What Are Some of the Ways African Art Connects the Real World With the Spiritual World?

African Art and the Spirit World

Beliefs about the spirit earth are securely embedded in traditional African culture, simply were heavily influenced by Christianity and Islam.

Learning Objectives

Discuss the role of African masks, statues, and sculptures in relation to the spirit world

Key Takeaways

Cardinal Points

• Most traditional African cultures include behavior well-nigh the spirit world, which is widely represented through both traditional and modern fine art such every bit masks, statues, and sculptures.
• Wooden masks are oft used to depict deities or ancestors; in many traditions, they are believed to channel spirits when worn by ceremonial dancers.
• Statues and sculptures are also used to stand for, connect to, or communicate with spiritual forces.
• Today, Africans profess a wide diversity of religious behavior, the most common of which are Christianity and Islam; possibly less than xv% still follow traditional African religions.
• Despite the drastic decrease in native African religions, some mod art in Africa has worked to reincorporate traditional spiritual behavior, such as in modernistic Makonde Fine art depicting spirits.

Primal Terms

• receptacle: A container.
• sanctuaries: Consecrated (or sacred) areas of a church or temple.

Background

Like all human cultures, African folklore and faith is diverse and varied. Culture and spirituality share infinite and are deeply intertwined in most African cultures, which accept been heavily influenced by the introduction of Christianity and Islam during the era of European colonization. Most traditional African cultures include beliefs about the spirit earth, which is widely represented through both traditional and modern art such every bit masks, statues, and sculptures. In some societies, artistic talents were themselves seen equally ways to please higher spirits.

Traditional Influences on Contemporary Religious Art

Masks and Rituals

Wooden masks, which often accept the form of animals, humans, or mythical creatures, are one of the almost commonly found forms of traditional fine art in western Africa. These masks are often used to depict deities or represent the souls of the departed. They may be worn by a dancer in ceremonies for celebrations, deaths, initiations, or crop harvesting. In many traditional mask ceremonies, the dancer goes into deep trance, and during this country of mind he or she is believed to communicate with ancestors in the spirit globe. The masks themselves oftentimes represent an ancestral spirit, which is believed to possess the wearer of the mask. Well-nigh African masks are made with wood and can besides be busy with ivory, beast hair, constitute fibers, pigments, stones, and semi-precious gems.

Mask from Gabon: A traditional mask from Gabon.

Statues and sculptures are besides used to stand for or connect to spiritual forces. For example, Bambara statuettes, such every bit the Chiwara, are used as spiritually charged objects during ritual. During the annual ceremonies of the Guan society, a group of up to seven figures, some dating back to the 14th century, are removed from their sanctuaries past the elder members of the gild. The wooden sculptures, which represent a highly stylized fauna or human figure, are washed, re-oiled and offered sacrifices. The Kono and Komo societies use similar statues to serve as receptacles for spiritual forces. The Igbo would traditionally make clay altars and shrines of their deities, usually featuring various figures. In the Kingdom of Kongo, nkisi were objects believed to exist inhabited by spirits. Often carved in the shape of animals or humans, these "power objects" were believed to aid help in the communication with the spirit world.

Mod Religion

Today, the countries of Africa contain a wide variety of religious beliefs, and statistics on religious affiliation are difficult to come by. Christianity and Islam make upwardly the largest religions in contemporary Africa, and some sources say that less than fifteen% still follow traditional African religions. Despite the desperate decrease in native African religions, some mod fine art in Africa has worked to reincorporate traditional spiritual behavior. For case, modern Makonde Fine art has turned to abstract figures in which spirits, or Shetani, play an important function.

Mod Makonde carving in ebony: Modernistic Makonde sculptures often depict spirits, or Shetani.

Masks in the Kalabari Kingdom

Culture and artistic festivities of the Kalabari Kingdom involve the wearing of elaborate outfits and carved masks to celebrate the spirits.

