The film tells the story of a love affair between two teenage students, the daughter of an Army commander and the grandson of a village elder. This narrative at once picks up on the central issues of life in Mali and many other African countries – questions about the effectiveness of administration and lack of democracy in states run by military regimes and also the clash between ideas of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’.
The film also marks a shift taking place between ‘social realism’ – recognisable from its European roots – and a more ‘metaphysical’ cinema, alert to the ideas and images of African culture. So, while the military authorities are rounding up students in scenes familiar from European or American films, the hero’s grandfather is communicating with the spirits in the trees.
The Bora are an indigenous tribe of the Peruvian, Colombian and Brazilian Amazon, located between the Putumayo and Napo rivers. The Bora speak a Witotan language. In the last forty years, they have become a largely settled people living mostly in permanent forest settlements.
In the animist Bora worldview, there is no distinction between the physical and spiritual worlds and spirits are present throughout the world. Bora families practice exogamy. The Bora have an elaborate knowledge of the plant life of the surrounding rainforest. Like other indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon, such as the Urarina, plants (and especially trees) hold a complex and important interest for the Bora.
Bows and arrows are the main weapons of the Bora culture used in person to person conflict. The Bora are very divided and politically unorganized.
The Bora have guarded their lands from both indigenous foes and outsider colonials. Around the time of the 20th century, the rubber boom had a devastating impact on the Boras. The tribe's ancestral lands are currently threatened by illegal logging practices. The Bora have no indigenous reserves.
Well-known by: their dances
The Bora native community consists of about 3,000 native-speakers almost all living in Peru (about 2000 individuals) and Colombia (about 1000 people), although several Bora villages exist in Brazil. Unfortunately, the Brazilian Boras no longer speak their native language having been largely assimilated into the Brazilian culture. The Bora language is closely aligned with Huitoto (Witotan).
The Bora tribe is divided into different clans, typically represented by an animal. They paint their faces with different designs with huito (Genipa americana), depending upon their clan. Intermarriage with the same clan is prohibited, thus preventing interbreeding and genetic aberrations within small communities.
Traditionally, the Boras dance using large (six foot) batons that they pound in unison on the ground as they dance. The batons typically have shells attached to them that add to the musical harmony.
They also use Manguaré drums, which have different forms, depending on whether they are male or female, and are used in some Bora ceremonies. They also manufacture traditional bark cloth, made by pounding the bark of a palm tree. The Boras peel strips of bark from the tree and pound it with a wooden hammer. After they wet and pound it until the outer bark disintegrates, only the inner bark is left. The inner bark is the natural fiber used for traditional Bora clothing. The bark clothes have a coarse, inflexible look and the texture of burlap. The bark clothing is coloured with natural dyes. Yellow colours are obtained from a ginger plant and black from pressed green fruits of the huito tree. The huito liquid is clear when first painted, but later turns black as it is oxidized by the air.
In addition to bark cloth, the Bora Indians have bags that are woven from chambira, a fiber obtained from a palm tree. The fibers used in these bags are typically dyed using native plants and the bags really are hand-made works of art.
The Bora tribe has managed to retain much of their knowledge of medicinal plants. A good example is the coca plant (Erythroxylum coca) which plays an important role in the diet and traditional medicine of the Boras. As in the AndesMountains, coca leaves are consumed to provide essential nutrients and is an integral part of their diet. Similar to the Andes, the consumption of coca allows individuals to work for extended periods without exhaustion. What is different from the Andes is the manner in which the Bora Indians process the coca. They do not chew the raw leaves as they do in the mountains. Instead, they dry the leaves over a fire, place them into a sack and pound them into a very fine powder. This powdered coca typically is not taken alone and traditionally a tobacco mixture is blown into one’s nostrils before the coca powder is placed in one’s mouth.
Around 1900, the Amazon rubber boom changed the ways of the Boras forever. This period was disastrous for the Bora communities of the Putumayo as the Peruvian rubber corporations enslaved the Boras and forced them to harvest the latex from wild stands of rubber trees. Large numbers of Boras were wiped out during this period. Before the rubber boom, the Bora indigenous population was estimated as over 15,000 individuals. Some years later, following Peru's disastrous loss of the border war with Colombia in the 1930’s and the ceding of territory north of the Putumayo, many Boras were evacuated to their present communities near Iquitos. By the 1940’s the total population of Bora natives had dwindled to fewer than 450 people.
