Eo
Eo
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Introduction
to African culture:
general aspects
ISBN: 92-3-101478-I
0 Unesco 1979
Printed in France
Preface
* _,,_ _- . *
... .W .r XI,- -
Prolegomena
Alpha I. Sow
Our own monuments are oraI traditions
which die along with the old men, conveyed
by a multitude of languages which often
do not communicate.
Our traditional authorities no longer
have any responsibility or any means of
expression. Our institutions are undergoing
the aggressive irruption of modernity. We
are in the world a fragile peop1e.l
CULTURAL ISSUES
IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICA
affirmed that unity was the primary goal. In this connection, they
stressedthe necessity of identifying the African cultures common points,
which constitute a basis for Africanism.2
Likewise, the young Africans who met in Abomey under the auspices
of Unesco concluded that, despite incontrovertible cultural diversity
I. Young People and African Cultural Values, p. 114, Paris, Unesco, 1975.
2. ibid., p. 115.
3. ibid., p. 114.
4. In LAfrique RPvoltck, p. 144-5 (Paris, Presence Africaine. 19581.Albert TBvoedir6
writes, . . though I study French, that so perfect languageiwith a great deal
of interest, I will always regret the fact that r was obliged to learn French first,
to think in French, to remain ignorant of my mother tongue; I will always deplore
the fact that I was forced to become a stranger in my own country!
12
--~
AIpha I. Sow
Prolegomena
fl._ - _ .- .__.-___._-__.
14
Alpha I. Sow
True, the cultural identity of the black peoples had been denied and
derided by the colonial powers. But it is absurd to attempt to mobilize
the African nations fifteen years after they have acquired indepen-
dence for this verification of cultural identity, given the fact that the
Negritude movement has already successfully combated the uni-
versalist cultural claims of Eurocentrism, and has already enhanced
the Negro civilizations.
Today it seems far more important to study the ideological
foundations, the contents and the historical development of the
Negritude movement, and to assess it within the context of the
cultural rebirth of the black peoples, than to try and assert a cultural
identity that is too general and superficial to be of any real conse-
quence to Africans and to mobilize them.
True, there is no denying the fact that the African peoples share a
rich common cultural heritage, that they are linked by a sense of
solidarity shaped by the experience of anti-colonial struggle, and
that they have a common determination to unite against the ever-
present threat of imperialism (despite their recently acquired pol-
itical independence, which has to be consolidated). But rather than
hastening to merge, would it not be wiser to begin by delimiting the
African cultures clearly, and thereby establishing a better basis for
unity? As Leopold Senghor says:
On the one hand, we have to remain ourselves, and on the other hand
we must open ourselves to the other. This we must do in order io give
and to receive. You must remain Arabs, otherwise you will have nothing
to offer us. And when I say Arabs, I am not even referring to Arabism,
which is a programme, a will to action; I am speaking of Arabness, that
Arabness which is the hearth whence the virtues of the eternal Bedouin
radiate. As for us, who live south of the Sahara, we must remain
Negroes. And I mean precisely Negro-Africans. That is to say, each
day we must slake our thirst at the gushing springs of rhythm and the
image-symbol, of love and of faith. But, in giving, we must also be
capable of receiving.l
awarding of a Ph.D. honorrs causa by the rector of the university. The text of
this speech has been published under the title, Les Fondemenrs de IAfricanitk
ou Nigritude ef ArabitP, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1967. The passage quoted
is on p. 103.
1. ibid., p. 103-4.
18
Alpha I. Sow
Prolegometra
I need hardly dwell on the fact that this influence is manifest in our
religious life, for more than one-third of Black Africa is Moslem; in
the languages, of the Cushites and Upper-Sudanese, whose religious
vocabulary, even among Christians, is often of Semitic or Berber
stock; in our customs, and, most important of all, in our ways of
thinking.
Prolegomena
1 __., .
22
Alpha I. Sow
1. ibid., p. 48-9.
_ _ _,._ .._I. . .-. _I . ..- I__. ,.-..-_ _.,_. q ,..-- ----_--._.,_ _1.1_.^. . .._
24
Alpha I. Sow
Culturd priorities
Prolegomena
Alpha I. Sow
The first great problem for modern Africans is to recognize this tra-
ditional culture themselves in order to take stock of it and so to define
its nature and essential value. And the next problem is to create an
intelligible language so that this culture can be brought within the reach
of people who have broken with the hermetic practices of the initiation
centres.
1. A. Hampate BL, Traditional Cultures and Social Changes, in Young People and
AjXcan Cultural Values, op. cit., p. 38-55; the passage quoted is on p. 43.
2. Les Fondcments de IAfricanitt ou NPgritude et Arabit&, op. cit., p. 104.
27
Prolegotmwa
Cultural uction
1. A. Hampat B2, Traditional Cultures and Social Changes, op. cit., p. 43.
Alpha I. Sow
Promoting cultures
Of course the programme will not cease with the collection and
preservation of the cultural works and documents of the African
peoples. It is not enough to keep them from vanishing and to protect
them by treating them as archives, as it were. Above all they need
to be rescued from neglect and anonymity. It is crucial that they be
widely distributed in the form of books and periodicals, records, the
theatre, photography, films, etc. They must be alloted a substantial
place in the national education programmes. In short, they must be
enhanced and promoted.
The governments of the post-colonial countries will have to
take steps to decolonize the thinking patterns and the mentality of
their citizens. They will have to define the orientation, the role and
the place of cultural research both within their respective nations
and on the level of Black Africa as a whole. And, finally, they will
have to create institutions for carrying out this policy and admin-
istering it effectively.
Once the overall orientation has been established in close
consultation with research workers, authorities and cultural cadres,
a programme for publishing books and periodicals in the national
languages will have to be defined and implemented. Eventually this
29
Prolegoinerm
Alpha I. Sow
1. cf. Alpha I. Sow (ed.), Langues et Politiques de Langues en Afrique Noire: IExpP-
rimce de IlJnesco. p. 432-57, Paris, Nubia, 1977.
filling the existing gaps in knowledge and in the current training
systems, They will have to provide for top-priority study programmes
for making the African communities known through their oral and
written cultures, their fundamental works, their languages, their
various literary and artistic productions. Finally they will have to
indicate the priorities in organizing, enhancing and distributing the
cultural common wealth.
African countries need to have access to the most advanced
knowledge in order to .have a truly modern agriculture, industry,
science and culture. They are aspiring therefore to a cultural renais-
sance which, while giving Africans the chance to regain their erst-
while threatened and controverted personality and authenticity and
to release their inherent dynamism, will also open up vistas which
will benefit the whole world.
Form and expression
in African arts
Ola Balogun
INTRODUCTION
O/a Baloguu
Ola Balogun
1. Henri Focillon, La Vie des Formes, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1964.
31
What Fagg fails to add, however, is that there are also certain similar
currents that have influenced various African tribes even though
they may happen to be geographically very far apart. Thus although
one must not oversimplify by postulating an absolute unity of
art forms all over Africa, the tribal or regional unit must not be
considered as an exclusive universe, either in the sense of being
impermeable to the influence of other units, or even in the sense of
reflecting the limits of a particular stylistic orientation.
Indeed, although there is no single African art form narrowly
identifiable as African art to the exclusion of all others, there is a
certain broad ensemble of styles and art forms, which together
Ola Balogun
constitute African art. Thus one can speak of African art both in
terms of defining a geographical area in which certain works of art
have originated, and in terms of a number of styles and techniques
which are to be found within this geographical area. To argue, as
Tibor Bodrogi has done that there is no specific Africanness in
African art, and that no specific distinction can be made between
African art and primitive art from the rest of the world is funda-
mentally misleading. African art is the totality of art forms in Black
Africa, which taken together or singly, are different from art forms
in other parts of the world. For instance, there is no mistaking a
Bakongo mask for a Japanese mask for No performances, or an Ife
bronze with the work of Benvenuto Cellini. The fact that the
Bakongo mask and the Ife bronze do not belong to an identical style
does not mean that they cannot be distinguished from art forms of
other parts of the world as being two African styles, amongst others.
