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The african art's from prehistoric times to the present day. In many instances, art production has been related to ritual or tribal ceremonies, as well as serving more secular decorative functions, but it is not always easy to determine the function of a particular work. It is also problematic to label as 'art' the productions of African craftspeople who frequently considered their work as an essential part of secular or religious life. In many tribes, the artist had a high status, but the artist would not necessarily have been the equivalent of the western fine artist who relied on patronage or the marketplace to regulate his or her production. With these strictures in mind, it is possible to isolate different areas and different practices of African art. From c 7000 BC rock drawings include representations of animals and hunters. From the beginning of tribal differentiation, tribal art has become a way of isolating one tribe from another, and tribal art can take the form of scarification, body painting or sculptural masks used in religious ceremonies.
"Such diversity also appears in separate geographical regions, where natural resources
"In the 19th and 20th centuries, African art was 'discovered' by Western colonizers and embraced by modernist artists for its lack of pretension and exciting formal qualities. With the Westernization of much African society, 'traditional' art has become commercialized and sold as souvenirs, while from the 1920s, the growth of African art colleges in more modernized sections of Africa has led a number of African artists to adopt western influences in their work."
Elephants are the world's most commanding land creatures, unsurpassed in grandeur and power. Thus elephant masks, while rare in Africa,
are fully appropriate symbols of important leaders or, at least, their respected deputies or messengers. The societies that use these masks
in fact act as agents of chiefs' control and as formal royal emissaries. Elephant societies that originated in Bamileke and spread elsewhere
in the Grasslands consist of three graded ranks attained by wealth. These elephant masks, signifying kingship and wealth, were worn by the
powerful members of the Kuosi regulatory society, which included members of royalty, wealthy title holders, and ranking warriors of the
Bandjoun kingdom of western Cameroon.
In the past, payment of a slave or a leopard pelt to the chief who owns the society was necessary for entrance to the highest rank. The
glass beads used on earlier masks were nineteenth-century trade beads of Venetian or Czechoslovakian manufacture, used as well in
exchange for slaves. Elephant mask costumes were thus called "things of money" since their beads were both objects and symbols of wealth
(Brain and Pollock 1971:100; Northern 1975:17-21).
Elephant masks comprise cloth panels and hoods woven from plantain fiber over raffia. On this background multicolored beads are stitched
in geometric patterns. The basic form depicts salient features of the elephant—a long trunk and large ears. The hood fits tightly over the
masker's head, and two hanging panels, one behind and one in front, partially conceal the body. The front panel is the elephant trunk, and
the two large, stiff circles hinged to either side of the head are its ears, which flap as the masker dances. While the mask symbolizes an
elephant, the face is human. Eyeholes provide visibility, and a nose and mouth with teeth are normally present.
Such masks are often worn with robes of dark woven fiber covered with small fiber knobs or indigo and white tie-dyed "royal" cloth. The
robes contrast greatly with the maskers' bright red legs, dyed with camwood. Costumes also include beaded vests with broad belts and
leopard pelts attached at the back. Since a chief owns or controls the masking society, both leopards and elephants are apt metaphors for
symbolic impersonation.
Maskers dance barefoot in these colorful costumes to a drum and gong, moving slowly as they wave poles with blue and white beaded tips
trimmed with horsehair. They whistle "mysteriously and tunelessly," brandishing spears and horsetails. Maskers are later joined by chiefs
and princesses, parading by an elaborate tent in which high-ranking men sit to observe. A masker hurls his horsetail to the chief, the crowd
cheers, and the celebration continues with various feats performed primarily by younger maskers. When the festivities end, the favorites are
rewarded with kola nuts and wine (Brain and Pollock 1971:100-104; Northern 1975:17).
The beauty of these masks is largely in their colorful beaded patterns. Dark blue or red backgrounds provide foundations for basic
geometric designs laid out in white, creating a striking contrast. As Tamara Northern indicates, the masks show varied degrees of order and
complexity (1975:116).33 Masks may be sparsely or densely beaded.
The mask's lavish use of colored beads and cowrie shells displayed the wealth of the members of the Kuosi society; and its colors and
patterns expressed the society's cosmic and political functions. Cowrie shells are also symbols of wealth and power and were used in
the some examples of these masks.
Black denotes the relationship between the living and the dead. White refers to the ancestors and potent medicines. Red symbolizes life,
women, and the institution of kingship. The dominant triangle designs on both masks represent leopard spots, the leopard being a royal
symbol of power and mastery like the elephant. The members of the Kuosi regulatory society belonged to the royal court and enforced the
laws of the kingdom in all spheres of life. The society gathered together during funeral ceremonies of its members and for public
celebrations of kingship to display the Bandjoun kingdom's power and wealth.
Source: Sign of the Leopard - Beaded Art of Cameroon
The elephant masks of the Bamileke
At the head of the highly structured Bamileke chiefdoms is a fon. He is assisted by a council composed of eight men, patrilineal descendents
of the founders of the kingdom. The mkem, or assembly of the holders of hereditary rights, includes all the men who have rendered a great
service to the kingdom; for example, war chiefs, or men who have enriched the royal treasury with elephant tusks or leopard skins. Each
member of the mkem is head of a society with a specialized function: either religious, economic, military, or so on. The members of only two
of these societies, the warrior societies of kuosi and kemdje, are allowed to wear the elephant masks and the leopard skins. Ceremonies in
which the wealth of the fon is displayed take place on the death of a fon or a man of high rank, or every two years, during the most
important meetings of these societies.
Every item in the elephant mask costume denotes wealth, power and privilege. The multitude of glass beads which decorate it are ancient
barter money, dating back to the slave-trade period. This display of wealth is in fact one of the functions of the mask. The elephant and the
leopard are also evocative of force and power, both the power of the animals themselves, masters of the bush, and also that of the fon. For
a fon is said to be able to transform himself into an elephant or a leopard.