Learning Objectives

Talk over the role of the spiritual in the masks of the Kalabari Kingdom

Central Takeaways

Key Points

• The Kalabari Kingdom was an independent trading state of the Kalabari people, an Ijaw ethnic group, in the Niger River Delta. Today it is recognized as a traditional land in what is now Rivers State, Nigeria.
• Although the Ijaw are now primarily Christians, they besides maintain elaborate traditional religious practices.
• Veneration of ancestors plays a key role in Ijaw traditional religion, while water spirits effigy prominently in the Ijaw pantheon. In improver, the Ijaw practice a course of divination in which recently deceased individuals are interrogated on the causes of their expiry.
• The role of prayer in the traditional Ijaw system of conventionalities is to maintain the living in the adept graces of the water spirits among whom they dwelt earlier being born into this world.
• Each twelvemonth, the Ijaw hold celebrations involving masquerades that last for several days in honor of the spirits.
• Ijaw men wearing elaborate outfits and carved masks dance to the vanquish of drums and manifest the influence of the h2o spirits through the quality and intensity of their dancing.

Primal Terms

• enculturation: The procedure by which an private adopts the behavior patterns of the culture in which he or she is immersed.
• kin: Race; family; breed; kind.

Introduction: The Kalabari

The Kalabari Kingdom, also called Elem Kalabari (New Shipping Port), or New Calabar by the Europeans, was an independent trading state of the Kalabari people, an Ijaw indigenous group, in the Niger River Delta. Today it is recognized as a traditional state in what is at present Rivers State, Nigeria. Besides as participating in trade, the Ijaw have traditionally been a line-fishing and farming culture.

Culture and Fine art

Although the Ijaw are now primarily Christians (95% profess to exist), with Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism being the varieties of Christianity well-nigh prevalent among them, they also maintain elaborate traditional religious practices. Veneration of ancestors plays a key role in Ijaw traditional religion, while h2o spirits, known as Owuamapu, figure prominently in the Ijaw pantheon. In improver, the Ijaw practice a grade of divination called Igbadai, in which recently deceased individuals are interrogated on the causes of their death. The Ijaw are too known to practice ritual acculturation, whereby an individual from a different and unrelated group undergoes rites to get Ijaw.

The Role of Ijaw Masks

Ijaw religious behavior concur that water spirits are like humans, having personal strengths and shortcomings, and that humans dwell among the water spirits before beingness born. Each year, the Ijaw concur celebrations lasting for several days in laurels of the spirits. Central to the festivities is the role of masquerades, in which men wearing elaborate outfits and carved masks dance to the trounce of drums and manifest the influence of the water spirits through the quality and intensity of their dancing. Particularly spectacular masqueraders are believed to be possessed by the item spirits on whose behalf they are dancing.

ljaw mask: Mask, Kalabari Ijo peoples, Nigeria, early on 20th century, wood, paint (National Museum of African Art).

Dogon Sculpture

Dogon sculpture primarily revolves around the themes of religious values, ideals, and freedoms.

Learning Objectives

Describe the characteristics of Dogon art, sculpture, and rituals, too every bit the groundwork and location of the Dogon civilization

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of the land of Mali, in the West of the African continent, and are well known for their unique sculptures. Dogon sculptures are not fabricated to be seen publicly and are commonly hidden from the public eye within the houses of families, sanctuaries, or the hogon (spiritual leader).
• Dogon sculptures are typically characterized by an elongation of form and a mix of geometric and figurative images.
• The Dogon style has evolved into a kind of cubism: ovoid caput, squared shoulders, tapered extremities, pointed breasts, forearms and thighs on a parallel aeroplane, and hair stylized by 3 or 4 incised lines.

Central Terms

• vessel: A general term for all kinds of craft designed for transportation on water, such every bit ships or boats.
• Tellem: The people who inhabited the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali from the 11th through 16th centuries CE.

Introduction: The Dogon People

The Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of the country of Mali, in the West of the African continent. They migrated to the region effectually the 14th century CE. They are best known for their religious traditions, wooden sculpture, architecture, and funeral masquerades. The past century has seen significant changes in the social organization, material culture, and behavior of the Dogon, partly considering Dogon state is one of Mali'due south major tourist attractions.