One might as well contend that because the No and Bugaka theatre
techniques are different from each other, it is not possible to speak
of Japanese theatre art as opposed ta theatre forms in other parts of
the world!
Not only are there often stylistic similarities between the art
forms of differenc regional and tribal zones in Black Africa, but there
are also a number of broad characteristics which transcend some of
the differences between various styles. For instance, there are certain
basic similarities in the relationship of art forms to a social and
religious context, especially as it is possible to ascribe a similar
background to most forms of ritual observances in nearly all African
societies. In general, African art forms belong to an identical
framework, even if this conceptual background exteriorizes itself in
different ways.
One major characteristic common to all of Black Africa in the
realm of sculpture is that carved masks are not made to be contem-
plated as works of art per se, but for use in connection with religious
or social rituals or ceremonies. The artistic dimension here lies in
the form, rather than in the basic aim and content, which have a
religious or ritual goal. The two aspects cannot however be divorced
from one another, and where attempts have been made to borrow
the mask in its African frame of dance and ceremony has not the same
separate existence as the Italian Madonna surrounded by a gilded
moulding. The African mask is not so detachable from its frame-
work-the church in the case of the Italian Madonna. It is not an idol or
identity of the deity but a carved representation or countenance; a focus
of the broader effect in its elaborate framework of ritual, in which myth and
belief are ceremoniously expressed in music, dance, pageant, drama and
sculpture.
This does not mean that the artist who has carved the mask is not
guided by formal considerations or does not strive for stylistic
perfection. It means however that his artistry is not an end in itself,
but a means to an end. The carved mask does not signify anything by
itself, but because of, and in conjunction with, the context of beliefs
Ola Balogun
and rituals to which it belongs, for the good reason that it is but one
of many instruments in a coherent ensemble to which it contributes
meaning and from which it derives significance.
A further characteristic of African art forms is the fact that they
are seldom practised for entertainment value alone. Thus although
entertainment aspects are often incorporated into art forms, they
are generally not the most important aspects. For instance, in
masquerade performances, the essential feature is the ritual function
of the performance, but dance and sometimes mock pursuits of
spectators by the masquerader provide entertaining features. Dance
itself is seldom practised as pure entertainment, but on the occasion
of specific festivities and rituals: nor are the dramatic aspects of
ritual ceremonies-which are by definition not primarily for enter-
tainment purposes-performed outside of the setting to which they
belong. Perhaps the only major exception is the art of the story-teller
or of the wandering minstrel, whose avowed purpose is to entertain
an audience in exchange for remuneration. Even in this case, the
stories or epic recitals often have as primary aim to provide moral
lessons or useful knowledge of the past, rather than pure entertain-
ment. It is however incorrect to postulate, as Elsy Leuzinger has
done, that . . . religion is at the root of all African art. This is cer-
tainly too wide a generalization.
In conclusion, one may say that certain characteristics are
common to art forms in different parts of Africa, although it is by
no means possible to speak of African art as a single homogeneous
area of expression. From a stylistic point of view, African art may be
said to incorporate a number of different styles, which, taken
together or singly, are characteristic of Black Africa. The present
study will therefore not only attempt to define and analyse the
different art forms that are to be found in Africa, but also seek to
present some of the stylistic characteristics that are to be found in
African art forms, both on the basis of specific regions and of an
ensemble of styles. We shall also envisage these art forms within the
context of a conceptual framework common to the civilization of
African peoples.
Art forms commonly encountered in African societies range
1. E. Leuzinger, Afrique. Art des Peuples Nob, Paris, Albin Michel, 1962.
41
PLASTIC ARTS
Ola Balogun
the point of view that it reflects. In the first place, aesthetic criteria
are not necessarily similar the world over, and do not necessarily
involve a direct imitation of nature forms. Cannot aesthetic appreci-
ation rest as well on the spiritual dimension communicated by the
art object rather than on its resemblance to nature, or its beauty or
lack of beauty as a purely visual object? Secondly, there is no
justification other than an ethnocentric vision of the world, for
assuming that the lack of an aesthetic approach similar to that
which has developed in Western Europe signifies an absence of
formal perfection. Aesthetic appreciation of African art forms
such as mask carvings by the indigenous African is fundamentally
linked to an understanding of the purpose of the art object. Before
discussing plastic factors in mask carvings as such, it is therefore
necessary to analyse the general background and nature of African
masquerades.
In most African societies, the religious life of the community
is characterized by an active cult of spirit figures and gods, as well
as by some forms of ancestor worship. Although there is general
belief in the existence of a supreme being, God is almost everywhere
considered as being too exalted and too distant to be directly
concerned with human affairs. It is therefore to the multitude of lesser
gods and deified ancestors that most Africans turn for intervention
in their day-to-day affairs and for intercession with the forces of
nature and the supreme being. Masquerade performances are gen-
erally part of ritual ceremonies designed to invoke such gods or to
establish the communion of a community with them, as well as to
remind members of the community of their relationship with non-
human forces in the universe. The masquerade is thereforeconsidered
as a material manifestation of an intangible element, as a temporary
incarnation of the non-human. Such a manifestation however
requires human participation to make it possible, both on the level
of a system of belief which renders it plausible, and on the level of
a human agent (often the masquerader) who serves as a vehicle for
the manifestation. Some sign or ensemble of signs must be found
to distinguish this human agent from other human beings and
establish the fact that for the duration of the rites he has ceased to be a
human being and has become the avatar of the divinity or ancestor
whose presence is being invoked. These signs, which have to be
43
Ola Balogun
the belief, held commonly by the African carver and his tribe, made his
abstractions significant and assured him of their acceptance by all,
whereas the European artist lives in an objective world with no belief
ruling enough to give direction of a commonly accepted significance
to his abstractions. He is constrained therefore to make the attempt at
pure abstractions which focus in the intellect, debarring them from
having the same common appea1.l
ok7 nulogllrt
as far as to cover the whole surface with finely cured antelope skin
to create the illusion of human-type skin, while stones or bone chips
are inlaid into the mask. to represent eyes and teeth. The helmet
masks of the Mendi of Sierra Leone (utilized for Bundu society
dances) are totally different; they are carved in a squat conical form
tapeting at the top into an elaborate head style. The face surface
is often set into a small frontal part of the mask which is dominated
by a broad tapering forehead, thus placing the accent on the head
as a volume that dominates all else. Skilful decorative designs,
which may even form entire strips running across the whole surface
of the mask, also serve to highlight the total effect achieved by the
massive volume of the head mask.
For sheer plastic audacity, some of the African masks are
hardly to be surpassed. One remarkable use of an architectural
conceptualization of space is to be found in a Bacham mask from
the United Republic of Cameroon which is at present in the Mu&e
Reitberg in Zurich. In this carving, which is based on a highly
stylized representation of the human features, the cheek bones have
become protruding conical structures with a gently rounded top,
on which the eyes rest in a horizontal plane, while the sockets
beneath the eyebrows have become elongated vertical surfaces
towering above the eyes, rather like the upper lid of an oyster shell
within which the eye reposes. This remarkably audacious treatment
of surfaces (it is under the influence of styles of this type that the
cubist movement originated) is inconceivable in the absence of very
advanced plastic concepts. The art of the carver reveals itself in the
total mastery of spatial and plastic factors in one dynamic whole.
In a sense, the effect is to isolate the mask in a time-space continuum
of its own, for it becomes a frozen moment in eternity, yet the
movements of the masquerade lend it a new life and plunge it into
the rhythms of human life. As the masquerade dances, it is that
frozen moment of eternity grasped by the carvers art that is set in
motion to the rhythm of music, stimulating the emotional perception
of the spectator both by its plastic rhythm in the isolated space of
the carving itself, and in a larger rhythm linked to dance movements
within the space occupied by the mask and the onlooker. When this is
added to the emotional impact of the socio-cultural significance of
the dance ritual, the cumulative effect is one of intense participation,
52
Ola Balogun
than copy nature directly. Form and content are intimately linked
in an organic whole, yet independent of each other in any narrow
didactic sense. The form is a window to the content in so far as it
suggests the presence of a spiritual content by providing a material
crucible for the imagination to develop in, but the form never really
sets out to be the direct reflection of that content. Like the name of an
individual, the outward form of a mask represents in an abstract
sense, and the specific plastic technique employed thus emerges as a
means to an end, and not an end in itself. It is for this reason that
an ensemble of different styles may be used simultaneously in a
non-exclusive sense to achieve an identical end, which is to suggest
the presence of a higher spiritual reality through the intermediary
of the mask.
