Engaging Classical African Theatre between the Finite and the Infinite : Exploring the Person and Thought of Chinyere Grace Okafor Within Aesthetics of Form and Aesthetics of Mind
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Engaging Classical African Theatre between the Finite and the Infinite
Exploring the Thought of Chinyere Grace Okafor Within Aesthetics of Form and Aesthetics of Mind
Professor Chinyere Grace Okafor
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Abstract
This essay uses my understanding of the person of Professor Chinyere Grace Okafor and my experience as her student as a platform for examining philosophical questions inspired by her writing on classical African mask drama, at the intersection of physical and abstract beauty, particularly her concept "inscrutable wonder."
The major text of the essay is interspersed with images of African masks representing forms of feminine identity. The masks are used in dramatizing Okafor's concept of the wondrous that is beyond full understanding.
Ideas about forms of beauty, exemplified by feminine beauty, thus unify the essay's discussion of the person of Chinyere Okafor and the exemplification of her ideas through the imagery of masks.
A Straight Line of Thought, Action and Form
Between Beauty of Form and Beauty of Character
Image and Text: An Example of an Igbo Agbọghọ-Mmọnwụ, a Spirit Mask Evoking Feminine Beauty
A Cognitive Journey
Image and Text: A Gabon/Congo Mukudj Female Mask
Okafor's
Model of the Cosmos of Classical African Mask Theatre
Preface through a Personal Encounter
Philosophical Questions Inspired by Okafor's Model of the Cosmos of Classical African Mask Drama
Image: Okafor's Model of the Cosmos of Classical African Mask Drama from her " Behind the
Inscrutable Wonder"
Okafor's Model of the Cosmology of Classical African Mask Theatre as Integrating the Individual and
Society Within Physical and Spiritual Space in a Metaphysical Unity
Image and Text: Yoruba Gèlèdé Masks
Okafor's Model and the Image of Life as Theatre
Image and Text :Punu IkwaraMask, Gabon : Aesthetics and Paradox
Okafor's Model as a Contemplative Tool in Exploring Life as Theatre
within a Metaphysical Context
Perspectives on Life as Theatre
Image and Text: Female Mask from the Dan of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Eastern Liberia
Okafor's Model of Classical African Theatre Cosmos as a Template for Knowledge Integrating
the Larger Cosmos and the Individual
Okafor's ''Inscrutable Wonder'' Concept as an Aesthetic Idea Valid
Beyond Classical African Masking
Image and Text : Sowei Mask of the Sande Society of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea
Image: Sowei Masker in Action
Between Okafor's Inscrutable Wonder Idea in Classical African Masking and the Hindu Yoga of Delight,
Wonder and Astonishment
Image and Text: A Congo Songye Kifwebe Mask
Between Everyday Beauty and the Beauty of the Numinous in Classical African Masking
From ''Inscrutable Wonder'' in Classical African Masking to the Wonder of Existence
Image and Text: An African Masking Cosmos Mandala Comprising Chinyere Grace Okafor's Model of the Cosmos of Classical African Masking Theatre and Various African Female Masks
Conclusion
A Straight Line of Thought, Action and Form
Young lady
You
are a mirror that must not go out in the sun,
A child that must not be touched by dew,
One that is dressed up in hair,
A lamp with which people find their way,
Moon that shines bright,
An
eagle feather worn by a husband,
A straight line drawn by God.
I recall her as ''a straight line drawn by God" in her combination of physical radiance, intellectual power, integrity of character and professional drive.
I don't expect so but a person can try to work from within their perception of justice and live in harmony with that, a sensitivity that is ideally humane, mutually empowering oneself and others.
''In every instance of perfection, the divine is present,'' states a character in British author K. J. Parker's novel Memory. ''Is perfection,'' one may ask, ''not embodied within the striving after perfection, like the tree is enclosed in the seed, the petals in the flower as it unfurls?"
That is how I remember, even after a span of decades, then Dr. Okafor, now Professor Okafor.
Beautiful and bold, artistically and intellectually creative, determined scholar and committed teacher.
When all accounts are in, all considerations examined, what do we recall most strongly of the people we know?
The agbọghọ-mmọnwụ directly above is serene and majestic, contemplative and mystic, beautiful of features yet abstracted from the mundane.
