The Baga and their art - art of a people living in part of Guinea, Museum of African Art, New York, NY; adapted from 'Art of the Baga: A Drama of Cultural Reinvention' - Under the Hammer - Cover Story

American Visions, April-May, 1997 by Frederick Lamp

Yet the Baga elders were skillful in adapting to changing political conditions. The emergence of the horse in the sculpture of the patriarchy is an example of change at the highest ritual level. The horse appeared on two types of traditional sculpture: the timba drum and the stool.

The Baga of the 20th century were introduced to the horse with the coming of the mounted French commandant. Like this colonial officer, the elder with a stool in the form of a horse would command a symbol of invincibility. It may also be that the image of the mounted commandant conjured up another image by this time well-known to the Baga: the winged horse al-B'rak, said to have carried the Prophet Mohammed miraculously through the air from Mecca to Jerusalem, from which he then ascended to heaven on the holy night of Miraj, and later returned to Mecca. Although the horses carved as stools and drums are not winged (and hence would refer only obliquely to al-B'rak), all references to the horse imply a supernatural power.

In the 20th century, Baga territory has been continually and thoroughly eroded by immigrant groups, especially the Susu (since at least the 16th century), the Fulbe (who were major players in the introduction of Islam to the region), and the Malinke (whose names the Baga share). Of all the indigenous Guinean groups that have impacted on the Baga over the past five centuries, the Susu have certainly left the deepest imprint. Reports from the mid-19th century make it clear that the southern Baga subgroups were under the direct rule of Susu petty kings. By the late 19th century the Susu had thoroughly infiltrated the Baga area and had taken political and commercial control, under the French, of the entire coast.

Susu was the language chosen in the spread of Christianity, Islam, and the French colonial system. Catholic missionaries in Bagaland began their work at Boffa, a Susu town from which they reached out to the nearby Baga villages. They compiled several Susu dictionaries and translated liturgy into Susu, which they used throughout the Baga area. Most of the Muslim marabouts who traded up and down the coast were Susu, and Islamic instruction in holy literature and music was in the Susu language. In the region today, all the Muslim music lyrics not in Arabic are in Susu, and this is the only music permitted in heavily Islamic Baga villages. Thus Susu became, for the Baga, the language of prestige.

As the colonial period progressed, forces even larger than the colonial French began to transform Baga society. Ironically, the colonial experience undoubtedly set the stage for an Islamic conversion at the deepest levels--by shaking the foundations of Baga ritual and by nearly eradicating the material culture that supported it.

In the entire history of the Baga there has been no greater disruption than that which occurred within the memory of many living today, in the mid-20th century. This brief but traumatic era saw a modern-day Islamic jihad, the thorough overturn of traditional power, the dissolution of virtually all religious structures, the abrupt departure of the French, and the coming of independent rule in the new Republic of Guinea. Baga art now was subverted to a national agenda led by the inland Malinke and came to coexist delicately with Islam, through the ingenuity of innovative Baga cultural and artistic leaders.