Decorhve carvings
Ola Balogun
Wood sculpture
necessary to stress from the outset that we are not dealing with
objects conceived for aesthetic purposes as such, and designed for
display with this perspective in view. Most African sculptures are
power objects or symbolical substitutes for ancestors and gods,
and are therefore primarily aimed at fulfilling a function in this
connection. It is often evident that the sculptors stylistic pre-
occupations are closely linked with the object to be fulfilled by the
sculpture, as well as by already existing plastic traditions. There is
hardly ever any attempt to reproduce natural traits or to base
sculpture on realism. It is therefore rare to find any life-size statues
or even small-size statues based on real-life proportions. There is
no doubt that the need for the sculptor to concede foremost
importance to the purpose to be served by his work is a determining
factor in the conceptionalization of most African sculptures, rather
than a priori consideration of effects pleasing to the eye of the
beholder. This does not however mean the absence of search for
plastic perfection and harmony (or deliberate disharmony). On the
contrary, because the African sculptor cannot in most cases rely on
the facility of obtaining acceptance of his work through recognition
of resemblance with known nature models, he is obliged to place
greater stress on plastic accomplishment, as opposed to realism.
There is no doubt that some of the most remarkable achievements
of African sculpture can be traced to the important role of non-
realistic conceptualization in the quest for plastic harmony. Being
relieved of the obligation to copy directly the outward manifestations
of nature means that the African sculptor in the traditional setting
has had to devote much thought to the ways of achieving purely
plastic perfection in his work, hence the extraordinary quality of
artistry that is often displayed in such work. By what might appear
a paradox in Western eyes, it is precisely because the African
sculptor has not conceived his work exclusively in terms of creation
of forms pleasing to the eye that such sculptures achieve startling
visual effects.
There has been considerable controversy as to the significance
that should be attached to the uses to which African sculpture is
put. Some sources have attempted to define sculpture in the African
context as strictly utilitarian, while others see the magico-religious
dimension as all-embracing. The reality of the situation is however
56
Ola Balogun
Ola Balogutz
erately made larger in proportion to their torsos and limbs, while the
horses are of greatly reduced proportion within the total ensemble.
The treatment of volumes in African sculpture is also closely
related to the fact that the sculptor usually executes his sculptures
by whittling down a single piece of wood, a factor that tends to
impose continuity between different volumetric planes. There is
also scarcely ever any attempt to show a figure in movement or
involved in some form of physical activity such as might distract
from the volumetric balance of the sculpture. The elimination of
tension in terms of physical posture ensures that there is no inter-
ference with overall plastic harmony in the structural sense.
The treatment of emblems and symbols associated with ancestor
and god-figures in sculpture shows the extraordinary liberty that
the African artist manages to preserve within strictly defined conven-
tions. Some of the sculptures of statuettes associated with the
worship of the Yoruba thunder divinity Shango are a perfect illus-
tration of the development of emblematic themes as the most
significant part of the sculptured subject. Sculptures in Shango
shrines often depict priests or devotees of his cult, whose association
with Shango is shown by the two characteristic symbols of his cult
in their hands, the double-headed axe (o&e) and a calabash rattle
(sere). In a parallel development, the priest or devotee may himself
feature as part of a carving of the double-headed axe, with the
trunk of his body forming the handle while his head appears as the
central portion of the axe-head! Thus by an astonishing reversal of
metaphor, the symbol has been carried to its extreme logical devel-
opment by incorporating that which it originally served to identify,
in what may be called the embodiment of a pure idea. The symbol
not only serves to identify, but can also incorporate, or be incor-
porated into, the sculptural object in a perfect symbiosis rendered
possible by its role as an abstraction, To ponder on this devel-
opment enables us to understand that all sculptural undertaking in
the traditional African context lies in the realm of abstraction, not
so much as a response to purely plastic problems (in the sense
associated with the abstract dimension of Cubist sculpture, for
instance), but because the sculpture itself originates as an abstrac-
tion, a materialized manifestation of idea-essence. This abiding trait
is common to virtually all African sculpture.
- _ ___-.--
Ola Balogun
identity. Physical details of the original arc thus only relevant to the
extent to which they signify attributive features, as distinct from
a realistic reflection of its total physical presence, as might be sought
in an artistic tradition of portraiture, for instance.
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of African sculpture in
relation to objects used for sacred or ritual purposes, is that the
sculpture is developed as a power object through concentration
of form, for it is as much the achievement of form as the power of
ritual which imprisons in the statuette the forces whose intervention
is sought. The power of sculpture to serve as a vehicle for super-
natural forces is at the origin of the sculptors quest for perfection.
Like words, objects have ultimately the power to transform life.
Form has a life and force of its own, and the artist in his dialogue
with form must take cognizance of this important fact, if he is not
to harm himself or create a malfunction of the forces for which his
sculpture is to serve as a conduct. This is perhaps the origin of the
esoteric function attached to certain forms, and it is against this
background of a total purpose of art that the sculptor works. On
the ultimate level, art is a prolongation of life because it is imbued
with a life of its own; the form of the man-made object becomes a
substitute for the supernatural or human because it has significance
in the same way as a name has, and because it captures and imprisons
a part of the original through symbolical identity.
Stone sculptures
Terracotta sculpture
Terracotta seems to have been one of the earliest and mostly widely
used materials for sculpture among African peoples. Unlike wood,
it has been rather well preserved over the ages, and specimens have
been found dating well over 2,000 years, notably from the Sao
civilization of the Lake Chad area and the Nok culture of central
Nigeria. The Nok terracottas, which reflect a considerable degree
of technical mastery, are among the most refined terracotta sculp-
tures that exist in Africa. It is perhaps necessary to point out at this
stage that the very nature of technique in terracotta sculpture
necessarily influences the sculptors stylistic approach, as compared
to wood carving. In wood carving, the sculptors approach is
substractive, since form is achieved by progressively chipping away
65
the surface of the wood until the desired traits appear, while in
terracotta, which is obtained by moulding wet clay and firing it at
a high temperature to produce hardness, the form is pressed into
shape by gentle strokes of the fingers. Whereas wood sculptures
tend to deal with forms on the level of volumes and planes, terracotta
bronze and iron sculptures do not lend themselves to the same kind
of stylistic approach; rather, the forms are treated as a single
surface in which there is no differentiation between various planes.
Terracotta seems to lend itself best to rounded forms, and some of
the Nok terracottas boldly explore basic forms, such as the cone,
the cylinder and the sphere, in sculptures of the human head,
encompassing the flow of form within the chosen shape. The Nok
terracotta sculptures, which belong to a civilization that disappeared
so long ago that it is not possible to find out who the creators of the
Nok style of sculpture were, are thought to have some affinity with
later sculptures in terracotta and bronze further south in Ile-lfe, a
spiritual centre of Yorubaland. The style of Nok sculpture is
however unique, and several distinct features of this style are worthy
of mention. Although the Nok terracottas visibly reproduce human
features, the style may be said to be more of an expressionist than
of a naturalist content. The eyes are often dominant features,
appearing as large concave semi-circular ovals set in symmetrical
opposition to the total face area. In some other sculptures, it is the
lips that play the role of a raised and structurally dominant area
in opposition to the rest of the face.
