By Fr Edward Kanyike MCCJ
Looking at some African pieces of art, one can doubt whether what is in front of him/her is fine art or something else. Many tribes in Uganda and elsewhere used to practice scarification on the bodies of their women, children, heroes and candidates for initiation. Some went as far as removing the front teeth of the lower jaw.
In the Oromo valley of Ethiopia, you can still find women with lip plates: the lower lips are stretched to incredible proportions so that lip plates are inserted into them — all in the name of beauty and identity. What others would call ‘disfiguring’, others call ‘beautification.’Looking at some African pieces of art, one can doubt whether what is in front of him/her is fine art or something else. Many tribes in Uganda and elsewhere used to practice scarification on the bodies of their women, children, heroes and candidates for initiation. Some went as far as removing the front teeth of the lower jaw.
In the Oromo valley of Ethiopia, you can still find women with lip plates: the lower lips are stretched to incredible proportions so that lip plates are inserted into them — all in the name of beauty and identity. What others would call ‘disfiguring’, others call ‘beautification.’ woman and a beautiful woman. In Luo languages, you have the same word for beautiful and holy: ‘leng’ can mean holy or beautiful. In Ateso, the word ‘elai’ can mean both beautiful and good: elai apese means ‘beautiful girl’ but ‘elai eketau’ literary meaning ‘beautiful heart’, simply refers to a good person.
These few examples indicate that beauty, goodness and holiness are strictly linked. Outside, beauty cannot be taken in isolation; it just complements goodness, completeness, holiness and morality. For the Mursi, we have mentioned above, the lip plate is carried proudly by girls of marriageable age and newly married women as a sign of beauty, purity, commitment and fidelity.
African scarification is part of African art, which is mainly iconographic. Iconography is a system of images used by an artist to convey a certain meaning. It often has to do with the spiritual world. It expresses the powers of the supernatural, to which Africans owe their existence and on which they recognize their dependence. In Africa, works of art, whether visual, poetic, or musical, are used to convey the unfamiliar in the familiar, the abstract in the concrete, and the spiritual in the physical. They are designed to serve a practical and meaningful purpose; the beauty of appearance is secondary.
African art is, therefore, functional. We can even speak of ‘functional beauty.’ It answers to needs that are vital to the spiritual and physical well-being of the people. In African traditional art, colours are not only used for aesthetic purposes. They have deep meanings. Red symbolizes vitality and life force; yellow represents spirituality and royalty. Green embodies nature and fertility, while blue signifies protection and spirituality. White is the colour of ancestral spirits.
The black colour depicts power, authority, and the unseen forces of the spiritual realm. Sometimes it also stands for the Earth, humanity and the ancestors. Unlike in Christian liturgy where coloured vestments are worn by ministers, in African worship, colours are painted on the bodies of those who participate in rituals. In ritual, the physical and the spiritual are one.
One curious fact about African art is that it is depersonalized. Traditional artists do not sign their work. It belongs to the people and not to the artist, even if his/her creativity is inevitably present in his/her work. It is community-orientated in that the artist performs to fulfill the ritual and social purposes of the community.
The works of art are meant to regulate the spiritual, political, and social forces within the community. This is seen especially in Malawi (Chewa), DRC Congo (Pende), and Nigeria (Igbo and Yoruba) where masks or masquerades play an important role in festivals, rituals, funerals, and other social gatherings. They depict human and animal spirits, divinities, the ancestors, mythological beings, good and evil, peace and justice, etc Sometimes the people who carry them are believed to be possessed by the spirits they represent. They also carry messages and lessons from the spiritual world.
To use the resumé of Innocent C. Onyewuenyi, whose treatise on African Aesthetics has influenced this article, African art is functional, community-orientated, depersonalised, and contextualized.
