Info - Baoule and Malinke music

Music and Dances of Occidental Africa

MUSIC OF THE BAOULE MUSIC OF THE MALINKE 


Found on ebay . Cannot find old link. Must be on a zip drive.

Research. African Masks, Rituals of Cross-Gender Transformation.

There are many examples of dual, antithetical masks. Among the Baga of Guinea, for example, the masquerade of D'mba is the epitome of beauty and good comportment, while her antithesis, D'mba-da-Tshol, is the epitome of ugliness and erratic behavior. Among the Dan of Liberia, sleek and gentle female masks are opposed to grotesque and violent male masks. 

Man-boy sex, or at least the representation of it, is most common. Among the Temne of Sierra Leone, for example, the last boy to be initiated is given the name, Tithkabethi ("vagina initiate"). Boys in initiation often wear women's clothes, as documented among the Temne and among the Nandi of Kenya. 


Among the Ndembu of Congo (Kinshasa), the chief instructor of the boys' initiation is called the "husband of the novices" and the novices themselves are called mwadi, senior wives, and are said to be "married by" the chief instructor. The novices are said to play with the sexual organs of male visitors to the initiation lodge, a practice considered helpful in the healing of their circumcisions. In a particular ritual, an elder man lies on the ground, exposing his penis, and each of the novices mimes copulation with him. 

