Sociolingo’s Mali

One of the things my kids (now grown up with kids of their own) reminisce about from their life in West Africa is mangoes fresh from the tree. They both loved green mangoes, a peculiarly teenage phenomenon as far as I was concerned, sour and acidic. I can get mangoes here in the UK, but they are a shadow of the freshly picked, ripened on the tree version. I was pleased to spot a photo essay on BBC NEWS specifically on mangoes from Mali. We used to drive out along the Sibi road for picnics and it was a joy to get the first mangoes of the year from road side stalls. I say stalls but really it would be just a few piles of mangoes on a cloth, or maybe on a rickety table or in large washing buckets. None of the ladies spoke any French so I had to struggle with the Bambara money system, based on 5. I never really felt i had a handle on it. But it gave them a laugh anyway.

Here are some delightful pictures courtesy of BBC:
In pictures: Mali’s mangos (click here to go to the photo essay and notes)

Djenaba Coulibaly is having a good season. She sells the mangos everyday at Sibi’s market, and gets about $1 for every 30 mangos.“I can look after my family with the money, and buy clothes for the children. But this year I’m going to treat myself,” she says.

Short season

Attempts are being made to diversify the industry and develop the income-generating potential of those - mostly women - who work in it.At the Jeka Bara co-operative in the Sebenikoro district of Bamako, a group of 17 women are having some success in maximising their income. “I’m going to get some new clothes, some really nice food and even a beautiful pair of new shoes.” This is important as the mango season is a short one - beginning in February and lasting between two to three months.

See the rest of the photos

Source: masquerades of the bozo, kirango (mali)

This interesting webpage By Elisabeth den Otter has lots of photos which you can access through links. It covers the rarely seen circumcision ceremony and has other cultural information

Kirango is an old village located on the bank of the Niger river, about 35 km north-east of the city of Ségou. The inhabitants are Bamanan (farmers) and Bozo/Somono (fishermen). Both ethnic groups celebrate their masquerades, each in its own way. For the Bozo/Somono circumcision is a very important ceremony, which takes place about every ten years. For that occasion, they organize a masquerade, with dances, masks, and ‘sogow’ (literally ‘animals’) that represent an animal, symbolic or domestic. They are accompanied by drumming and singing.

Go to the webpage and see the photos

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Cross-posted from Sociolingo’s Africa

Posted by sociolingo on May 5, 2008

A new blog, The Face of Afrika, is aiming to focus on positive news celebrating the continent of Africa. Please support this initiative.

One recent post about The 52nd Venice Biennale: The African Pavilion and Malick Sidibé’s Achievement caught my eye:

The Venice Biennale’s prestigious Golden Lion lifetime achievement award was presented to Malick Sidibé, from Mali. The artist made history. Not only was he the first photographer to be so honored but Sidibé was the first African artist to ever win the award.

Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement:
Malick Sidibé, born in Soloba, Mali, in 1936. Lives and works in Bamako, Mali.

Photo credit AFP

Read the full post

Interesting article seen on the Talahasee.com

From the page:

“In his free time, young Wague (pronounced “wah-GAY,” it means “Man of Trust”) tracked the animals in the bush. And at night, he went to school.

It wouldn’t be your typical study session. The student didn’t sit hunched at a desk, poring over a book in the yellow flicker of an oil lamp’s light, fist wrapped around a stub of pencil and youthful brow furrowed with thought. The teacher in this class was Diakite’s grandmother, who would gather the children around the fire and tell them fantastical folktales.

….

“It was like going to a movie. Sometimes the stories seemed to be an action movie, sometimes they were about moral issues and sometimes they were about love.

“It was both entertainment and education. Grandmother always said that we would not go to school unless we were educated first in the traditional way.”

The stories told all those years ago in that far-away village take on colorful form and substance in Diakite’s art. An exhibit of his vivid hand-painted ceramics was unveiled Friday at Gadsden Arts Center in Quincy, with Diakite on hand at the opening reception.”

Baba Wague Diakite’s vivid hand-painted ceramics complement his stories. “Where they come from is my root, and part of that root is the farm work, digging in the soil every day, making adobe bricks and building adobe houses.”

Read the full article

Each of these videos tells a different story behind Hallmark(RED), including an interview with (RED) co-founder Bobby Shriver on the AIDS epidemic in Africa and what (RED) hopes to accomplish; the story of how the Hallmark(RED) collection grew out of one card, as told by Sarah Mueller of Hallmark, who worked on the very card that started it all; and, interviews and video with two Malian craftswomen who hand-make the Mali Mud Cloth bags.

The inspiration of the Hallmark ‘red’ campaign video

(RED) a new partnership

Handcrafted bags from Mali video

The fashion blog The Perfect Touch has a great article (in French) on how Mali’s ‘Bogolan’ fabric became a fashion statement last year. Here are some pix from the Givenchy Collection 2007. Don’t worry if you don’t read French, it’s worth a look for the pictures!

