SafariLands.org: History: Makonde culture yet to be effaced

The creativeness and originality make Makonde sculptures a very interesting form of contemporary art.

There are still pockets of Makonde living in Tanzania today, and the two groups are separated by the Ruvuma River. Despite the proximity of the two groups, they consider themselves culturally distinct, though ideas and artistic traditions are shared.

Though often identified with their wildly abstract and sensual "shetani" carvings which are produced for sale, they also have a long tradition of ritual art, which includes a wide variety of helmet masks, male and female ancestor figures, and an almost endless variety of utilitarian objects, often decorated with human heads.

There are also the startling female "belly" masks which depict the female anatomy from the neck to the pubis, with pendulous breasts and a pregnant belly. They are used in an "ancestress" cult. These highly sought-after pieces are found almost nowhere else, though there are a few amazing examples from the Fon of Benin, the difference being that the Fon actually portray the female genitalia.

Masks play a prominent role in Makonde life, and mark the end of the initiation and circumcision cycles for boys, as they re-enter society as men, ready to marry. The "Lipico" masks depict a wide range of Makonde ideals, social norms, and even history, as they depict initiates, villagers, coastal Arabs, and colonial officials.

They embellish these masks with human hair, insert pegs for teeth, and even whiten the eyes. Beyond that, in a quest for the reality of the human condition, they sometimes show human deformities. Their masks, along with those of the Kongo and Vili cultures of the northwestern Congo, show realistic Negroid features, unlike the more stylized faces found elsewhere in west and central Africa.

Women play an important role in Makonde art and mythology. Legend has it that man carved a figure of a woman, fell asleep, and awoke to find that the statue had come to life. She gave him many children, and later was venerated by an "ancestress" cult, which was the inspiration for the belly masks.

Their first contact with Europeans did not occur until 1910 and, even then, European influence was minimal. Their coastal location hints at an involvement with Swahili slave traders in centuries past, although this is not certain. Recently enclaves of Makonde have been found living in and near larger cities in Kenya.

The Makonde carving tradition

The Makonde are, of course, famous for the wood carvings which bear their name. The tradition has existed among them for at least three centuries, when examples were brought back by Arab traders. It is likely that the tradition is much, much older than that. Originally naturalistic and impregnated with meaning, the carvings are now generally more abstract, in keeping with the tastes of tourists and collectors.

The one thing the carvings have in common is that they are invariably carved from a single piece of wood, no matter how intricate the design. The wood traditionally used comes from the African Blackwood tree (Dalbergia Melanoxylon), also known as "Mozambique Ebony". It is extremely fine-grained and dark in colour, and so ideally-suited for carving. This unfortunately also means that the tree has become endangered: read Noeline Gannaway's touching article Saving the Tree of Music (external site; page opens in a new browser window).

The best-known works are the 'tree of life' carvings in the ujamaa style, being intricately carved conjunctions of interlocking human figures representing both unity and continuity. Less well-known are the ritual masks, which were (and still are, I believe) used by dancers who embody the forms of spirits and ancestors. Aside from masks (see the Masks page for these), there are four main styles of carving, which are characterised by subject matter. The oldest form is the female figure, and relate to the cult of womanhood, in keeping with the Makonde creation myth in which the male ancestor of the Makonde got lonely and created a carving of a woman, who came alive.

She was not just the first woman, but the first human, because the male was only a 'creature' (some might say nothing much has changed!). These carvings were carried by men for protection when travelling.

These figures have latterly developed into the Ujamaa style. Other recent genres are Binadamu (daily life) and Shetani (spirits), which were apparently developed after the 1950s wave of migrations from Mozambique to Tanzania.