While homosexuality may not often be the subject of African art, homosexual persons may be more inclined than others to become practitioners of the arts and rituals. In the Sudan, the healing ritual system known as zaar, practiced mainly by women, is also joined by men, some of whom become ritual leaders. These men are assumed to be homosexual by the community, and some are overtly homosexual. In Mombasa, Kenya, receptive homosexual men called mashoga, dressed in wigs and women's clothes, are active as performers at weddings, playing the pembe (a female musical instrument), and doing chagkacha (a seductive female dance). Male ritual leaders called mugawe among the Meru of Kenya dress as women routinely and sometimes even marry other men. Coptic monks in the sixth or seventh century, whose work included the painting of sacred manuscripts, apparently were known for their homosexuality, judging by a man's wedding vow on papyrus that promises "never to take another wife, never to fornicate, nor to consort with wandering monks." Among the Dagara of Burkina Faso, the homosexual man is said to be well integrated into the community, occupying a performance role of intermediacy between this world and the otherworld, as a sort of "gatekeeper." As Somé reports, a Dagara man has testified that such a person "experiences a state of vibrational consciousness which is far higher, and far different from the one the normal person would experience. . . . So when you arrive here, you begin to vibrate in a way that Elders can detect as meaning that you are connected with a gateway somewhere. . . . You decide that you will be a gatekeeper before you are born." Diviners, who manipulate materials to find a spiritual solution to clients' problems, in several areas of Africa have been known to be homosexuals, for example among the Zulu of South Africa and among the Nyoro of Kenya, where they would demonstrate spiritual possession by "becoming a woman." Carlos Estermann found that among the Ambo of Angola a special order of diviner, called omasenge, dressed as women, did women's work, and contracted marriage with other men who might also be married to women. "An esenge [sing. of omasenge] is essentially a man who has been possessed since childhood by a spirit of female sex, which has been drawing out of him, little by little, the taste for everything that is masculine and virile." In the case of the Zande of the Central African Republic, sex between a man and a boy was said to benefit the diviner, and would take place before the consultation of oracles, when sex with women would be taboo. But, as Evans-Prichard reported, the Zande went on to allow that the reason was not simply ritual prohibition, but also "just because they like them." Homoeroticism in Art Perhaps the most common use of eroticism in African art is the depiction of the phallus. Well-known examples of singular phallic sculpture include columnar earthen shrines, documented among many groups in the Sahel, for example, the Dogon, Batammaliba, and Lobi. The sexual realism of these columns is heightened by the pouring of white meal over the rounded top. Large, vertical, stone pillars, called akwanshi, found along the Cross River in Nigeria, and traced to before the colonial period, are carved quite realistically as an erect penis, with a distinct head and shaft. Generally the height of an adult person, they seem also to represent a truncated human figure. Male initiates among the Zulu of South Africa carry wooden clubs with a knob on the end resembling the head of a penis. With sometimes several dozen young men initiated at one time, the sea of upraised phalluses is a powerful sight. The Baga of Guinea revere a great male founding spirit who is manifested by an enormous, vertical shaft of fiber, perhaps twenty meters tall, topped by a wooden bird head, and carried inside by as many as twenty men. The powerful male image is frightening to the community, as it shivers and throbs. Alternatively, a heavy, wooden, vertical shaft in the form of a huge serpent may represent the founding male spirit, and is balanced on top of the dancer's head.   African Art: Traditional   The exaggeration of the phallus as a part of a male figure is almost universal throughout Africa. The Yoruba god, Eshu, the god of confusion, the crossroads, chance, and sex, is depicted with a wooden phallus sprouting from the top of his head. Wooden figures of ancestral chiefs among the Ndengese of Congo (Kinshasa), are carved with enormous phalluses to emphasize the fertile power of the ancestors. The Egyptian god, Amun-Min, he who awoke the sexual potency of the god Osiris, is depicted as a mummy with an erection. Among the Yaka of Congo (Kinshasa), during the initiation called nkanda, young male officials perform with erotic masks known as kholuka in the coming-out ceremonies. The masks, constructed by the young men, often are surmounted by human figures in heterosexual intercourse but also frequently by the single male figure with an enormous erection, very realistically formed, and sometimes shown in masturbation. During the dance, including pelvic thrusts, the dancer also carries a wooden phallus, and sometimes sheds his clothing to reveal his own erect sexual organ. During this performance, the men disparage the women and ridicule the women's sexual organs, while extolling their own. But an exceptional event is the Baga dance for their great female spirit, a-Bol, in which all the participating men dress as women and imitate their movements erotically, undulating the hips, and sometimes suggesting sexual intercourse with men on the sidelines. The musical instruments used during the dance are those normally reserved exclusively for women: the cittern, wa-sakumba, and the small të- ndëf drum.  Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, priests of the god Shango, the god of thunder and lightning, are usually female, but male priests are common and they always dress as women, with braided hair. They operate in the ritual context in which the god is said to "mount" the priest in spirit possession, as a male animal mounts a female in intercourse. Some studies have indicated specifically that the male priests do not practice homosexuality, while others have disputed this.  Men also use masks to control, to honor, to placate, and sometimes, to rebuke women. In the Yoruba Gelede dances, for example, men assume the likeness of "the mothers" in order to control their extraordinary powers, which they fear, and which are symbolized, in part, by the woman's unique ability to nurture. There are some examples of permanent gender transformation, which goes beyond occasional cross-dressing, in which men "become" women and women "become" men in African ritual. Among the Gabra of Ethiopia and Kenya, symbolic gender inversion takes place as a function of the gender-specificity of space, as older men are assigned to the inside of the camps, a feminine space, whereas masculinity is constructed among the younger men by assignment to the outside. Whereas the initiation of boys turns them into men, the second initiation, jilla galaani ("rites of the return home"), turns the men into women socially, though not sexually.  The accession to leadership sometimes seems to require gender transformation. Two pharaohs of ancient Egypt, Hatshepsut and Smenkhare, who are believed to have been women (the latter being Nefertiti in her later years), are consistently shown wearing false beards and men's clothing, just as the male pharaohs. This is probably not because they functioned as men sexually, but because a male identity was needed to function as a pharaoh. Accompanying texts refer to them exclusively as men. Many representations exist showing the human being as Janus, of dual sex. Janus masks of the Ejagham in Nigeria, for example, have one face dark and one light, delineating the oppositions of physical and spiritual, female and male. Human figures of the Lobi of Burkina Faso, the Dogon of Mali, and the Luba of Congo (Kinshasha), among many African ethnic groups, are carved with a male face on one side and a female face on the other. This depiction can represent the bisexual ancestors or other spiritual beings who are both male and female or have attributes of both. It can also represent the ability to work in both the physical and the spiritual worlds, themselves frequently aligned with such dyads as the interior and exterior, the village and the wilderness, and the feminine and the masculine.

