Afro-Dit
Weavings and Wood: Introduction to Tribal Arts from Southeast Asia to West Africa
First hour: Introduction; African Textiles
I. Introduction
Some comments about the scope of the course: Tribal arts is a huge topic, and we couldn't even dent it in four hours. Furthermore, I know much more about certain subtopics within it than I do about others, so it seems sensible to concentrate on those. I won't be talking about the arts of the Indians of the Americas, for instance. I just know too little about them. On the other hand, tribal arts of Africa and Asia are things I do know something about, and I believe the principles that apply to them will probably be applicable to the others.
Let's start with a question with an obvious answer: What are tribal arts? The obvious answer is, they are the arts created by people living in tribal societies. That raises the next question: What are tribes?
The word has different meanings to different people, and is used fairly loosely by collectors. Collectors of Asian textiles, for instance, usually mean "pastoral nomadic group" when they say the word "tribal". The reason is that most Asian tribal peoples, and particularly those who created textiles, were pastoral nomads. That is, they raised sheep. Being free ranging sheepherders, they migrated between high pastures where it was reasonably cool in the summer, and low pastures where the sheep could graze in the winter. This essentially dictated their lifestyles and their art. And, underneath it all, collectors of central and western Asian textiles know that their use of the term is loose, that there are tribal people who are not pastoral nomads. It's just very convenient for them to use "tribal" as a shorthand way of saying "pastoral nomadic tribal".
But what does "tribal" mean? Actually, there is no universal agreement. The Textile Museum in Washington has an annual convention. A few years ago they had a whole day of lectures that consisted almost entirely of experts disagreeing about meaning of tribe. Beyond general consensus that it doesn't mean us, it's hard to get a consensus definition. It usually implies a fairly small, more or less isolated group with strong internal traditions and ethnic homogeneity. And everyone believes that, even though he can't define it precisely, he pretty much knows what he means by the word.
What are tribal arts? Obviously, they are arts made by tribal peoples. The definition used in Netscape's Open Directory, a sort of Yellow Pages for the world wide web, reads as follows: "Tribal arts comprise items made by tribal peoples, usually with utilitarian or ritual purposes, with artistic qualities reflecting the cultures in which they were made." Since I wrote that, I agree with it. The things that make tribal arts what they are to collectors, then, are that they are ethnographic - that is, they reflect important elements of the culture from which they derive - and are utilitarian or ritual rather than primarily decorative or expressive. Does that make them different than things that are not tribal arts? Sometimes. We have a tradition of what we like to call "fine art", meaning art that is simply a form of expression or communication, with no utilitarian or ritual significance. That tradition is only about 500 years old, and our culture has plenty of the other kind. Next time you're in a church, for example, look around and think about the works of art that are there, and what they are all about.
What are the characteristics of tribal arts? Utilitarian or ritualistic motives for their existence are a common one. The distinction between ritual and utilitarian hardly exists in many tribal cultures, where ritual is a much more important element of everyday life than it is in more technological societies. As a rule, tribal arts are totemic, heraldic, talismanic, or some combination of those. Totemic items serve as reminders and records of the important figures in the tribal history, the totems. We'd usually call this history the myths or legends, but the line between myth and history varies with belief systems, and we have plenty of beliefs that look like myths to others. The heraldic ones make some kind of announcement about the status, tribal identification or personal characteristics of the owner. In our society, a wedding ring or a crucifix necklace fall into this category. The talismanic items invoke the benevolence or protection of some other-worldly force.
Tribal art is highly symbolic. The sources of the symbolism are usually unknown, but it seems reasonable to believe that the iconography has to do with things the people thought were significant. Fertility, long life, safety from enemies, power, wisdom, magical abilities, the sun, rain, day, night, flowers and plants, birds and other animals with wonderful abilities.
It often has "magic" properties. The objects don't just symbolize certain kinds of power, they often actually have that power in the minds of the tribal people. As we'll see, in some African art a carved figure doesn't just symbolize a revered ancestor, it is the ancestor. A western Asian textile doesn't just represent the power to defeat the evil eye, it has the power to do so. This is a concept quite foreign to most western art, although we are have plenty of rituals and beliefs. I am reminded of the story of the priest who was asked whether he really believed that the communion wafers were the body of Christ. "It's easier than believing that they are bread, he answered.
