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The Masked Figure and Social Control: the Mandinka Case1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Peter M. Weil
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Extract

Within a historical and comparative context, the following paper describes and analyses the role of masked figures in social control among the Mandinka of the Gambia. A direct relationship will be demonstrated between the problems of rule-application in hierarchical communities, where authority for rule-making and rule-application is dispersed, and the presence and behaviour of masked figures. In such communities secular actions taken in the rule-application process by individuals or groups bear a load of potential conflict. Masked figures in this context provide a mechanism through which the probability of sustained, divisive conflict is decreased by converting secular actions of rule-application into sacred, suprasocial actions. The integration of the hierarchically ordered elements of the community is thus accomplished in two ways: (1) through the capacity of the masked figures to apply rules while remaining above all elements of the community and (2) through the organized actions involved in creating and maintaining the masked figures and the ceremonial context in which they operate. It will be shown that the socio-cultural milieu in which sacred masked figures have functioned has changed, and that with the changes masked figures are becoming secularized and are disappearing.

Résumé

LES MASQUES ET L'ORDRE SOCIAL CHEZ LES MANDINGUES

Dans un contexte historique et comparatif, cet article décrit et analyse le rôle des masques et l'ordre social chez les Mandingues de Gambie. La démonstration est faite d'une relation directe entre les problèmes d'application des règles dans des communautés hiérarchisées où les autorités chargées d'élaborer les règles et celles qui les font appliquer sont dispersées, et la présence et le comportement de masques. Dans de telles communautés, les actes entrepris en vue de l'application de la loi par des individus ou des groupes séculiers fournissent une occasion de conflits. Les masques, dans ce contexte, sont un mécanisme par lequel les probabilités de conflits durables et de sources de division sont diminuées par une conversion d'actes séculiers de mise en application des règles en actes sacrés, supra-sociaux. L'intégration des éléments hiérarchisés de la communauté s'accomplit ainsi de deux façons: (1) — par l'aptitude des masques à appliquer les règles tout en restant au-dessus de tous les éléments de la communauté; (2) — par les actes d'organisation qu'impliquent la conservation des anciens masques et la création de nouveaux, ainsi que la création d'un contexte rituel dans lequel ils agissent. Le milieu socio-culturel dans lequel les masques sacrés interviennent a changé, et ces changements entraînent la sécularisation et la disparition des masques.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , October 1971 , pp. 279 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1971

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