Its lidded eyes seem to look inward to luminous realities more significant than the material universe in which the physical form that is the mask is active while the spirit it represents exists on another plane, having deigned to share time briefly with humans.
The sedately withdrawn eyes may suggest that the spirit the mask evokes abides in the otherworldly universe where the ''straight line made by God'' is a reality, as the mask reflects human sensitivity to such an ideal through the lineaments of the human construct that it is.
The aesthetics of the mask dramatises its role as "a ritualistic instrument for approaching the unknown [ in which] Spirits emanate through the masks which are animated to function as agents of societal control and entertainment" as described by Okafor in "From the Heart of Masculinity: Ogbodo-Uke Women's Masking" ( 1994, 7).
The radiance of white, in harmony with the gracefully contemplative features, projects the harmony of feminine aesthetics and the subtly numinous as the elaborate crown coiffure dramatizes the majestic, the regally powerful.
The majestic coiffure rests on spirals or concentric circles evoking unity, the circle of life and infinity, the àgwòlàgwo motif of Igbo Uli art, abstracting the coiled bodies of reptiles, as described by Robin Sanders in The Legendary Uli Women of Nigeria (2013, 29, 214).
The spirals reference ''the sacred feminine—Ala—whose grace (represented by the majestic body and sinuous movements of the Royal Python—Eke) is metaphorically invoked and transferred to the physical object/self [on which it is inscribed, emphasizing] the role of the feminine force (Ala) in Igbo cosmology as the foundation without which all the components of cultural life become impossible'' as stated by Sylvester Ogbechie in ''Ndidi Dike: New Beginnings.''
The mask entity thus represents the coalescence of various dimensions of meaning in terms of a projection of an image of "Igbo womanhood [ as ] a complex category [ at the intersection of ] the spiritual and physical dimension[s] of the cosmos,'' as stated by Okafor of this human/beyond human configuration in "Womanhood in Igbo cosmology: Intersections in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (2010).
I recall Okafor's steadily rising surge of scholarly publications, her scholarly book I helped edit, her plays and her taking part as an actress in the dramatization of those plays.
She could not know it, but what has happened with Toyin is a continuity from what happened with him in the first or second year of the BA when Okafor was teaching us drama, a milder expression of what had happened earlier when I had dropped out of the department, later returning and completing the program.
When Okafor first taught my class, I chose not to attend lectures but to pursue my own development of a mystical and philosophical system using the department's syllabus as a matrix to develop unity between my mind and cosmic mind.
Describing a similar idea years after my explorations, Laura Marks, in relation to Islamic arts, philosophy and mysticism in Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art (2010), depicts "image [as] an interface to information and information( such as computer code and the words of the Koran) [as] an interface to the infinite."
The problem, however, was not simply that the technique I was developing was not adequately worked out. Okafor's teaching texts were not available anywhere within the available books on African drama.
So, the exams would require both the more generalized knowledge from such texts as Yemi Ogunbiyi's Drama and Theatre in Nigeria, for example, but also the more focused material Okafor was teaching.
Of course, I failed the exam as I did a number of others, barely scraping enough grades to hang on to my place in the department after doing and passing most of the resits, resits being a great saving grace for me in that program, failing courses every year as I did into my MA in the department.
In the years since I last communicated with Okafor, I had become again that person who dropped out of the department or skipped classes in the conviction that he did not need them to either be educated on the relevant subjects or to pass exams, focusing instead on self education within a mystical and philosophical context.
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Stylistically correlative with the Igbo agbọghọ-mmọnwụ, particularly the example imaged earlier, is the Gabon/Congo mukudj female mask, shown directly above.
These conjunctive aesthetics facilitate
Okafor's project of establishing patterns of similarity in African mask
theatre through her concept of ''inscrutable wonder'' as an aesthetic
category.
The contemplatively lidded eyes within an exquisitely configured face
surmounted by an elaborately abstract
coiffure conjoins this mukudj mask and the agbọghọ-mmọnwụ shown
above.
The further correlations they share in terms of symbolic value are suggested by the following descriptions of the mukudj mask:
"Mukudj masks are native to the Ashiru, Punu, Lumbo and neighboring groups in south and south central Gabon and the southwestern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The creator of a mukudj mask would attempt to capture the likeness of the most beautiful woman in his community. This mask is defined by an elaborate and highly stylized bi-lobed coiffure, painted black, which frames an idealized female face.