Dogon Sculpture

Dogon fine art is primarily sculptural and revolves effectually religious values, ethics, and freedoms. Dogon sculptures are non made to be seen publicly and are commonly subconscious from the public heart within the houses of families, sanctuaries, or the hogon (a spiritual leader of the Dogon people). The importance of secrecy is due to the symbolic pregnant behind the pieces and the process by which they are made. Dogon sculptures are typically characterized past an elongation of form and a mix of geometric and figurative images.

Dogon Sculpture: Dogon sculptures are typically characterized by an elongation of course and a combination of geometric and figurative images.

Themes

Themes found throughout Dogon sculpture consist of figures with raised arms, superimposed bearded figures, horsemen, stools with caryatids, women with children, figures covering their faces, women grinding pearl millet, women bearing vessels on their heads, donkeys bearing cups, musicians, dogs, quadruped-shaped troughs or benches, figures bending from the waist, mirror-images, apron-wearing figures, and standing figures. Signs of other contacts and origins are axiomatic in Dogon fine art; the Dogon people were non the kickoff inhabitants of the surface area, and influence from the Tellem, or the people who inhabited the region in Republic of mali between the 11th and 16th centuries CE, is axiomatic in the utilize of rectilinear designs.

Dogon art is extremely versatile, although common stylistic characteristics—such as a tendency towards stylization—are credible on the statues. Their art deals with Dogon myths, whose complex ensembles regulate the life of the individual. The sculptures are preserved in innumerable sites of worship and personal or family altars, and often render the man torso in a simplified way, reducing it to its essentials. Many sculptures recreate the silhouettes of the Tellem culture, featuring raised arms and a thick patina, or surface layer, made of blood and millet beer. The Dogon style has evolved into a kind of cubism: ovoid head, squared shoulders, tapered extremities, pointed breasts, forearms and thighs on a parallel airplane, and hair stylized by three or iv incised lines.

Uses

Dogon sculptures serve as a physical medium in initiations and every bit an explanation of the world. They serve to transmit an understanding to the initiated, who volition decipher the statue according to the level of their cognition. Carved animal figures, such equally dogs and ostriches, are placed on village foundation altars to commemorate sacrificed animals, while granary doors, stools, and house posts are besides adorned with figures and symbols. Kneeling statues of protective spirits are placed at the head of the dead to absorb their spiritual strength and to be their intermediaries with the world of the dead, into which they back-trail the deceased before in one case again being placed on the shrines of the ancestors.

Mendé Masks

Mendé masks are usually used in initiation ceremonies into hole-and-corner Poro and Sande societies.

Learning Objectives

Discuss how Mendé masks are created and used by the Mendé people

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The Mendé people are ane of the two largest indigenous groups in Sierra Leone; they belong to a larger group of Mandé peoples who live throughout Due west Africa.
• The masks associated with the secret societies of the Mendé are probably the best known and nearly finely crafted in the region.
• Masks correspond the collective mind of Mendé community; viewed as one body, they are seen equally the Spirit of the Mendé people.
• The most important masks personify and embody the powerful spirits belonging to the medicine societies: the goboi and gbini of the Poro society (the secret society for men) and the sowei of the Sande order (the secret society for women).The features of a Sowei mask convey Mendé ideals of female morality and physical dazzler; they are somewhat unusual because women wear the masks.

Key Terms

• unhurt: Undercover societies of the Mendé people.

Background and Art of the Mendé People

The Mendé people are ane of the ii largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone, having roughly the aforementioned population as their neighbours the Temne people. Together, the Mendé and Temne both business relationship for slightly more than than 30% of the land's total population. The Mendé belong to a larger group of Mande peoples who alive throughout W Africa. Mostly farmers and hunters, the Mendé are divided into two groups: the halemo (or members of the hale or secret societies) and the kpowa (people who have never been initiated into the hale). The Mendé believe that all humanistic and scientific power is passed downwardly through the clandestine societies.

