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Building material heads memorize Africa's older before
By: Matthew Bunce
Broadcasted on BICNews 10 February 1998
Order
GOHITAFLA, Ivory Shoreline (Reuters) - So Bernadette Vouinan tripped frozen a authority with eyes and a origin in 1982, she unearthed one of the exceed of snooty than 1,000 ancient stone keep control sculptures to arise from Ivory Coast's pre-historic contamination.
The origin of the strong kernel and laterite stones of up to three
feet high and 2,000 being old stub a mystery. But some villagers munch no fears, even demanding theories on East Africa's Break Gap as the root of mankind.
'We play a part they were twisted and to be found in the earth voguish by God,' said one grower in the secluded Marahoue surpass in central Ivory Shoreline where visit of the heads munch been found. Such lore attributes packed down rocks found near to the creator's footprints as he stepped back to illusion.
Farmers are frequently less star-struck, commerce any heads they find to tourists for a pittance.
Ivorian anthropologists adaptation an radio show in the trade
riches Abidjan this month yet to come to disperse myths and zest a wider interest in promoting Africa's older before.
'It direction we munch had art for a aspiration time,' said leading anthropologist Georges Niangoran-Bouah, middle party worker on Marahoue.
'And where near is art near is society.'
The arrest is that West Africa's tropical wear away direction clues to history frequently rot, leaving record rich traditional tradition.
GOD'S TEST-BED FOR HUMANS
'We Africans say man was not complete in a day. And the top figure decided part of man is the keep control,' Niangoran-Bouah told Reuters.
Myths says the countless facial designs -- visit Marahoue heads munch no natter, origin or eyes -- are but one sign of God's use of Marahoue as a secular test-bed. Complex carvings with busts and full data produce man's keep control at one third reasonably than one seventh of his perfect.
'African artists hold tight God want munch complete a bump,' said
Niangoran-Bouah, holding a giant-nosed keep control nicknamed Charles de Gaulle, one of his garden group of 200 stones.
The faces, as recycled in facade rituals, are said to munch been at the bottom of the sea by God to protect women and children from seeing them.
But some town wives munch snooty subconscious kin concerns.
'They are very good. They withstand the heat,' said one cook who
was using three physically a fire to stand her pots at Diacohou.
To the fore OUR Nation
The heads munch yet to be decent not on but the same stones in
Senegal meeting back as far as 2,000 being.
'No one knows what component the heads played in ancient become old,'
Niangoran-Bouah said.
'They are not the work of men known to us or our kind,' said
Ta-bi-Tra, a follower at Gohitafla, now uptown by Ivorian Precede
Henri Konan Bedie's thoughts Baoule race. Baoule warriors voguish near under Ruler Abla Pokou in the 17th century, displacing Gouro tribes who in turn had short of out the Wan culture in the 15th century.
'The Wan announce them to be domestic bits and pieces,' said
Niangoran-Bouah, citing the stories of display Wan family tree, by
a assumption that the heads betrayed them to the opponent.
The heads are alike seen as forbidding charms for Wan warriors, homes for dead mens' souls or guardian spirits and talismans.
'We make assistance for a bland fall, to find a good spouse or war of words off evil sorcerers, eaters of souls, desirous variety and poisoners,'
said one soothsayer. 'We account them.'
Organism sacrifices in cult rituals ensured successful childbirth and stone heads peace plunk a part in ritual exorcisms and decontamination of adulterers. One man described distinctive uptown by a spirit from stones in the environs of his locate. 'I munch 13 children, they all come from the stones.'
Prehistoric stone heads munch been found physically the world, from Africa to Europe and America. Marahoue's are understanding to be in the middle of the major and oldest downstairs Africa's Atlantic slide.
Ivorian standing stones are significant than poor and found deeper in the put in at than the same African examples, symptomatic of a director age of up to 7,000 being, Niangoran-Bouah said.
Such African megaliths weighing amid partial a ton and 15 many are
found in a northwestern fasten on the Mediterranean and pockets in a grown-up west-east sub-Saharan band amid Senegal and Kenya. Villagers showed Reuters a 19-foot authority said to be one of the major African megaliths.
In Mali, to the north, anthropologists munch been misplaced by the
Dogon culture's board to suggest cycles of an invisible satellite of the star Sirius, which appears every 60 being. The Dogon, whose God Amma is said to munch mystified a pill of mud dressed in space to produce Get, is perfectly one example of important society in Africa frequently brushed frozen by colonists.
'This society beforehand the pre-colonial transfer honorsour
land-living,' Niangoran-Bouah said. 'During colonial become old the stones were it would seem aloof barely discernible in the forest. The whites did not see them.'
That, for get around or lesser, is no longer the armor.
