Tata Somba, Batammaliba Architecture at its Height
Kuiye, the Batammaliba sun and Creator god, is the ultimate architect, having not only built an enormously tall, multilevel Tata Somba — fortified house — in the “sun village” in …
The Calabash, a Cultural and Cosmological Constant
Although Einstein didn’t quite have this in mind when introducing this term to mathematically describe the nature of the universe, there is a kind of conceptual ‘cosmological constant’, a recurrent …
3 Yoruba Tales of Creative Deception
All of the elements attributed to classical drama are present in traditional Yoruba folktales: setting, mood, a colorful cast of characters, some intervening dilemma or an ethical contrast between good and …
Shhhh! There are Spirits Lurking …
In traditional West Africa, humans and spirits have always stood side-by-side, occasionally reaching over to tap one another on the shoulder, as if to remind each other of their mutual …
Garay Alphabet: a Wolof Script
Garay is an alphabet created specifically for Wolof, a language widely spoken in Senegal and parts of the Gambia and Mauritania. Traditionally, Wolof was written with an adapted version of …
The Mandé Ritual Clown
Comedians, contrarians, jokesters and tricksters have made their appearance in all human societies, from the more or less secular, bell-capped court jesters of the English Royal Court to the humorous …
The Squirrel and the Peanuts: A Kapsiki Tale
Every West African group has its favorite animal trickster, the most famous of which is no doubt the spider Anansi. For the Kapsiki of north-eastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon, no …
The Zaouli Mask Dance of the Ivory Coast
A homage to feminine beauty, this traditional West African performance art is protected by UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, 2017 Each Guro village …
3 Tales from the Ivory Coast
Like most tales indigenous to West Africa, the allegories and traditional narratives passed down through generations of Ivorians enthrall and edify, startle and steer, recreate and reinforce the social values …
The Blacksmith
To the percussive rhythm of the forge — clanging hammers, puffing bellows, hissing vapor — the West African blacksmith has been shaping the culture around him since the ancient, artistic, …