Result of the research : 'tradition'
The Yoruba
The Yoruba people live on the west coast of Africa in Nigeria and can also be found in the eastern Republic of Benin and Togo. Because the majority of the slaves brought to the Americas were from West Africa Yoruban descendants can also be found in Brazil, Cuba, the Caribbean, and the United States. There are also many Yoruba currently living in Europe, particularly Britain, since Nigeria was once a British colony. The Yoruba are one of the largest cultural groups in Africa. Currently, there are about 40 million Yoruba world-wide. The Yoruba have been living in advanced urban kingdoms for more than 1,500 years. They created a strong economy through farming, trading, and art production. Their outstanding and unique artistic traditions include woodcarving, sculpture, metal work, textiles, and beadwork.
West Africans, such as the Yoruba, have lived in urban societies and have produced extraordinary art work since the 5th century BC. During this time, the Yoruba began to use iron to create metal tools and weapons such as machetes, axes, and hoes. These tools made it easier for the Yoruba to farm the land. They planted crops including yams, their staple food. They also harvested the seeds from the palm oil tree. The seeds from this tree produce a vegetable oil that is used for cooking. Kola nuts were also grown and harvested. Soon the Yoruba began trading with neighboring areas for rice and sorghum. Due to increased agriculture, the Yoruba community began to grow in size and large towns were created. They arranged their communities by clan lines, or extended families. Families who had the same ancestors lived next door to each other in large compounds. An elder was put in charge as the
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Visual, performing, and literary arts of sub-Saharan Africa. What gives art in Africa its special character is the generally small scale of most of its traditional societies, in which one finds a bewildering variety of styles. The earliest evidence of visual art is provided by figures scratched and painted on rocks c. 3000 BC. Pastoral cultures in the east emphasize personal adornment; sculpture predominates in the agricultural societies in the west and south. Clay figurines found in Nigeria date to 500 BC. Metalworking was practiced from the 9th century AD. Sculptures in stone, ivory, and wood date from the 16th – 17th centuries; some of the finest wood sculptures date from the 20th century. Architecture dominates the arts of the north and of the eastern coast, where Islam and Christianity exerted their influence; important work includes magnificent mosques built of mud and rock-hewn churches. Perhaps the most distinctive features of African music are the complexity of rhythmic patterning achieved by a great variety of drums and the relationship between melodic form and language tone structure. Without this the text of a song is rendered meaningless; but, even in purely instrumental music, melodic pattern is likely to follow speech tone. Dances are realized in radically different styles throughout Africa. Movement patterns often depend upon the way in which environmental, historical, and social circumstances have been articulated in working, social, and recreational movements. Often there is no distinction between ritual celebration and social recreation. The masquerade is a complex art form employing many media; masquerades may entertain, be used to fight disease, be consulted as oracles, initiate boys to manhood, impersonate ancestors, judge disputes, or execute criminals. The mask is essentially a dramatic device enabling performers to stand apart from their everyday role in the community.
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In sub-Saharan Africa, sculpture was and still is made and used for particular, practical purposes. In many instances it is used to mark events or stages of life, like fertility, birth, transition, death. For example, among the Yoruba in Nigeria, Ibeji twin-figurines (from ibi=first born and eji=two) are produced at the birth of someone's twins (a common occurance in this ethnic group). Among the Ashante in Ghana fertility figurines are carved, the Akuaba doll (akua=born on Wednesday and ba=child), to be worn by a young female in order to ensure her fertility. Ikenga figures embody protective spirits for worldly success and to protect the house-hold. Ancestor figures remind the people of those gone. Other carvings are used for initiation and coming-of-age rituals, for harvest festivals and celebrations, for funeral occasions.
As sculptures in African society always had a practical purpose, they were made for particular occasions only, i.e. on commission from a patron. The client and the artisan would discuss the purpose of the work and agree a price before the sculptor set to work. The client would then rely on the artist to produce a familiar form in a familiar style. For him only the object would be important, not the carver. As most sculptures in Africa have a limited life span due to the climate (humidity, dampness, heat) and insect attack (woodworms, termites), carvings had to be replaced frequently. Nevertheless, "the artist is not a passive copyist, even though one of his major responsibilities is to replace destroyed works" (from African Art in the Cycle of Life, by Roy Sieber & Roslyn Adele Walker, 1987:20). In fact, in this way he represented his generation's link with the past. In other words, "each sculpture had its particular reason for
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The Theodore Monod African Museum, for a long time called museum of Dakar or museum of IFAN, is a museum located in Dakar and part of the fundamental Institute of Black Africa (IFAN), within the University Sheikh Anta Diop.
