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Baga, Guinea-Conacry
The Baga people live
along the coast of Guinnea Bissau where they number
about 45,000. They live in villages divided into two
and four quartiers, which are inturn divided into five
or six clans. Traditionally , each village was
governed by the eldest member of each clan, who met in
secret to discuss tribal matters. More recently, this
sysem has been replaced, and each village is now
headed by an elected 'mayor'.
The Baga are a
farming community, cultivating primarily rice in wet
patties along the coast. Cotton, gourds, millet, oil
palms, okra, sesame and sorgum are other locally grown
commodities. The Baga also have the belief that
abundance can be encouraged by placing benevolent
spirits embodied in carved wooden figures in specially
constructed huts between the village and the bush.
Some coastal fihing is also undertaken and play san
inportant role in the Baga economy.
Spiritually, the
Baga believe in a single god, Kanu, who is assisted by
Somtop, a male spirit and by A-Bol, a female spirit.
Below them, the spirit, A-mantsho-nga-Tshol, who is
often represented as a snake, serves as the patron of
the two lowest grades of the To-lom societ which
overseas the different initiation ceremonies,
The Baga are famous
for their Nimba headress, known to the Baga as d'emba.
A shoulder mask, standing on four legs, it has a pair
of large breats, enlarged head, u-shaped ears, and is
work by dancers during festivals and ceremonies
relating to births, marriages, harvest ceremonies and
some other joyous celebrations. It is said to
represent a woman who has born children, and to
symbolize fertility.
The Baga snake
headresses or Bansonyi, representing the spirit A-mantsho-nga-Tshol,
(master of medicine)sometime measuring up to 10 feet
high and typically display a rearing snake, polychrome
decoration and eyes. Two or sometimes more dancers,
clad in raffia costumes or textiles and palm frons,
with the assistance of light framework decorated with
feathers, ribbons and bells would support these
headresses on their shoulders or heads. The masked
figures representing the sections of the village would
face one another, and, urged on by spectators, they
open the ceremony with amock battle intended to
inspire the village unity. Among most Baga subgroups,
only adolescent males learn the secrets of the
snake-spirit, during the Ka-Bere-Tshol initiation
which marks the passage to adult status. The Bansonyi
had a variety of functions. Beside appearing at
funerals, they detact destructive forces, cure
sterility, protect boys at circumcision and end
droughts.
A-Tshol (meaning
medicine) figures, or as sometimes called, elek
figures were used principally as shrine figures, but
sometime also as headresses. These figures took the
form of a head with an exceptionally long beak and a
long neck inserted into a base structure. The head
also has anthropomorphic aspects such as a coiffure,
ears, forhead and nose. A-Tshol figures were placed
in the young man's sacred grove as a guardian during
initiation, a time when they were considered to be
suceptable to destructive forces as during these
initiation ceremonies, a trance like state was often
entered. A T-shol was under the control of the oldest
member of the family as a symbolic incarnation of the
lineage.
This Baga Bird
Headdress, or a-Bamp headdress as the Baga call it, is
very popular among the young initiates and boys.
Typical form of these bird statues are a long nech and
beak, body with chest protruding, broad wings, they
often are sculpted with two birds on their backs, a
house and sometimetimes a snake. It is intricately
carved and colored with pigment in abstract lines and
checkerboard. The a-Bemp dance performed by the
masquerader is full of vigor, crouching and again
leaping up, tilting the headdress from left to right,
all done to the rythm of men beating on slit gongs and
drums. It is generally a nocternal dance, and the
masquerader is followed by an initiate hold a flame
torch.
The Tonkongba mask
of the Baga are usually kept in fornt of the clan's
shrine. It is sometimes worn by masqueraders during
ceremonies involving sacrifices, such as funerals. It
is believed that Tonkongba has the power to know both
good and bad news.
Reference:
Africa: The Art of a
Continent - Tom Phillips. ISBN:3-7913-2004-1
African Masks:
Barbier-Mueller Collection. ISBN: 3-7913-2709-7
Art of the Baga: A
Drama of Cultural Reinvention - Frederik Lamp.
ISBN:3791317253
Tribal Arts of
African - Jaques-Baptiste Baquart. ISBN:
0-500-28231-5
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