African Art

Maurice Delafosse

Description

African Art invites you to explore the dynamic origins of the vast artistic expressions arising from the exotic and mystifying African continent.Since the discovery of African art at the end of the nineteenth century during the colonial expositions it has been a limitless source of inspiration for artists who, over time, have perpetually recreated these artworks.The power of Sub-Saharan African art lies within its visual diversity, demonstrating the creativity of the artists who are continuing to conceptualize new stylistic forms. From Mauritania to South Africa and from the Ivory Coast to Somalia, statues, masks, jewelry, pottery and tapestries compose a variety of daily and ritual objects springing from these richly varied societies.

Sujets

• West Africa
• Prehistoric
• Africa
• Sudáfrica
• Prehistory
• South Africa
• African art
• Afrique du Sud

Informations

• Publié par: Parkstone International
• Date de parution: 04 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781783107865
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Author:
Maurice Delafosse

Layout:
Baseline Co. Ltd
61A-63A Vo Van Tan Street
4 th Floor
District 3, Ho Chi Minh City
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© Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA
© Parkstone Press International, New York, USA
Image-Bar www.image-bar.com

Acknowledgements to our photographers, particularly Klaus Henning Carl
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers, artists, heirs or estates. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.

ISBN: 978-1-78310-786-5
Maurice Delafosse



African Art
Contents


Preface
Origins and P rehistory
Aim and Object of This Book
Origin of the Negro Peoples of Africa
Hypothetical Lemuria
Oceanic Migrations
Autochthonous Africans
Peopling of Africa
The Negroes of Africa at the Time of Herodotus
Develop m ent of Negro Civilisations in Antiquity
Paucity of Historical Documentation
“Aggry Beads”
Phoenician and Carthaginian Influence
Abyssinian Semites and the Beni-Israel
Romans and Berbers
Negro Africa in t he Middle Ages
The Empire of Ghana
The Almoravide Movement
The Kingdom of Diara
The Kingdom of Soso
The Beginnings of the Songhoy Empire
The Mandinka Empire
The Mossi Empires
West Africa from the 15 th Century to Today
More Abundant Documentation
The Mandinka and Songhoy Empires
The Askia Mohammed
Koli-Tengella
The Last Askias
The Pashas of Timbuktu
The Bambara Kingdoms
The Tukulor Conquest
The Wanderings of Samori
The Peoples of the West Coast
The Peoples of the Bend of the Niger
The Negroes of Central and Eastern Sudan
The Hausa Countries
The Empire of Bornu
The Bagirmi
The Kingdom of Wadai
Darfur and Kurdufan
Rabah’s Adventure
Mahdism
Populations in the Neighbourhood of Abyssinia and Those of the Eastern Point of Africa
South Africa
The Bantu
The Congo
The Ansika
The Mataman
The Bechuana
The Monomotapa
Kilwa and the Zanzibar Sultanates
The Kingdoms of the Interior
European and Christian Influence
Material Civilisations
Diversity of Material Civilisations
Influence of Physical Environment
Habitations
Furniture and Utensils
Clothing and Decoration
Skilled Occupations
Social Customs
The Family and the Two Systems of Relationship
The Patriarch
Marriage
Divorce
Orphans
Polygamy
Individual and Collective Property
Slavery
Religious Beliefs and Practices
Islam, Christianity, and Animism
Individual Spirits of People and Things
Vital Breath
Priests
Belief in a Supreme God
Magic and Magicians
Artistic and Intellectual Expression
Negro Talents
Human Figures and Gods
Animal Representations
lndustrial Arts
Architecture
Music
Native Literature in Arabic
Written Literature in Native Tongue
“Griots” or Living Encyclopaedias
Popular Oral Literature
Origin of Popular Themes
Genius for Story-Telling
Moral Tales
Refuting the so-called Intellectual Inferiority of the Negroes
Appendix
Selective Bibliography
Old Primary and Secondary Sources
Contemporary Texts of the Publication
Index by e thnicity
Notes
Preface



Well-known and appreciated by Africanists, Maurice Delafosse (1870-1926) knew how to exceed the requirements of his environment and of his time for the benefit of an authentic Africa.

Colonialist administrator from 1894 to 1918, his degrees in naturalism and orientalism allowed him to lead historic, linguistic, and ethnographical research in the field and to restore the cultural values of the black world, just as Léopold Senghor did. A major writer of négritude , Delafosse exhibited a particular interest for these papers on which he established his first essays.

