Whether confronted with present-day diversity or reflecting upon the many cultures of the past, new perspectives emerge. Modernity, the scientific view, and pretensions of objective knowledge have, as a consequence, distanced us from things far and near. That which estranges us from other cultures equally estranges us from our own roots. However, this distance may be viewed as an advantage in the sense that we can no longer adhere to a single tradition without a critical awareness of its relationship to all other traditions. Indeed, openness to other cultures is, in a sense, an intellectual prerequisite of an allegiance to any viewpoint though it need presume no synthesized overview.

In surveying any cultural past we are left only with remnants. The exact contexts are now irretrievably lost, the settings changed, and the participants aged or long gone. In some instances major shifts have taken place in the worldview and communal practices of indigenous religions; remembrance of former rituals either forgotten or remaining as a dim echo in contemporary life. Even in regions where autochthon traditions persist, emphasis has shifted to newer concerns. In this atmosphere, styles of carving change as well as availability of materials and retention of traditional skills. Insight into an earlier era can be found in archival sources, early descriptions, recollections of elders, and the occasional survival of the objects of ritual themselves. Thus we are left only with cultural remains. Such "remnants" speak of a different time, a time of festivals, song, dance and lavish performance, of sacrifice, and re-enactment of myth.

In Africa as elsewhere, alternation of the seasons and corresponding production cycles determined the rhythm of life–repeat performances returning at fixed intervals; that which has already been must return. Human acts are viewed as repetitions of original defining events. Conformity to traditional models is the norm and precise observance compulsory, with social stability remaining the ultimate goal. In ritual, profane time is "switched off" momentarily in a return to a mythic prototype and its social embodiment that effectively overpowers the isolation and solitude of the individual, transcending the briefness of a single lifetime. The past never ceases to exist, remaining no less real than the present.

Celebrations and festivals perpetuate the past yet impregnate the present with an outpouring of life–a rebirth. Rites and festivals link together both the rhythms of everyday life and the cyclical perception of mythical time, ever mindful of succeeding human generations, recurring like the seasons. Nevertheless, there is diversity within each socio-cultural system that may be divided by gender, class, and occupation, each experienced and perceived in its own manner.

Ritual involves entire networks of meaning connecting the smallest details to organizing principles that actualize themselves in rites of enthronement or initiation to adulthood, for example. Opposites are brought together, mediatory categories are added, formulae pronounced or dramatized creating an intentionally ambiguous setting–a "time out of time." Identity is changed. Objects used in divination and curative rituals partake of these same considerations.

Aesthetic awareness exists, to be sure; the objects themselves attest to it. But as with any discussion of ritual, it is imperative to search carefully within the cultures in which these objects originated and to use internally derived conceptual frameworks for discussion. Objects here stand as remnants of broader aesthetic issues that include costume and performance and often interact with aesthetics of dance and musical accompaniment.

Our willingness to open ourselves to a manifold context of creativity existing outside our ordinary sense of time allows us to glimpse in some small sense a place where the disenfranchised objects are reunited, the songs sung, the music played, the drama enacted, and ritual reconstituted. The remnants that we see around us, that sit mute on museum pedestals and whitened walls, are here, alive, and part of an ever-changing, self-defining moment.

Continue to Dialog

Book Credits | Acknowledgements | Bibliography | Lender's Notes | Copyright Information