The expressionism of the Nok sculptures gives way to a marked
naturalistic flow of features in the less well-known terracotta sculp-
tures from Krinjabo in the lower Ivory Coast. It is however in the
famed terracotta heads from Ife that a naturalistic flow achieves
full development. The Ife terracotta sculptures, like the bronze
sculptures from the same city, are believed to be commemorative
effigies of early rulers of the city, and of members of the royal
family. Remarkably serene and life-like in appearance, these terra-
cottas and bronzes are so far removed from all other currents of
African sculptural style that they seem to form an enigma. Some
anthropologists, like the German Frobenius, have even gone as far
as to speculate on the possibility of Greek influence on Ife sculp-
ture. Such speculation however fails to recognize that even in the
66
Ola Balogun
Bronze casting
Ola Balogun
Architecture
Ola Balogun
Pottery
Painting
The Tassili rock paintings of the Sahara and the rock paintings of
the Kalahari desert represent examples of pictural art divorced
from architecture, in which painting can be considered as an
isolated art. These paintings range from crude figurative drawings
to extremely sophisticated stylized pictural compositions, and gen-
erally depict herdsmen and cattle, hunters, dancers, mysterious semi-
human figures and wild animals. The figures are generally gracefully
drawn, and contrary to stylistic practice in most other forms of
African art, are depicted in motion or in moments of tension arising
from a continuing state of physical activity. Usually etched in
chrome, the rock paintings are generally of isolated figures or groups
71
COMMUNICATIVE ARTS
Ola Balogun
one dynamic whole which derives its significance from the ritual
context of the performance. In other words, as in the case of
sculpture and carving conceived for ritual purposes, we are
confronted with an art form whose fundamental object is to serve
as a vehicle for collective manifestation of belief in sacred ritual.
For instance, the descendants of the great Songhai ruler, Sonni
Ali Ber, in the present-day Niger Republic often perform a ritual
dance which incorporates music, dance, and significant dramatic
gestures in the course of a public gathering watched by large groups
of people, yet these performances can hardly be said to be for
entertainment purposes. Each Sonianke (as the descendants of
Sonni Ali are known) goes through a complex dance pattern said
to have been invented by the great warrior-ruler. Each warrior
dances separately, holding a leafy branch in the left hand and a
spear or sword in the right hand; he is followed by a praise singer
and by a group of drummers. Every few steps, the warrior makes a
stabbing motion towards the earth with his sword or spear in a
gesture that symbolizes the age-old combat between the Sonianke
and the Tierko, bad spirits held to be responsible for spreading evil
among men. Each time a Sonianke makes a thrusting gesture with his
weapon, a Tierko perishes. The dance performed by the Sonianke
is thus fundamentally a magic act, and no ordinary dance step
designed to please and amuse the onlooker. Indeed, the Sonianke
dances in a state of trance, trembling in a manner that reveals the
pressure of almost unbearable internal forces, carried beyond his
physical limits as an individual into intense participation in his
role as an embodiment of the essence of his clan. It is thus not
surprising to find that at the culminating point of the dance, when
the drumming has reached an intensity of frenzy, one or more of
the Sonianke begins to disgorge a metal or glass-like chain from
his mouth, symbolizing the unbroken chain of power transmitted
by the ancestors, in a moment of supreme communion between the
present and the past of the Sonianke clan, and between the material
and spiritual dimensions of the clans existence.
A phenomenon of the nature of the Sonianke ritual dance
raises several questions. On the one hand, it comprises several
distinct elements which, taken singly, may be considered as art
forms: music, dance steps, oral poetry as reflected in the chanting
73
Ola Balogun
Ritual drama
querade player performs, in the same way as the crown and royal
robes donned by the Shakespearian actor who plays King Lear are
adjuncts in a dramatic performance, the purpose being in each case
to enable the actor or performer to assume the personality of the
character in the play, or the divinity in the masquerade performance.
The similarity also extends to the fact that the actor must utter
words deemed to be spoken by the play character, and manifest
behavorial traits that reflect the personality and the actions of the
play character, while the masquerade player must also walk, behave
and dance in a manner deemed to be characteristic of the spirit or
god whom he represents, as well as make utterances or sounds or
sing words that are deemed to be spoken by the divine being or
deceased ancestor. Thus a fiery spirit charges aggressively at
bystanders, a female spirit dances graceful steps typifying feminity,
and an animal spirit generally reproduced the behaviour traits of
the particular animal it represents through symbolically mimed
gestures. In both cases allso, a temporary suspension of disbelief is
demanded of the spectator, whose participative acceptance of the
reality of the figures who people the drama stage or appear in the
masquerade display is often necessary if the p!ay or masquerade
action is to have its full impact. The resemblance however ends on the
level of the actors psychological motivation and inner participatory
action, for the actor is only conscious that he is acting, while the
masquerade player, though conscious to some extent that he has
to act out a role in a clearly defined manner, is primarily motivated by
the magico-psychic awareness of induced identity with the divinity
or spirit whose role he plays. He becomes the divinity, whose
personality temporarily takes over his own personality, rather than
seeks to act out the role of a being conceived of as being external to
himself. This is a vital factor indeed, and explains why most mas-
querade displays cannot simply take place in any kind of context,
without being integrated into an appropriate ritual in which sacri-
fices, ritual invocations, etc., play an important part. In the end, the
\ masquerade player merely lends his body to the spirit that inhabits
the masquerade, and the ritual observances that precede the per-
formance are an indispensable means of effecting this transfer. This
in fact means that without the magico-ritual dimension, the mas-
querade performance loses its true significance and is shorn of the
76
-___----.
Ola Balogun
Ola Balogun
Ola Balogun
time when his counterparts in the West have long given up such
forms, because he has been led to believe that symphonic music is
more civilized than his own musical heritage. If a painter, he
derives inordinate pride from having learnt to paint in perspective,
when his counterparts in the West have come to consider such
accomplishments as belonging to an irretrievable past, and are
engaged in practising a modern art largely influenced by tra-
ditional African sculpture!
There are however many genuinely creative contemporary
African artists, whose work reflects continuity with past African
art forms, even though they live in a physical and environmental
setting which is very different from that of their predecessors.
There are also many interesting evolutionary outgrowths from
traditional art forms, as in the appearance of musical styles influ-
enced by African-derived musical traditions from the Caribbean and
the Americas, and in the achievements of professional ballet groups
like the National Guinean Ballet, who have succeded in incor-
porating various elements of communicative arts, such as ritual
and folk dances and music, into coherent and well-choreographed
dance displays. A new body of literature and new forms of per-
forming arts also reflect the basic African capacity to absorb new
influences judiciously within the framework of indigenous creative
artistry.
There is no doubt, then, that far from being dead, African
art forms have continued to evolve satisfactorily, both within the
framework of traditional socio-cultural structures and on the level
of contemporary art forms resulting directly or indirectly from
contact with the Western world. Provided that adequate efforts
are made to preserve the African cultural heritage in an authentic
cadre and to promote the growth of contemporary art forms in a
direction which is faithful to the spirit and internal dynamism of the
cultural heritage of African peoples, there is every reason to believe
that African art will rapidly win long-overdue recognition as one of
the worlds major families of artistic creativity.
81
_____ ___ -~~_.-~--.--~--
Form and expression in African arts
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In the same way we may be able to show that the same logical processes
operate in myth as in science, and that man has always been thinking
equally well: the improvement lies, not in an alleged progress of mans
mind, but in the discovery of new areas to which it may apply its
unchanged and unchanging p0wers.l
Secondly, one has to take into account the size and bulk of
the societies being studied-whether they are small closed societies,
or larger societies open to the outside. The contrast between the
isolation of the small groups and the large groups multiplicity of
contacts (the sources of numerous borrowings and differentiations)
may result in a different emphasis being laid on this or that feature of
their view and perception of the world.
Thirdly, one must consider the kind of mentality produced by
the particular history of a given African society. Thus the fairly
advanced culture of the Nok, based on working iron and tin, carving
statuettes, manufacturing a wide range of pottery, and a technically
sophisticated agriculture, resulted in a different mentality from that
of the Hottentot or Pygmy cultures.
In short, any definition of African distinctiveness must take into
account the different cultural inflections produced by the following
three types of variable: the physical, the socio-economic and the
historical.
Ate these requirements respected by the numerous authors who
attempt to define the distinctiveness of the African conception of
the universe, life and society?