Pierre Robin was a tribal art dealer for almost forty years in Paris.Now retired to the south of France, he tells of his beginnings, his career, his travels,...He recalls his meetings with many personalities from the world of art and his passion for sculpture of the Bozo of Mali.With great humour and verve, he reveals through these interviews, his tribulations in the world of "distant arts".
An excerpt from the title by Pierre Brennetot: Pierre Robin was still installed at rue Jacques Callot, in the district of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, when I met him for the first time.He was one of the few merchants to have the door of his gallery still open and receive the Africans with their big bags full of items.Upon retirement in the Tarn, Pierre Robin received me many times.I have always been enthusiastic about the man, his life, his collection,...At each visit, in passing from one room to another of his house, he told me stories about the world of antiques in Paris.Thus came the idea of this book. He was an actor in this period where objects "coming out" in Africa and elsewhere, where there was still making discoveries, when the travel permit to bring quantities of objects ...I, who am of a different generation (he was my father's age!), was always fascinated by this period.Today it's hard to imagine such excitement at the opening of boxes,...Collectors and dealers were enthusiastic, prices of items were affordable and if one had the eye and taste, he could make a nice collection,... But Pierre Robin does not live deep in the past.He kept the flame of passion objects.It is now known in the area of African art for its collection of Bozo of Mali.This art so gay, so colorful, so bold, Robin loves it.Others decry these objects?Good for him!He knows that tastes change and in a few years everyone will say "ah, if I had known..."
His house is not a dusty shrine, but the world of a great "showman" as he likes to call himself.Everywhere on the walls, consoles, shelves, objects of different civilizations and different eras meet.Regularly it moves objects, for fun, to meet new people...African Art lovers may be confused by this accumulation, it is far from the collection "classic", and then Pierre Robin has sold thousands of items, mainly to finally keep its Bozo. I wanted to write about this life of art researcher, adventurer, atypical gallery owner, so I recorded Pierre Robin during several "sessions" by preparing in advance a few questions, then finally leaving mego to a free conversation.
Pierre Robin also gave me the opportunity to freely photograph his collection. Always enthusiastic, he shared with me his passion and a little time...
The town of Oruro, situated at an altitude of 3,700 metres in the mountains of western Bolivia and once a pre-Columbian ceremonial site, was an important mining area in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Resettled by the Spanish in 1606, it continued to be a sacred site for the Uru people, who would often travel long distances to perform their rituals, especially for the principal Ito festival. The Spanish banned these ceremonies in the seventeenth century, but they continued under the guise of Christian liturgy: the Andean gods were concealed behind Christian icons and the Andean divinities became the Saints. The Ito festival was transformed into a Christian ritual, celebrated on Candlemas (2 February). The traditional llama llama or diablada in worship of the Uru god Tiw became the main dance at the Carnival of Oruro.
The Carnival, which takes place every year, lasts ten days and gives rise to a panoply of popular arts expressed in masks, textiles and embroidery. The main event in the Carnival is the procession or entrada. During the ceremony, the dancers walk the four kilometres of the processional route and repeat the journey for a full twenty hours without interruption. More than 28,000 dancers and 10,000 musicians organized in about 50 groups take part in the procession which still shows many features dating back to medieval mystery plays.
The decline of traditional mining and agriculture is threatening the Oruro population, as is the desertification of the Andean high plateau, which is leading to massive emigration. Urbanization has given rise to acculturation as well as a growing generation gap. There is also uncontrolled financial exploitation of this Carnival.
Inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2001)
Exhibition: Masked festivals of Canton Bo Dates: Until 31 March 2011, Open daily 9 am to 5 pm
Place: The PeabodyMuseum of Archaeology and Ethnology, HarvardUniversity, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Admission: $9,-
Webpage: www.peabody.harvard.edu
About the exhibition:
The African masks that inspired painters like Picasso in the early twentieth century were only a small part of a larger cultural context and spectacle. The festivals of Canton Bo, located in the dense forest region of Southwest Ivory Coast, centered on the spirit forms of ancient ancestors who appeared in post-harvest festivals wearing carved masks and full-body coverings of straw, animal hide, textiles, and paint. Until the 2002 Ivory Coast civil strife, the Bo people invited the spirits each year to protect their village against unknown threats and to stimulate fertility for both women and crops. With such protection and fertility, the whole community would prosper. Through rare drawings and photographs, along with masks from the PeabodyMuseum collections, Masked Festivals explores the different kinds of masked spirits and their performances.
About the museum:
Founded in 1866, the PeabodyMuseum of Archaeology & Ethnology is one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology and houses one of the most comprehensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere.