Create your own religion contest entry

What is the name of your religion?: Daeism


What are your main beliefs:
 
The Devil is really Shiva and God is really Vishnu...they were born as one being and became separated as a part of the natural cosmic maturation process of the super-race that they belong to. Although this is a monotheistic religion, the super deity are now two separate entities, known as Dae (Shiva, or The Devil) and Dar (Vishnu, or God.) Dar has gone through a transformation process recently, and God is female. The two of them are married! (When they visit New York, the Yaweh aspect of the Dar, along with his husband Dae, can have complete marriage equality!) It must be understood, that Darism is a religion too, but I did not necessarily create it. I am a Daeist.    

What are your most important rituals?

*Note: Most of our rituals are secret.

Everyday rituals: We do not worship the Dae. To do so would be silly, because he knows that if we have actually been selected to receive, for a limited time only, the message of the Dae and his mega-coolness, we are just not going to insult him with that dumb-ass antique worship stuff. We are just not down with that. He respect us. It's cool. So, we eat chocolate baked goods in his name. Ritualistically. Like, Devil's Food Cake. Try it. It's good.

Dog Days Apostate Burning - A community frolic that depends upon a successful search to find something that cannot mean nothing. If this cannot be found, there must be a sacrifice. All done in effigy, of course. This high ritual takes place in mid-August.


Oh, and we listen to a lot of Black Sabbath.


What are your major holidays?

Krishna's Washing Day - sometime in June (depends on when the trash gets taken out) A lovely festival that celebrates the death of Light. This will really come in handy when we need the Devil to fix this whole "global warming" thing...

Halloween - We must give The Devil some candy. Really, now. What is religion for?

Sunreturn - Everyone likes presents. Dec. 21-25

Vernalrama - Spring holiday where we all make decisions we regret later - because that's life, and we are celebrating it. March 21, or so, depending on the Dae's whim, I mean the cycles of the moon

Ritchie Blackmore's Birthday, April 14 - Because every religion needs a patron saint, or something.

Audience

I don't bother with this for the locals, you know. This is for those OUT THERE. IN THE GREAT BEYOND. They all know that.

Death photos, Freedom of Speech, and Decency

AATP post, topic: Should ObL death-photos be released?

The photos MUST be released. Did you not learn anything from the birther phenomenon? The r/w radio hate-shows and all their brethren will spin and spin and spin this out until it's as big as a rancid housing bubble. Diffuse it now. Then it will never really have the chance to grow. I wish this is a world where decency counted, but it's not. Not anymore. The SCOTUS saw to that, quite a while back. Free speech? This is what it got us - personally abused by ubiquitous photos of a quasi super-enemy with several holes in his head, by a bunch of deranged hate mongers called Westboro, by an election system bought and paid for by invisible corporate "persons" who have rights but no responsibilities. Don't like it? Too bad. The Fairness Doctrine is history, and now even the word "fair" is becoming verboten, according to some of the pious. This IS America, and enquiring minds pretty much have a Constitutional right to know, at this point.

On the news that the President has decided to not release the photos:

Unfortunately, not releasing the photos will give the r/w media propaganda machine a new growth medium to re-invigorate their illogical frenzy of manipulation. We will all have to watch a new fallacy bubble build as they spin it as hard as they can. I can only trust that the President has made this decision based on intelligence info about international reaction, because, politically, on the domestic front, this will cause a lot of needless see-sawing in the polls, a lot of anxiety, and a lot of avoidable problems, to say the least.

The Rabid Right

Status post May 3 2011:

On Limbaugh: He is a fear-mongering, hate-spewing, lie-propagating manipulative opportunist, who preys upon his faithful devotees by slyly making insinuations, distorting facts, and antagonizing deeply held convictions about "American freedom" and "Christian values". He is a merchant of bigotry, a champion of untruth, a hate-pimp.

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FLS/Justin R, May 3, 2100:

Sleepy Time Thought: As the anger from the Right spirals out of control at Obama’s success, it becomes all too clear that there is no line too far to cross, no lie too extreme to utter, no depth too low to sink to. Compromise can only be reached with the rational and the Right has gone mad with fear and loathing. Liberals MUST present a united front against the insanity or we’ll be lost in the incoherent rage.

