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:
“all the arts lose virtue
Against the essential reality
Of creatures going about their business among the equally
Earnest elements of nature.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)