I do not intend to give a detailed evaluation here of the findings
of the various studies carried out along these lines, such as the work
of Marcel Griaule, Father Tempels, Melville Herskovits, Lucien
Levy-Bruhl, Bascom and others. Though Levy-Bruhl is known
chiefly for his ideologically inspired book, La Mentalitk Primitive,
and Father Tempels has come to the notice of Europeans thanks to
his Philosophic Bantoue, Herskovits and Griaule have devoted
dozens of publications (no less than eighty-odd titles-articles and
books-by Griaule alone!) to the problems with which we are
dealing here. A complete appraisal of these works would be tedious
and does not come within the scope of the present study.
Nevertheless, a quick survey of the different European writings
on the question shows that they generally emphasize three principles
in defining Africas conception of the world: Life, Force and Unity
are the three major principles of the traditional world views and
apperceptions. In this connection, some European thinkers have
asked, How can one account philosophically for the fact that systems
of thought which grant so large a place to the living, propulsive,
86
Honorat Aguessy
different from the magnitude of the figure and the movement; and from
this it can be inferred that all that is conceived in the body does not
Can one compare it with Bergsons tfun vital, which reveals itself
in the spatial deployment of emerging species, or as a simple
tendency underlying the complex ramifications of the genealogy of
beings? Or should one understand this life force rather as the
dynamic expression of the fruitful contradictions embedded in all
beings? Whatever the case, thinkers who tackle this subject rely
on an impressive number of metaphors.
Take Janheinz Jahnl, who writes:
Ntu is the term which designates the basic concept of forces, the pri-
mordial realm of energy; it is not itself an object of veneration. Nor is the
mythical representative of this realm of energy-whether he is called
God, Nya-Murunga, the Great Begetter Olorum, Amma, Vidye,
Immana, the Lord, or anything else-any more capable of making a
personal contact with man. . . . Ntu is the universal force as such, purely
and simply. . . . Ntu is the force being and becoming coincide in. The
contradictions which vexed Andre Breton do not occur in Ntu. . . . Ntu
consists of things themselves; it is not an added determination.
Much has been said and written on this subject. So far I have mainly
quoted French-speaking authors. But just as many passages along
the same lines could be taken from the English-speaking writers,
like Bascom, Evans-Pritchard, Fortes, Middleton, Radcliff-Brown,
Tait, etc.
The question that arises is to what extent are we confronted
with statements which, while not being entirely false, are never-
theless neither accurate nor true at all levels? To what extent are
we dealing with theories which are sometimes brilliant, but sterile
and removed from reality? How is one to explain the fact that
each one of these authors recognizes his favourite philosophical
system in the African world view, with the result that one scholar
speaks of Platonism, another of Aristotelianism, another of
Augustinian thought, another of Thomistic thought, yet another of
Nietzsche or Bergson, etc.? Is there indeed something arbitrary
about all these approaches; and if so, what does it stem from?
Honorat Aguessy
The debate does not stop there. Janheinz Jahn, who uses the term
traditional philosophy in chapter four of his book, Ntu, states
that philosophy is the corner-stone of African culture. Perhaps,
he says, it will be objected that philosophical thought presupposes
a deliberate rationalization of things, and that no such example is
to be found in Africas past, which offers only myths. But this
objection has already been refuted, he believes: as soon as there is
conscious thought, the image of the world which was formerly a
matter of belief, intuition and daily experience, is transformed into
philosophy. Friedell writes:
Each thing has its philosophy, [or rather], each thing is philosophy.
Mans task is to seek out the idea concealed within each fact, and to
pursue within each fact the idea of which it is but a simple form.
Honorat Aguessy
1, Claude L&i-Strauss, My//ro/ogiques, IV: LHomme Nu, p. 559, Paris, Plon, 1971.
9.5
For those who call for names of African philosophers on a par with
Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, etc., and who deny the
authenticity of any culture that does not boast of outstanding
individual works, it is worth recalling another thought by the same
author: Individual works are all potential myths, but it is only their
adoption by the community which, if it occurs, actualizes their
mythicality. On the other hand, there has never been a myth
which did not begin with. an individual imagining and narrating
it, as Levi-Strauss says clearly in the following passage:
In short,
while replacing the self with, on the one hand, an anonymous other, and,
on the other hand, an individualized desire (without which nothing would
be designated), there is no hiding the fact that it suffices to join the two
together and to reverse the relationship to recognize, upside down as it
were, that very self whose abolition had earlier been so noisily proclaimed.
If there is any moment when the self can re-emerge, it is only once it has
finished the work from which it had been excluded from start to finish
(for, contrary to what one might believe, the self was less the author
than was the work itself, which, as it was being written, gradually became
the author directing the writer, who experienced life through it, and
through it alone).%
1. ibid., p. 560.
2. ibid., p. 559-60.
3. ibid., p. 563.
conceptions of the universe, life and society. The paralogisms
detected in the various pronouncements on this subject indicate the
general direction to follow if the present study is to be at all relevant.
It is not my role here to state in turn that the traditional African
views and conceptions of the universe consist of this or that, or that
the traditional African views and apperceptions of life are of this
or that order. That would simply amount to adding further assertions
to the mass of all those that are already familiar to most readers.
On the other hand, it seems useful here to dwell on the field of
African cultural values and on the conditions under which they are
produced.
First, it should be remembered that one of the characteristic
features of traditional African cultures-in some respects their pri-
mary feature-is their orality. In a predominantly scriptural
culture, the sources of values are the authors and their works
(which results in the cultural reflex found in some thinkers of denying
the existence of thought wherever written works are not the rule).
Today it is generally acknowledged that valuable cultural works can
and do arise in the context of orality.
Does this mean that writing has never existed in Africa? Only
inadequate information about the field of African culture could lead
someone to assert that Africa has produced no systems of writing,
whether pictographic (symbols for ideas or words) or phonetic
(syllabic or alphabetic writing). Every human society, as is now
widely recognized, has some specific means of recording which
permits it, to a certain extent, to appropriate time. But beyond this
general statement, one must point out that, despite the existence of
a system of writing among the Bamoun (Cameroon), and despite
the existence of the Vai (Sierra Leone), Nsidibi (Calabar, western
Nigeria), Basa and Mende scripts (Sierra Leone and Liberia), none
of these societies has used writing in the same way that the Chinese
and Western civilizations have. Should it be objected that the former
scriptural systems are recent, dating no earlier than the nineteenth
or, at best, the eighteenth centuries, one might observe that the
Egyptian system, along with the Sumerian and the Chinese systems,
is one of the three oldest and most important word-based modes of
writing. Nevertheless, in Africa, cultural values have by and large
been transmitted and perpetuated orally.
97
It was there that most of the beliefs which we are governed by came into
being; it was there that the religious ideas which have exercised such a
powerful influence on our political and individual ethics, on our laws and
our whole state of society, emerged. Therefore it is of interest to know
something about the places where these ideas saw the light of day,
something about the customs and mores they were founded on, something
about the spirit and character of the nations that sanctioned them. It is
of interest to study to what extent that spirit, those mores, those practices,
have been altered or preserved; to find out what may have been the
influences of climate, the effects of government, the causes of customs;
in a word, to judge by present conditions what things were like in the past.l
the Sudanese scholars of the African Middle Ages were of the same
intellectual class as their Arab colleagues, and sometimes they were even
superior, as Abderrahmann El Temini, of the Hedjas, who had been
brought to Mali by Kankan Moussa, had occasion to note; [secondly]
the term university must be understood in the general and mediaeval
sense, that is to say, as the totality of all centres of study and teaching
including all the fields of knowledge existing at the time.
1. Ahmed Ben Admed ben Ahmed ben Omar ben Mohammed Akit ben Omar
ben Ali ben Yahia ben Koutalata ben Bekr ben Nik ben Lak ben Jahia ben
Tachta ben Tabkar ben Hiran ben El Badjard ben Omar ben Abau Bekr ben
Omar el Larneci (1556-1627).
major importance on grammar, rhetoric, astronomy, law, theology,
history, morals, logic, etc., it was because he sensed that the cultural
symbiosis which had produced the university of Timbuktu called for
a new way of tackling and reformulating old problems. The Sudanese
style of scholarship which he illustrates was respected by the greatest
scholars of the sixteenth century-Ahmed Baba was the guest of
the leading figures of the Marrakesh intelligentsia.
