Dongria Kondh lecture from Michael Palin

Lecture: The Dongria Kondh

Speaker: Michael Palin

Date: February 22^nd 2011, 19:30-21h

Place: Soho Hotel, Richmond Mews, W1D 3DH, London (UK)

Webpage: www.survivalinternational.org/

Admission: £20.00 + £1.85 fee

Comments: 

Actor, writer and broadcaster Michael Palin talks about his recent travels to Orissa, India, and his visit to the Dongria Kondh tribe.

The Dongria Kondh recently won a historic battle to save their lands and forests from an open-pit bauxite mine.

Vedanta Resources, a British company, intended to dig a bauxite mine on Niyamgiri mountain in India.

The mine would have destroyed the forests on which the Dongria Kondh depend and wreck the lives of thousands of other Kondh tribal people living in the area.

All proceeds in aid of Survival International.

The event includes a Q&A.  

About the Dongria: http://www.survivalinternational.org/dongria and see the article in ETHNIKKA's blog: http://www.ethnikka.org/2010/08/dongria-kondh-of-india.html

About Michael Palin and his support to the Dongria (23/07/2010):

Actor, presenter and explorer Michael Palin has sent a message in support of the Dongria Kondh tribe of India, who are resisting a mine on their land byFTSE 100 companyVedanta Resources.

In a statement, Michael Palin said, ‘I’ve been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government. The tribe I visited simply want to carry on living in the villages that they and their ancestors have always lived in.’

On July 28th, Vedanta’s Annual General Meeting in London will be attended by protestors from Survival International and other groups keen to draw shareholders’ attention to Vedanta’s human rights and environmental record.

PIRC, the shareholder lobby group, have announced that they are urging shareholders to vote against re-electing three of the company’s directors on human rights, safety and environmental grounds.

© Text and image: Survival

The Samba de Roda of the Recôncavo of Bahia

The Samba de Roda, which involves music, dance and poetry, is a popular festive event that developed in the State of Bahia, in the region of Recôncavo during the seventeenth century. It drew heavily on the dances and cultural traditions of the region’s African slaves. The performance also included elements of Portuguese culture, such as language, poetry, and certain musical instruments. At first a major component of regional popular culture among Brazilians of African descent, the Samba de Roda was eventually taken by migrants to Rio de Janeiro, where it influenced the evolution of the urban samba that became a symbol of Brazilian national identity in the twentieth century.

The dance is performed on various occasions, such as popular Catholic festivities or Afro-Brazilian religious ceremonies, but is also executed in more spontaneous settings. All present, including beginners, are invited to join the dance and learn through observation and imitation. One of the defining characteristics of the Samba of Roda is the gathering of participants in a circle, referred to as roda. It is generally performed only by women, each one taking her turn in the center of the ring surrounded by others dancing in the circle while clapping their hands and singing. The choreography is often improvised and based on the movements of the feet, legs and hips. One of the most typical movements is the famous belly push, the umbigada, a testimony of Bantu influence, used by the dancer to invite her successor into the centre of the circle. The Samba de Roda is also distinguished by specific dance steps like the miudinho, the use of the viola machete - a small lute with plucked strings from Portugal, as well as scraped instruments, and responsorial songs.

The influence of mass media and competition from contemporary popular music have contributed to undervaluing this Samba in the eyes of the young. The ageing of practitioners and the dwindling number of artisans capable of making some of the instruments pose a further threat to the transmission of the tradition.

Inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2005)

© Text and images: UNESCO

Michaan's Auction

Auction: Folk Art International Resources for Education Auction

Date:  7th February 2011, 10 am

Preview: February 4-7

Place: Main Gallery, 2751 Todd Street, Alameda, CA (USA)

Contact:  Gregory Ghent, tel: 5107400220123, Gregory@michaans.com

Webpage:  www.michaans.com

Comments:

Bid Live via LiveAuctioneers.

Ethnographic, Asian, and Modern art sold to benefit the programs of Folk Art International Resources for Education, a charitable organization.

Michaan's Auctions is a leading, full-service auction house on the West Coast specializing in the appraisals and sale of antiques and fine art. Some of Michaan's specialty departments include Asian Works of Art, Furniture and Decorative Arts, Modern, Contemporary, European and American Paintings, Prints and Jewelery.

