. However, in his quest to capture the elegant forms of the headdresses associated with the eastern Bamana region, which were carved in a vertical rather than horizontal style, he was driven to subvert contemporary reality. By that time, such works were performed only rarely in a few villages.As a consequence, during his visit to the region Elisofon was obliged to stage re-enactments. As described by Imperato and Geary, on one occasion he editorially removed any trappings of modernity from his photographs. On another, he insisted on photographing vertical headdresses in a village in the western Bamana region, where they had never been performed. In doing so he created his own myth (Geary, p.116).

While at the beginning of the twentieth century, many of Europe's gifted young artists were powerfully influenced by the formal vocabulary of African art traditions, the second half of the century saw the first generation of Western-trained African artists. Young students from across the continent left home to develop their talents in the art schools of Europe's capitals. There they mastered many different technical processes that afforded them new means of giving expression to both their personal experiences and the traditional forms associated with their African heritage. One example is Paul Ahyi, a Togolese artist who received his degree from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1959. His achievements as an artist and teacher working in a rich range of media, including sculpture, painting, ceramics, and tapestry design, have earned him many awards in France and Africa.

Ahyi is one of many contemporary African artists who have drawn upon seminal forms like the Bamana ci wara that evoke the Western ideal of African culture and that transcend ethnic boundaries because of their iconic stature. In doing so, these artists make reference, in ways not dissimilar to those of their Western counterparts, to a collective African past. As artists at a crossroads between two artistic traditions, however, their point of reference is unique. Some see themselves as responsible for imbuing traditional forms of African expression with new life. Ahyi speaks to this point:

   The modern Africa should be the continuation of the ancient Africa
   without there being a disjunction, rupture, or relinquishing of
   values that belong to us. It is according to this concept that I
   embark upon my artistic research and hope that the aesthetic or the
   message that follows can contribute in some way to the development
   of modern African culture.

   ("Paul Ahyi," n.d.;
   my translation)

In his monotype Adoratrice, or "worshiper," of 1981 (Fig. 25), Ahyi pays tribute to the powerful and monumental idea of the ci wara by conflating the notion of it as a venerable sculptural representation with his response to it as a contemporary African artist. Ahyi, like a Bamana viewer, is moved by the spiritual essence of the ci wara and a sense of the creative force behind the sculpture. In his interpretation he translates the sculpted object into a two-dimensional medium and thus plays on its flatness and abstraction by designing a work in which the iconic configuration has been impressed onto a fiber surface. Ahyi emphasizes the antelope's verticality by fitting it into an especially narrow, elongated format. His block strokes, rolled onto the surface to re-create the ci wara's architectural structure, are at once concrete and impressionistic. The image invokes the essence of the ci wara, while Ahyi's artistic approach--to create a work of elegance, strength, and beauty through an assemblage of features--harmonizes conceptually with the artistic process used by Bamana sculptors.

[FIGURE 25 OMITTED]

A generation ago, scholars suggested that the role of ci wara in Bamana society appeared to be in decline. However, more recent research indicates that its relevance to Bamana culture and its resilience as an art form endure. It is also important to recognize the fact that spiritual and secular genres of these antelope performances continue to coexist in contemporary Mali. Stephen Wooten (2000) documented recent performances in agrarian communities in the region of the Mande plateau around thirty kilometers from Bamako. His account of the three distinct performances he observed emphasizes three local interpretations of ci wara. The Bamana maintained distinctions between performances that they considered to have "underlying force" or reference to religious practices; performances known as cekorobawfen, or "old men's things," and performances known as tulonkefen, or "playthings," that had theatrical aims used to amuse children (Wooten 2000:21). Wooten concludes his account by emphasizing the ongoing relevance of this tradition to contemporary Bamana experience:

   Whether or not the actors or observers involved in the cases I have
   presented know the agricultural origin myth, make explicit
   connections to the mythic inventor of this way of life when they
   perform, or participate in a ciwara jo, their links to an
   agricultural way of life are affirmed and strengthened in the
   activities involving [ci wara]. Farming is at the core of their
   identity.

  (Wooten 2000:31)

"Genesis: Ideas of Origins in African Sculpture" seeks to shed light on the act of human creation as a broad and recurrent theme of African art. Seventeen forms of artistic expression that relate to their cultures' ideas about their origins have been selected to embody this concept. These works of art constitute points of reference that allow individuals to conceive of their place within an expansive history. While the sculptures on display relate to a panoply of social perspectives and traditions, they all share a desire to give tangible form to the abstract forces that have shaped the course of human experience. The artists who executed them have responded to their societies' most exalted challenge, and in doing so have provided insight into their distinctive worldviews.

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This exhibition was organized by Alisa LaGamma, Associate Curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It follows another exhibition at the Metropolitan dealing with a fundamental theme in African art: "Art and Oracle" (spring 2000), also curated by LaGamma. Featuring approximately eighty objects from private and public collections, "Genesis" opens on November 19, 2002, in the Metropolitan's Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, and closes on April 13, 2003.

A catalogue by LaGamma, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press (128 pp., 12 b/w & 77 color photos; $30 softcover), accompanies the exhibition. The sectional headings in this preview follow those in the catalogue and in the Metropolitan's installation.

ALISA LAGAMMA is associate curator for African art in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is also a consulting editor of African Arts.