In short, numerous African thinkers over the centuries have
consigned the values of their society and the fruits of their own
inspiration and scholarship to writing.
Instead of speaking of the civilization of the Niger loop, I
might just as easily have dwelt on the great African intellects
Tertullian, Origen, Arnobius, Saint Augustine, Saint Cyril of
Alexandria, Saint Cyprian, Saint Firmilian, all of whom were
products of the cultural area of Africa which was influenced at a
very early date by Christianity. Nor should one forget Terence whose
privilege it was to utter a truth which every man should heed:
Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.
Likewise, I could have cited the names of Ethiopian thinkers
famous for their written works. But in doing so I would have made
criticism easier for those who reduce traditional African culture to
something indefinable and forever changing, on a level with their
own fantasies and private zones of darkness. Indeed the intellectual
development of the scholars just mentioned was strongly centred on
the Christian, and especially the Roman, cultural area. By viewing
their contributions as an integral part of the traditional African
cultural heritage, might we not be giving undue weight to purely
geographical considerations?
This raises the question of what exactly is meant by the term
tradition. What is traditional in a peoples view of the world? Is it
that which is relegated to the mummified past? Is it not rather the
individual stamp of a people-a permanent character which, when
driven out by modernism, always returns massively? Rather than
standing for a finished period in the life of a people-its having
been-it conveys its present being, not in the sense that it defines
the essence of a culture, but in so far as, like any translation of a text
into another language, it renders that cultures textual style into the
idiom of a contemporary context. In this sense, traditional culture
101
Honorat Aguessy
GAMES
1. The game is usually played by two players, each having a row of six bowls
containing four seeds or small pebbles each. Although there are forms of the
game which can be played by more than two players, in which case three or
104
Honorat Aguessy
It appears indeed that Mankalu can usefully sheld light on the structure
of verbal communication exhibited in the literary works of African
societies . . . The communicative function of texts in the oral traditions
seemsto prevail over their expressive function.
four rows of bowls are used, the ordinary game is played by two players on a
board with two rows of bowls, one for each of the two players. Generally six
bowls are used (but sometimes five, seven or eight). When there is no board,
the players very often dig out two rows of holes in the ground. In each bowl
are placed four pieces: pebbles of the same size, or seeds, or cowries, small shells
which formerly served as monev. Tn every case the nieces are moved in the same
way. (Joseph-Boyer, in Prdset& Africnine, No. 7, 1949, p. 311.)
1. Stewart Culin, Mancalu, the National Game of Africa, 1896. (In: U.S. National
Museum, Annual Report 1894, Washington, 1896.)
2. Unpublished working paper, Laboratoire dAnthropoIogie Sociale, Paris.
105
aspect (the child acquires the feeling and eventually the idea of
quantity in handling the stones used in the game), and whereas
another observer noted that in Dahomey the highly complicated
combinations of this game require a great deal of concentration, I
wish to stress the sociological significance of the fact that this game
of calculation, far from being restricted to an elite, is by and large
the favourite game of the African masses.
It is a game which does not necessarily have a winner, unlike
most games in other countries around the world which always
require a winner and a loser. Thus the African game does not
inevitably result in one side gaining something and the other side
losing it. Considered as an agonistic activity, the game does not
depend from start to finish on the elimination of an unlucky
opponent. It is the opposite of those parlour games studied by Claude
Levi-Strauss, who writes that their purpose
Honorat Apuessy
PROVERBS
Honorat Aguessy
Cothi had left four tufts of hair on his sons head (it being the Wolof
custom to shave their childrens heads). Each of these tufts, he said,
stands for a moral truth known only to me and to my wife. As for his
wife, she had a son from a previous marriage, but his head was shaved
like those of other children. Mightily intrigued by the riddle of the tufts,
the Demel (i.e. the chief or king) sought for a long time to discover its
meaning, but in vain. Then he summoned the philosophers wife and
bribed her with presents.
The first tuft means that a king is neither a relative nor a protector.
The second tuft means that a child born of a previous marriage is not
a son but a causeof civil disturbance. The third tuft means that one should
love ones wife but not trust her entirely. The fourth tuft means that a
country needs an old man.
. . . Condemned to death by the king, who had been angered by the
first symbol, but later saved from execution by an old man who had a
great deal of influence over the king, Cothi was brought before the
latter, to whom he explained calmly: Is it not true that a king is neither
a relative nor a protector, since, owing to a secret which I did not reveal
to you and which I was fully entitled to keep to myself, you condemned
me to death, forgetting both the services I have rendered you and the
enduring friendship that has bound us together since childhood?
Is it not true that one should love ones wife without trusting her
entirely, since my wife, to whom I had confided my secret for the
sole purpose of testing her trustworthiness, has betrayed it for base
gifts?
Is it not true that a child born of a previous marriage is not a son
but a source of civil disturbance, since, when he should have been
bewailing his father who had been condemned to death, his only thought
on the contrary was to ask me for clothes which he feared he might
lose?
Is it not true finally that a country needs an old man, for had it not
been for a wise and prudent old man whose weighty arguments curbed
your fury, I should no longer be alive at this moment, but dead, a victim
of your unjust anger?2
1. ibid., p. 352.
2. ibid., p. 354-5.
110
Honowt Aguessy
Boilat notes that more than five thousand adages or maxims are
attributed to Cothi. From another Wolof philosopher, Masseni,
Cothis grandson, he quotes the following four adages:
This man concerned himself with riddles for no other purpose than to
amuse the idle. Nevertheless, the people of Cayor praise his wit highly.
In the evening, by moonlight or by an open fire, the Wolofs gather
together and with great shrieks of laughter assail each other with questions
and answers, all of them invented by this philosopher.
. . . Each person in turn asks a riddle. When someone has guessedthe
right answer, there are shouts from all sides: Went neu dug! (He speaksthe
truth). If the riddle seemsparticularly difficult, they all hold their chins
and exclaim, Bissimilay Dhiame! (In the name of the God of truth).l
ART
Having taken a look at games and proverbs, and having seen how
useful they can be in the context of the present study, let us briefly
consider art.
Whether it be in sculpture and carved figures whose purity and
rigour of design testify to a high aesthetic level sustained by deep
reflection, or in architecture, urban design, choreography, music, or
simply plaiting hair, the ,4frican attitude towards the universe, life
and society expresses itself not in speculative form but in the manner
of a creative and liberating social activity.
Erwin Panofsky has brilliantly analysed the relationship
between Gothic architecture and scholastic thinking. I see no
reason why, in the study of cultures not centred on written treatises,
it should not likewise be possible to identify, for example in the work
of the builders of the giant Bamileke houses (Benin), or the conical
Chadian houses or the Somba castles (northern Benin), the under-
lying intellectual attitudes and ideas about social relations which
those structures embody.
The African artefact belongs to a world whose unity, disclosed
by multiple levels of contrasts, constitutes a major aspect of the
integration of human activities within a dynamic culture.
In his analysis of Kabyle houses, Pierre Bourdieu has already
succeeded in demonstrating the social thinking reflected in their
RELIGION
Honorat Aguessy
his successor-his own son, or else the most qualified and devoted of
the initiates. The newcomer sucks the old mans tongue, for saliva is
considered the vehicle of the word, that is to say, of knowledge; then the
old man whispers in the young mans ear the secret name of the cattle.
There are 33 grades for the 33 phonemes of the Fulani language, plus
three higher grades which are inaudible-those of the unspoken but
ever-present word, or the word for the unknown.2
This account gives one an idea of the essential role which initiation
plays as a school for educating each citizen, not only by teaching
him the technical rudiments of his trade, but also by instructing him
about the organization of the universe, and about what man can
hope for in life and is capable of doing.