Kaolin taken from riverbeds, which is associated with healing and with a spiritual, ancestral realm of existence, is applied to the surface of the face. By using this material, the artist both celebrates the beauty of a mortal woman and transforms her into a transcendent being.
The face is painted white with kaolin, which, along with the idealized features, celebrates the beauty of women and their importance in social organization and symbolizes the spirits of past ancestors. The diamond-shaped scarification marks on the forehead and the square-shaped marks on the temples emphasize the perfect, symmetrical beauty of the face, with its dramatically arched eyebrows, almond-shaped slit eyes, small ears, delicate nose, and slightly protruding mouth and chin.
This idealized beauty is reflected wonderfully here in the sensitivity of the expression and in the outline of the face. Particularly notable are the finely drawn lips, with a suggestion of movement, the tense arches of the shaded eyebrows, and the subtly carved eye-sockets, which delineate the high cheekbones.
These features strike a balance with the narrow slitted lids of the 'coffee bean' shaped eyes, which suggest an 'inner vision, a symbolic link between the living and the dead' .
Other notable signs of beauty are the majestic hairstyle, which is composed of thin braids arranged in two shell-like forms, each of which tapers down into a side braid; the rare headband, with its central point emphasizing the frontal curve of the head; and the large pattern on the forehead, a reminder of the nine primordial clans of Punu mythology.
These masks commonly contain nine scale-like patterns on the forehead. This is said to be a "central eye" and also a flowering tree. The white color, usually derived from kaolin, represents clarity, light, and beauty.
Collage of quotations from
Mask (Mukudj) Art Institute Chicago, Mask, Punu, Gabon, Sothebys, Mask (Mukudj), The Met. Accessed
12/30/20.
Image source:Mask, Punu, Gabon,
Sothebys.
Preface through a Personal Encounter
The correlation between Okafor's scholarly work and my philosophical and spiritual quest is centred in the cosmological model, shown directly below, which she designed for her essay "Behind the Inscrutable Wonder: The Dramaturgy of the Mask Performance in Traditional African Society," (1991) an essay whose significance for my project began to slowly dawn on me long after my first acquaintance with it shortly after its publication.
Okafor used to show me her work and apprise me on its progress, explaining her conjunction of focus on African drama with perspectives beyond Africa.
This was a compromise between my philosophical and spiritual interests, which were not served by the system, and social pressures to attend university, a necessary socializing process in the middle class Nigeria to which I belonged.
Philosophical Questions Inspired by Okafor's Model of the Cosmos of Classical African Mask Drama
Yoruba Gèlèdé Masks
Yoruba Gèlèdé mask, left, evoking female power through contemplative withdrawal within equanimity of features, incubating spiritual energies akin to the gestation of the child in the womb.
Right, Gèlèdé mask which may be seen as suggesting
female spiritual power through the aerodynamic sweep of
a surmounting headdress in harmony with streamlined facial
features.
This aerodynamic design may signify the streamlining of bird form in
its flight above the constraints of Earth. In harmony with the
exquisite feminine features of the mask, it may evoke the
enablements generated by women's unique access, through their procreative
capacities, to
àṣẹ, creative, cosmic force
enabling being and becoming, existence and change, cosmic unity and individual
creativity.
This access is understood in classical Yoruba thought as facilitating action beyond the laws of space and time, capacities represented by the image of birds on account of their capacity to defeat gravity through flight.
Image sources: Rand African Art, left.
Right, Pinterest through Sothebys.
Collage by myself.
These gestures and motions may even point to my naked core, free of masks, a core challenging to know.
These questions reverberate within the ultimate questions represented by "why is there something rather than nothing?," "'Why does the universe exist?," "what is its significance?"
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Punu Ikwara Mask, Gabon
Aesthetics and Paradox
by
Louise Perrois, Sothebys
"It is a paradoxical thought that some of the masterpieces of African sculpture were created, with great skill, only to be hidden away during the rituals that they were part of. Yet this is the case for the black Punu masks, known as Ikwara masks in the region of Ngounié (South Gabon).
The very small number of these masks stands in contrast with the myriad okuyi [ also known as mukudj, shown above] "white" masks that embody the spirit of a deceased woman as a young maiden. They are similar in shape (face and hairstyle) but are dyed entirely black and, in some cases, display bright red decorative motifs (around the eyes, on scarification patterns and sometimes on the lips).
