Mali: Dogon and Bambara
The Dogon and Bambara people of Mali are well-known traditional sculptors.
Their works are in wood and are mainly ancestral figures and masks.
The Dogon wood carvings can be classified into three distinctive styles. The first is the simplified forms of the masks. The second is
the cube-like ancestral figures which in recent times are used as decorative motifs on doors and the third, the round freestanding ancestral figures.
Sometimes, however, the cubic and the round free-standing ancestral figures appear in one piece especially the round free-standing figures sitting on a carved stool with legs in the cubistic style.
Some of the ançestral figures known as Nommo, a
spirit associated with their creation, are sometimes represented with arms lifted up.
These figures are used for prayers for the restoration of rain.
Others, mostly from the Tellem area of Dogon, are used to call upon the force or god of fertility and birth and for the purification of the life force.
Masks, on the other hand, are used for their Ganubire dance in
which the masked dancer bends completely backwards while one of his partners stands before him to cover his neck and throat from onlookers.
One of the most notable Dogon masks is the tower mask in wood and it is painted.
Art analysts have said that it has some connection with the large obelisk in Axum, Ethiopia.
The Bambara people have two distinct masks. These are the
Chiwara and the Ntomo masks. The Bambara believe in the spirit Chiwara which, according to them, introduced agriculture into the community,
A dance head-dress is made to represent the spirit in the form of an antelope.
These antelope-like head-dresses are attached to caps made of twigs or canes and are worn in pairs by young men of their farmers co-operative group who dance in the imitation of a leaping antelope during planting and harvesting times.
The Ntomo is a society of young uncircumcized boys. This mask
is worn on the face by the boys during the threshing of harvested millet when they dance and beg for gifts of food for their society's feast.
Iron works are also produced by the Dogon and the Bambara
people, and are used as ritual irons driven into the upper of
sanctuaries or laid on the tops of altars.
The works are made of one piece of metal, hammered and divided into different shapes and forms.
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