The Others!

The "others" was our main topic and discussion this week. The "others" are defined as people of foreign places, most like of a Caucasian decent. They are depicted in many ways through different cultures in Africa through their art. One of the cultures I would like to focus on is the Sapi and how they depict the "others."

First lets talk about what the "others" are in the Sapi culture. The "others," to the Sapi are the Portuguese because they are the people who came from the sea. This is significant because they believe that the "others" from the other world come from the sea and come back as white people. The reason the people are seen to come back as white instead of black is because white is associated with death and the other world. This makes sense then to why they saw the Portuguese as the other people because the fit the description of how the saw the "others," from the world beyond. But I also must state that the Sapi are the one culture that had little or to no interaction with the Portuguese. They got most of their information about these people from stories that got passed down to them. So their images of the Portuguese are somewhat altered which I will go more in depth how this is significant later.

Most of the Sapi items that depict the the "others" are through their ivory salt cellars. These items depict many of their beliefs of how they saw or represent them. One of the things that could be on these salt cellars is a person in a bent knee position, reason for this is because it represents the way they bury their dead. Also another item that maybe on these salt cellars is a serpent which is seen as a water spirit to the Sapi. Crocodiles may also appear on these because they stand for wealth. Another animal depicted on these salt cellars are birds because the are seen to be communicators between the two worlds. Birds are also able to talk in their language and human language which makes them good communicators within these worlds. The egg shape of the salt cellars are another important feature of these items. The reason for this is because the egg shape signifies fertility and where life all comes from. The Janus forms are also present too. These are double head forms which represent people with extraordinary powers. These are just some of the items that could show up on these ivory forms. There are many more objects that could show up. But all these items that I listed here are significant in the representation of the "others" or the Portuguese, such as the serpent is important because the "others" are seen to come from the sea and the serpent is a water spirit which obviously relates to water. The bent-knee positions of people are important for the representation of the Portuguese because the "others" are closely related to death and this how they bury their people. Basically, for each meaning of each of these items that can be depicted on these salt cellars is tied in somehow to how the saw the Portuguese and their beliefs of the "others."

As I stated earlier, the Sapi never interacted with the Portuguese or if they did it was very little. They got told what they looked like and what not. This is a significant fact because the Sapi depiction of the Portuguese would be slightly altered because they barely or never saw them. It's kind of like the phone game by the end of the game the saying has been switched around to say something totally different. This is kind of applies to the Sapi because they altered the images to what they may have thought the Portuguese looked like so a lot of the items still included their African ideas and looks. An example of this is the face features of the people depicted on them. They showed more African like features in the face then it did for a Caucasian person.

Basically this shows that each culture is going to adapt their beliefs and images on what they see or hear. They are going to alter these items to match up with their beliefs within their societies. So it goes back to the whole idea that cultures are going to adapt items and integrate what they pull out of a culture.

Vodou in Relation to African Cultures!

When many think of Vodou they probably think of crazy people being possessed by another spirit. But for the Haitian people this is a common reality. They believe in the idea of Vodou and possession. It's part of their religious belief and a part of their everyday life. This religion, though wasn't originally formed in Haiti but was brought to Haiti from Africa, through many different cultures. So in essences Vodou is link to many of the religious beliefs of the different cultures in Africa and have many relations with one another.

Vodou was brought to Haiti from the Bohomean, Yoruba, and Kongo slaves that ended up in Haiti according to Karen Brown. Now it's practiced by 80% of the population of Haiti. Both genders practice and serve both female and male spirits in Vodou. These spirits will take over the person body and ride through them to send their messages. They can be flexible and will take on different forms where ever the spirit may be. Vodou people also celebrate spirits and priesthood by dancing and doing drumming. They also pour libations in respect of these spirits as well.

These different things they do for their spirits in Vodou is also very similar to the African cultures way of respecting their gods. Since most of what Vodou was founded on was based from the Bohemean, Yoruba and Kongo cultures, a lot of their ideas and beliefs were passed down to the Haitian people. One of those similarities or beliefs is the idea of possession of people. As I stated earlier Vodou is based off the possession of the spirits which is similar to the way people get possessed in masquerades in African cultures. They say that the people who dance in the masquerade take on the spirit of the mask and start to act like that spirit during the performance. Also, in African cultures they celebrate their gods by doing ceremonies to honor their gods just like the Vodou do for their spirits. They also have ceremonies in which they celebrate initiation into adulthood or into a type of group. Which I feel Vodou based their ceremonies for priesthood off of. Example of an initiation in African Culture that is possibly similar to the ceremonies of priesthood, is the Shango initiation from the Yoruba culture in which the men take on the form of Shango in their inner head (a sign of possession). Another idea the Vodou took from the African cultures is the idea of using libations to respect the spirits. Libations in African culture are used in the same way. They use those libation to respect their gods, an example of an item that uses libations is the Bamana Boli. This item is useful for religious rites in the Bamana culture and is made up of libations of semen, blood, nails and among other things. (Picture below)

As you can see many of these ideas that Vodou have in their religious belief stem from some type of African influence. Either by way of possession or by the way they honor their gods or spirits. Whatever way they are influence you can definitely see that African influenced in much of Vodou's religious beliefs and ideas.

Vodou is a religion not often talked about in our society here in the United States. So as I was learning about Vodou this week I wanted to learn more about it, since I don't know much about the religion. So I did some research of videos about Vodou and I came across this video from National Geographic which I feel reiterates what we learned in class this week and shows more of how the spirits work. It definitely brings a real life perspective to everything that Vodou stands for and believes.

Yoruba and Spirituality

Spirituality is one thing that is very prevalent in the Yoruba's visual culture. As I was was reading in the book and listening to the lecture's in class this week I noticed that many items showed their spirituality. Items such as, the divination bowls where  the two halves of the bowl show the spiritual world and the real world or the Altar Bowl where it shows many of their spiritual beliefs all in one item. Whatever the item is it shows some type of belief they have within their culture.

The Divination bowl is one of the many items I found this week to be interesting because of the way it shows their spiritual beliefs. It's a bowl that has a lid and is divided into two halves showing the real world and spiritual world. The real world is called Aye and it is the bottom half of the bowl depicting the living and the unknowing, where as the top half of the bowl is the spiritual world called Orun. This half of the bowl shows the spirits and the gods. These bowls are commonly used to stored religious items in them and most likely to be found within a shrine.

Eshu is one of the gods that is commonly displayed on these divination bowls because he is the god that goes between the spiritual world and the real world. This makes sense because these bowls obviously show both of these worlds, so having the god that goes in between both worlds should be on these bowls.

The other item that goes along with these divination bowls and show the Yoruba's visual spirituality is the Altar bowl or what they call Olumeye. This item was to be given to the altar of an orisha. It shows many of the beliefs that the Yoruba believes in, such as the women shown on top of the divination bowl are a representation of honoring the women within the culture. The divination bowl is also depicted too. This as I explained early is a bowl to hold religious items. Then there is a women holding the divination bowl. She is depicted this way because she is to be the one who is making the offering to the certain god to take the items within the divination bowl. All these items on this sculpture is in some shape or form related back to their spiritual beliefs. 


The Altar bowl and Divination bowl are obviously good examples of how the Yoruba spirituality is depicted through their art. It's shown through depicting gods or other figures that represent their beliefs. Each item and many more are obviously important in their society and the way they see their world and the spiritual world. It's obvious how important Yoruba beliefs are and how important it will be in the future.