Although the white and black masks share similar physiognomy and idealized
beauty, their color brings to mind entirely different entities. The hue -
whether black or dark brown - of the masks, identified as Ikwara or Ikwara-mokulu ,
meaning "mask of the night ", denotes its link to the ominous spirit
world. The suave beauty of the young deceased women of the okuyi is
met with the evocation of a male entity, perhaps a great initiate who has
already disappeared, or an old woman, some
of whom were deemed to be experts in magic remedies.
The ikwara only danced at dusk or especially at night,
perched on small stilts and away from the village. The masks and their acolytes
filled the role of "keepers of the peace" to resolve serious
situations that would otherwise have been difficult to process through ordinary
channels; the mask only danced in
the presence of the initiates and those
parties involved in a dispute.
In
museums and collections, black Punu masks are very rare, probably because of
their potentially dangerous qualities that may have prevented the elder
villagers from showing them to passing Europeans, and, if they happened upon
them despite this, to be more reluctant in parting with them than in the event
of a fortuitous discovery, not to give them away as easily as the others, which
are much more harmless from a ritual point of view and therefore easily
reproducible. This functional importance also explains why some specimens
were kept for a very long time in the villages, with very particular care.
So it is that ikwara masks, some of which display exquisite
detailing, with beautiful sculpted finish, were ritual effigies bound in
mystery, thereby ensuring their spiritual efficiency, and their very rare
outings were highly dramatic. They
made their ephemeral, ghostly appearances at dawn or dusk, staged so that the
wooden features of the entity were mostly hidden under an assembly of cloth and
fiber, thus preserving their fleetingly supernatural aspect.
In the case of the ikwara masks, the process was taken to extremes so the occult power of the spirit was at its strongest. As a result this mask was sculpted only to be seen by the dancers and their assistants. Indeed, their ritual efficiency, for a lot of people, was due to the fear it instilled in the parties to a dispute; a fear made even greater by the fact that the features of the powerful masked spirit, with half-closed eyes circled in vermilion, emerge from the darkness for only a brief moment in the lightning passage of torches of flaming herbs.
From a point of view based strictly on physical traits and setting aside context, it is possible to ascertain that the master sculptor who created this piece did so using all his skill as a plastic artist, despite the fact that he was perfectly aware of the ritual necessity to hide the mask from people's eyes.
Steeped in the beliefs of his group and strengthened by his faith in the symbols that he was to represent on the wooden mask, he created, with a masterful hand, a piece that conveys the timeless beauty of the spirit it embodies through the subtle harmony of its contours and the intricacy of its detailing. This very beauty touches us today above and beyond the barriers of cultural diversity.
But it is natural to wonder why the artist chose to sculpt such a majestic piece despite knowing that it was vowed to secrecy. There are most probably two reasons: his mastery of sculpture could only show through on this occasion as on every other (sculpted objects, whether for common or ritual use, were carved by semi professional craftsmen who were paid for their work); but mostly, it must have been due to the customary necessity to incorporate certain essential signs within the mask in a particular way so as to provide it with its symbolic strength. "Beautiful" masks, taken in situ as "good" masks, meaning that they were efficient, were in fact those who tallied most accurately with the mental image that was associated to them, which bestowed the entity with its spiritual strength.
On [this mask] many sculptural details back up this analysis: aside from the harmonious beauty of the face itself with its perfect quarter-sphere forehead, the eyes capture our attention with the discreet swelling of their lids, the elegance of the arched palpebral fissures, their rims enhanced by carved and ornate lines of red coloring that stretch to the base of the ears in a large colorful motif. This mysterious gaze, rendered so beautifully, intrigues the onlooker, which is certainly the desired effect.
In this respect, the eyes are highlighted, in slightly concave sockets, by the slight relief of the brows that are very small and high on the forehead, and whose curvature mirrors that of the accentuated zygomatic arcades. In turn, these arcades delineate the cheekbones, the relief of which, in a certain way, "age" the face, despite the delicacy of the nose and the pout of the full lips. Finally the intricacy of the hairstyle should be noted: its longitudinal plaits lining the upper part of the lobes and the meticulously woven band delineating the curvature of the forehead.
This ikwara mask has now been brought to light for the world to admire after having been at the center of secret rituals of the equatorial forest for a number of years. It is a rare and major piece, singled out by its exceptional formal quality, among the great sculptural tradition of the Punu of South Gabon."
