New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several royal traditions documented in this book concentrate artistic power entirely in the hands of the throne. The Zande, 750,000 people spread across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many peoples documented in this book build their art around a single recurring symbol. The Tabwa, scattered along Lake Tanganyika between the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and northeastern Zambia, built theirs around…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several traditions documented in this book carve figures whose missing anatomy is the whole point, but the Dengese take the idea somewhere unusually literal. North of the Kuba kingdom in the Democratic Republic of…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most art traditions documented in this book are made for a community, a chief, or a spirit, and once made, they tend to stay put. Lega art belongs to no one until that person…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most figure traditions documented in this book carve an object to represent a spirit, an ancestor, or an idea, a stand-in that the community treats symbolically rather than literally. The Lobi of Burkina Faso,…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several fetish or power-figure traditions documented in this book assign one carved form a single, fixed job. The Kongo, spread across three countries at the mouth of the Congo River, built a system where…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most masking traditions documented in this book draw a fairly clean line around what a mask is for: initiation, or funerals, or entertainment, rarely all at once and rarely including anything as concrete as…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most carved figures documented in this book preserve, at minimum, the basic proportions of a body: head, torso, limbs, even when stylized heavily. The Goma of the northwestern end of Lake Tanganyika carved four-legged…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many masking traditions documented in this book carry ritual, initiatory, or entertainment functions. The Mau, northern neighbors of the Dan in Côte d’Ivoire, carve one whose purpose is closer to a courtroom than a…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several traditions documented in this book separate political authority from spiritual or occult power, assigning them to different offices entirely. The Sukuma of northern Tanzania collapse the two into a single person: each village…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many peoples documented in this book take their names from a place, an ancestor, or an occupation. The Mbala of the southwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo take theirs from a color: tukula, the…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many objects documented in this book carry ceremonial weight reserved for adults, initiates, or specialists. The Namji of northern Cameroon built theirs around a child’s plaything: a carved wooden fertility doll, given a name,…