Allo Kafii Gida

Allo Kafii Gida PDF Author: Antoine Lema
Publisher: 5 Continents Editions
ISBN: 9788874398744
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Secrecy is the common feature of the so-called allo kafii gida Qur'anic writing boards used by the Hausa of northern Nigeria. While on the one hand their owners share a barely concealed reluctance to reveal the auspicious epigrams decorating these artefacts, on the other they exhibit a clear desire to avoid displaying images of animals and human beings that might cause repercussions in an iconoclastic Islamic context. One need only consider that even today possessing an allo kafii gida incurs severe punishment by the most fervent Moslems, sometimes extending to the death penalty. Every board in this book would have been destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists if it had not somehow been saved at some time in the past. Those who made the decorations embellishing these Qur'anic tablets were not simply illustrators; they were nothing short of troubadours, painting on wooden panels the tales depicting the cosmic connections of the society in which they lived. Over the years, the cosmic ideas of distant foreign lands were incorporated in the Hausas' system of thought and these allo kafii gida have thus turned into cosmological time capsules impressed on wooden panels. In view of this challenging cultural context, the owners of these artworks can be described as 'curators' of these secret boards, which, in spite of serving the Islamic religion, actually record Hausa cosmology. The artefacts adorning the book are truly unique in the field of extra-European art and come from a private collection built over a period of twenty years of painstaking research.

Allo Kafii Gida

Allo Kafii Gida PDF Author: Antoine Lema
Publisher: 5 Continents Editions
ISBN: 9788874398744
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Secrecy is the common feature of the so-called allo kafii gida Qur'anic writing boards used by the Hausa of northern Nigeria. While on the one hand their owners share a barely concealed reluctance to reveal the auspicious epigrams decorating these artefacts, on the other they exhibit a clear desire to avoid displaying images of animals and human beings that might cause repercussions in an iconoclastic Islamic context. One need only consider that even today possessing an allo kafii gida incurs severe punishment by the most fervent Moslems, sometimes extending to the death penalty. Every board in this book would have been destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists if it had not somehow been saved at some time in the past. Those who made the decorations embellishing these Qur'anic tablets were not simply illustrators; they were nothing short of troubadours, painting on wooden panels the tales depicting the cosmic connections of the society in which they lived. Over the years, the cosmic ideas of distant foreign lands were incorporated in the Hausas' system of thought and these allo kafii gida have thus turned into cosmological time capsules impressed on wooden panels. In view of this challenging cultural context, the owners of these artworks can be described as 'curators' of these secret boards, which, in spite of serving the Islamic religion, actually record Hausa cosmology. The artefacts adorning the book are truly unique in the field of extra-European art and come from a private collection built over a period of twenty years of painstaking research.

Kifwebe

Kifwebe PDF Author: Francois Neyt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788874398645
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Offers a fresh perspective on the Songye and Luba through the study of the Woods Davy Collection Kifwebe masks are ceremonial objects used by the Songye and Luba societies (Democratic Republic of Congo), where they are worn with costumes consisting of a long robe and a long beard made of plant fibres. As in other central African cultures, the same mask can be used in either magical and religious or festive ceremonies. In order to understand Kifwebe masks, it is essential to consider them within the cosmogony of the python rainbow, metalworking in the forge, and other plant and animal signs. Among the Songye, benevolent female masks reveal what is hidden and balance white and red energy associated with two subsequent initiations, the bukishi. Aggressive male masks were originally involved in social control and had a kind of policing role, carried out in accordance with the instructions of village elders. These two male and female forces acted in a balanced way to reinforce harmony within the village. Among the Luba, the masked figures are also benevolent and appear at the new moon, their role being to enhance fertility. Although the male and female masks fulfil functions that do not wholly overlap, they do have features in common: a frontal crest, round and excessively protruding eyes, flaring nostrils, a cube-shaped mouth and lips, stripes, and colors. Art historians and anthropologists have taken increasing interest in Kifwebe masks in recent years.