Image and text source: Sothebys.
Okafor's Model as a Contemplative Tool in Exploring Life as Theatre within a Metaphysical Context
Withdrawing from the various roles I play as I live from day to day, could I contemplate Okafor's cosmological image and see if it could guide me in appreciating the various roles I perform each day?
Who is this? Is she in trance? In ecstacy? The constellation of cognitive possibilities perhaps evoked by the circle of cowries and similar forms framing the face, streaming into the self with the concentrated force of intense bliss, adapting a description of an experience of mine?
The slightly parted lips, the half closed eyes, resonate with Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini's (1598-1680) sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Teresa.
The Bernini sculpture embodies the Christian mystic St. Teresa of Avila's autobiographical description of spiritual rapture experienced with the erotic force of a mingdasm, if I may use Shittu Fowora's term.
The concentrated force of the intersection of mind and cosmos experienced as the most intense pleasure, spanda, ''the pulsation of the ecstasy of the divine consciousness”, as described by Hindu thinker Abhinavagupta, ''the thrill of existence, the sacred tremor of our Heart,'' as depicted by Hridaya Yoga.
Image source : Pinterest
An aesthetic experience, in which the harmony between the visual beauty of the design and the coherence of the divine intelligence leads to a conjunction of human and cosmic mind, even if only for a brief time?
Mysticism, the theories and practices to which such ideas belong, is often driven by theory. These are ideas of why these aspirations are vital, how they could prove effective in leading to such expansions of self and why they succeed when they do eventuate in such results.
Could Okafor's work at the interface of aesthetics and metaphysics assist in cultivating such theory, a body of ideas one could employ like a boat to cross from the time bound nature of the human mind to configurations beyond space and time?
Okafor's ''Inscrutable Wonder'' Concept as an Aesthetic Idea Valid Beyond Classical African Masking
Okafor's concept of "inscrutable wonder" could be useful in this regard. She uses it in characterizing the force of the spectacle of classical African mask drama. She depicts these performances as marvellous, beautiful and mysterious. She describes them as awe inspiring even when the artistic techniques through which they are constructed are evident.
A mask of remarkably powerful aesthetics. The potency of its grand conception is the more forcefully projected in being tightly focused through execution within a small, carefully circumscribed space.
The face may be described as imperial, as suggested by the balance between its concentrated expression and the regal headdress, yet compassionate in the focus of the face, the lines around the eyes suggesting benign attention.
The standard, recurring features of a Sande society mask and the variables of that artistic form have been reworked to create something that remains traditional in its underlying aesthetic intelligence, but enriches them through the metallic finish of the surface, the individuality and masterly execution demonstrated by the choices of its constituent elements and the balance between them.
Geometric composition is employed in developing the
aesthetic unity of the face and focusing the gaze of the viewer.
The total
impression suggests concentrated attention from the persona generated by
the mask as well as a sense of disciplined splendour.
The composition of the upper part of the face by an upward facing triangle is complemented by the constitution of the lower part by a downward facing triangle.
The upward facing triangle is enriched by a complex formation of abstract forms bordered by the complementary opposition of a pair of zigzag lines on opposite sides flowing upwards towards the head to converge at one vertex of a structure of concentric squares at the top of the forehead.
Beyond this diamond structure, at the centre of the head, stands a short pole, its sides seemingly smoothly silver, at the centre of which run small circles arranged in a sequence culminating at the top, on which stands a bird abstracted to its structural essence as it looks down over the tableau, its beauty enhanced by a sequence of circles that ring its body as it is flanked by two horns, close to which are seated two female forms, gazing into space, their hair made in the same elaborate formations as the hair of the central figure on which they are seated, their necks ringed by smaller versions of the circular rolls on which the whole ensemble rests.
This mask is a projection of an ideal of feminine beauty as mediated by a non-human feminine personality, the Sowei water spirit patron of the Sande women's society which is believed to animate the mask, described as one of the few worn by women maskers in West Africa.
The successive rings are evocative of the ripples of water extending outward from where Sowei emerges from her dwelling in the dark depths of deep pools and lakes
This aquatic depth, concealing the divine presence of Sowei, resonates with the depth of being symbolized by the slit mouth, evoking the cultivation of spiritual power and esoteric knowledge through silence and inner spiritual concentration.