The physical properties of the objects are
subject to the constraints of traditions. In order for tribal arts to have
special powers, they must conform to certain criteria. That is, the artists who
create them must operate within fairly narrow traditional boundaries in order
for the object to have the special properties that are its real reason for
being. It is not surprising, then, that tribal arts are very conservative. That
is, there is probably very little difference between what was being made one
hundred years and those made several hundred years earlier. Still, the artist
has a certain freedom of expression that is often quite apparent in the
objects. And, not surprisingly, when commercial demands for particular kinds of
tribal arts increase, the objects get produced by people whose understanding of
the traditions and traditional meanings of the object and its components is
lost. We refer to this as degeneration in tribal arts.
Before I get
into specifics, let me give you the nickel introduction to textiles, since so
much of the rest of what I have to say relies on knowing a little about this
subject. The simplest kind of weaving begins with laying out threads along the
length of a loom, essentially a rigid frame on which to weave. These threads
are the warps. Their length determines the maximum length of the finished
product, and the width of the loom determines the maximum width. The weaver
then passes threads across the loom, alternately going over one warp and under
the next and reversing the order on the next line, thus generating a stable
fabric. These threads are the wefts. The product of this process is a
plainweave. If the warps and wefts both show on the surface, it is called a
balanced plainweave.
If the packing and thickness of the wefts hide the
warps, we say that the textile is weft faced. Since the surface consists of the
horizontal threads, the wefts, the only possible patterns that can be created
on the loom are horizontal stripes. If, on the other hand, the warps are the
predominant visible elements, we have a warp faced plainweave. The only
possible woven pattern is vertical stripes. In a balanced plainweave it is
possible to generate horizontal stripes, vertical stripes, or patterns that
result from the intersection of such stripes - checks and plaids.
II.
Subsaharan African Textiles
Let me begin with textile art in subSaharan Africa. This, incidentally, is a man's art form; the weaving is done by men. It differs in this respect from from tribal textile art in Asia, where the weaving is done by women. Strip weaving is a typical African form, the fabric being woven in narrow strips about 3-6 inches wide, which are then sewn into more useful widths. There are a number of kinds of strip weaving in Africa, and I'll show you some of the better known types and tell you a little about them.
Let's start with the so-called Kente cloth, from Ghana.
This is probably the best known type of African weaving. It consists of a series of strips, anywhere from about 5 to about 10 feet long and 3 to 6 inches wide. The strips are sewn together to create a cloth about 5 or 6 feet wide. These are used as special occasion clothing among the Ashante and Ewe peoples. The vertical stripes tell us at a glance that this Kente, like all others, is basically warp-faced. There are two significant elements to the design. The ground cloth, that is, the striped background, and the checkerboard-like blocks of color. These are made by the weaver inserting extra wefts in various colors in such a way that they show from the surface. This is called brocading, or, more explicitly, supplementary weft brocading.
There are probably well over 100 background striped designs, and each has a name and some significance. The one you're looking at is called the "lion killer". The story behind it is that a mid-19th century Ashante king instructed his bodyguards to prove their courage and resourcefulness by capturing a big cat - I think it was a leopard, but that isn't important - and to do it without weapons. They succeeded (at least, the ones we know about did). In celebration of this feat, the king designed this stripe pattern, said to represent the blurred spots of a speeding leopard. So, as you might guess, it suggests courage, strength, skill, and fidelity to one's cause. It is worn only by men. Other striped patterns have other meanings, some that are appealing to men, others to women. When selecting a Kente for clothing, the person decides what kind of a statement he or she wants it to make.
That brings us to the checkerboard-like elements. Each unit has a central motif with blocks of color at each end. The motifs generally are stylized representations that suggest sayings known to the people. For instance, there is the paddle. It signifies cooperation, since without everyone paddling the boat in unison it goes nowhere. Another is fingers, which signify the strength that comes with unity. The armpit drum signifies communication. And so forth.
The colors themselves have some symbolic meanings.
