The Baga, past and future

The story Frederick Lamp tells in his fascinating book Art of the Baga begins as a portrayal of timeless beliefs, but then deepens into a story of the decline and fall of those beliefs, and of their possible rebirth in new form. Here are a few snapshots from that story: 

The Baga believe, or rather believed, that they could create their own "spiritual power" (158). The amazing masks of D'mba, expressing the profound impact of mature women in society, are apparently a conscious invention. They aren't "spirits" but they are powerful. Everybody creates gods, but almost no one acknowledges having done so; the Baga seem to come closer than most.

Yet this intense spiritual world must now be gone. Even when Lamp wrote, in the 1980s, almost everyone who actually recalled the innermost secrets was very old. Those elders would not pass on what they knew, because the rituals in which their knowledge was to be shared were no longer practiced. So this knowledge was simply disappearing, unless, as Lamp hopes, the elders still have some method of transmission as secret as the knowledge itself. (253)

How did this elaborate world of belief come to an end? Lamp tells us that the Baga ritual culture was finally destroyed not by French colonialists – though they undermined its role – but by a wave of Islamization, accompanied by violence. This was not the Islamist fundamentalism that is so prominent today, but something much more local, in the mid-1950s. (224) What gave it such force? Perhaps, as is often the case with religious outpourings, politicians' calculation played an important part. But Lamp thinks that something else was going on too. He suggests that the ritual world of the Baga was so all-consuming, and so tilted in favor of Baga elders, that Baga young men were ready to throw over the old customs in favor of freedom. So the amazing and rich culture that we are tempted to mourn was an oppression to those young Baga who helped end it. (238-39)

And yet, in the 80s, Baga young people were trying to reclaim their cultural heritage – in part with the aid of a visiting art historian, Lamp himself, who became in his words "a patron of the arts, as the ceremonial organization or the council of elders would have been in the past." (256) It's reasonable to guess that these efforts have included a rebirth of the actual making of classic Baga masks. A Baga mask made today may not be a ritual object, but it may still deserve to be called "authentic," because it reflects a popular movement at cultural reclamation. And its purchase, say by a Westerner, may not be a further blow to an endangered culture, but a support for that culture’s resurgence. And perhaps it is not out of character for a people that once believed it could create a spiritual power to now believe it can reclaim its lost culture. In this sense, both the new masks and the entire effort at self-re-invention are expressions of the rich Baga tradition. 

Discretion and the Baga

Elsewhere in his book Art of the Baga (did I mention that this book is very interesting?), Frederick Lamp discusses the question of how he can keep the confidences of his sources, who evidently shared with him some ritual secrets of the Baga, while still conveying enough of the essence of the matters under discussion so that readers can get a meaningful understanding of Baga culture.

Lamp faced a serious dilemma. Apparently some crucial information "has always been considered secret, the property of only the most highly ranked, initiated males" -- but "[s]ince initiations are no longer practiced on any level, the mechanisms for transmitting that knowledge are gone. The information is simply guarded by those who have it, and much of it will probably disappear with them at their death." (14) Is there a moral obligation for a scholar to preserve elements of human culture, even if the people whose culture it was would prefer for it to die with them?

Fortunately, Lamp "was able to enlist the aid of others in the community, including some elders (one aged around 107) who were not ritual officials. Through them I gained a satisfactory amount of information." (14) He also became part of discussions with the Baga themselves about these issues, and perhaps indeed they are the best people to answer the question of what part of their past culture should be preserved for history -- yet against tradition.

But meanwhile the next question was what Lamp should write. Ultimately, Lamp says, on certain ritual secrets he "decided to present only material that has already been disseminated outside the Baga community, in theses, sketches, and collection photographs, together with a minimum of what little elaboration has been offered to me by the elders themselves." He goes on to "beg the indulgence of any elders who may feel I have crossed the line." (58) This stance reflects a deep respect for the Baga elders' right to decide how much of their heritage will survive.