Established in 2002, Michaan's Auctions holds up to thirty sales each year that attract a broad base of buyers and consignors from all over the world. With one of the largest facilities in Northern California, Michaan's offers buyers the ability to preview and bid on many unique and desirable pieces. Some of these pieces have garnered world record prices, including an A.D.M Cooper painting, The Three Graces, 1915, sold at auction for $21,060 in 2005, as well as an Eduard Gaertner,German City Street Scene, 1831, sold at auction for $266,000.

Michaan's has built its' reputation on its' ability to accept single items, groups or entire estates with the “no risk consignment policy”, a policy that sets them apart from other auction houses. There are no photography fees and if your item does not sell the consignor does not pay the insurance or a “buy-in” fee. Michaan's team of specialists are dedicated to staying current on the latest issues and developments in the market and are committed to providing personalized and professional attention throughout the entire auction process.

African Masks: The Art of Disguise

Exhibition: African Masks: The Art of Disguise
Dates: Until 13 February 2011

Place: Chilton Galleries, Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 North Harwood, Dallas, Texas (USA)

Admission: $ 10

Webpage: www.dallasmuseumofart.org

About the exhibition:

The African mask is a highly developed and enduring art form. African Masks: The Art of Disguise, an exhibition of approximately seventy objects from the Museum’s collections and on loan from local collectors, will reveal the function, meaning, and aesthetics of African masks. Masks serve as supports for the spirit of deities, ancestors and culture heroes, which may be personified as a human, animal, or composite. Masked performances, which are held on the occasions of thanksgiving celebrations, rites of passage, and funerals, often entertain while they teach moral lessons. This exhibition will present a variety of masks from several different sub-Saharan peoples that offer a variety of types, styles, sizes, and materials and the contexts in which they appear. Because the carved wooden mask is frequently only one part of an ensemble, full masquerade costumes will be displayed. And the masks will “come to life” in performances recorded on film and in contextual photographs.

African Masks: The Art of Disguise is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and curated by Roslyn A. Walker, Senior Curator, The Arts of Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas, and The Margaret McDermott Curator of African Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

© Text and image: Dallas Museum of Art

Solomon Islands Amulet

Name: Woven cane amulet

Origin: Santa Isabel Island, Solomon Islands, Melanesia, Oceania;

Museum: Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (UK)

Materials: cane, shells, animal bristles

Reference code: PRM 1904.29.

Comments:

This is a narrow bag of woven cane, with four shell rings placed around the middle, and a plait of pig’s bristles tied to the looped end.

It contains the relics of the maker’s ancestors, and was probably used with a magical spell intended to cause the death of an enemy. The Solomon Islanders held their ancestors in great reverence, and also believed very strongly in magic. Both their magical beliefs and their religious system were based on the concept of mana, which has been defined by Starzecka and Cranstone as ‘Supernatural power which can be present in varying degree in man and objects but always derives from spirits. It is associated with anything ... outside the natural order of things: exceptional success in business or talent for carving are caused by mana, and an unusually shaped stone has mana’ (Starzecka and Cranstone 1974: 13).

Amulets and charms in the Pitt Rivers Museum

The Pitt Rivers Museum has almost 6,000 amulets and charms in its collections; though not all of them are on display. They have been collected from all over the world, including England, and demonstrate the wide array of methods for using magic employed by different cultures.

An amulet is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as: ‘Anything worn about the person as a charm preventative against evil, mischief, disease, witchcraft, etc.’ The definition of charm is very similar: ‘Anything worn about the person to avert evil or ensure prosperity’, though a charm may also be a spell or incantation believed to have a magical power.

Some of the objects on display are technically not amulets or charms but objects that were used in a ritual or instilled with a supernatural power. Some have been taken directly from the natural environment, and assigned a magical function by a single person, while others have been carved or painted to create an object with a meaning that would be recognised by most members of the culture.

The underlying theme that unites all amulets and charms is that the people who created and used them believed in them; almost any object may become a charm or an amulet, so long as someone believes it has the power to affect or alter the world around them.

Some amulets and charms are examples of ‘sympathetic magic’, which generally means that the appearance of an object resembles, in some way, the cure or protection it is believed to offer.

Unlike some of the objects on display in this Museum, amulets and charms are still widely used in many cultures today. You may have an object yourself that you trust will bring you luck! The amulets and charms on display at the Pitt Rivers Museum are material evidence of the hopes and beliefs that are shared by all of humankind.

© Photos and text: The Pitt Rivers Museum