Arts
Much Mandé art is in the form of jewelry and carvings. The masks associated with the fraternal and sorority associations of the Marka and the Mendé are probably the best-known, and finely crafted in the region. The Mandé also produce beautifully woven fabrics which are popular throughout western Africa, and gold and silver necklaces, bracelets, armlets, and earrings. The bells on the necklaces are of the type believed capable of being heard by spirits, ringing in both worlds, that of the ancestors and the living. Mandé hunters often wear a single bell that can be easily silenced when stealth is necessary. Women, on the other hand, often wear multiple bells, referring to concepts of community, since the bells ring harmoniously together.
Read more about this topic: Mende People
Famous quotes containing the word arts:
“For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.”
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957)
“No performance is worth loss of geniality. ‘Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Eliot dead, you saying,
“And who is left to understand my jokes?
My old Brother in the arts . . . and besides, he was a smash of
poet.””
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)