It is part of official sites receiving writings displayed during Biennial of Dakar.
History
Located on the place Soweto, the building was constructed in 1931 in fashionable Sudanese style then and first sheltered the seat of the Administration Dress rehearsal de l' AOF, then the museum after creation in 1936 by French Theodore Monod de l' Institut of Black Africa (IFAN), which will change name without changing acronym in 1960s. It is only at this instant when collections are really put in the disposition of the public. However the first recording of object dates of 1941.
The museum was renovated in 1995. From January, 2005 till February, 2008, the conservative was Abdoulaye Camara.
For a long time called Africain Art museum, he changes name in 2007, by the presidential decree n ° 2007-1528 of December 13th, 2007 and takes that of Museum Africain Theodore Monod d' Art.
Collections
The museum is devoted to arts and
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, USA. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, often referred to simply as "the Met," is one of the world's largest art galleries, and has a much smaller second location in Upper Manhattan, at "The Cloisters," which features medieval art.
Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of notable interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met's galleries.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. It opened on February 20, 1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue.
As of 2007, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet.
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The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than 7 million objects, are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present.
The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum of Natural History in South Kensington in 1887. Until 1997, when the current British Library building opened to the public, replacing the old British Museum Reading Room, the British Museum was unique in that it housed both a national museum of antiquities and a national library in the same building.
The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. As with all other national museums and art galleries in Britain, the Museum charges no admission fee, although charges are levied for some temporary special exhibitions. Since 2001 the director of the Museum has been Neil MacGregor.
History
Though principally a museum of cultural art objects and antiquities today, the British Museum was founded as a "universal museum". Its foundations lie in the will of the physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). During the course of his lifetime Sloane gathered an enviable collection of curiosities and whilst not wishing to see his collection broken up after death, he bequeathed it to King George II, for the nation, for the princely sum of £20,000.
At that time,
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Sculpture dedicated to Gou divinity of wrought iron and war
Work iron 168cm in height made before 1858 by Akati Ekplékendo
Current Republic of Benin
Lauren Papet, Ecole du Louvre
Arrival in French collections and identification problems
This statue has been reported in France in 1894 by Captain Eugene Fonssagrives following the conquest of Dahomey. It belonged to the spoils of war found in the palaces of Abomey, abandoned by the fleeing King Behanzin, who himself had perhaps made on the side in preparation for the French attack in the hope that the god help protect the kingdom on its most vulnerable border. She was then given directly to the Trocadero Museum of Ethnography, the current Museum of Man (recorded April 30, 1894).
First Fonssagrives was presented as was a representation of Ebo, patron god of Ouidah thesis refuted by Maurice Delafosse in 1894, indicating that the divinity of Ouidah is not the serpent but Ebo Dan. The name "Ebo" would have probably been given Fonssagrives response when he asked what the object (Bo meaning receptacle of supernatural forces). She was named Gou, its present name after World War II, his resemblance to the voodoo (god) of iron and protector of the forge, metal and war have been considered fairly obvious.
Technical Achievement
Government also has a variety of techniques to work with iron: forged, rolled, hammered, nailed and riveted.
