Henry John Drewal

Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought

The fifteen million Yoruba in Nigeria and the Peoples Republic of Benin are heirs to one of the oldest and richest artistic traditions in Africa. The ambitious new exhibition “Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought,” which opened September 20 at the Center for African Art in New York City, traces the history of Yoruba art and examines its underlying cultural concepts. Organized by the Center and curated by Henry John Drewal and John Pemberton III, the exhibition presents approximately 100 objects drawn from public and private collections in Africa, Europe, and the United States. Seventeen pieces are on loan from museums in Lagos and Ife; most of these have never before been seen in this country. After closing at the Center for African Art on January 7, 1990, the exhibition will begin a national tour that includes presentations at the Art Institute of Chicago (Feb. 10-April 1, 1990); the National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. (May 8-Aug. 26, 1990); the Cleveland Museum of Art (Sept. 2...

Composing time and space in Yoruba art

Abstract A survey of the verbal and visual arts ofYoruba peoples of West Africa suggests that there is an aesthetic preference for a certain form of composition and, further, that this form corresponds to Yoruba social organization. For scholars to identify corresponding forms in art and in social order is not new (Adams 1980: 92).1 Fernandez (1971: 357) in a discussion of Durkheims theories, raises this important issue:

Material, sensorial religion the case of mami wata

Material Religion volume 5, issue 2, pp. 226–229 DOI: 10.2752/174322009X12448040551729 Henry John Drewal is Evjue-Bascom Professor of African and African Diaspora Arts and Adjunct Curator at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of WisconsinMadison. He is the author (with John Pemberton and Rowland Abiodun) of Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought (1989), and with John Mason Beads, Body and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe (2000). Most recently, he curated and wrote the catalog for the traveling exhibition Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas and edited the volume Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and Other Divinities in Africa and the Diaspora and its companion DVD. The exhibit was at the National Museum of African Art in Washington DC from April 1 to July 26, 2009 before traveling to other venues and Stanford University in 2010. material, sensorial religion the case of mami wata

Soulful Stitching: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) of India

There are many African communities with rich artistic traditions scattered across this planet. We may be familiar with the history and artistry of African peoples and their descendants in the Americas, but we know little or nothing about Africans in other parts of the world, especially those in South Asia (Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka) known today variously as Makranis, Sheedis, Kafiris, Habshis, Chaush, or Siddis/Sidis (Fig. 1).1 Africans, probably from the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Sudan), traveled to South Asia early in the first millennium CE as merchants and sailors (Map 1). Later (c. fourteenth century) they went as professional soldiers, sailors, and administrators for the Arabs and Mughals. These early immigrants settled in northwestern (Gujarat), northern, and southern (Deccan) India and are mostly Muslim (Map 2). Some rose through the ranks to become rulers, prime ministers, admirals, generals, and religious leaders. The earliest evidence of Africans in India dates to about the second or third centuries CE (Chauhan 1995:2) when they came as merchants and sailors. Centuries later they came “enslaved,” first from the regions of northeastern Africa and then southeastern Africa. But we must understand the sociohistorical meaning of the term “slave” in the medieval Islamic Indian Ocean world, for it is very different from the institution of “chattel slavery” created and refined by Europeans in later centuries in the Atlantic world. As Amitav Ghosh (1992:259–60) so eloquently explains, “the arrangement was probably more that of patron and client than master and slave, as that relationship is now understood. If this seems curious, it is largely because the medieval idea of slavery tends to confound contemporary conceptions of both servitude and its mirrored counter-image, individual freedom.” In the Middle Ages institutions of servitude took many forms, and they all differed from “slavery” as it came to be practiced after the European colonial expansion of the sixteenth century. In the Middle East and northern India, for instance, slavery was the principal means for recruitment into some of the most privileged sectors of the army and the bureaucracy. For those who made their way up through that route, “slavery” was thus often a kind of career opening, a way of gaining entry into the highest levels of government. It was precisely by such means that many Siddis rose to positions of great trust, power, and authority in the military and governmental ranks of various rulers in India between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries and celebrated in paintings (see Robbins and McLeod 2006). Europeans—first the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, British, and French—arrived in the Indian Ocean and South Asia in the late fifteenth century. Beginning in the sixteenth century, they enslaved Africans and carried them to India and other regions of the world. Those brought by the Portuguese to Goa on the western coast of India served primarily in domestic households of the rich. Over generations they escaped bondage, moving inland and southward into the remote and generally inaccessible Western Ghats mountains of northern Karnataka in order to create free, independent African Diaspora communities, much like the quilombos of Brazil, palenques of Colombia, the cimarrones of Panama and Mexico, or the Maroons of Jamaica, Surinam, and Guyana. Others left the service of Muslim and Hindu rulers and migrated into the Karnataka region from various directions at different times (Map 3). Today the Siddis of Karnataka live scattered in the thick forests and high plains south of Goa and number about 20,000. Those who fled Portuguese Goa are generally Catholics. Most speak a 1 Fatima Adikese examines the back of her quilt.