 My response:
 

Great. We have a two-party system, and one party is now rabid. Furthermore, we have no system in place to medically evaluate, diagnose, and treat this condition, because that would be infringing upon the "freedoms" of this party's members. We used to have a more effective system, the Fairness Doctrine was part of that, but it's elimination has led to this. How are you supposed to 51-50 such a large segment of the GOP? How much further will this go before it is so clear that they are a danger to themselves or others that we, as the collective mental health team/conscientious electorate, will have the authority to force them to get the help they need?

From Cameron B:
The fairness doctorine was only there so as to allow the flat earthers time to convince round earthers they were wrong.
 
Me:
Well, Cameron, I suppose I'll just have to put the finishing touches on my flat-earth mindset equivalency calibration wave-equation-scope-powered super death-ray machine, because science always wins the future.  

This changes something, not nothing

Statement on Osama bin Laden's death:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/05/bin_laden_statement.html
from CAP comment thread

J Corbett:
It isn't over folks... Seriously. I invite you all to read my latest status update for more information. This changes nothing.

Me: 

I disagree, Mr. Corbett. Internationally, it may change little. But, in the hearts and minds of many Americans, especially those who been affected by loss and grief during these confusing and troubling times, it will bring closure. For the first time I have the feeling the all this painful sacrifice might not be entirely just senseless, pointless corporate pawn-brokering. I still think that the way these wars have been fought have been much more about lining private interest pockets, which is heinous and shameful, but perhaps some good will come out of it, after all. And no, it isn't over. You are certainly correct about that. There are dark times ahead. But, a door has been closed. This chapter of the saga is finished. That is a good thing for the nation.

 

Americans Against the Tea Party: Watch out for these bastards. Remember, if you see a troll - copy and paste the post url and the trolls facebook profile url into an email and send it to: aattp.noteaparty@gmail.com AATTP has a strict zero tolerance troll policy (mad)

Koch Brothers Invade Facebook to Recruit Right-Wing Think Tank Automatons to Be Placed Around US | B

blog.buzzflash.com

In the last few days, I have encountered endless paid ads in the right-hand column of Facebook for a program called "Liberty at Work." "Looking for Work?" the ad asks. It then describes positions throughout the country for advancing "conservative and libertarian" causes.

 

A troll posts something like: : "Do the K's have an agenda? Yeah, prosperity for all, that is sooo evil..."

My reply: Keep drinking that magic Koch elixer, Mr. Birmingham (what, do you put it in your coffee?) because if you really believe that the billionaires represented in the media by the K boys want prosperity for all, you have been blinded by a really powerful brew. They want gated enclaves where YOU do not live, unless you are already one of THEM. They want serfs, and power, and all control, and all money, basically. They want power, and to be kings, and emperors. How many billionaires have you actually sat down and had dinner with? How many do you, personally, know? They do not care about you, or America, or the world...everything is tool, toy, or resource to them. Enjoy your breakfast. If the would-be Masters-of-the-World had their way, there's a 70% chance you'd be eating nothing but rice. You see, resources, are finite, you are not one of them, and all the bagels, lox, strawberries and cream in the world are not for the likes of you. They are spoken for. 

America: Exceptionally Third World

from April 25, 2011: status post

A survey by the Public Religious Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that 58 percent of Americans agree with the statement, “God has granted America a special role in human history.” Well, it all depends on how you define the word "special", doesn't it?

Keith B: Kind of like a national version of manifest destiny, isn't it? Ick.

Me: This American Exceptionalism thing makes me want to barf all over the Monroe Doctrine...

Diane:

It would at least be more honest to say, "A HUGE land mass full of vast and various natural resources has granted America a special role..." I'm with Keith - assuming, for the sake of argument only, that God is THERE, imagining that God is playing Simon Cowell to our American Idol performance (well, not Simon Cowell, but I'd have to actually WATCH the damn thing to tell you what God's part is) - anyway, it's definitely icky. Wait - I get it! - God is playing meany Simon Cowell to all those OTHER countries that are just second-rate compared to our beautiful, righteous American selves.

So what did the Native Americans ever do to Him to deserve this kind of s**t?