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The Quai Branly museum is set on quai
Branly in the 7th district of Paris, where was located the Foreign Exchange
Market Department. Ambitious project led by Jacques Chirac (passionated by « primitive
art ») and realised by Jean Nouvel, it has been unveiled the 20th of June
2006. History Jacques Kerchache, art seller and african art expert, tried from the
begining of the 1990’s to bring the « primitive arts » into the
Louvre museum. In 1990 he signed in the newpaper Libération an article on this
topic ; the same year he met Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris. The latter is elected president of the Republic in 1995. As soon as he
arrived at the head of the State, he askes for the opening of a primitive art department
at the Louvre museum. One year later he announced the project of creation of a
new museum, which quickly meet an opposition, especially with a strike of the personnal of the Man
museum in 1999, to stand in the way of the disassembly of the museum’s
collections and criticize the primacy of the aesthetic choice instead of the
scientific factors. An architecture competition is sent out in 1999, designating Jean Nouvel as
the architect. This museum is unveiled the 20th of June 2006 by Jacques
Chirac, in the presence of Kofi Annan, Rigoberta Menchú, Paul Okalik, Dominique
de Villepin, Lionel Jospin and Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The Quai Branly museum has
the status of public administratove institution. It’s placed under the guardianship
of the Department of Culture and
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Claude Lévi-Strauss, né le 28 novembre 1908 à Bruxelles, est un anthropologue, ethnologue et philosophe français. Professeur honoraire au Collège de France, dont il a occupé la chaire d'anthropologie sociale de 1959 à 1982, et membre de l'Académie française, dont il est devenu le premier centenaire, il compte parmi les premiers théoriciens de la pensée structuraliste. Depuis ses premiers travaux sur les Indiens du Brésil, qu'il a étudiés sur le terrain entre 1935 et 1939, et la publication de sa thèse Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté en 1949, il a produit une œuvre scientifique dont les apports ont été reconnus au plan international. Il a ainsi consacré une tétralogie, les Mythologiques, à l'étude des mythes. Mais il a également publié des ouvrages qui sortent du strict cadre des études académiques, dont le plus célèbre, Tristes Tropiques, publié en 1955, l'a fait connaître et apprécier d'un vaste cercle de lecteurs. Biographie Enfance et formation Claude Lévi-Strauss, issu d'une famille juive d'origine alsacienne, est né à Bruxelles de parents français. Son père était un peintre portraitiste, qui fut ruiné par l'arrivée de la photographie et son grand-père maternel était le rabbin de la synagogue de Versailles. Il fait ses études secondaires à Paris aux lycées Janson-de-Sailly et Condorcet ; puis des études supérieures à la faculté de droit de Paris (licence) et à la Sorbonne (troisième à l'agrégation de philosophie en
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Georges Braque Georges Braque, né à Argenteuil (Seine-et-Oise, actuellement Val-d'Oise) le 13 mai 1882 et mort à Paris le 31 août 1963, était un peintre et sculpteur français. Il fut, avec Pablo Picasso, l'un des initiateurs du cubisme. Biographie Georges Braque : « Je fuis mon semblable, dans tout semblable il y a un sosie. » Georges Braque grandit au sein d’une famille d’artisans. Il passe sa jeunesse au Havre et étudie à l'École des Beaux-Arts de 1897 à 1899 dirigé par Charles Lhuillier. Il y fait la connaissance d'Othon Friesz. Sa première formation comme peintre décorateur, il la doit à son père, Charles Braque, entrepreneur-peintre en bâtiment. À Paris, il suit les cours d'un maître décorateur et obtient son certificat d'artisanat en 1901. L'année suivante, il entre à l'académie Humbert qu'il fréquente jusqu'en 1904. C'est là qu'il rencontre Marie Laurencin et Francis Picabia. Du fauvisme au cubisme Il peint ses premières œuvres sous l'influence de l'impressionnisme jusqu'à ce qu'il découvre au Salon d’Automne de 1905 les toiles d'Henri Matisse et d'André Derain. Puis débute une collaboration artistique avec Othon Friesz avec qui il fait un séjour à Anvers, puis l'année suivante à L'Estaque (Bouches-du-Rhône) d'où il rapporte des tableaux fauves aux couleurs pures et aux compositions géométriques. ( « Souvenirs d'Anvers » ). Ses tableaux sont exposés en mars 1906 au Salon des indépendants.
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Even presented beyond their ethnographic context, the female representations produced by African artists remain strong, both aesthetic choices remain compelling. The Eye Gallery and the Main has a selection of works whose wife is the central subject: maternity, reliquaries, dolls, locks, seats, fetishes, puppets, masks ... all traditional works produced for different purposes, often very utilitarian and share the lack of realism. Yet, the authority that comes from a Dogon figure, is the opposite of the impression that emanates submission in general models of feminine beauty, like the masks of pwo Tchokwe, which are worn by men, but also for the elaborate hairstyles of Mende, who are nevertheless confined exclusively female company. It can be found most touching a small doll of a woman Mossi biga fertility has focused on her and treated as his own child. It is just a simple piece of wood without arms or legs whose femininity is limited to a few signs - hair, eyes, breasts, ports - but just how easy and how success in abstraction.