Sowei speaks, not through words but through the language of dance, animating the mask and imbuing the women being initiated into the Sande society with her presence as they move through life, thereby initiating them into a transformative process symbolized by the chrysalis of a butterfly or a moth, emerging into its fully realized nature as it becomes a moth or butterfly, like the girl initiates of Sande are reborn as women rather than the girls they were, in the course of which further development as women the rings come to represent the rolls of flesh acquired through living a rich life.
This mask complexifies the traditional iconography through the use of feminine features that suggest beauty as expressed in youth, middle age and beyond, evoking the persistence of beauty, in its different forms, in the temporal and biological motion through different but correlative stages of the female life cycle.
I see the lines radiating from the sides of the eyes as suggesting age. I perceive the smoothness of the skin in relation to the simple elegance of the face as evoking youth.
These qualities resonate with the exquisite complexity of the headdress, the entire aesthetic configuration framed by the pillar of successive bands on which it rests.
Beauty and power, youth and age, potencies of youth and potencies of age, are thereby correlatively evoked in a great dramatization of ideals of the feminine as running across the female life cycle.
This is correlative with the maiden, mother and crone figures of modern Western witchcraft representing the three major stages of the female life cycle, a trinity also suggestive of such evocative characters as the three women representing past, present and future in their positions at the foot of Yggdrasil, the tree that is the cosmos, it's branches the various worlds of existence in Norse mythology, the three women being the Norns whose weaving represents the unfolding of the course of human life.
Overseeing the tableau is the bird whose flight evokes the dynamism of mediation between spirits and humans within the context of the forest represented by the animal evocations of the two horns, the forest within which are concentrated the natural elements, particularly leaves, through which medicinal and spiritual powers are contacted and cultivated in classical African cultures and by the Sande society in particular, powers concentrated in concoctions of various elements placed in the animal horns positioned on Sowei headdresses.
Ruth Philips describes the Sowei mask as an "image of power, both spiritual and worldly, and also of feminine elegance and beauty (
The Sande Society Masks of the Mende of Sierra Leone, SOAS, PhD Diss. 1979, 158).
K. E. Hayes states of the mask that ''as an emblem of 'woman', the [Sowei] mask has been interpreted as an empowering image in the lives of Mende women [an ethnic group particularly associated with the mask] representing spiritual purity and sublime beauty while simultaneously alluding to an esoteric realm constituted of, by and for women.''
He argues, however, that the primary role of the initiation ceremony in which the mask is central and therefore, of the mask itself, is its role as an instrument for socializing Mende women to their subordinate lives in a society dominated by men, a socializing process to which the clitoridectomy at the heart of the initiation is central
( "Disciplining the Body: The Sowo Mask and the Construction of the Female Body in Sierra Leone," 8-9). Philips states, however, that this has been modified to making only a small incision (76).
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The full range of symbolism of the mask might be unknown to those outside the Sande society. The following summation by William Hommel in The Art of the Mende ( 1974) as quoted by Philips (146) and abstracted here is both rich and plausible, even though unconfirmed, as she states:
The … hair arrangement of the Kpa-Mende masks symbolizes maleness and acts as the physical complement in the women’s society. Phallic symbolism is also associated with the projections above the center lobe. This projection is a modification of the more literally depicted phallic symbol set in the center of a specially prepared meal served just before the young women are released from the Sande bush school [of initiatory training] to become brides. Another Kpa-Mende variation has a .. hair-style symbolizing the vagina with the clitoris represented by the same forms as the phallus.
The excitement generated by the female mask-character results largely from her sublime beauty and sacred aura. These qualities are suggested by the dramatic design of the mask's physical features as well as by the actions of the character herself. For example, the facial masks of the Igbo agbọghọ-mmọnwụ is usually white, pink, or yellow. It is also static. The light color and the immobility of the face reflect her other-worldly, awe-inspiring nature. Yet she is recognizable because her beautiful, stately figure reflects the model of an ideal Igbo maiden.
...
Although she is recognizable as female, she seems mysterious because these various devices have been carefully manipulated to make her so.
("Inscrutable Wonder," 45)
Imagine spirit simultaneously within and around you until the entire universe spiritualizes.
Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with cosmic essence.
Gracious one, play. The universe is an empty shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely.
Feel cosmos as translucent ever-living presence.
Feel the fine qualities of creativity permeating your breasts and assuming delicate configurations.
