SOME SUGGESTIONS
The unit was designed with a studio art course in mind, but the dialogue method of getting students into a receptive frame of mind has other uses as well.
History of Art
After an invented kingdom is created, the teacher can move more easily to a study of African art, showing either slides or pictures of a particular tribe’s art. The teacher can explain how those artifacts are symbolic expressions of the religion and culture of those people and also how the actual history of the tribe is translated into myth, and represented in visual terms by the use of symbols.
Example: The Dogon Tribe of West Africa
The Dogon are a people who live on the cliffs of the Bandiagara escarpment in West Africa at the center of the bend in the Niger River in Mali. They are farmers who live in widely scattered villages. They do not have a centralized government or a king. What binds them together is their communal participation in the sacred dances and ceremonies and rituals of the Grand Mask or Sigi and in other religious ceremonies.
Within the Grand Mask resides the spirit of the first man who died on earth. The Dogon believe that they were once immortal but that long ago one of their ancestors committed a grave sin and was punished for it by the gods who made him and all his descendants mortal. The Sigi dance is performed every 60 years to coax the spirit to enter the new mask carved especially for it.
The Dogon were driven from their previous home in the Nile Valley by Islamites. They relocated in West Africa and began new farming communities.
As an example of how history turns into myth, the Dogon explain their origins thus: The Blacksmith of the Dogon came down from the sky bearing an ark that held the first grain, the tools of farming, and the ancestors of all men on horseback, and all the animals and plants.
(figure available in print form)
Their art is primarily the depiction of mythical events and heroes. In some cases because one figure has to represent an entire legend, such as the story of man’s origins, the art is more abstract than other African art. The figure stands as a sign rather than as a visual representation of the event, almost like a three dimensional hieroglyphic.
(figure available in print form)
Dogon Iron Sculpture. Iron, 20 cm.
All the people of the Dogon Tribe are artists. They all carve and decorate their own masks. Only the priest, who is also the village’s blacksmith, with the help of two acolytes is allowed to carve the Grand Mask which is a hidden secret mask topped by a 30 foot high pole.
The art work on this and other pages is by the author.