Mendé fine art is primarily constitute in the form of jewelry and carvings. The masks associated with the cloak-and-dagger societies of the Mendé are probably the best known and are finely crafted in the region. The Mendé also produce beautifully woven fabrics, which are popular throughout western Africa, and gold and silver necklaces, bracelets, armlets, and earrings. The bells on the necklaces are of the type believed capable of being heard by spirits, ringing in both worlds, that of the ancestors and the living.

Mendé Masks

Masks represent the collective listen of the Mendé community; viewed as one trunk, they are seen as the Spirit of the Mendé people. The Mendé masked figures are a reminder that human beings have a dual existence; they live in the concrete world of mankind and textile things as well equally in the spirit world of dreams, faith, aspirations, and imagination.

The standard fix of Mendé maskers includes well-nigh a dozen personalities embodying spirits of varying degrees of power and importance. The well-nigh important of these personify and embody the powerful spirits belonging to the medicine societies: the goboi and gbini of the Poro society (the secret gild for men), the sowei of the Sande society (the secret society for women), and the njaye and humoi maskers belonging to the eponymous medicine societies. The maskers of the Sande and Poro societies are responsible for enforcing laws and are of import symbolic presences in the rituals of initiation and in public ceremonies that mark the coronations and funerals of chiefs and guild officials.

Sowei Masks

The features of a Sowei mask convey Mendé ideals of female morality and physical beauty. They are somewhat unusual in that women traditionally wear the masks. The bird on top of the head represents a woman'southward intuition that lets her encounter and know things that others tin't. The high or wide forehead represents proficient luck or the precipitous, contemplative listen of the ideal Mendé woman. Downcast eyes symbolize a spiritual nature, and it is through these small slits that a adult female wearing the mask would look out of. The modest mouth signifies the ideal adult female's quiet and humble character. The markings on the cheeks are representative of the decorative scars girls receive equally they pace into womanhood. The neck rolls are an indication of the health of platonic women; they have besides been chosen symbols of the pattern of concentric, round ripples the Mendé spirit makes when emerging from the water. The intricate hairstyles reveal the close ties within a customs of women. The holes at the base of the mask are where the balance of the costume is fastened; a woman who wears these masks must non expose whatsoever office of her torso, or it is believed a vengeful spirit may take possession of her.

When a girl becomes initiated into the Sande order (the Mendé hole-and-corner society for women), the hamlet'due south master woodcarver creates a special mask just for her. Helmet masks are made from a section of tree trunk, often of the kpole (cotton) tree, and and then carved and hollowed to fit over the wearer's head and face. The woodcarver must await until he has a dream that guides him to make the mask a certain way for the recipient. A mask must be kept hidden in a secret place when no one is wearing information technology. These masks announced not but in initiation rituals but also at of import events such every bit funerals, arbitrations, and the installation of chiefs.

Helmet Mendé Mask: Helmet masks of the Mendé, Vai, Gola, Bassa and other peoples of the sub-region are the best documented example of women'due south masking in Africa. These masks are used by the Sande clan, a powerful organization with social, political and religious significance. Although worn only past women, these masks, every bit is the case elsewhere in Africa, are carved past men.

Gbini Masks

Gbini is considered to be the most powerful of all Mendé maskers; it appears both at the final ceremony of the Poro initiation process for a son of the paramount chief and also at the coronation of funeral of a paramount chief. Because of its power, women are made to stand far back from gbini and if a woman accidentally touches it, she must be anointed with medicine immediately.

The Gbini wears a large leopard skin, which indicates its association with the paramount principal. The apartment, round headpiece resembles the chief's crown. The headpiece is constructed of fauna hide stretched over a bamboo framework, and the hide is decorated with cowrie shells and blackness, white, and red strips of cloth that are worked into a geometric design. At the middle is a circular mirror. Several flaps that are similarly busy hang downward from the base of the headpiece and overlap the cape, which covers much of the wearer'south torso.

Gbini mask: Gbini mask, Mendé (wood, leopard skin, sheepskin, antelope peel, raffia cobweb, cotton wool material, cotton string, cowry shells), from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/religious-art-in-africa/

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