ETHNIKKA's mission is to share, divulge and promote the knowledge of the different cultural groups that inhabit our planet, from every continent, religion and origin, to better understand the treasure of human diversity.
ETHNIKKA: Keeping ethnic Knowledge alive
Exhibition: Masked festivals of Canton Bo
Dates: Until 31 March 2011, Open daily 9 am to 5 pm
Place: The PeabodyMuseum of Archaeology and Ethnology, HarvardUniversity, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Admission: $9,-
Webpage: www.peabody.harvard.edu
About the exhibition:
The African masks that inspired painters like Picasso in the early twentieth century were only a small part of a larger cultural context and spectacle. The festivals of Canton Bo, located in the dense forest region of Southwest Ivory Coast, centered on the spirit forms of ancient ancestors who appeared in post-harvest festivals wearing carved masks and full-body coverings of straw, animal hide, textiles, and paint. Until the 2002 Ivory Coast civil strife, the Bo people invited the spirits each year to protect their village against unknown threats and to stimulate fertility for both women and crops. With such protection and fertility, the whole community would prosper. Through rare drawings and photographs, along with masks from the PeabodyMuseum collections, Masked Festivals explores the different kinds of masked spirits and their performances.
About the museum:
Founded in 1866, the PeabodyMuseum of Archaeology & Ethnology is one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology and houses one of the most comprehensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere.
Museum:WayangMuseum, Jl. Pintu Besar Utara No. 27, West Jakarta, Indonesia
Materials: bovine leather, horn and bamboo
Comments:
Wayang is a theatrical performance employing puppets or human dancer. The puppet could be made of leather or wood.
Wayang is an Indonesian word for theatre (literally "shadow"). When the term is used to refer to kinds of puppet theatre, sometimes the puppet itself is referred to as wayang. Performances of shadow puppet theatre are accompanied by gamelan in Java, and by "gender wayang" in Bali.
UNESCO designated Wayang Kulit, a shadow puppet theatre and the best known of the Indonesian wayang, as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 7 November 2003. In return of the acknowledgment, UNESCO demanded Indonesia to preserve their heritage.
History of the Wayang Kulit:
Wayang is a generic term denoting traditional theatre in Indonesia. There is no evidence that wayang existed before Hinduism came to Southeast Asia sometime in the first century CE brought in by Indian traders. However, there very well may have been indigenous storytelling traditions that had a profound impact on the development of the traditional puppet theatre. The first record of a wayang performance is from an inscription dated 930 CE which says "si Galigi mawayang," or "Sir Galigi played wayang". From that time till today it seems certain features of traditional puppet theatre have remained. Galigi was an itinerant performer who was requested to perform for a special royal occasion. At that event he performed a story about the hero Bhima from the Mahabharata
Wayang Kulit is a unique form of theatre employing light and shadow. The puppets are crafted from buffalo hide and mounted on bamboo sticks. When held up behind a piece of white cloth, with an electric bulb or an oil lamp as the light source, shadows are cast on the screen.
Wayang Kulit plays are invariably based on romantic tales, especially adaptations of the classic Indian epics, "The Mahabarata" and "The Ramayana". Some of the plays are also based on local happenings (current issues) or other local secular stories. It is up to the conductor or "Tok Dalang" to decide his direction.
The Dalang is the genius behind the entire performance. It is he who sits behind the screen and narrates the story. With a traditional orchestra in the background to provide a resonant melody and its conventional rhythm, the Dalang modulates his voice to create suspense thus heightening the drama. Invariably, the play climaxes with the triumph of good over evil.
Hinduism arrived in Indonesia from India even before the Christian era, and was slowly adopted as the local belief system. Sanskrit became the literary and court language of Java and later of Bali. The Hindus changed the Wayang (as did the Muslims, later) to spread their religion, mostly by stories from the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. Later this mixture of religion and wayang play was praised as harmony between Hinduism and traditional Indonesian culture. On Java, the western part of Sumatra and some smaller islands traditionalists continued to play the old stories for some time, but the influence of Hinduism prevailed and the traditional stories either fell into oblivion or were integrated into the Hinduistic plays.
The figures of the wayang are also present in the paintings of that time, for example, the roof murals of the courtroom in Klungkung, Bali. They are still present in traditional Balinese painting today.
When Islam began spreading in Indonesia, the display of God or gods in human form was prohibited, and thus this style of painting and shadow play was suppressed. King Raden Patah of Demak, Java, wanted to see the wayang in its traditional form, but failed to obtain permission from the Muslim religious leaders. As an alternative, the religious leaders converted the wayang golek into wayang purwa made from leather, and displayed only the shadow instead of the figures itself. Instead of the forbidden figures only their shadow picture was displayed, the birth of the wayang kulit.
The figures are painted, flat woodcarvings (a maximum of 5 to 15 mm thick -- barely half an inch) with movable arms. The head is solidly attached to the body. Wayang klitik can be used to perform puppet plays either during the day or at night. This type of wayang is relatively rare.