This form of education is praised in a Basa text (Cameroon),
which incidentally outlines a number of ideas about the Basa
conception of man:
Man is like a tree: he is born upright, and bends later under the pressure
of the winds of the world. Just like a tree, he can be straightened out when
he is still young. But just as an old twisted trunk can no longer be
straightened out, so it is difficult to straighten out a depraved adult. A
child is born free of all vice. However his innocence gradually disappears
as he grows and learns. After he becomes aware of himself, he discovers
the world which surrounds him and affects him. Out of curiosity and a
taste for adventure, he very soon discovers evil. At this age he has not
yet been warned about anything. It is the duty of his elders, who have
experienced life before him, to instruct him so that he may eschew evil
and seek out good. The teacher is both a referee and a trainer. He
himself is not necessarily a good player. But he knows all the rules of
the game, and thus he can teach them to others and compel others to
abide by them.3
1. ibid., p. 19.
2. ibid.
3. Basa popular song.
115
Traditional African views and apperceptions
tices in which all things partake of the sacred. It is for this reason
that the student of African culture will uncover mines of ideas on
traditional views and apperceptions in the religious domain. By
studying the theologies and cosmologies worked out by the various
circles of initiates, he will learn (as Marcel Griaule did) that Dogon
knowledge, for example, consists of
22 categories of 12 elements each, that is, 264 elements, each one of which
heads a list of 22 couples . . . this system of 11,616 signs symbolizes all
beings and all possible situations seen from the male point of view (with
a corresponding system of the same magnitude for women).
MYTHS
The Wolofs call proverbs, maxims, adages, riddles and fables by the
same name, La&z, because one can draw a moral lesson from them all.
It is usually in the evening, by moonlight, at the doorway of their
huts or seated on the sand in the middle of the village square, that the
Wolofs like to tell fables.
The story-teller is placed in the centre of the circle; he uses every
device to amuse his listeners; bringing in men and animals, he imitates
their gestures, their expressions and their voices; from time to time he
sings, and the assembly repeats the refrain amidst a great clapping of
hands, accompanied by a tom-tom . . . The story-teller never draws the
moral; it is up to the listeners to reach their own conclusion.
Here too, one would have liked to know what word the Wolofs of
those times used for myth.
Let us now turn to an African cultural area in which there are
more terms for the different types of narrative: the Fo culture
(Benin). We find the following terms used in everyday speech:
XQ, td, Xdj3xd, yaxd, x~x:Q, gllr, huentix$. What do these terms
mean? Numerous definitions have been given by eminent scholars.a
For the purposes of the present study, I shall attempt to system-
atize-so as to stress the characteristics of myth-a number of
distinctions occurring more or less unsystematically in everyday Fo
speech (taken as an example).
Honorat Aguessy
interacts with all the external and internal stimuli reaching the cerebral
hemispheres; it acts as a signal for them and replaces them. For this
reason it can induce the same reactions as those produced by those
same stimuli1
Honorat Aguessy
1. J. Lacan, &ritu. p. 11, 52, 468, 546, Paris, klitions du Seuil, 1966.
121
_,,j, .I ,_1.
,..,
.
., ,.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Path6 Diagtte
Path6 Diagne
Pathi Diagne
PathP Diagne
1. The People of Africa, New York, 1871; African Life and Customs, London, 1908;
The Prospects of Africa, London, 1874; Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race,
2nd ed., London, 1888; The African Problem and Methods for its Solution,
Washington, D.C., 1890; West Africa before Europe, Washington, D.C., 1890;
cf. on Blyden: H. Lynch, Edward Wilmor Blyden, Pan Negro Patriot, 1832-
I912. London. Oxford University Press. 1967.
2. F. Fanon, Peau Noire, Masques-Blancs, Paris, fid. du Seuil; T. A. Quaynor,
The Polificization of Negritude, South Illinois, 1967; Abiola Irele, Negritude et
Africain Personaliti, Colloque sur la Nggritude, Daknr, 1971, Paris, Presence
Africaine, 1972.
133
1. ibid., p. 9.
2. C. Hayford, Ethiopia Unhounil, London, 1911, and Gold Coast Native Customs,
London, 1906.
3. Ngalandou Diouf founded the Parti Nationaliste S&n&galais in 1906. He was
the first black mayor of the four communes to be elected in Rufisque. He inspired
the political movement which brought Blaise Diagne to the French parliament.
He himself was elected deputy to the French National Assembly in 1934.
4. A. B. Horton, Essays, Editions Abioseh Nicol.
5. Ethiopianism, a political-religious movement which was born around 1915,
later influenced the Churches of South Africa and Guinea. It reinvented a
Negro mythology of Christianity.
6. Mahdism was a nationalist movement in the Sudan (Khartoum). The Mahdi,
who claimed to be a prophet, unified the Sudanese sects and built up a political
and military front which defeated the British and the Egyptians.
134
_.__ - _---..-.__~-_-- -
Pathe Diagne
1. Dan Foojo, the founder of the Hausa Emirate, was a reformer, the author
of a hundred-odd books in Hausa, Fulani and Arabic, a poet, a historian and a
theologian. His Kifab AI Farq is famous as a theoretical apology of the Jihads
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
2. Yoro Diaw was educated in the School for the sons of chiefs in Saint-Louis.
An aristocrat from Waalo, his main writings have been published in Annmire
du S&t&al, Les Cahiers, BCH, 1870-c. 1929 (Rousseau).
3. J. M. Sarbah (1864-1900), a barrister from the then Gold Coast, defended the
traditional landed property rights threatened by colonial legislation (as did
Lamine Gukye).
4. Aggrey was the former vice-rector of Achimota College. He was a member
of the Phelps Stokes Commission which the League of Nations sponsored in
the 1920s. See Edwin W. Smith, Aggrey of Africa, London, Student Christian
Movement, 1929.
5. S. Johnson, The History of the Yorubas, 1930.
6. N. Azikiwe. Renascent Africa, London, 1937.
135
1. L. Dube, a graduate of Oberlin College in the United States, was the founder
of the Bantu-language newspaper IMVO around 1880. He also founded the
Oblange Institute.
2. Apolo Kagwa, the historian of Buganda and East Africa, is the author of Ekifabo
kya Basekabaka. See T. Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Africa, London,
Muller, 1956.
3. L. S. Senghor, PoPmes, Paris, Le Seuil, 1972; LiberfP, 2 ~01s.. Paris, Le Seuil,
1964.
4. C. A. Diop, Nations Nt?gres er Crllfure, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1954; LUnitl
CulturelIe de IAfrique Noirc, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1960; AnthioritP des
Civilisations Noires, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1967.
5. J. K. Zerbo, Histoire de IAfrique, Paris, Hatier, 1972; Histoire et Conscience
N?gre, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1957.
6. E. Mveng, Les Sources Grecques de IHistoire NCgro-Africaine, Paris, Presence
Alricaine, 1972; Dossier Culrurel Pmafricain, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1970.
7. See Reclwrches dldentitl dl. Wollersrein, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1970.
8. F. M. Snowden. Blocks in Antiquity,, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University
Press, 1970.
136
Pathe Diagne
Patht Diagrze
Pathe Diagne
Every race . . . has a soul and the soul of a race finds expression in its
institutions, and to kill those institutions is to kill the soul-a terrible
homicide. Each race sees from his own standpoint a different side of
the Almighty. The Hebrew could not see or serve God in the land of the
Egyptians. No more can the Negro under the Anglo-Saxon. . . .3
1. E. W. Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, 2nd ed., London, 1888.
2. C. Legum, Panafricanism, New York, Praeger, 1963; Africa: A handbook to
the Continent, New York, Praeger, 1962.
3. E. W. Blyden, West Africa Before Europe, London, 1905.
147
It is true that culture is one, and the general effects of true culture are the
same, but the native capacities of mankind differ, so that the road by
which one man may attain to the highest efficiency is not the same one
that will lead another man to success.. . .
Each race is endowed with peculiar talents and watchful at the last
degree is the Creator over the individuality, the freedom and the inde-
pendence of each. In the music of the universe each gives a different
sound but is necessary to the grand symphony. There are several sounds
not yet brought on and the feeblest of all is that hither to be produced
by the Negro, but only he can furnish it. And when he does furnish it, in
its fullness and perfection, it will be welcomed with delight by the world.S
Pathe Diagne
1. ibid.
2. Legum, Panafricanism, op. cit., p. 20.
3. E. W. Blyden, The African P,wblem and the Method of its Solution, Washington,
D.C., 1890.