We chose to publish a selection of the research about the African civilisations which he explains in Les Noirs de l’Afrique (1922) and Les Nègres (1927). The writing style is authentic, the analysis from the time, and the vocabulary very frank and true to the time period in which it was written. Nevertheless, let there be no ambiguity: Maurice Delafosse, unquestionably, harboured a deep passion for the African continent and her cultures.
Statue (Kaka).
Wood, height: 100 cm .


In African art, paternal statues are quite rare. The agressive expression displayed on this statue indicates its purpose to protect the child as well as the African people who created it.



Origins and Prehistory


Aim and Object of This Book

The aim of this book is to furnish a general view of the history, the civilisations, and the material, intellectual, and social character of the Negro race which inhabits the African continent.

There will be no question, therefore, of the peoples of the white race who, either in antiquity or since, have played such an important role in the development of North Africa, and whom we find today, more or less mixed and transformed, scattered from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and from the shores of the Mediterranean to the southern limits of the Sahara: ancient and modern Egyptians, Phoenician, and Punic peoples, Libyans or Berbers, Arabs, and Moors. More precisely, no mention will be made of them except in the measure of their influence on the progress of Negro societies, an influence which has often been considerable and which could not be too emphasised.

For the same reason, there will be no study, except incidentally, of the peoples who, however dark their pigmentation has become as the result of secular and repeated crossing with the Negroes, are nevertheless considered as belonging either to the Semitic branch of the white race, for example, the principal portion of the Abyssinians, or to an Indonesian branch of the yellow race, such as many of the Malagasy tribes. Moreover, the island of Madagascar is outside the geographical limits which I have assigned to myself.

On the other hand, there are African populations which can claim, in part at least, non-Negro ancestry but who are in some way incorporated into the Negro race and into Negro society: such peoples will find a place in this study. I will be content for the moment with citing from among them the Fulani of Sudan, the Hottentots of southern Africa and a certain number of more or less hybrid tribes of East Africa which are commonly called, without much reason, Hamitic or Chamitic.


Origin of the Negro Peoples of Africa

The object of the present work being thus defined, we must now begin by seeking to find out whence came the African Negroes. But is it possible to commit oneself as to their first origin? It seems that the actual state of our knowledge does not permit us, as yet, to answer this question in a definitive or even a satisfactory manner.

Undoubtedly, one would not have even asked the question if Africa were the only part of the world to possess Negroes. But such is not the case and without speaking, of course, of the countries where the advent of the Negro race has taken place only at a recent epoch, as the result of migrations which were generally involuntary and whose genesis and circumstances are known, as in America, we know that the reputed autochthonous inhabitants of lands far removed from Africa and separated from it by the entire width of the Indian Ocean are considered as belonging to the Negro race for the same reasons as are the Negroes of Mozambique and of Guinea.
Edjo statue (Urhobo).
Nigeria. Wood, pigment,
height: 212 cm .


Each Urhobo community has its own protective Edjo statue, which embodies natural spirits or those of the Eshe founding ancestors. The tall Urhobo statues embody Edjo natural spirits or Eshe founding ancestors, who were offered annual celebrations and sacrifices in sanctuaries. Each community has its own protective Edjo , who lives in the wild and can also be materialised by pieces of wood, metal, or clay. These statues carry medicines on their belts and have military attributes.
Statue (Vezo).
Wood, height: c. 57 cm .
Private collection.


Sakalava rules the region in which the Vezo population resides. These uniquely shaped statues likely played a funerary role, though it is impossible to know whether the strange positioning is the result of time or the artist’s will.
Figurine, 9 th century CE.
Northern Province, South Africa.
Clay, 20 x 8.2 x 7 cm . On loan
from the National Cultural
History Museum, Pretoria.


From a much larger collection, originally excavated from the Schroda farm along with the Lydenburg Heads, these figures are thought to be the best known artefacts from the Early Iron Age which indicate ritualistic behaviour. Ethnographers suggest that unusual figurines such as these likely imply the sites of former initiation schools for girls. Schroda, serving as a regional capital, was occupied by 300 to 500 people, which means large initiation schools were probably there and further explains the copiousness of these small clay sculptures. As a whole, they can best be divided into three groups, realistic and stylised anthropomorphic (male and female), zoomorphic (including birds, elephants, cattle, and giraffe), and mythological.


Hypothetical Lemuria

If the natives of Australia, of Papua, and of the Melanesian islands are to be ranked in the same human category as the African Negroes, it may be reasonably asked whether the first came from Africa and the second from Oceania, or indeed, if one and the other had not in the first ages of the world, a common habitat on some hypothetical continent, now disappeared, situated between Africa and the Oceanian archipelagoes but having formerly constituted a connection and a passage between them. This continent, the supposed cradle of the Negro race, has its parti