Wayang today is both the most ancient and most popular form of puppet theatre in the world. Hundreds of people will stay up all night long to watch the superstar performers, dalang, who command extravagant fees and are international celebrities. Some of the most famous dalang in recent history are Ki Nartosabdho, Ki Anom Suroto, Ki Asep Sunarya, Ki Sugino, and Ki Manteb Sudarsono.
About the Museum:
WayangMuseum is a museum which keeps collections of wayang from various territories in Indonesia and even from other countries. WayangMuseumBuilding was constructed at a former old church location, which built by VOC in 1640 with the name “de oude Hollandsche Kerk”. The church functioned as a house of worship for Dutch civil and military in Indonesia until 1732. In 1733 the church was renovated and the name was changed to be “de nieuwe Hollandsche Kerk”. The building existed until 1808, until an earthquake nearly destroyed it. On the location where the church previously stood, a building was constructed.
The collections of WayangMuseum are very various, in both small and big size. WayangMuseum collects Indonesian leather wayangs, like Kedu, Tejokusuman, Ngabean, Surakarta, Banyumas, Cirebon, Gedog, Sadat, Madia Krucil, Sasak, Kaper, Wahyu, Kijang Kencana, Ukur, Suluh, Klitik, and Beber. WayangMuseum has collections of scarce wayang as well like Intan wayang, Suket, Beber and Revolusi. Besides, WayangMuseum also has some collections of wooden wayang like Catur, Cepak Cirebon, Kebumen, Pekalongan, Bandung, Gundala-Gundala from Tanah Karo, and Si Gale-Gale from Tanah Batak. There are collections of masks which were sourced from Cirebon, Bali, and Center Java. Other artifacts are also displayed in WayangMuseum, like gamelan, Blencong lamp, glass wayang, zinc wayang, and paintings. There’re some collections that sourced from abroad, some of them are from Kelantan, Malaysia, Suriname, France, Cambodia, and Thailand.
Chicken tikka masala (Hindi: चिकनटिक्कामसाला; Urdu: مرغتکہمصالحہ) is a curry dish of roasted chicken chunks (tikka) served in a rich-tasting red or orange-coloured sauce. The sauce is usually creamy, lightly spiced and contains tomatoes. The origins of chicken tikka masala are disputed. An Indian expert on street food from Delhi, Rahul Verma, has stated that the dish originated (probably by accident with subsequent improvisations) in Punjab during the last 50 years. Another view is that it originated in the first Indian restaurants in Soho, London, during the 1970's. In 2009, a Glasgow MP suggested it should be given EU Protected Geographical Status as a Scottish food. No application for such status was actually made. A number of Indian chefs, believe that it is merely a variation on an Indian dish known to the Mughal Emperors.
Chicken tikka masala is chicken tikka, or chunks of chicken, marinated in spices and yogurt then baked in a tandoor oven, served in a masala ("mixture of spices") sauce. The sauce usually includes tomatoes, frequently as puree, and either/or both cream and/or coconut cream and various spices. The sauce or chicken pieces (or both) are coloured orange with food dyes or with orange foodstuffs such as turmeric powder, paprika powder or tomato puree. Other tikka masala dishes replace chicken with lamb, fish or paneer.
Indian chicken tikka masala
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee (clarified butter)
1 small onion - finely chopped
1.5 inch piece cassia bark (or cinnamon)
2 green cardamon pods
4 whole cloves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 inch piece fresh ginger - very finely chopped
2 cloves garlic - very finely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
3/4 teaspoon good chile powder
5 tablespoons Greek-style full cream yoghurt (3/4 of a 150 gm tub)
1 teaspoon (or a little more) concentrated tomato puree
salt to taste
2 chicken breasts, skinned and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 tablespoon chopped up pieces from a block of creamed coconut
chopped fresh coriander leaf (cilantro) to garnish
How to cook it
Heat the oil in a large heavy pan then add the chopped onion and stir for a few minutes with the heat on high. Add the cassia, cardamons, cloves and fennel seeds and stir a little then turn the heat down to low and cook for 10 minutes. Add the ginger and garlic, stir and cook for another 10 minutes on low heat stirring now and again to make sure nothing browns or burns. Add the turmeric, coriander and chile powder and fry gently for a minute. Add 1 tablespoon of yoghurt, stir round and turn the heat up so the yoghurt sizzles in the oil.
When the yoghurt has lost a lot of its moisture add another
tablespoon. Stir and fry as before. Repeat until all the yoghurt
is incorporated. Add the tomato puree and stir in.
Stir in hot water - enough to make the mixture very fluid. Bring
to the boil and simmer, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes. Add
salt to taste.
Heat a little oil in a large heavy frying pan and stir-fry the
chicken pieces over a moderate heat until they are sealed and have turned white. Add the chicken to the sauce and simmer gently for another 20-30 minutes until the chicken is cooked. Stir from time to time. If the sauce gets too dry add a little hot water.
