[PDF] The Masquerade In Nigerian History And Culture eBook

Author : Raphael Chijioke Njoku
Publisher : Rochester Studies in African H
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 46,70 MB
Release : 2020-06-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9781580469845

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A revisionist account of African masquerade carnivals in transnational context that offers readers a unique perspective on the connecting threads between African cultural trends and African American cultural artifacts

Author : Babatunde Lawal
Publisher : University of Washington Press
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 10,71 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780295975993

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This remarkable study explores the use of the visual and performing arts to promote nonviolence and social harmony in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on Gelede, a popular community festival of masquerade, dance, and song, held several times a year by the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. Babatunde Lawal, an art historian and African scholar who has taught in Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States, is himself a Yoruba and has taken an active part in Gelede. He writes from the perspective of an informed participant/observer of his own culture. Lawal bases his book on extensive field research--observations and interviews--conducted over more than two decades as well as on numerous published and unpublished scholarly sources. He casts significant new light on many previously obscure aspects of Gelede, and he demonstrates a useful methodological approach to the study of non-Western art. The book systematically covers the major aspects of the Gelede spectacle, presenting its cultural background and historical origins as preface to a vivid and detailed description of an actual performance. This is followed by a discussion of the iconography and aesthetics of costume, and an examination of the sculpted images on the masks. The book concludes with a discussion of the moral and aesthetic philosophy of Gelede and its responsiveness to technological and social change. The Gelede Spectacle is illustrated in color and black-and-white with over 100 field and museum photographs, including a rare sequence on the dressing of a masquerader. It offers, in addition, more than 60 Gelede song texts, proverbs, and divination verses, each in the original Yoruba as well as in translation. Lawal's interpretations of these pieces indicate the rich complexities of metaphor and analogy inherent in the Yoruba language and art.

Author : Jordan Fenton
Publisher :
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 19,86 MB
Release : 2022
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781800104228

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Examines the economic and spatial importance of performance arts in West Africa through a close analysis of the masquerade culture of Calabar, the capital city of Nigeria's Cross River State.

Author : John Thabiti Willis
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 217 pages
File Size : 40,51 MB
Release : 2018-01-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0253031451

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“Willis should be commended for penetrating a complex and socially guarded ritual resource to glean the hidden histories manifested therein.” —African Studies Review In West Africa, especially among Yoruba people, masquerades have the power to kill enemies, appoint kings, and grant fertility. John Thabiti Willis takes a close look at masquerade traditions in the Yoruba town of Otta, exploring transformations in performers, performances, and the institutional structures in which masquerade was used to reveal ongoing changes in notions of gender, kinship, and ethnic identity. As Willis focuses on performers and spectators, he reveals a history of masquerade that is rich and complex. His research offers a more nuanced understanding of performance practices in Africa and their role in forging alliances, consolidating state power, incorporating immigrants, executing criminals, and projecting individual and group power on both sides of the Afro-Atlantic world. “Willis cites oral traditions, archival sources, and publications to draw attention to the link between economic development and spectacular and historically influential masquerade performances.” —Babatunde Lawal, author of The Gelede Spectacle “Important in its emphasis on the history of an art form and its specific cultural context; of interest to academic audiences as well as general readers.” —Henry Drewal, editor of Sacred Waters “Willis’s work should be a must-read for students and established scholars alike.” —Africa

Author : Femi Abodunrin
Publisher :
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 42,90 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Fiction
ISBN :

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A novel exploring a fictional Nigerian history with strong social, religious and cultural themes running through.