Source: Earth Architecture

The Future of Mud: A Tale of Houses and Lives in Djenne

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Future of Mud: A Tale of Houses and Lives in Djenne, a new film by Susan Vogel and presented by the Musée National du Mali, is the story of Komusa, master mason and heir to the secrets of Djenne architecture. He hopes his son will continue the family profession and maintain their world heritage city - but Djenne is connected to a global world now, and competing ideas about the future have arrived. Documentary footage and staged scenes tell an intimate story of family tensions, contemporary building practices, and the precarious future of the renowned mud architecture of Mali.

Treehugger writes of the film:

A “collective connection to earthen architecture is best seen in the film’s footage of the annual re-plastering of the town’s pride, the Great Mosque, which is the world’s largest earth building, in addition to being a distinguished UNESCO World Heritage site. The first earthen structure here on this site dates back to the 13th century and is re-plastered every year. The day-long, annual festival is truly a communal affair, with plenty of foreign tourists gawking on and filming the orderly chaos.”

photo of the Great Mosque of Djenne by Ferdinand Reus

The Future of Mud: A Tale of Houses and Lives in Djenne
Co-Produced with Trevor Marchand and Samuel Sidibé.
Edited by Harry Kafka. Music by Issa Bagayogo. In Bamana, French, English with English subtitles. Color, 58 minutes. Distributed by FRIF.com. Available fall 2007.

Things you see transported constantly win the funny photo stakes in Mali. I never cease to be amazed at what people transport and how they do it. Today’s topic is sheep.

Here’s a pic from  Peter Baldwin

and one from Ferdinand Reus

Here’s one from Johanne Veilleux

  

Source: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Chi Wara Headdress
19th-20th century
Bamana culture, Mali
Wood, 34 by 13 1/2 by 3 3/4 inchesAfrica is the home to a wide variety of animal life in and African artists often incorporate images of animals to express ideas.

The Chi Wara mask is one such example of African art. Chi Wara translates as “animal of tillage.” In Bamana belief, a mythical creature-the primordial Chi Wara-was the first farmer, a wild beast who taught mankind how to cultivate fields. Today, the skills of farming are still critical to sustaining life on the edge of the Sahara Desert.

In this sculpted mask and others of the same type, the mythical creature is represented by combining aspects of different animals. The lower body represents the aardvark, a type of anteater that burrows into the ground with its claws and snout. The way an aardvark scratches at the earth reminds the viewer of planting crops. The head of the sculpture with the tall thin antlers of a roan antelope remind the viewer of growing millet, a grain commonly grown in the region. And, the zigzag patterns stand for the path of the sun between winter and summer solstices also suggesting the way an antelope runs. The Chi Wara is formed into a crest mask, which sits on top of the dancer’s head attached to a basketry cap. The dancer’s body and face are hidden by a costume of grasses and fibers that is a symbol of rain-essential to growing food. Beads, leather, and metal attachments often are added to embellish the masquerade.

Performances with Chi Wara headdresses are done by champion farmers at times of land clearing, plowing, planting, and harvest. The dance is done in a bent over attitude to show “an excellent farmer hoes the ground continually, without straightening up to rest.” The performance is hoped to aid in the farmer’s efforts to make something out of nothing - growing crops from the dry ground.

There is also a Chi Wara society in which elders teach young farmers to preserve the knowledge of agricultural practices. This society prepares boys to become fathers and husbands by focusing on skills needed to be successful farmers to provide for their family and contribute to the community as a whole. In daily life, women help with farming chores as well. In similar fashion, there are male and female versions of the headdress that are danced in pairs. Drummers provide the beat as women sing and call out praises to the ideal farmer.

Source: http://homepage.mac.com/melissaenderle/mali/pages/museumsymbols.html

We hear quite a lot about major corporations and their negative impact on the African continent. However, just recently I was contacted by a representative for Hallmark Cards who had read this blog and wanted to tell me about a textile project they are running in Mali. As many of you know Mali is famous for bogolan mudcloth textiles.

Hallmark is now a partner with the (RED) campaign. Like other PRODUCT (RED) partners, Hallmark’s gifts and cards raise money for the Global Fund’s fight against AIDS and other diseases in Africa, but this campaign also supports Malian artisans and their local economies. Artisans in Bamako, Mopti, San, and Sevaré are working with Hallmark to produce the Mud Cloth Bag that is part of Hallmark’s collection of PRODUCT (RED) items, generating jobs and income for these artisans. I’ve attached a picture of one of the Mud Cloth Bags for you to see (there are several designs). This is the first export to use Mali’s African Growth and Opportunities Act textile visa.

For more information, please visit www.hallmark.com/red1 - there, you can learn more about the Mud Cloth Bag, and Hallmark’s involvement with the (RED) campaign.

