Griot Potters of the Folona

Griot Potters of the Folona PDF Author: Barbara E Frank
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780253059000
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Griot Potters of the Folona reconstructs the past of a renowned group of West African women potters using evidence found in their artistry and techniques. The potters of the Folona region of southeastern Mali are entirely women, serving a diverse clientele and firing thousands of pots weekly during the height of the dry season. The unique styles and types of objects the Folona women make, and more importantly, the way they form and fire them, are fundamentally different from Mande potters to the north and west. Through a brilliant comparative analysis of pottery production methods across the region, especially how the pots are formed and the way the techniques are taught by mothers to daughters, Barbara Frank concludes that the potters of the Folona very likely came from the south and east, marrying wandering griots (West African leatherworkers who were storytellers or musicians), as they made their way north. While the women may have nominally given up their mothers' identities through marriage, over the generations the potters preserved their maternal heritage through their technological style, passing this knowledge on to their daughters.

Griot Potters of the Folona

Griot Potters of the Folona PDF Author: Barbara E Frank
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780253059000
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book

Book Description
Griot Potters of the Folona reconstructs the past of a renowned group of West African women potters using evidence found in their artistry and techniques. The potters of the Folona region of southeastern Mali are entirely women, serving a diverse clientele and firing thousands of pots weekly during the height of the dry season. The unique styles and types of objects the Folona women make, and more importantly, the way they form and fire them, are fundamentally different from Mande potters to the north and west. Through a brilliant comparative analysis of pottery production methods across the region, especially how the pots are formed and the way the techniques are taught by mothers to daughters, Barbara Frank concludes that the potters of the Folona very likely came from the south and east, marrying wandering griots (West African leatherworkers who were storytellers or musicians), as they made their way north. While the women may have nominally given up their mothers' identities through marriage, over the generations the potters preserved their maternal heritage through their technological style, passing this knowledge on to their daughters.

Griot Potters of the Folona

Griot Potters of the Folona PDF Author: Barbara E. Frank
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025305897X
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 650

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Book Description
Griot Potters of the Folona reconstructs the past of a particular group of West African women potters using evidence found in their artistry and techniques. The potters of the Folona region of southeastern Mali serve a diverse clientele and firing thousands of pots weekly during the height of the dry season. Although they identify themselves as Mande, the unique styles and types of objects the Folona women make, and more importantly, the way they form and fire them, are fundamentally different from Mande potters to the north and west. Through a brilliant comparative analysis of pottery production methods across the region, especially how the pots are formed and the way the techniques are taught by mothers to daughters, Barbara Frank concludes that the mothers of the potters of the Folona very likely came from the south and east, marrying Mande griots (West African leatherworkers who are better known as storytellers or musicians), as they made their way south in search of clientele as early as the 14th or 15th century CE. While the women may have nominally given up their mothers' identities through marriage, over the generations the potters preserved their maternal heritage through their technological style, passing this knowledge on to their daughters, and thus transforming the very nature of what it means to be a Mande griot. This is a story of resilience and the continuity of cultural heritage in the hands of women.

African Arts

African Arts PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art, African
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description


African Pottery Roulettes Past and Present

African Pottery Roulettes Past and Present PDF Author: Anne Haour
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1842178733
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
African Pottery Roulettes Past and Present considers ethnographic, museological and archaeological approaches to pottery-decorating tools called roulettes, that is to say, short lengths of fibre or wood that are rolled over the surface of a vessel for decoration. This book sets out, for the first time, a solid typology for the classification of African pottery decorated with such tools, and forges a consensus on common methodology and standards. It gives an overview of history of research into roulette decoration in Africa and elsewhere Jomon Japan, Neolithic Europe, Siberia, and New York among others; outlines the contemporary distribution of roulette usage in sub-Saharan African today, a 'success story' from Senegal to Tanzania; and proposes methodologies for the identification of selected roulette decoration types in the archaeological record. By achieving standardisation in pottery analysis, this book will help researchers make meaningful comparisons between different sites of West Africa, and thus guide further research on the West African past. As roulette decoration has been such a global phenomenon in the past, the book will also be of interest to all researchers with an interest in ceramics from different parts of the world.

Outsiders and Strangers

Outsiders and Strangers PDF Author: Anne Haour
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019166779X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Studies of liminality have a long history in anthropology. In archaeology, identifying past people - rather than faceless entities - through material culture is still a work in progress, but a project that has seen increased attention in recent years. Focusing on West Africa, this book argues that we should explore what happens when the primary label assigned to a person's identity is that of an outsider - when he or she is of, but not in, society. Such outsiders can be found everywhere in the West African past: rulers show off their foreign descent, traders migrate to new areas, potters and blacksmiths claim to be apart from society. Thus far, however, it is mainly historians and anthropologists who have tackled the question of outsiders or liminal people. This book asks what archaeology can bring to the debate, and drawing together for the first time the extensive literature on the subject of outsiders, looks in detail at the role they played in the past 1000 years of the West African past, in particular in the construction of great empires.