150
Path& Diagne
It is painful, in America, to see the efforts which are made by the Negro
to secure outward conformity to the appearance of the dominent race. . . .
The Negro, unconsciously, imbibes the white man. . . . The only virtues,
which under such circumstances he develops, are, of course, the para-
sitical ones.
1. Blyden, The qfrican Problem and the Method of its Solution, op. cit.
2. ibid.
151
African rmaissance and cultural issues
study our brethren in the interior who know better than we do the laws
of growth for the race; we see among them the rudiments of that which
fair play and opportunity will develop into important and effective
agencies for our work.
When we receive impressions from without, we must bring from our own
consciousness the idea that gives them shape; we must mold them by our
own individuality. Now in looking over the whole world, I see no place
where this sort of culture for the Negro can be better secured than in
Africa. Where he may, with lessinterruption from surrounding influences,
find out his place and his work, develop his peculiar gift and powers.
Pathe Diagne
Nowhere is the ground more favorable for training the Negro youth
upon the basis of their own idiosyncracies with a sense of race indi-
viduality, self respect and liberty.
the Western methods rob the African of his nationality and turn him into
a slave of an alien way of thinking, an alien view of the world.
We have young men, who are experts in the geography and customs of
foreign countries, who can tell all about the proceedings of foreign states
in countries thousands of miles away. They can talk glibly of London,
Berlin, Paris and Washington, know all about Gladstone, Bismarck,
Gambetta, but who know nothing about Musahdu, Medina, Kankan
or Sego only a few hundred miles from us. . . .2
It is the complaint of the intelligent Negro American that the white people
pay no attention to his suggestions or writings; but this is only because
he has nothing new to say. Let us depend on it that emotions and
thought, which are natural to us, command the curiosity and the respect
of others far more than the showy display of any mere acquisition, which
we derived from them and which they know depend more upon memory
than upon any real capacity. Let us do our own work and we shall be
strong and worthy of respect; try to do the work of others and we shall
be weak and contemptible . . .l
Quoted in Legum, Panofricanism, op. cit. Casely Hayford repeats this opinion:
The African in America is in a worse plight than the Hebrew in Egypt. The
one preserved his Zanguu~e, his manners and customs, his religion and household
goods, the other has committed national suicide.--In Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound,
op. cit.
155
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African rmaissance and cultural issues
Pnthe Diagne
Before long the people of Asia and Africa would have broken their
century old chains of colonialism. Then as all nations, they would stand
united to consolidate and safeguard their liberties and independence from
the restauration of Western imperialism as well as the dangers of
communism.
This text gives one a clear idea of the conflict which had arisen
in the movement, of the reluctances and approbations which
divided it on the eve of the Cold War. This did not prevent a
large number of intellectuals, groups and tendencies from partici-
pating in it and being marked by it. The impact of the pan-African
congresses was very real. Even those thinkers who kept their
distances from the movement, even those who never even partici-
pated in it directly, were nevertheless swayed by the ideas which
it aired.
As yet, no really satisfactory study has been made of the
pan-African movement and its different tendencies. Its internal
conflicts and their ramifications and evolution are still unclear.
George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah and W. E. B. Du Bois have
each given their version of the story, but they were too involved
in it to be able to reveal it in full. The major historical studies of
the various pan-African currents are restricted to the mere events;
the views they give are fragmentary. In most cases they are reductive
academic simplifications.
The issue is that of our Africanity, that is to say our personality. The
question is one of quietly and harmoniously building an Africa that will
be authentically African.
That which unites us goes back further than history, it goes back to
prehistory. It has to do with geography, with ethnology, and, beyond
that, with culture. Its existence is older than Christianity or Islam. It is
prior to all colonizations. This community of culture is what I would
call Africanity.
Path@Diagne
Path& Diagne
The nature of the Negros feelings and emotivity explain the latters
attitude towards the object which he perceives with such an essential
violence. It is an attitude of abandon which readily turns into an attitude
of active communion, if not identification, as soon as the objects
action-I was going to say personality-is strongly felt.
Pat/k Diagne
The task which the militants of Negritude have assigned themselves is the
task of assuming the civilizational values of the Black peoples, of bringing
them up to date and if need be of fertilizing them with alien influences.
These values must be experienced in and for oneself, but they must be
made real also in and for others. Only thus will the contribution of the
new Negroes to world civilization be realized.
Pathe Diagne
PathP Diagrte
Cuba and China, like Italy, the Scandinavian and the Slavic
countries emerging from the Napoleonic or Germanic supremacy
in the nineteenth century, had to go through an aggiornanzento of
decolonization. They had to remodel their culture, that is to say,
their social and economic institutions, their literature and their
arts sapped by political domination.
The French, British, Spanish or Portuguese colonial cultures
do not unify. They impose their own social, historical and literary
heritage, their educational or institutional machinery, their concep-
tion of mans relations with his fellows and with the objective
world-and these things become a tremendous burden. They
spawn an Clite which is cut off from the masses, as was the Clite
of Blydens nineteenth-century independent and Americanized
Liberia. Only a truly popular culture, only institutions that can
be assimilated by the masses and shaped according to their needs,
only an art and a literature that releases native energies and creates
a context of balanced cultural development, can bring modernity,
science, democracy, economy, creativity and the spirit of univer-
sality back to the level of the people, the average man, the authentic
African.
Another factor to consider is the wealth of Negro African
art in its extraordinary diversity, as exemplified by the geometrical
perspective of Bakuta, the figurative approach of Ife, the curved
lines of the Akan heads, the high degree of expressionism of
the Nok, Irkur or Sao art. Black Africa might well have lost its
native statuettes and music had Muslem rule or idol-smashing
Christianity succeeded in eradicating its local differences to make
way for the universalist and reductive conceptions which they
tried to implant in the Ashanti and Zulu confederations and in the
multinational empires of Ghana, Tekruur, Mali, Kanem and
Songhai.
Reflection on the issue of contemporary African culture calls
for a certain amount of effort. First, one needs to cast off-scien-
tifically, and on the purely rhetorical and conceptual level-specifi-
cally European terms. Second, one has to imagine-again on a
theoretical level-a purely African renaissance and universality
leading to a praxis and the establishment of an official programme
liable to liberate art, the imagination and ethnic, not to say tribal
173
Path6 Diagrre
PuthP Diagne
Pathe Diagne
However, like the other literary forms, it can use tradition to forge
new languages and new schools of creative expression.
African thought still vehicles contents and institutions which
are frequently more expressive of the daily life or the aspirations
and commonsense of the man of the people than are the elitist
abstractions aired by modern intellectuals.
The contemporary African economist, politician, ideologist
or philosopher is often indifferent to a type of experience which
could provide him with answers to the questions raised by his
society far sooner than do the abstract speculations he indulges in.
The African civilizations in the precolonial and precapitalist
period were not organized materially and socially in the same way
that the Western or Eastern societies are structured. For complex
historical and ecological reasons, their ideologies concerning mans
relation with his fellows and with objective reality differ from those
of the other continents.
There is a real basis for a communocratic or presocialist
Africa, or an Africa that is autoproductive rather than capi-
talist,-or simply an Africa that is more community-oriented
than contemporary Europe.
However, despite the absence of capitalist or Indo-European-
type ownership, this does not mean that no class exploitation or
alienation exists in Africa. The capitalist structures which are at
present emerging on African soil are destroying the foundations
of the precolonial economy, which, in spite of everything, continues
to be more respectful of man and of nature. The African social
context and its ideology, removed as they are from capitalism
proper, frequently retain the best and most generous portion of
the traditional heritage. Based on this heritage, an economic
revolution can re-establish the native social and economic insti-
tutions, the human use of nature and technology.
There are legal codes, constitutions, judicial, economic and
administrative bodies of state which are better suited than others
to the African prospect and cultural tradition. It is a mistake to
project the European academic, military, civil, administrative and
judicial systems on to African soil-for in doing so one perpetuates
the colonial institution and a type of state that is ill-suited to the
reality of African life.
181
Path6 Diagne
BIBLIOGRAPHY