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Art of the Baga: A Drama of Cultural Reinvention
It examines their attempt to conserve their own religious ritual, to the eventual destruction of their traditions at mid century with the conversion to Islam and, with independence from France, the establishment of the Republic of Guinea under an iconoclastic Marxist regime.
In this book, the Baga voice is heard in the direct testimony of three Baga writers and forty Baga consultants of all ages and background experience, from ten-year-old boys to elders and ritual leaders of over 100 years of age. Baga traditional leaders see themselves as the creators of their own spiritual world, revealing an extraordinary belief in their own creations. A historical tension exists between youth and elders, giving rise to the appropriation and reinvention of the art and ritual of the elders by the youth, often approaching sacrilege and the defiance of strict prohibitions. Today, the Baga strive to renew their traditions as a manifestation of their cultural worth.
Exhibition catalogue by Frederick Lamp: Introduction: Authority and the Creation of a Narrative on the Baga; The Coastal Matix: Early Settlment before the French; Ethnohistory: The Legacy of the Fouta Djallon; Masculine and Feminine Clans and Their Patron Spirits; The Welfare of the Clan and the Invention of God; The Creation of Status: The Age Grades; Spirits of the Composite Beast: The Justification of Disparate Worlds; Foundations of a New Society: The Construction and Deconstruction of Beauty and Goodness; The Colonial Watershed: Social Conflict and Resolution under the French Order; Spirits of Defiance and Reinvention; The Islamic Watershed: A Culture Held in Reserve, 1955-1985; The present Dilemma: Age Grades and the Valution of Heritage.
Published and distributed by The Museum for African Art and Prestel, Munich, 1996. 268 pp.
Cloth: ISBN 3-7913-1725-3, Paper: ISBN 0-945802-18-8. LCCN: 96-077336.
In this book, the Baga voice is heard in the direct testimony of three Baga writers and forty Baga consultants of all ages and background experience, from ten-year-old boys to elders and ritual leaders of over 100 years of age. Baga traditional leaders see themselves as the creators of their own spiritual world, revealing an extraordinary belief in their own creations. A historical tension exists between youth and elders, giving rise to the appropriation and reinvention of the art and ritual of the elders by the youth, often approaching sacrilege and the defiance of strict prohibitions. Today, the Baga strive to renew their traditions as a manifestation of their cultural worth.
Exhibition catalogue by Frederick Lamp: Introduction: Authority and the Creation of a Narrative on the Baga; The Coastal Matix: Early Settlment before the French; Ethnohistory: The Legacy of the Fouta Djallon; Masculine and Feminine Clans and Their Patron Spirits; The Welfare of the Clan and the Invention of God; The Creation of Status: The Age Grades; Spirits of the Composite Beast: The Justification of Disparate Worlds; Foundations of a New Society: The Construction and Deconstruction of Beauty and Goodness; The Colonial Watershed: Social Conflict and Resolution under the French Order; Spirits of Defiance and Reinvention; The Islamic Watershed: A Culture Held in Reserve, 1955-1985; The present Dilemma: Age Grades and the Valution of Heritage.
Published and distributed by The Museum for African Art and Prestel, Munich, 1996. 268 pp.
Cloth: ISBN 3-7913-1725-3, Paper: ISBN 0-945802-18-8. LCCN: 96-077336.
$38.00