 

 

I’ve just come across a web journal of a young engineering graduate, Tom Owen, who went to Mali to explore the role of technology in the lives of Malians. The post I looked at explored pottery techniques. I was interested to see that they were thinking of introducing the innovation of a diesel driven pottery wheel. My reaction was quite negative as I read about it. I then read on to the comments following the post and saw that others shared my reservations. I think we have to be very careful about introducing innovations which are difficult to sustain. Diesel fuel is expensive and in today’s awareness of green technology this is not a good idea. One of the commenters suggested that a foot driven wheel would be a better option. I would question whether either a diesel or foot driven wheel is capable of making the huge water jars that the women Owen described make. They currently make them in several stages for very good reasons - these huge jars need drying at various stages so that they do not collapse. The techniques used are very ancient, and we should also question whether an intervention which changes irrevocably this ancient technique would actually bring about culture loss. More is not necessarily better. This also impinges on the supply chain. Another commenter said:

Given social acceptability and widespread use of such a technology, would increased production be met with continued demand and thus greater income or market saturation and decreased returns?

To be fair, the Multifunction Platform  (a 10 hp diesel engine which can power things like corn mills) does seem to be making a lot of difference to women in the village. However, there are other projects in Mali which are now using locally produced green technology biofuels from Jatropha oil to power generators. See the Mali Folke Center.

So, for me there are two issues with using technology for culture change.

• Does the change promote culture loss?
• Is the change sustainable?

Visual Griots of Mali - Student Gallery
This is a wonderful collection of photos by young Malian photographers. The young people were trained to use the cameras and then sent out to record their lives. The photo exhibit of 49 black and white photos opens at the Smithsonian.

Technorati Tags: Mali, photography

 Many people come to Mali with the intention of visiting the Dogon villages. Places of Peace and Power has a good article on the sacred sites of the Dogon with excellent photos.

The Dogon are an ethnic group located mainly in the districts of Bandiagara and Douentza in Mali, West Africa. This area is composed of three distinct topographical regions: the plain, the cliffs, and the plateau. Within these regions the Dogon population of about 300,000 is most heavily concentrated along a 200-kilometer (125 mile) stretch of escarpment called the Cliffs of Bandiagara. These sandstone cliffs run from southwest to northeast, roughly parallel to the Niger River, and attain heights up to 600 meters (2000 feet). The cliffs provide a spectacular physical setting for Dogon villages built on the sides of the escarpment. There are approximately 700 Dogon villages, most with fewer than 500 inhabitants.

The precise origins of the Dogon, like those of many other ancient cultures, are lost in the mists of time. The early histories are informed by oral traditions (that differ according to the Dogon clan being consulted) and archaeological excavation (much more of which needs to be conducted). Because of these inexact and incomplete sources, there are a number of different versions of the Dogon’s origin myths, as well as differing accounts of how they got from their ancestral homelands to the Bandiagara region. The people call themselves Dogon or Dogom, but in the older literature they are most often called Habe, a Fulbe word meaning ‘stranger’ or ‘pagan.’ Certain theories suggest the tribe to be of ancient Egyptian descent. After living in the region of Libya, they are believed to have migrated to somewhere in the region of Burkina Faso, Guinea or Mauritania (different scholarly sources give different places for this period). Around 1490 AD, fleeing invaders and/or drought, they migrated to the Bandiagara cliffs of central Mali. Carbon-14 dating techniques used on excavated remains found in the cliffs indicate that there were inhabitants in the region before the arrival of the Dogon; these were the Toloy culture of the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC, and the Tellem culture of the 11th to 15th centuries AD.

Places of Peace and Power have a great article on Djenne, with some good pix.

Djenné, the oldest known city in sub-Saharan Africa is situated on the floodlands of the Niger and Bani rivers, 354 kilometers (220 miles) southwest of Timbuktu. Founded by merchants around 800 AD (near the site of an older city dating from 250BC), Djenné flourished as a meeting place for traders from the deserts of Sudan and the tropical forests of Guinea. Captured by the Songhai emperor Sonni ‘Ali in 1468, it developed into Mali’s most important trading center during the 16th century. The city thrived because of its direct connection by river with Timbuktu and from its situation at the head of trade routes leading to gold and salt mines. Between 1591 and 1780, Djenné was controlled by Moroccan kings and during these years its markets further expanded, featuring products from throughout the vast regions of North and Central Africa. In 1861 the city was conquered by the Tukulor emperor al-Hajj ‘Umar and was then occupied by the French in 1893. Thereafter, its commercial functions were taken over by the town of Mopti, which is situated at the confluence of the Niger and Bani rivers, 90 kilometers to the northeast. Djenné is now an agricultural trade center, of diminished importance, with several beautiful examples of Muslim architecture, including its Great Mosque.

Read the full article and look at the pix