softens, whereupon he eats it out of the glass, using a fork. He is peremptory with waiters, then becomes furious when they ignore him and deal instead with us. He feels superior to Mamadou, who does not eat with us and is not entitled to a room in these hotels; as for Mamadou, who is quiet and gentle, he is even more exasperated by our haughty guide than we are. Jacob speaks German and English as well as French and expects to be hired shortly by Lufthansa; we’d like to warn him that his manners maycount against him, but he is too touchy and volatile to accept this counsel in the way that it is meant. He has a color problem that is common in the new Africa: he envies and imitates the whites and is ashamed of this, and therefore is aggressive in his blackness, which makes him angry at both blacks and whites.
And so, though we like him, he has gotten on our nerves. Driving along, he will turn up Mamadou’s radio to full volume and join in very loudly and untunefully in the latest love songs. He is an authority on love, and speaks for Africa on this subject as on all others. “In Africa,” says Jacob Adjemon, “we say that first love is the best …”
Even more than the Senoufou, the Wobe and the “Yacouba” or Dan of the Man region, are famous for their masks, which have a serene and classical expression as well as a shell-like delicacy and lightness that has made them the favorite of Western amateurs of West African art. It is not strange that the Senoufou and the Dan have produced the most sophisticated art (as well as the most striking dances) in the Ivory Coast, since both derive from ancient and intense traditions; as in the great art of Benin, the Dan culture was already advanced before the first white man appeared on the Windward Coast.
The masks are in no way ornamental, nor is beauty sought; they are consecreated manifestations of the spirits, given human likeness so that they may be perceived by man. There are “small masks” that serve only the maker, and “Great Masks” that serve and protect the whole society in such ways as seeking out sorcerers, dispensing justice, and granting fertility and harmony. In these tasks and others, the masks are abetted by powerful secret societies with animal totems, notably the Gor or Leopard, which impose respect for the masks as well as punishment for those who disturb the public harmony; since this punishment may takethe form of a fatal dose of crocodile bile, administered by a shaman who can make himself invisible, or even transform himself into the leopard, the secret societies, and Gor especially, are much respected—all the more so, perhaps, now that real leopards have disappeared.
The names “Wobe” and “Yacouba” are distortions of the confused responses from outsiders that met the early inquiries of the white explorers; in the great tradition of colonial impatience, words that mean nothing to the tribes became their names. Thus “man,” which in the Dan tongue signifies “I don’t know,” became the name for the great town of this region, the center of the trade in kola nuts to Mali and Senegal, and a depot for Mali cattle on their way south into what is now Liberia. It is still the great trade center of west Ivory Coast, with a vast and tumultuous African market that overflows a great two-story shed, spreading its rich smells and bright colors into the mud streets all around. The town itself is set into a mythic countryside of towering green forest walls and flowering trees surrounded by eighteen conical hills up to four thousand feet in height; the most stirring of these hills is the sacred guardian called the Tooth, which is crowned by a sheer monumental block of granite, and comes and goes mysteriously in the mist. The cloud forest is a phantasmagoric setting for the masks and dances, for Gor the Leopard, for the waterfalls and spidery bridges across the mountain torrents, made of miles of liana that climb to the highest and most delicate
And so, though we like him, he has gotten on our nerves. Driving along, he will turn up Mamadou’s radio to full volume and join in very loudly and untunefully in the latest love songs. He is an authority on love, and speaks for Africa on this subject as on all others. “In Africa,” says Jacob Adjemon, “we say that first love is the best …”
Even more than the Senoufou, the Wobe and the “Yacouba” or Dan of the Man region, are famous for their masks, which have a serene and classical expression as well as a shell-like delicacy and lightness that has made them the favorite of Western amateurs of West African art. It is not strange that the Senoufou and the Dan have produced the most sophisticated art (as well as the most striking dances) in the Ivory Coast, since both derive from ancient and intense traditions; as in the great art of Benin, the Dan culture was already advanced before the first white man appeared on the Windward Coast.
The masks are in no way ornamental, nor is beauty sought; they are consecreated manifestations of the spirits, given human likeness so that they may be perceived by man. There are “small masks” that serve only the maker, and “Great Masks” that serve and protect the whole society in such ways as seeking out sorcerers, dispensing justice, and granting fertility and harmony. In these tasks and others, the masks are abetted by powerful secret societies with animal totems, notably the Gor or Leopard, which impose respect for the masks as well as punishment for those who disturb the public harmony; since this punishment may takethe form of a fatal dose of crocodile bile, administered by a shaman who can make himself invisible, or even transform himself into the leopard, the secret societies, and Gor especially, are much respected—all the more so, perhaps, now that real leopards have disappeared.
The names “Wobe” and “Yacouba” are distortions of the confused responses from outsiders that met the early inquiries of the white explorers; in the great tradition of colonial impatience, words that mean nothing to the tribes became their names. Thus “man,” which in the Dan tongue signifies “I don’t know,” became the name for the great town of this region, the center of the trade in kola nuts to Mali and Senegal, and a depot for Mali cattle on their way south into what is now Liberia. It is still the great trade center of west Ivory Coast, with a vast and tumultuous African market that overflows a great two-story shed, spreading its rich smells and bright colors into the mud streets all around. The town itself is set into a mythic countryside of towering green forest walls and flowering trees surrounded by eighteen conical hills up to four thousand feet in height; the most stirring of these hills is the sacred guardian called the Tooth, which is crowned by a sheer monumental block of granite, and comes and goes mysteriously in the mist. The cloud forest is a phantasmagoric setting for the masks and dances, for Gor the Leopard, for the waterfalls and spidery bridges across the mountain torrents, made of miles of liana that climb to the highest and most delicate
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