African Art

DDi ivveer rssi ittyy oof f MMa at teer riiaal l CCi ivvi illiissaat tiioonns s

All those who have travelled in Negro Africa and have studied the
inhabitants in their native environment have remarked how much more
they differ from one another in the material manifestations of their
activity than in their social customs, their religious beliefs and their intel-
lectual and moral character. The reason for this seems evident: the race
is everywhere the same, or very nearly the same, while the physical
environment varies from region to region. Everyone knows that the influ-
ence of the physical environment makes itself felt especially in the
domain of material facts and that, if these in turn influence the social
and moral life of the people, they do not modify it except in the long
run and often in a manner that is hardly perceptible.

IInnf flluueennccee oof f PPhhyyssi iccaal l EEnnvvi irroonnmme ennt t

So it is where tall grasses abound, straw roofs dominate, while they
are replaced by flat roofs of clay in the more arid regions or in
those where farming absorbs almost the entire ground, or by leaves
of palms or other trees in the great forest where tall grasses do not
grow. But this does not prevent the roofs, whether they be of straw,
clay, or leaves, from sheltering the same mentality, imbued with the
same beliefs. Here, the domicile of the family is constituted by a
group of cylindrical huts forming a circle, there by one unique and
vast building with many rooms; but there, as here, it is always the
same family, based on the same principles.

That is why the Negro peoples of Africa, who present on the
whole such a remarkable unity from the moral and social point of
view, offer on the other hand such great diversity in respect to
habitations, clothing and material life in general.

I should hasten to say that the difference in the physical environment
and the economic situation does not always suffice to explain this
diversity. Thus, the Jula in the region of Kong, to take one example
from among a hundred, dress themselves in ample and often elegant
clothing, while the majority of the Senufo, in the midst of whom they
dwell, go almost naked. Here motives of a historical order intervene:
the Jula of Kong have come from a country of the north where their
ancestors learned to dress from peoples of the Mediterranean or Asi-
atic races with whom they were in contact with for a long time, while
the Senufo have inhabited during thousands of years, the same
country where we see them today; the Jula have imported the habits

contracted in the Massina which the Senufo had not had the oppor-

tunity to contract. But from day to day, the contact of the Jula

materially influences the Senufo and these, in their turn, begin to

adopt, in greater and greater number, the wearing of the wide

pantaloon, the great blouse called “bubu” and a hood, without this

change of costume in any way modifying the depths of their

mentality, for the costume does not make the monk. One can say as

much for the Negroes of the coast, who love to deck themselves out

in European suits and even in frock coats and who, underneath this

sometimes grotesque vesture, remain the same as their congeners of

the interior who are clothed only in a breech-cloth or a string.

HHaabbiittaattiioonnss

I have just spoken of habitations. They assume the most varied aspects

among the African Negroes, ranging from the hemispherical huts of

the Fulani nomads, entirely constructed of straw, in form closely

related to the tent, that is abandoned as soon as the camping place

is changed, to be reconstructed elsewhere again in a few hours, to

the immense fortress in which the Dagari and other populations of the

Black Volta succeed in lodging as many as 150 or more persons, to

say nothing of the herds and provisions of grain and water.

The type most extensively found is perhaps the cylindrical hut of clay

walls topped with a straw roof of dried grasses. It is met with in the

region of the savannas from one end of Negro Africa to the other.

Often the type is modified: thus, in the French colony of the Ivory

Coast, while the Malinke have conserved the common form, the

Dan have built the summit of the cone with a view to arranging an

attic room in the interior and have extended its base so close to the

earth that it is impossible to enter the hut without bending oneself

almost to the ground; the Senufo in the region of Koroko or Korhogo

Material Civilisations

Offering or divination table (Chokwe), detail.

Wood, 131 cm.

Private collection.