But there is one further note. Lamp writes that "I have withheld information that may jeopardize secrecy, and particularly details that outsiders may find abhorrent." (58) One can't read that sentence without wondering what details an outsider might find abhorrent. Here of course we, the outsider readers, do not know. But there are some intriguing hints. Lamp reprints a photograph he himself took in 1976 of a ritual event among the Temne (a group with some links to the Baga); he writes that "[t]he ritual was saturated with secrecy and I was very unwelcome, even though the part of it I saw was ostensibly public ... and I had official permission to attend.... The atmosphere was extremely tense, and dangerous to the uninitiated." (83) Later he quotes a Baga source saying that during an initiation, "the female sorcerers who would attempt, out of curiosity, to follow the operation of circumcision in the forest are physically liquidated from society by the Tshol" (94)  -- a "shrine figure" (87) with formidable powers. Perhaps there are more hints later in the book (which I've only read the first part of so far), but it does seem that part of what Lamp is not describing is the serious threat or reality of violence.

And, in a classic irony, if violence is indeed an underlying feature of Baga ritual, we have to recognize that this violence is bound up with the processes of creativity that also produced Baga art.

Sexuality and tradition among the Baga

Another note from Frederick Lamp’s fascinating Art of the Baga (1996):

Lamp describes “a spectacular and sensuous dance” performed by Baga men (73), that celebrates an important spirit named “a-Bol, the patron of the feminine moiety,” one division of Baga society. (70). This dance, which another scholar observed in the 1950s, was performed several times in 1987, perhaps as part of the renaissance of Baga traditional practices. All the dancers, Lamp reports, are dressed as women:

Each dancer is dressed in a particular female style: a printed-cloth wrapper around the waist, a scarf around the head, necklaces, bracelets, and conspicuous earrings tied to the ears. (73)  

What’s the dance like? Lamp writes that:

In the dances we saw in 1987, the men’s movements were homoerotic. First parading at a normal gait, the dancers would then take a position with legs splayed and knees bent, shuffling their feet with each beat, swiveling the hips …. (73)

He goes on:

Demonstrations of this dance in several [Baga] Sitemu villages were relatively sedate, but at the three-day ritual sacrifice the dancing was boisterous, continued for several hours, and included some spirit possession and also some sexually suggestive gestures and contact between the men.  (73)

Lamp suggests there may be multiple reasons for this ritual, but he proposes that one source may be that “the a-Bol ritual may be seen in the context of a ‘younger’ clan identified with the feminine principle, and sexual as sexuality is defined for the ‘younger’” – and, he writes, “No studies have investigated the extent of this phenomenon, but it seems clear that some homosexual behavior was expected among the youth.” (74)

This elaborate display of cross-dressing, with its complex roots, is interesting in and of itself. But it is also striking evidence – not that any was actually needed – that the claims sometimes made in Africa today that homosexuality is un-African are, of course, false. 

On the fall and possible rise of the art of the African Baga

From a book I'm reading called "Art of the Baga: A Drama of Cultural Reinvention" by Frederick Lamp (1996): "during the colonial occupation by the French, the demand for African art objects in France nearly denuded the Baga cultural landscape of old masks and ritual sculpture." (Page 19) One can see why: Baga masks in particular are remarkable, as this African Art dealer's website illustrates. But to "denude" a cultural landscape -- what an accomplishment.

Yet there is a saving feature of this situation: in real life, there's always a day after, and in the Baga's day after there has evidently been something of a renaissance of traditional practices, in which, the author writes, "[s]ince 1985, my photo albums have exposed [Baga] carvers to works of art now in private and museum collections in other parts of the world."(Page 22.) So it's possible to hope that the Baga themselves will replenish their cultural landscape, and that they may at the same time find a way to deliver new art to admiring outsiders that will escape the demand for authenticity that seems to require stripping people of their own culture.