Gold, for instance, symbolizes wealth. Thus, the wearer announces to anyone who
sees him what it is that he would like to have thought about him; what he sees
as his strengths, what he admires.
Most Kente cloths are cotton and/or rayon, but some are made partly or wholly of silk. The silk is reserved for the high ranking, and conveys prestige. The silk Kente is made only in workshops in the town of Bonwire, and the weavers are under the direct patronage of the Ashante king. The word "Kente", incidentally, is not of Ghanaian origin, but was evidently coined by British merchants and has taken hold. The cloth has become more or less of an attire that identifies the importance given to being African or of African descent, and is frequently worn by African Americans and African diplomats.
Beadwork is done by a number of African groups, and the possession of beaded items is said to be a prerogative of the royal and priestly classes in all of them. Perhaps the best know beadwork in Africa is that done by the Yoruba. The technique is to string beads of some color, then sew the string to a backing of some sort so that the beads form the design. The next slides show two Yoruba crowns.
The headman in each Yoruba village wears a conical beaded hat that is among the symbols of his station. It is constructed of reed sticks forming the conical armature, which is then covered with cloth to which the strings of beads are sewn. Padding is used between the cloth and the beads to throw part of the design into relief. These items are often referred to in the marketplace as "king's crowns", but we must remember that there are about 30 million Yoruba in Nigeria (not exactly the sort of thing we usually think of when using the word tribe) and, at any moment, there are about 700 kings. Thus, the number of crowns in collections, museums and shops is very large. When new, these have a fringe of strings of beads hanging from the edge. This covers the king's face, the sight of which is forbidden to most people.
Let me tell you about some of the interesting characteristics these crowns have, and what they probably mean. Notice the conical shape. It is said that the king's very spirit is inside, at the very tip of the cone. Even the king is not permitted to look there.
The faces on the crown are those of Adudua, the first Yoruba divine king, from whom all the other kings are descended. It's an iconographic element of much Yoruba art. The lines on the cheeks are sometimes said to represent tears, sometimes said to represent scarifications. What do they actually represent? My guess, and it's only that, is that the observer sees them as whatever he was told while growing up and that some members of the culture give them no thought at all. This, after all, is how we react to most of the symbolic elements around us.
There is always a bird at the very top of these crowns, and typically a number of them along the sides. Some authors claim that there are always 16 birds, representing the number of Adudua's sons, each of whom became king in a different village. However, I've seen crowns with other numbers of birds, so the interpretation of the number may be incorrect. Alternatively, the ones with the "wrong" number of birds may not be authentic.
This is probably a good time to say a few words about the use of birds as iconographic elements in just about every culture on the planet, tribal and otherwise. I think there are a number of reasons for this. One is that of all the animals, the birds are the ones that can do something that humans can't even do badly - they can fly. There are plenty of animals that can run faster or swim better than people can, but we can run and we can swim. The ability to fly sets the birds apart. Not only that, but flying seems like such a desirable thing to do. The advantages of being able to travel without concern for physical barriers, to observe from great height, to hunt from above, to escape; we could extend the list almost indefinitely. Then there is the very widespread (but not universal) belief that the residence of the gods is the heavens, the direction in which only birds can travel. Little wonder that birds are magical creatures in just about every culture in the world!
The colors of the beads in these crowns are said to be significant, too, although I confess to not knowing the details. There certainly is no fixed color scheme to which they must conform.
This is a beaded mantle, almost certainly Yoruba. It is about 5 feet long in the front and in the back, and is constructed of strung beads sewn through a plain white cloth to a burlap-like backing. The backing is covered on the inside by an indigo dyed cloth made from strips about 5 inches wide. The areas that look white actually consist of transparent beads; the white is the cloth behind them. I have no idea who wore this item or why, but it is clear from the pattern of sweat stains on it that it was used. You can see the Adudua faces along with some other important Yoruba iconography. The elephants represent power and strength, as you might guess. The two-headed snake, the bushcows and the crocodiles are also fairly widely used icons in Yoruba art, although their exact meanings are uncertain. The peculiar figures that make up the central part of the front of this mantle are kind of mysterious, and I've consulted some of the leading experts on Yoruba art about them. Nobody seems to know what they are about although they are clearly men wearing fairly prominent earrings.