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

Confirmation that the human figures surmounting the headdress do not represent Baga characters is found in the fact that although the hare head always bears Baga scarification marks, the human figures never do. The woman with the suitcase is almost certainly drawn from a Malinke theatrical prototype.

Why would the Baga be interested in Malinke soldiers, Malinke ministers, and the young Malinke wives of these ministers? In Guinea as elsewhere in Africa, one's allegiance is first to the ethnic group and only second to the nation. The Baga are Baga first and Guinean second. So the reason for their representation in one of the most important ritual masquerades of the Baga youth lies somewhere outside the real Baga experience. Perhaps the Baga youth were participating vicariously in a political movement in which they in fact had no central part. For such a disenfranchised group as the Baga youth, it must have been invigorating to identify with a movement that seemed so powerful. This was not the first time that elements of the Baga society had identified with the Malinke in order to protect their social position.

The Baga, though never major players in the Guinean cultural revolution, were deeply affected by it and managed, through artistic resourcefulness, to make it work for them as it did not elsewhere. The Islamic watershed became,not simply a moment of cultural destruction, but an opportunity for the most innovative members of Baga society to reinvent their culture. Choices were made by individual artists, and strategies were employed to facilitate the acceptance of new forms by the people. Existing forms were not simply abandoned in toto; some tradition was drawn upon and modified in order to provide a continuity of spirit.

In the villages and the capital city, the elders have begun to seize the moment to teach the young people the dance steps, the drummers and the singers the ancient songs, the sculptors the carving of new masks and young craftsmen the fabrication of new costumes. The euphoria that has accompanied the Baga cultural renaissance in this decade may be idealistic, but it bears upon the philosophy of African ritual. It is not simply that conducting a particular rite makes barren women fertile or the rice crop strong. It is that by creating a rich cultural climate that includes ritual dance, music and theater, the community and each individual in it are blessed with a fullness, a strength and a generosity and buoyancy of spirit that can be expected to result in material prosperity, healthy children, a good harvest and all of the good things of life. This is certainly how the young Baga supporters of traditional ceremony see it as the end of the second millennium brings another Baga self-reinvention.

This article is adapted with permission from Art of the Baga: A Drama of Cultural Reinvention (Museum for African Art and Prestel Verlag, 1996). Frederick Lamp, who has undertaken extended field research among the Baga and Temne peoples of West Africa, is the curator of the arts of Africa, the Americas and Oceania at the Baltimore Museum of Art.