"FEMINAFRICA" of Wednesday, May 17 to Friday, June 30, 2006.
African Art / African Art / primitive art / primitive art / primitive arts / art gallery / art Tribal / Tribal Art / Africa / Africa / eye and hand / first art gallery / buy / sell / expertise / expert / exposure / exhibition / collection / collectors / Paris / work / Verneuil / antiques / antique / museum / museum / mask / mask / statue / sculpture / Agalom / Armand Auxiètre / www.african-paris.com /
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african art / art africain / primitive art / art primitif / arts
premiers / art gallery / art tribal / tribal art / l'oeil et la main /
galerie d'art premier / Agalom / Armand Auxiètre /
www.african-paris.com / www.agalom.com
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David Norden http://users.telenet.be/african-shop/kerchache.htm
In a crucial moment for the world of Tribal Arts, Ana &Antonio Casanovas from Arte y Ritual and Alain Bovis Gallery present two consecutive exhibitions in Paris with a selection of masterworks from the Kerchache collection:
1.”HOMMAGE” June 16-July 22 2006 2. “NIGERIA” September 13th –October 20th 2006
“HOMAGE TO JACQUES KERCHACHE”
WHY?
The Quai Branly
We want to pay an HOMAGE to Jacques Kerchache and , in his name, give support to an important historical event : the opening of the Quai Branly,one of the most important museums in the world dedicated entirely to “les Arts Premiers”. Jacques was first appointed to asses the selection of art works for the “Pavillion des Sessions” in the Louvre Museum which was conceived as an antennae of the Quai Branly.He had a crucial role in the creation of this innovative museum and was an important member of the Acquisition Committee.
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african art / art africain / primitive art / art primitif / arts
premiers / art gallery / art tribal / tribal art / Afrique / Africa /
l'oeil et la main / galerie d'art premier / achat / vente / expertise /
expert / exposition / exhibition / collection / collectionneur / Paris
/ oeuvre / Verneuil / antiquités / antiquaire / musée / museum / masque
/ mask / statue / sculpture / Agalom / Armand Auxiètre /
www.african-paris.com / www.agalom.com
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es Statues Also Die is a French documentary short film directed by Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and Ghislain Cloquet released in 1953. Artistic Advisor: Charles Ratton.
It was sponsored by the Pan-African journal Presence Africaine. Starting from the question "Why art negro is there at the Museum of Man while Greek or Egyptian art is the Louvre? ', Both filmmakers denounced the lack of consideration for African art in a context of colonization. The film was censored in France for eight years because of his views anti-colonialist.
"When men are dead, they make history. When the statues are dead, they enter into art. This Botanical death is what we call culture.
Because the people of the statues is mortal. One day, our stony faces break down in turn. A civilization is leaving behind traces such as mutilated stones of Tom Thumb, but history has eaten everything. An object is dead when the living gaze which rested on him has disappeared, and when we lost our items will go where we send those negroes in the museum.
Art negro. We look as if it was his purpose in the pleasure it gives us. The intentions of the negro who created the emotions of the negro who looks at it, it eludes us. Because they are written into the woods, we take their ideas for statues, and we find the picturesque where a member of the black community sees the face of a culture.
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Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter and a
major force in the abstract expressionist movement. He was married
to noted abstract painter Lee Krasner. Early lifePollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912, the
youngest of five sons. His father was a farmer and later a land surveyor for
the government.He grew up in Arizona and Chico,
California, studying at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School. During his early life,
he experienced Native American culture while
on surveying trips with his father.In 1930, following his brother Charles, he
moved to New York City, where they both studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League of New York.
Benton's rural American subject matter shaped Pollock's work only fleetingly,
but his rhythmic use of paint and his fierce independence were more lasting
influences. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked
for the WPA Federal Art Project. The
Springs period and the unique techniqueIn October 1945, Pollock married another important American painter, Lee Krasner,
and in November they moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studioin Springs on Long Island,
New York. Peggy Guggenheim loaned them the down payment for
the wood-frame house with a nearby barn
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P R E F A C E
In one of the chaos of rocks the most amazing of Africa, has a population of farmer-warriors who was one of the last of the French domain to lose its independence.