Achieving a related effect through different but correlative methods, the cosmic and the immediate, the spiritual and the material are conjoined by the Vijnana text to realize a form of beauty that is recognizable as both familiar and yet unfamiliar, awe inspiring yet derived from the continuities of daily experience.
A Congo Songye Kifwebe Mask
Text by
Susan Kloman
at
Christie's
''5 minutes with... A 19th-century Congolese Kifwebe mask
...an extraordinary 19th-century Congolese Songye Kifwebe mask, which was valued for its craftsmanship and highly original geometric design. Kloman describes it as ‘mesmerising’, and adds that it has ‘a very powerful, almost supernatural’ aura about it.
‘For the Songye,’ explains the specialist, ‘white symbolises goodness, purity, health, reproductive strength, joy, peace, wisdom and beauty. The colour is associated most commonly with the moon, the light, and daytime.’
Alexander Calder also studied Songye masks, and later used them as inspiration for his sculptures. ‘There is a similar spirit in his spirals and mobiles,’ Kloman points out. ‘That incorporeal quality generated by movement and energy.’
The specialist believes the mask’s design also made reference to the metaphysical: the lines create an optical illusion that can be hypnotic, pre-dating the experiments of the Op Art movement in the 1960s pioneered by artists such as Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely.
The Walschot-Schoffel Kifwebe mask is thought to have been made in the 19th century, although it is unusual to date such works since they have often been in the culture for a long time before they become part of a collection. ‘You can tell from the patina and the wear that this was a significant object,’ says Kloman.''
''The Walschot-Schoffel Kifwebe Mask
A Master of Geometric Abstraction: The Songye
Sculptor
The Walschot-Schoffel Kifwebe Mask is
the most beautiful and important example of this iconic type to come to market.
The mask evinces a hypnotic grip through the sculptor’s genius of marrying
powerful proportions and sensual volumes with graphic lines.
The work’s thoughtful interiority is expressed in the eyes under the forehead which rolls down to the mouth and chin, which also lift upwards – a state of perpetual animation. The lines imbue it, simultaneously, with palpable vitality through the impression of movement, it heaves like waves that swell and contract.
The Fourth Dimension
More than a three-dimensional sculpture, it has a fourth dimension. The mastery
of the Songye artist who created this work in what is now the Democratic
Republic of Congo in the nineteenth century, is evident.
The Kifwebe type of mask is the most iconic in all of African artistry, and has compelled artists since the early 20th century and appears prominently in the works of Alexander Calder and later, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The highly graphic quality and abstraction
of the mask has made its original function in the Congo – that of a
supernatural being – evident to modern artists, who also strove to visually
express that which is intangible.
Power Incarnate: The Kifwebe Mask
The society for which these masks were created called, bwadi bwa kifwebe, is the most important
association in the east of the Songye region. With the power of judicial and
social control, and thereby measures of economic control, as a redistributor of
the levies it raises.
The kifwebe creature [ partly] resembles a man. He walks
upright like a man, yet is known to fly like a bird. He has hands like a man, but
only three fingers. He talks, but in an odd falsetto voice. Although he carries
a stick like a man, threatening to inflict punishment by physical means, he can
bring death to his victims mystically.
In announcing his approach he produces
thunderous echoing sounds and the deep growling of a lion. Entering a village
he runs wildly and frantically like a beast set loose or one on the track of
its prey.
At the same time the kifwebe, especially the female type, can demonstrate the cultivated and learned movements of dance or the stately poise of dignitaries.
Signs and Symbols
To the uninitiated certain morphological features of the kifwebe are visually readable, whereas others are
alluded to metaphorically, mainly through accompanying songs of the bwadi.
The power of the kifwebe, said to be concentrated in the face, is visually perceived in features similar to those of animals considered ferocious such as the crocodile, lion and zebra.
The crocodile is perhaps the most feared of aquatic animals. The lion who plunders the village and bush dominates through sheer strength and brutality. On the other hand, the zebra, an animal alien to the Songye region, is an anomaly and probably something of a mystery to the inhabitants.
Hence the striations of the kifwebe emphasise the supernatural, that is, a transmutation or metamorphosis, not only in association with the zebra, but simultaneously with the striped bushbuck antelope (to which reference is evoked by the masqueraders name, ngulungu).
