Textiles Bogolan du Mali: A Response.

I write regarding the recent museum publication, Textiles Bogolan du Mali by Pauline Duponchel (2004), reviewed by Victoria Rovine in African Arts 38, 3 (Fall 2005). I admire this book for being the first long text to unite a discussion of "traditional" mud cloth (bogolanfini) patterns with modern designs created by contemporary designers within the context of the ongoing changes in Bamana culture. I also admire the depth of the understanding her research with Kandioura Coulibaly reveals, especially on topics such as the redoubtable Tieblinke masqueraders (Duponchel 2004:77-81). However, I would like to note some unsettling confusions which are perhaps attributable to Duponchel's work being published as a museum catalogue rather than a scholarly book. In a domain where the Bamana themselves have recycled both patterns and ideas about patterns and are the first to state that they know less about mud cloth design than their mothers and grandmothers did, it is particularly important to preserve the history of mud cloth study as well as the information itself.

In her discussion of mud cloth dyes (Duponchel 2004:25-33), Duponchel cites various authors who have contributed to our knowledge of mud cloth technique (Monteil 1927:86, Pageard 1967:110, Donne 1973:105, Imperato and Shamir 1970:40, Bailleul 1996:453, 463, etc.). However, Duponchel does not cite my 1982 dissertation (Brett-Smith 1982), which reviewed the making of dyes and their symbolism in detail (chapter 1, "Leaves and Mud"), although this dissertation is listed in her bibliography. Since Duponchel appears to be giving a comprehensive review of the literature on mud cloth dyes, it would be appropriate to mention my work. Furthermore this lacuna is repeated on almost every page of the catalogue, many sections of which seem closely related to my dissertation. In addition, Duponchel fails to cite standard works on mud cloth such as Victoria Rovine's Bogolan: Shaping Culture Through Cloth in Contemporary Mali (2001) or Tavy Aherne's Nakunte Diarra: A Bogolanfini Artist of the Beledougou (1992) and also neglects the important contributions of many other scholars such as Conrad and Frank (1995), McNaughton (1988), Frank (1998), Arnoldi (1995), etc., who have worked for many years on excision, artisanal status, sculpture, and the arts among the Bamana. Even when appropriate references were included in Duponchel's PhD dissertation, there seems to have been a systematic omission of them from the published version. These omissions are so constant that they deprive Textiles Bogolan du Mali of the the secure scholarly status it might otherwise possess.

Since the omission of key citations to my 1982 dissertation is prevalent throughout Duponchel's catalogue, I will refer only to a places where these raise substantive issues.

1) On page 69, Duponchel states the following: "Sur les pagnes anciens, la technique utilisee est differente. Je l'ai appelee 'trace ombre' ou 'trace a paillettes.'"

The word "shadow" was first given to the technique of leaving a slight white trace between each stroke of the mud on p. 82 of my dissertation. Since the word is not a Bamana term, its choice may seem arbitrary without reading the discussion of the philosophic principles of Bamanaya reflected by the English word "shadow." Since this philosophic discussion does not appear in Duponchel's text, it would be appropriate to credit me with naming the "shadow" technique and refer the reader to the extended discussion of Bamanaya that frames this word choice in my dissertation.

2) In my 1982 dissertation (p. 187) I discussed the discovery made by M. Adama Mara that in the Jonkala (a region covering the right bank of the Bani river, San and its environs, and part of Myanka territory), the wearing of mud cloth was a right reserved for blacksmiths. On p. 208 1 also quote a blacksmith, Diam Sadibou Ballo, who reported that blacksmiths wore cloth that had been completely immersed in mud because their work was so dirty. Later, in 1998, a Komotigi in the Fadugu confirmed this association and stated outright that originally mud cloth "belonged" to blacksmiths and was not worn by other Bamana, who wore gere (cloth dyed yellow with a solution of N'Galama--Anogeissus leiocarpus leaves) if they were men, and bogolanfini if they were women. I regard this discovery as one of the major contributions I have made in expanding our knowledge of bogolanfini, since it places mud cloth within the so-called caste system and gives us some clues to its original function.

Duponchel introduces the issue of numufini or "blacksmith cloth" on p. 71 of her text without any reference to my dissertation or to the historical thesis suggested by this identification. While I agree with Duponchel's description of the link between blacksmiths and mud cloth wrappers bearing sets of horizontal black and white lines, its presentation in her book is deceptive since there is no reference to the long discussion in my dissertation, not only of the blacksmith attribution but also of what it might mean for Bamana history. Her text ignores the historical issues raised by this identification.