Editor's Statement: Object and Intellect: Interpretations of Meaning in African Art

This issue of Art Journal is directed primarily to the nonspecialist in the art of Africa. The theories and practices of art-historical research are undergoing critical appraisal, especially as the discipline becomes truly global in scope. Just as scholars in Western or Oriental art are questioning the usefulness of traditional methods and theoretical models, so, too, those who specialize in the art of Africa are reevaluating the appropriateness of approaches and developing interdisciplinary methods to confront the special problems of the study and interpretation of meaning in art in Africa. Their work with oral traditions and with cultures possessing varied concepts of art and artistic activity may offer insights to others in the discipline. In this essay. I share some thoughts on methodology and the interpretation of meaning in art as an introduction to the articles of my Africanist colleagues.

Oriki for Robert Farris Thompson

When Drewal was invited to write a praise piece for Robert Farris ompson for this issue celebrating the ieth anniversary of African Arts, he soon realized it was beyond his body-mind-heart, because Bob himself is larger than life, a person who has touched and inspired so many folks in so many walks of life and thought. So Drewal contacted his dear friend and colleague C. Daniel Dawson, who may know Bob better than anyone, as well as Bob’s immense circle of admirers. Drewal proposed that they solicit a variety of perspectives from the worldwide Master T “posse” and create a “posse praise poem” in his honor. We had only a short time to pull this together so we both reached out to friends far and wide, gave them four weeks to compose and send their thoughts and feelings in any way they chose. Some have written odes, others have sent poems. One sent a painting. Another sent a citation. Others have contributed photos of Bob past and present. Another sent a song that will be played (http://international.ucla. edu//media/podcasts/PROFE_T-ol-guw.mp3), and a dance that will be stepped (http://international.ucla.edu/media/mp4/drewal-dance-4j-k1b.mp4) ... All of these acts are acts of love meant for a person who inspires love and more. Where would we be in our understanding and appreciation for the arts of Africa and its many diasporas if the gods had not given us Bob? We think, not very far. He continues to show us the way to be and to think as he works on his latest opus on mambo. We hear his voice, we see his smile, we sense the move in his groove, and we learn once more to share the passion he possesses. Enjoy these words, images, and sounds of praise— this multi-oriki is for you! To My Favorite Mambo-Freak Henry John Drewal

Beads, Body, and Soul: Art and Light in the Yorùbá Universe@@@Beads, Body, and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe

The sights and sounds of the Yoruba cosmos are made manifest through the pervasive use of beads. This spectacular book represents a collaboration between art historian Henry John Drewal and Yoruba priest John Mason. From the forests of Africa a thousand years ago to the bustling cities of New York, Havana, and Salvador, today, Yoruba religion has used beads to convey the artistic spirit and deep connection to the other world that its practitioners feel. This beautifully illustrated volume traces the history of the beads, their use, and Yoruba aesthetics and artistry. .