Significantly, too, the aggressiveness of both animals matches the temperament of the kifwebe. Related to the striped species of animals Hersak also includes a reference to the porcupine. The identified Hystrix sp. is the largest African rodent whose long quills (up to 30 centimetres), capable of causing fatal wounds, are striped in black, brown and white.
Thus the kifwebe, having the snout of a crocodile, the mane of a lion, the stripes of a zebra and antelope and nasal hair sharp like the quills of the porcupine, is potentially endowed with the behavioral characteristics of all these animals.
For the Songye white symbolizes goodness, purity, health, reproductive
strength, joy, peace, the attainment of wisdom, and beauty. It is associated
most commonly with the moon, light, daytime, manioc flour, semen and mother’s
milk.
The white pigment used is called ntoshi. It is a clay (kaolin) most commonly brought from river beds which is dried, crushed to powder and applied either wet or dry. The specific use of white clay from rivers and forests seems to activate the female mask physically, linking its symbolic representation to aspects of the environment associated with the sacred, ancestral domain.
Rivers and certain species of trees in the forest are conceived of as points of interaction with the ancestors who are responsible for the descent of the new-born to earth. The female bifwebe are said to call these descendant spirits from the forest to the village.
The absence of a crest and the signalling white pigment make this mask clearly
recognizable as female. Unlike the striated male masks, traditional
female bifwebe are characterized by contrasting fields of
colour and more numerous and finer grooves than the other types of masks. In
comparison with the male masks, significantly fewer examples of female masks
exist in public and private collections. This confirms the singular
participation of the female bifwebe in
the bwadi ensemble.
It is a "spectacle that is seen as the highest form of art in Igboland because it incorporates all the arts of the society to produce a kind of total theater that is more than the modern total theater, because of its metaphysical content and communal input," as Okafor states in "Female Power: Corner Stone or Central Subject in Igbo Mask Performance" (2008).
In the kinetics of the dance, the headdress acquires a new vitality, creating illusions of being transformed into a living entity. Its eyes fleetingly appear to be "seeing’’ the environment; yet the face looks uncannily dignified and tranquil, as if sensing the presence of supernatural beings among the audience who have come to judge the performance and thereby assess the community’s sense of purpose.
Motifs like motor vehicles, boats, airplanes, horse riders, and animals seem to heighten the motion of the dancer. Yet most of the figures on the superstructure [atop the face of the mask] look unruffled, seemingly confident of the dancer’s control of the situation.
The sounding of drums, the buzz of human voices, and the jingling of mental anklets combine with the movement of forms in space, in a whirl of dust and colors, against the redness of the earth.
A sea of heads, a mass of human bodies clad in multicolored dresses, the surrounding trees and buildings-all transform the dance venue into an unforgettable vision. And when this experience is added to that of the efe ceremony of the first night, it is difficult to find any other festival in Yorubaland that rivals Gèlèdé. Hence, the popular saying: Ojú t’ ówo Gèlèdé ti di’ ópin ìran (The eyes that have seen Gèlèdé have seen the ultimate spectacle) (The Gèlèdé Spectacle, 1996,159).
Most of these mask images further develop the aesthetic of simultaneous familiarization and distancing, in which contemplative inwardness complements outward beauty, hyperbolic majesty of form amplifies conventional aesthetic configurations.
''In Female Power,'' Okafor evokes the conceptual expression of these images in Igbo thought in the Omumu "philosophy of being and begetting whereby existence is [ pervasively ] attributed to female beings[ On the basis of the ] idea that everything has a mother, a source that gave it life, many rituals, events, and structures revolve around omumu, which is the conceptual abstraction of the gynecological dimension of the body."
What may one abstract from Okafor's conception of inscrutable wonder as a defining feature of classical African mask drama?
mask left, superimposed on Okafor's model of the African masking theatre cosmos.
It's a method of information organisation and symbolic evocation developed from Buddhism, the Buddhist deployment of this technique itself possibly rooted in the Hindu yantra, which is purely geometric, without any concrete elements.
This collage facilitates appreciation of this aesthetic conception in relation to the mnemonic evocativeness of Okafor's model.
Will I then journey through rainbow projecting the fire that is dreamed of, rays, violet and short, piercing the darkness, taking me to dark waters of the beginning, where the mask collective, unified as one, calls out to me, come into my cavern, shake the dust from your hair, let your ear listen, my mouth calls from a cavern...