Women Potters

Women Potters PDF Author: Moira Vincentelli
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813533810
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This works proposes that a women's tradition in ceramics is one in which pottery making is a gendered activity intimately connected with female identity. The knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. It guides the reader through these traditions continent by continent. Different areas are illustrated with beautiful, detailed maps and fascinating colour photographs from around the world.

Griot Potters of the Folona

Griot Potters of the Folona PDF Author: Barbara E. Frank
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253058988
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 527

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Book Description
Griot Potters of the Folona reconstructs the past of a particular group of West African women potters using evidence found in their artistry and techniques. The potters of the Folona region of southeastern Mali serve a diverse clientele and firing thousands of pots weekly during the height of the dry season. Although they identify themselves as Mande, the unique styles and types of objects the Folona women make, and more importantly, the way they form and fire them, are fundamentally different from Mande potters to the north and west. Through a brilliant comparative analysis of pottery production methods across the region, especially how the pots are formed and the way the techniques are taught by mothers to daughters, Barbara Frank concludes that the mothers of the potters of the Folona very likely came from the south and east, marrying Mande griots (West African leatherworkers who are better known as storytellers or musicians), as they made their way south in search of clientele as early as the 14th or 15th century CE. While the women may have nominally given up their mothers' identities through marriage, over the generations the potters preserved their maternal heritage through their technological style, passing this knowledge on to their daughters, and thus transforming the very nature of what it means to be a Mande griot. This is a story of resilience and the continuity of cultural heritage in the hands of women.

Status and Identity in West Africa

Status and Identity in West Africa PDF Author: David C. Conrad
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253112644
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
"... the contributors to Status and Identity in West Africa have swept away the dust that has obscured the study of the societies of western Sudan and have made it possible to pursue the salutory work of decolonizing the history and sociology of these regions."Â -- American Ethnologist "This discussion is among the most significant contributions that African studies can make to the contemporary global dialogue on multicultural issues." -- Choice "It is 'must' reading for anyone who works in African literature today." -- Research in African Literatures "…an indispensable guide to understanding the producers of art in the Mande world, including the art of the spoken word. The writing and arguments are clear and jargon-free…it will provide a rich harvest of detailed original research…" -- African Arts "[This] book... is the most impressive effort to look at these groups in comparative perspective. The essays fit together nicely to challenge notions that came out of colonial scholarship." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History "... the volume makes a significant contribution to the social history and ongoing processes of cultural pluralism in West Africa." -- Journal of Religion in Africa The nyamakalaw -- blacksmiths, potters, leather-workers, bards, and other artists and specialists among the Mande-speaking peoples of West Africa -- play powerful roles in Mande society. This book presents the first full portrait of one of Africa's most powerful and least understood social groups.

Asked What Has Changed

Asked What Has Changed PDF Author: Ed Roberson
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819580120
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
A Black ecopoet observes the changing world from a high-rise window, “ever alert to affinities between the small and the vast, the fleeting and the cosmic” (James Gibbons, Hyperallergic). Award-winning poet Ed Roberson confronts the realities of an era in which the fate of humanity and the very survival of our planet are uncertain. Departing from the traditional nature poem, Roberson's work reclaims a much older tradition, drawing into poetry’s orbit what the physical and human sciences reveal about the state of a changing world. These poems test how far the lyric can go as an answer to our crisis, even calling into question poetic form itself. Reflections on the natural world and moments of personal interiority are interwoven with images of urbanscapes, environmental crises, and political instabilities. These poems speak life and truth to modernity in all its complexity. Throughout, Roberson takes up the ancient spiritual concern—the ephemerality of life—and gives us a new language to process the feeling of living in a century on the brink.

Ifá Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance

Ifá Divination, Knowledge, Power, and Performance PDF Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025301896X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This landmark volume compiled by Jacob K. Olupona and Rowland O. Abiodun brings readers into the diverse world of Ifá—its discourse, ways of thinking, and artistic expression as manifested throughout the Afro-Atlantic. Firmly rooting Ifá within African religious traditions, the essays consider Ifá and Ifá divination from the perspectives of philosophy, performance studies, and cultural studies. They also examine the sacred context, verbal art, and the interpretation of Ifá texts and philosophy. With essays from the most respected scholars in the field, the book makes a substantial contribution toward understanding Ifá and its role in contemporary Yoruba and diaspora cultures.