For most whites in West Africa, the Dogon are dangerous men, if not the most backward of the Federation. Ilspassent to practice human sacrifice and even to defend themselves better against all the outside influences that they live a difficult country. Some writers have told their small fears when supposedly daring excursions. From these legends and the pretext of revolts often due to misunderstandings, it has sometimes taken in exile of entire villages.
In short, the Dogon represent one of the finest examples of primitive savage and this opinion is shared by some black Muslims who, intellectually, are not better equipped than whites to appreciate those of their fellow faithful to ancestral traditions. Only officials who have assumed the heavy task of administering these men have learned to love them.
The author of this book and its many teammates attend the Dogon past fifteen years. They published the work of these men who are now the people's best-known French Sudan: The Souls of the Dogon (G. Dieterlen, 1941), The Currency (S. OF GANAY 1941), Masks (M. Griaule, 1938) have brought to scholarly evidence that blacks lived on complex ideas, but ordered, on systems of institutions and rituals where nothing is left to chance or whim. This work, already ten years ago, drew
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Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color. Life Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family of musicians. His father taught him to play the violin. He began painting in his late teens. In 1893, he studied with a painter named Henri Rigalon on the Ile de Chatou In 1894 he married Suzanne Berly. The turning point in his life was a chance meeting on the train to Paris towards the end of his stint in the army. Vlaminck, then 23, met an aspiring artist, André Derain, with whom he struck up a life-long friendship. When Vlaminck completed his army service in 1900, the two rented a studio together for a year before Derain left to do his own military service. In 1902 and 1903 he wrote several mildly pornographic novels illustrated by Derain. He painted during the day and earned his livelihood by giving violin lessons and performing with musical bands at night. In 1911, Vlaminck traveled to London and painted by the Thames. In 1913, he painted again with Derain in Marseille and Martigues. In World War I he was stationed in Paris, and began writing poetry. Eventually he settled in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. He married his second wife, Berthe Combes, with whom he had two daughters. From 1925 he traveled throughout France, but continued to paint primarily along the Seine, near Paris. Vlaminck died in Rueil-la-Gadelière on 11 October 1958. Artistic career Two of Vlaminck's groundbreaking paintings, Sur le zinc (At the Bar) and L'homme a la pipe (Man
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Henri Matisse (31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid, brilliant and original draughtsmanship. As a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but principally as a painter, Matisse is one of the best-known artists of the 20th century. Although he was initially labeled as a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s, he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art. Early life and education Born Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, he grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois in Northeastern France, where his parents owned a seed business. He was their first son. In 1887 he went to Paris to study law, working as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification. He first started to paint in 1889, when his mother had brought him art supplies during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis. He discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it, and decided to become an artist, deeply disappointing his father. In 1891 he returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Gustave Moreau. Initially he painted still-lifes and landscapes in the traditional Flemish style, at which he achieved reasonable proficiency. Chardin was one of Matisse's most admired painters;as an art student he made copies of four Chardin paintings in the Louvre.In 1896 he exhibited 5 paintings in the salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and the state bought two of his paintings. In 1897 and 1898, he visited the painter John Peter Russell on the island Belle
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Anne-Louise Amanieu
Ecole du Louvre
Specialty Arts of Africa
December 2007
Fang mask society Ngil, Gabon, Pavilion des Sessions at the Louvre
IDENTIFICATION
Fang mask the Pavillon des Sessions consists partly of wood covered with kaolin and measure about 70 cm high. It dates from the late nineteenth century or early twentieth. Listed under the inventory number 65-104-1, it comes from the former collection of André Lefèvre and was acquired in 1965 by the Museum of Man.
DESCRIPTION
This great helmet mask represents a stylized human face, whose face and elongated heart-shaped and slightly concave is shared by a long thin nose. On the top of the forehead develops a studded headband for attaching ornaments and who bears a ridge with extension to the front leads by three strokes for joining the nasal bridge and deployed above the eyebrows. The C-shaped ears stand out in high relief on both sides of the face, as the eyes and mouth, they are barely mentioned by simple incisions highlighted by thin slits etched tattoos that recall that arborist and the Fang Ntoumou Mvai by Günter Tessmann.
ANALYSIS
The mask of Ngil (NGI) exists only among the Fang, the people established the Sanaga River (southern Cameroon) Ogooué River (northern Gabon) and in Equatorial Guinea after a period of migration to the eighteenth and
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