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Dan and Mende masks: a structural comparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

M. C. Jȩdrej
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Extract

The masks and associated traditions of the people of the central Guinea coast of West Africa are among the most obvious and well-known features of the contemporary cultural landscape of the region. For some time social anthropologists have described the functions of the masks as social control mechanisms (Horton, 1976). Recently anthropologists have been elucidating these cultural items in terms of symbolic or structural analyses (Fischer and Himmelheber, 1976; Jdrej, 1976; MacCormack, 1980; Phillips, 1978). So far the studies concerned with symbolism, where they have not been explicitly general and theoretical (Jdrej, 1980; Tonkin, 1979), have confined themselves to a particular culture or a particular mask or subset of masks.

Résumé

Les masques Dan et Mende: une comparaison structurelle

Les masques et les mascarades représentent une caractéristique frappante et permanente de la culture traditionelle côtière de la Guinée centrale. Des théories sociologiques sur la nature et la fonction des masques furent éconcées selon des termes de mécanismes de contrôle social allant des ‘masques d'épouvante’ purs et simples contrôlés par les groupes dominants aux raisons plus subtiles telles que le besoin d'anonymité dans l'exécution de fonctions administratives. Malheureusement, rien de cela ne convient véritablement à la diversité des faits et, récemment, les anthropologues sociaux tentèrent d'aborder ces institutions en utilisant des idées provenant de l'analyse du symbolisme. La difficulté, dans ce cas, est les exégèses indigènes peu développées et cet article offre done au moyen d'exemples une avancée possible. L'idée fondamentale est relativement simple et selon laquelle un masque ne constitue pas une entité mais une relation ambivalente entre les deux composants, à savoir la masque lui-même et ce qu'il dissimule. L'évaluation et l'élaboration concrète des termes de cette relation, les masques eux-mêmes, varieront selon le système cosmologique général dans lequel ils se trouvent et leur fonction au sein de ce système. La méthode est celle de l'analyse transformationnelle qui rend intelligibles de telles structures à l'aide d'une comparaison qui retient les différences entre elles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , January 1986 , pp. 71 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1986

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