New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most funerary objects documented in this book are built to last, kept in a shrine or passed down as a lineage’s most protected possession. The Ntomba, 5,000 people living on the banks of the…
Ichi scarification marked rank among the Igbo. Learn what the forehead lines meant, who earned them, and why the practice faded.
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several protective-object traditions documented in this book treat damage as a flaw to be avoided, a sign that an object has failed at its job. The Ewe, who live in southern Togo and Ghana…
Learn five Igbo proverbs and meanings, from Onye kwe chi ya ekwe to Egbe bere ugo bere, and what elders really teach with them.
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 belong unmistakably to one people, carved in a style found nowhere else. The Buyu, who occupy a small area between the Lualaba River and the northwestern end of…
The Igbo masquerade is not a costume. Learn what mmanwu means, who may see it, and why the spirit inside the cloth is never the man.
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several ancestor-figure traditions documented in this book are carved to order, made for a specific person and known from the moment the first cut is made. The Kissi, 140,000 people who inhabit a bordering…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several ancestor-figure traditions documented in this book carve a passive likeness meant to honor the dead. The Bembe, a small group of 60,000 to 80,000 people living on the plateaus north of the Congo…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several court traditions documented in this book concentrate their visual identity in a single royal emblem, a specific object or symbol reserved for the throne. The Mangbetu, who relocated their kingdom to the northeastern…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several protective rituals documented in this book ask an initiate to carry a symbol or wear a mask that represents a guarding spirit. The Bulu, who occupy the border region between Cameroon and Gabon…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several styles documented in this book develop in close dialogue with a more famous neighbor, echoing its structure while marking out a clear identity of their own. The Lwena, spread across Angola, the Democratic…
My grandmother’s generation could read a face the way you read a signboard. Three lines here meant this town. A single cut there meant that lineage. A stranger walked into the market and people already knew where he came from before he opened his mouth. My generation mostly cannot do that anymore. And the generation…