Magazines - Tribal Art Winter 2007

By Anne-Marie Bouttiaux, curator in chief of the ethnographic department of the Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale in Tervuren.

Richly illustrated, the full published article spans eight pages.

Introduction: The Musée Dapper is Paris is currently showing a new exhibition of African artworks that explore the relationships that man has maintained––and, in some cases, continues to maintain––with animals. Some of these objects are associated with ongoing practices and rituals. Others relate to ceremonies that have gone into decline for a variety of reasons, such as the abandonment of cults, changes in hunting practices, or lack of access to the species in question because of their scarcity or extinction in the environments they have traditionally inhabited.
Humanity's interaction with animals has long had several basic goals: hunt, kill, eat, tame, domesticate, and sacrifice. There is nothing here that is specific to Africa and most of these are common to populations all over the globe. However, many cultures have their roots in animist religions, which hold that an animal harbors a spirit, as do other living and non-living things. Oral traditions describe ancient pacts made by ancestors with natural entities that designate specific animals as intermediaries. The descendants remain irrevocably tied to these contracts and contiinue to benefit from the protection and special powers they confer. In exchange, they must abide by certain restriction (the most common being not to consume the meat of the animal in question) and fulfill certain duties, such as honoring the tutelary power with sacrifices and libations.
Nature, and especially the animals within its sphere, represents an inexhaustible reservoir of inspiration and an endless variety of behaviors to consider, imitate, compare, and adapt to. Myths, tales, fables, proverbs, dances, theatrical presentations, and sculptural objects all testify to the acculturative quality of man's relationship to the "bush," or realm outside man's civilizing control, which he seeks to define in terms that allow him to integrate it into his social and ritual life.