 

Me: I'd like to think that God gave a special role to ancient Rome, too...and maybe to, I dunno, Pol Pot. I tremble to think that I'll get some "America, love it or leave it" flak, but I am so sick of a bunch of pasty-faced hypocrites who can't spell telling me that we're more special than, say, Nigerians because we were "blessed" enough to be born in this "greatest nation on Earth" when, in fact, we face so many of the same problems that they face in Nigeria, we basically resemble a Third World country. (Like what? Massive corruption, ethnic tensions, pollution, incredibly huge gulf between rich and poor...typical, ahem, Third World problems. The veneer on our corruption is a little more genteel, that's all...but we're looking more like them all the time. De-fund the EPA? In 20 years, you'll be able to slice the air with a knife. Just like Lagos. )

And another thing...If I hear one more right/wing pundit or politician talk about "rent subsidies" and "food stamps" "entitlements" like they are to be had for the asking, as if one can just waltz into the Welfare Office with one's hand held out and receive the magic benefit card, I'll scream, or bite someone's head off, or perhaps commit mayhem. IF YOU ARE QUALIFIED FOR RENT SUBSIDIES YOU HAVE ABOUT AS MUCH CHANCE OF ACTUALLY BEING AWARDED THEM AS YOU DO OF WINNING THE LOTTERY. Pat Buchanan makes me sick.

 

Diane: You said it, Wendy, and more eloquently than I could, at this point. I have so HAD IT with the GOPTParty and their Cloud-Cuckoo-Land bulls**t that sometimes I just can't respond to it anymore - and I'm hardly EVER at a loss for words.

 

  

 

Conspiracy, boots, and metal hats

Look, after what they got away with during Iran-Contra, NOTHING is impossible. These power-mad would-be overlords will do anything to further the ultra-manifest destiny self-entitlement program that they have set up for themselves. People scoff when I-C is mentioned, and naysayers start talking about the mentally ill who wear tin-foil hats to keep out evil CIA think-rays when the possibility of this kind of mega-scope malevolence is suggested. Well, as we all know by now, the economic health of the worlds wealthy elite is far more important then the petty concerns of thousands of human casualties, whether we are talking about natural disasters (Japan) or "terrorist attacks" (9/11.) Wake up. They use us. We get one step closer to becoming chattel, en masse, every day. The evidence has been shredded, along with the Constitution and every human-rights declaration ever ratified. Yeah, Fawn Hall's boots were sure made for walking - all over our freedom. Hope you like leaving a wretched, miserable future to the children of the world, America. Just keep your blinders on. You really don't know how to do anything else.

ending abortion

This ALL makes me crazy, but the worst, most insane part of all is: if we had proper, well-thought-out reproductive and birth control education in this country, in this day and age, with the technology available, abortions would be almost entirely a thing of the past. These so-called "right-to-lifers" are not really interested in ending abortion. They must want to curtail the rights of women, and make everyone submit to their religious authority. They could easily end abortion, if they wanted to, by promoting birth control.

existance of god

 I for one, am not an atheist, although I was one for many years. I ran across an evolutionary anomaly that convinced me that it is probable, scientifically, that a "God" does indeed exist. It has to do with anthropology, and a specific set of behavior patterns among historically animistic tribes in Oceania. I prefer to think of god as a Her, and capitalize the word merely for the sake of convenience. Although it is not fantasy, I don't usually bother trying to explain or prove it - one needs extensive experience in the fields of anthropology and especially non-western art history to really SEE it. Takes too much time for the merely casual, and frankly I don't care if you "believe" it or not. I don't buy into belief. This story is non-fiction.

blasphemy

From Americans Against the Tea Party thread, Feb 28, 2011...post has picture of Sarah Palin autographing some woman's baby...

Response 1:
Notice the Christ-like pose of the baby. It's got me thinking. She'd probably climb up on a ladder and scrawl her stupid name on Jesus's crucified torso, right there on Golgotha, if she thought it would put her in a brighter spotlight. (All right, back to ignoring her...)
   
   From Lisa Pilot: Wendy, how blasphemous and how true!‎

 Response 2:

@Lisa: Yes, I do blaspheme, I suppose. However, that woman and so many of her Tea Party constituents speak of their fervent devotion to Christ, and yet advocate policies that are so contrary to Christ's teachings, that their very political existence shames and denigrates the Lord that they profess to love. They create their God in the image that they prefer, the ultimate blasphemy.

  From Christina Johnson ‎@Wendy, I have never heard it so gracefully put:)

  From Brett Kostial: Preach it Wendy!!!


Which is nice to hear...