3) In some cases, Duponchel's borrowings from my dissertation lead her down false paths. On pp. 106-11 she discusses the design surakamuso kunkorotalan, "the Maure woman's head pillow." She underscores the importance of Bamana/Peul, Bamana/Touareg, and Bamana/Maure contacts in influencing Beledugu and Fadugu mud cloth compositions. These connections lead her to present my idea that mud cloth may have been influenced by Maure and Touareg leatherwork as well as the Tifinar alphabet used by the Touaregs (see chapter 3 of my dissertation, pp. 123-31). She also presents my observation (p. 122 of my dissertation) that the fact that one can write Tifinar letters in any direction is similar to the lack of directionality of individual mud cloth motifs. In addition she suggests (p. 109) that the henna designs applied to the hand today may be related to mud cloth motifs, implying a mutual influence.

The connection between the use of henna and mud cloth patterns was also suggested in my dissertation (see pp. 132-33), but as a result of research in the Fadugu and Beledugu during 1998, I now think that I overstressed the importance of both Tifinar and henna motifs as a source for mud cloth design. In 1998 a Fadugu woman who had been raised in Mourdiah, a heavily Maure town, reported that there was absolutely no contact between Maure or Fulani women and Bamana women. She also said that it was extremely rare for a Bamana woman to obtain a piece of Maure or Touareg leatherwork. At Neguessebougou in the Fadugu a gathering of male elders, which included the imam, confirmed that there was as little contact as possible between the Maures and the Bamana in the Fadugu prior to colonization. Furthermore, in another Beledugu village a female elder said that in her childhood, no Bamana woman had the time to indulge in the luxury of painting hands or feet with henna and that this practice began during her lifetime. Because Duponchel does not cite my dissertation and did not get in touch with me to discuss my current views on Maure/Bamana contact, she recycles a hypothesis which, in addition to being that of another scholar, has actually been brought into question by my present work.

To sum up, Duponchel has spent a great deal of time in the field, and although she does not speak Bamana she has had the good fortune to work with Kandioura Coulibaly, a Bamana researcher who knows mud cloth deeply and who has been willing to share his conclusions about mud cloth with her. She has made important contributions to our knowledge of mud cloth for Tiebllnke masqueraders, to our understanding of motifs such as dabi kama, to the identification of mud cloth styles according to location, and to a comprehensive view of the connections between "traditional" and "modern" mud cloth. However, much of the intellectual content of Duponchel's work stems from her unacknowledged use of my 1982 dissertation. I hope that when it appears, my book manuscript on mud cloth, "Bamana Mud Cloths: Creativity and Abstraction among Bamana Women," will set the record straight and reveal the extent to which Duponchel has relied on my early work without proper acknowledgement, while at the same time giving proper credit to Duponchel's accomplishments as well as that of the many other researchers who have worked among the Bamana.

Aherne, Tavy. 1992. Nakunte Diarra: Bogolanfini Artist of the Beledougou. Bloomington: Indiana University Art Museum.

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

Bailleul, Charles. 1996. Dictionnaire Bambara-Francais. Bamako: Editions Donniya.

Brett-Smith, Sarah C. 1982. "Iron Skin: The Symbolism of Bamana Mud Cloth." PhD dissertation, Yale University.

--. Bamana Mud Cloths: A Female Language of Power. Unpublished manuscript.

Conrad, David C., and Barbara E. Frank, eds. 1995. Status and Identity in West Africa: Nyamakalaw of Mande. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Donne, John B. 1973. "Bogolanfini: A Mud-Painted Cloth from Mali." Man 8 (1):104-7.

Duponchel, Pauline. 2004. Textiles Bogolan du Mall Neuchatel: Musee d'ethnographie.

Frank, Barbara. 1998. Mande Potters and Leatherworkers: Art and Heritage in West Africa. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Imperato, Pascal James, and Marli Shamir. 1970. "Bokolanfini: Mud Cloth of the Bamana of Mali." African Arts 3 (4):32-41, 80.

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

Monteil, Charles. 1927. Le coton chez les Noirs. Paris: Larose.

Pageard, Robert. 1967. "Plantes a Bruler chez les Bambara." Journal de La Societe des Africanistes 37:87-130.

Rovine, Victoria. 2001. Bogolan: Shaping Culture Through Cloth in Contemporary Mali Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.