Archaeologia Britannica

Archaeologia Britannica PDF Author: Edward Lhuyd
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description


Headrests of Southern Africa

Headrests of Southern Africa PDF Author: Bruce Goodall
Publisher: 5 Continents Editions
ISBN: 9788874399642
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
- For the first time African headrests are brought to life with detailed information on their carvers, and the stories of their creation, ownership, and use This book presents the fascinating subject of southern African headrests in a new light. With unique historical and personal information collected from many of the headrest's original owners and carvers, and often accompanied by in situ photographs, the book tells the illustrated story of the headrests, as well as of the people behind them. For the first time African headrests are brought to life with detailed information on their carvers, and the stories of their creation, ownership, and use. The 425 headrests from the collections of Bruce Goodall from Cape Town and Frédéric Zimer from Paris will be presented according to the 3 geographical areas: KwaZulu-Natal, north of the Tugela River (in what was previously known as Zululand) and the headrests from the Swazi.

Luba

Luba PDF Author: François Neyt
Publisher: Musee Dapper
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description


The Half-God of Rainfall

The Half-God of Rainfall PDF Author: Inua Ellams
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0008324786
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
From the award-winning poet and playwright behind Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall is an epic story and a lyrical exploration of pride, power and female revenge.

Horn of Africa Bulletin

Horn of Africa Bulletin PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Horn of Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description


In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory

In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory PDF Author: John D. Bengtson
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027232520
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
Compiled in honor and celebration of veteran anthropologist Harold C. Fleming, this book contains 23 articles by anthropologists (in the general sense) from the four main disciplines of prehistory: archaeology, biogenetics, paleoanthropology, and genetic (historical) linguistics. Because of Professor Fleming's major focus on language — he founded the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory and the journal Mother Tongue — the content of the book is heavily tilted toward the study of human language, its origins, historical development, and taxonomy. Because of Fleming's extensive field experience in Africa some of the articles deal with African topics. This volume is intended to exemplify the principle, in the words of Fleming himself, that each of the four disciplines is enriched when it combines with any one of the other four. The authors are representative of the cutting edge of their respective fields, and this book is unusual in including contributions from a wide range of anthropological fields rather than concentrating in any one of them.

Lectures and Writings of Alhaji Aminu Kano, 16-9-69--16-4-70

Lectures and Writings of Alhaji Aminu Kano, 16-9-69--16-4-70 PDF Author: Alhaji Aminu Kano
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description


Zimbabwe Art Symbol and Meaning

Zimbabwe Art Symbol and Meaning PDF Author: Gillian Atherstone
Publisher: Artmedia (Acc)
ISBN: 9788874399451
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The book opens a window onto Africa's symbolism, confirming that the mind naturally computes according to two parallel codes: the outer code of sensory awareness, and the inner code of subjective awareness. More than two hundred images of Zimbabwe's historical art, taken during a window of time when it was still possible to find it, reveal how art is expressed across life as the language of spiritual and cultural meaning - a way of ensuring that such meaning was never far from individual awareness. The majority of the images were taken in the more remote "communal lands", regions "set aside" for Africans during the colonial era. It was here that an African sense of identity, culture, and history survived colonialism and the effects of a malign dictatorship. Most of the images date from the period 1998 to 2015, during which time Duncan Wylie, the artist who took the photographs, traveled back to the country of his birth to undertake what he describes as a "work of transmission and a valuable insight for the non-African world toward a deeper appreciation of African art forms, and a wider perception of the possibilities of art, a world few have experienced." Zimbabwe offered a unique opportunity to look back a thousand years into African symbolism via the Great Zimbabwe ruins. This medieval city, built in stone, reveals an architecture and style that is as unique to the culture as it is rich in symbols, from its enigmatic solid stone tower and massive walls, which had no defensive function, to the stone "Zimbabwe Birds" that are a symbol of the contemporary nation. A highly symbolic statement was to photograph the ancient stone birds (dating back to the height of Great Zimbabwe's power in the 1350s) outside a museum context and on the ruins where they once stood. The work represented by the images and text is the result of a partnership between the artist, who took the images over a period of 17 years, and the author, who began a life-long involvement with the arts of Zimbabwe and sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s, as curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. But accolades must go to the communities themselves, the subjects of these images, for without their dedication to the project of recording their culture in the face of its increasing disappearance, this book could never have come into being.