10 minutes from the end add the creamed cocunut pieces and stir to melt them. Adjust the consistency of the sauce with some hot water as the creamed coconut will thicken the sauce.
At the end of the cooking you should have a fairly thick, creamy sauce with little patches of oil appearing at the top. Remove the cassia and cardamons (if you can find them! Don't worry about the
cloves)
Serve, garnished with chopped fresh coriander leaf (cilantro).
The Ceddo try to preserve their traditional African culture against the onslaught of Islam, Christianity, and the slave trade. When King Demba War sides with the Muslims, the Ceddo kidnap his daughter, Princess Dior Yacine, to protest their forcible conversion to Islam. After trying to rescue the princess, various heirs to the throne are killed, and the King is murdered during the night. Eventually the kidnappers are killed and the princess is brought back to the village to confront the Imam, as all the villagers are being given Muslim names.
The Ayoreo (Ayoreode, Ayoréo, Ayoréode) are a native ethnic group living on Gran Chaco, in an area among rivers Paraguay, Pilcomayo, Parapetí and Grande, stretching both in Bolivia and Paraguay. They speak the Ayoreo language, which is classified under Zamucoan, a small language family of Paraguay and Bolivia. Ayoreo combine hunter-gatherer lifestyle with farming, depending on the season of the year. There are records about a kind of shamanism (“nainai”, shaman).
Since 1969 many have been forced out of the forest, but some still avoid all contact with outsiders. Their first sustained contact with white people came in the 1940s and 1950s, when Mennonite farmers established colonies on their land. The Ayoreo resisted this invasion, and there were killings on both sides.
The Ayoreo live in small communities. They grow squashes, beans and melons in the sandy soil, and hunt in the forest. Large tortoises and wild pig are particularly prized, as is the abundant wild honey. In the forest four or five families will live together in a communal house. A central wooden pillar supports a dome-shaped structure of smaller branches, topped with dried mud. Each family will have its own hearth around the outside; people will only sleep inside if it rains.
The most important Ayoreo ritual was named after asojna, the nightjar: when the bird’s call was first heard it heralded the arrival of the rainy season, and a month of celebrations and festivities.
The Ayoreo who now live in settled communities live in individual family huts. Those who have lost their land now have little choice but to work as exploited labourers on the cattle ranches that have taken over much of their territory.
The evangelical New Tribes Mission has a base near their communities, and exerts a powerful influence on their daily lives. Under the missionaries, the asojna ritual—and many others—have been suppressed.
Well-known by: for being one of the last uncontacted tribes of South-America outside the Amazon.
There are several subgroups, for example Totobiegosode (‘people from the place of the wild pigs’) were isolated, but many of them have been eventually relocated forcibly, while some remnants still keep avoiding contact. Some groups still live uncontacted, being the only extant uncontacted tribes in South America not living in the Amazon.
In 2010, an expedition in search of new species of plants and insects, organised by the Natural History Museum in London, was suspended when concerns were raised that Ayoreo people might be encountered and disturbed.
Title: Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens
Author: Wendy A. Grossman
Year of publication: 2009
Paperback: 200 pages
Language: English
Synopsis:
"Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens single-handedly resuscitates the photograph as a critical and almost completely overlooked medium in promoting the popularity and understanding of l'art negre for a western audience. The monumental studies of Robert Goldwater and William Rubin—comprehensive and engaging though they may have been—overlooked the influential role played by the photograph in this context, a regrettable lacunae this endeavor seeks to fulfill. Not only does this catalogue of the exhibition complete a chapter in our understanding of Man Ray's work, but its cross-cultural approach allows us to see how the medium of photography influenced the infusion and comprehension of African and other non-western arts in the west, not only among artists, but by the general public as well." —Francis M. Naumann
This groundbreaking analysis spotlights a select group of Man Ray’s photographs within the context of modernist photographic history and the “discovery” of African art by the early twentieth-century avant-garde. Featuring more than seventy photographs by Man Ray—some never before reproduced—alongside many rarely seen photographs of African art by his European and American contemporaries, Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens uncovers a virtually unknown chapter in both the inventive activities of this celebrated artist and in this overlooked facet of photographic history.
Meticulously researched and compellingly presented, Wendy A. Grossman raises thought-provoking questions about the role photographs played in shaping perceptions of African art and, in turn, how such images led to distinctive modernist viewpoints across racial and geographic boundaries. Particularly notable is the treatment of the African pieces both as integral components of the modernist history to which they contributed and, as elucidated by original scholarship by African art experts, as objects with their own independent cultural histories. Revealing a more complex engagement with African art by Man Ray and his contemporaries than has been previously known, Grossman provides a rich and nuanced study that makes an important addition to our understanding of critical issues in modernism that continue to influence the way we see African art today.
