Bamana: the art of existence in Mali - exhibition preview - various artists, African art, Museum for African Art, New York and Museum Rietberg, Zurich

African Arts, Winter, 2001 by Jean-Paul Colleyn, Laurie Ann Farrell

The Museum for African Art, New York, and the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, have mounted related but separate exhibitions on the Bamana peoples of Mali. The Museum for African Art's "Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali" (September 13, 2001-May 19, 2002) is curated by Jean-Paul Colleyn and Catherine De Clippel. Frank Herreman, Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Publications, Museum for African Art, selected approximately 120 artworks from public and private sources in the United States and Belgium; the exhibition also includes 26 black-and-white photographs taken in the field by Catherine De Clippel, a photographer and producer and director of documentary films, and 4 video segments. At this writing, the Milwaukee Art Museum is scheduled to host the exhibition in spring 2003, and other venues are under consideration.

The selection for the Museum Rietberg presentation, "Bamana: Afrikanische Kunst aus Mali (September 9-December 9, 2001), was made by Lorenz Homberger, Deputy Director and Curator of Exhibitions, Museum Rietberg, who drew from works in European collections and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The two museums have collaborated on an exhibition catalogue, co-published by Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, Ghent. Edited by Jean-Paul Colleyn, it includes contributions by Mary Jo Arnoldi, Rene A. Bravmann, James T. Brink, David C. Conrad, Catherine De Clippel, Kate Ezra, Barbara E. Frank, Salia Male, and Patrick McNaughton, as well as Colleyn himself. Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali (256 pp., 230 color photos, 50 b/w field photos; $45 softcover, $75 hardcover) is also available in German (Bamana: Afrikanische Kunst aus Mali; 48 SF softcover, 90 SF hardcover); a French edition is forthcoming. Each edition includes photographs of works from the two exhibitions.

This preview is based in part on the catalogue text. Illustrations have been selected from both the New York and Zurich exhibitions.

BAMANA IDENTITY

The issue of ethnic identity is complex, but it can be scrutinized by posing a simple question: "Who is classifying whom?" When French colonizers interrogated their Fula, Arab, and Berber informants about the people living in the central Western Sudan, they were told that they were "Bambara." (1) This name was widely adopted after the French conquest in 1898, yet it was never used by the people in question as a term of self-reference.

The local name was "Bamana," and it has had shifting meanings. From precolonial times to the 1960s, the Bamana were distinguished from other Mande peoples such as the Soninke and Mandinka by their resistance to Islam. French colonial ethnography linked the name "Bambara" and the peoples of the Segou kingdom, who included Bamana, because of their opposition to the Fula Islamic state of Massina (1818-62) and to the holy war waged by al Hajj Umar Tal between 1852 and 1862. For these historical reasons, Segou developed a distinctive cultural and political consciousness that has to a certain extent continued to the present day. At a popular level, however, Bamanaya--the condition of being Bamana--refers not to a particular people but to certain religious representations and practices, to a way of explaining the world and acting on it through rituals in order to achieve a state of well-being. Bamana believe that elements of ordinary life--the shape of a cloud, the song of a bird--are signs that must be interpreted. Diviners and priests prescribe ritual actions and sculptures, for use in public or in private, to deal with the problems of everyday existence by eliminating negative conditions or forces, improving one's luck, or appeasing powerful deities.

In rural Mali, the people who claimed (and still do) to be Bamana refer only to the fact that they do not perform the prayers to Allah but remain faithful to the religion of their ancestors. Generally speaking, then, people who belong to initiation societies (jow, sing. jo; the plural may be indicated by a terminal w), who sacrifice animals upon "power objects," or boliw (Fig. 1), (2) and who communicate with ancestors through masked or possessed dancers may be called Bamana. It is this simplified meaning of Bamana that the Museum for African Art and the Museum Rietberg have chosen to adopt for their exhibitions and accompanying catalogues.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

We are aware, however, that the larger reality is far more complex, and that being Bamana is often a process of self-identification. For example, practicing Muslims in and around Segou may identify strongly as Bamana. For them, Bamanaya is located not just in the initiation societies and associated objects but more broadly in language, elements of secular culture, ways of looking at life, and shared lineages and community histories.

Indeed, the fact that Bamanaya can be generally seen as a marker opposed to Islam does not mean that it has not been deeply influenced by it. Trimingham (1962) compares the process of conversion from the local religion to Islam to the embellishment of a textile with embroidery. Although Bamanaya--a religious system based on initiation societies--is what remains non-Muslim, it cannot be considered, in the form to which scholars have access, as a pure pre-Islamic religion. Indeed, in many places Bamana have mixed with Islamized populations (Bazin 1985:104; Tauxier 1942:33-35, 54-57; Raffenel 1856, vol. 1:363-65; Imperato 1977:48-52). Two contributions to the exhibition catalogue, by David C. Conrad and Rene A. Bravmann, establish the basis of the Islamic presence and its historical importance in shaping Bamana culture. Conrad traces the spread of Islam in what is now Mali and shows how the very principles of acquiring secret knowledge, notably the magic recipes (daliluw), are associated with the idea of pilgrimage to a sacred site. Many boliw are claimed to have been brought from Mecca by a famous hero called Fajigi, a claim which appears to be based on Mansa Musa's pilgrimage in 1324. This legend expresses the accommodation between indigenous religious practices and Islam.