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Art Masterpiece '
"African Can vas"
Far from the influences ofthe Western world, there are peoples ofWest Africa who still live in the traditional way--a way of life passed from one generation to the next. In these remote areas distinct building traditions have produced visually striking vernacular architecture and decoration. Each year after the harvest, West African women gather to restore and paint their mud dwellings which have been washed clean by the relentless rains of the wet season. With their hands as brushes and the walls as canvas, the women set about creating an art whose composition, technique, and treatment of color is as dynamic as that of any Western painting. Enhancing an otherwise harsh landscape, the art form is purely indigenous, from the mud used-to build the walls to the natural earth pigments and plants gathered to make the colors. The motifs and patterns·:that adorn the walls are a reflection of the lives of these women, illustrating their communal spirit and how they see the world around them. African Canvas provides a glimpse into the homes of these very proud and dignified people. Over a period of years, photojournalist Margaret Courtney-Clarke traveled through Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali. The paths she chose were not easily accessible and the risks taken were often life-threatening, but the rewards are self-evident. She was allowed to enter the worlds of diverse ethnic groups scattered throughout these countries and to document the various painted arts; the walls, pottery, and painted cloth. Often lasting but a season, the painted walls are not transportable and will not be found in museums and galleries.
The History of the Ndebele Wallpainting Project, the Ndebele People, and their Art
Wallpainting Traditions and Techniques
For over a hundred years, the Ndebele have decorated the outside of their homes with designs. Before the mid 19th century, the Ndebele lived in grass huts. During the years of the Difaqane (scattering of the people during the Boer wars), the Ndebele mixed with their Sotho and Pedi neighbors, which resulted in the Ndebele switching from grass to mud walls in their house construction. They also integrated their cultural traditions, adopting the originally Sotho practice of decorating their walls with finger painting.
One form of early design was made with earth pigments, ranging from bright yellow to brown. The pigments were ground up and mixed with liquid to form a "paint" that was used to decorate door and window frames, bordered with charcoal.
The second form of early designs were made by dragging the fingers through wet plaster, usually cow dung, to leave a variety of markings, from squiggles and zigzags to straight lines. In this form of painting, the entire wall was divided into sections, and each section was filled in with contrasting finger paint patterns. In the Ndebele belief system, it is only this older form of painting that has any spiritual significance, and is believed to be demanded by the ancestors to create
cultural continuity. Some Ndebele claim that sickness and bad luck would come to those who did not recognize the ancestors. This form of decoration is still acknowledged by contemporary painters, who decorate the ground in front of a new wallpainting with these older designs. In this way the artists acknowledge their ancestor's ways, blending the old with the new.
The contemporary form of wallpainting is a surprisingly recent phenomena, and is linked to the history of the people themselves. After the indenture of the Ndebele in 1888, many of the freed Ndebele migrated to Hartebeesfontein. In 1923, they became separated from their King, and again found themselves in exile from the symbols of their tribal identity.
Living among Afrikaner farmers and Sotho neighbors, the continued cultural identity of the Ndebele was threatened. Those in the north in time increasingly adopted the Sotho language and other cultural traits. The southern Ndebele, the Ndzundza and Manala, by contrast, kept their Nguni language, persisted in ceremonials such as First Fruits rites and initiation, and made their particular identity highly visible in their homes and dress. Under the most extreme conditions of marginalization, significant developments in Ndebele painting emerged and flourished.
It is women who have been the practitioners of the artistic forms that are such striking Ndebele cultural markers. In beadwork and wallpainting, women have an outlet for the expression of their experience of the world, of their aspirations, and of their identity as individuals and as part of a group. The first paintings' imagery came primarily from the women's beadwork traditions that go back hundreds of years. The early paintings were geometric and primarily decorative. Over the decades, the painters' style quickly developed and the artists began to incorporate imagery from their lives, particularly the details drawn from their work as domestic servants in white households in the cities. Electric lights, swimming pools, multistory houses, telephones, airplanes, and water taps all appear prominently in Ndebele paintings. Artists have been quoted as saying that because they want these things for themselves, they paint them on their homes. Read literally, the symbols and designs in Ndebele wallpainting reflect the aspirations of the painter, and ultimately, the community.
To begin a wallpainting, the artists divide the wall into sections and then snap chalk lines diagonally across each section. Next, the artists begin painting the black outline of the design for each section. Painting is done freehand, without a scale design layout done beforehand. Neither rulers nor squares are used, and yet symmetry, proportion and straight edges are exactly maintained.
Blank wall panel
Then, the black outline is filled in with color, and white spaces offset painted areas. After the color has been applied, the final step is to repaint or touch up the black outlines. The earliest paintings were done with earth pigments, whitewash and laundry bluing. Although commercial paints have replaced the older pigments, the artists still use chicken feathers as paintbrushes. Ndebele painters distinguish styles and origins among different forms of mural decoration.
Ndzundza (Southern) Ndebele art also tends to be open, less busy and more geometrically disciplined than that done by the Ndebele elsewhere.
Like the Ndebele culture itself, the style of wallpainting is in a constant state of becoming: assimilating and appropriating from the long-held spiritual beliefs of the Ndebele people as well as influences from the more and more culturally dominant and technology driven West. Through their bold, geometric designs, the women artists of the Ndebele affirm the identity of the group, and proclaim their uniqueness to all who see their art.
Sources: Ndebele: A People and Their Art. Ivor Powell. NY: Cross River Press, 1995. The Ndebele: Art and Culture. Aubrey Elliot. Cape Town: Struik Publishers, 1993.
A Brief History Of The Ndebele
The roots of the Ndebele people are dug deep into the brown, often harsh soils of the rolling Highveld. Their history can be traced back for some four centuries, to the time when they were once part of the Nguni tribe that moved down from Central and West Africa some two millennia ago. The Southern Nguni, along with their cousins the Sotho-Tswana, gradually settled the southern African subcontinent. Intermarriage and assimilation resulted in the emergence of a range of different identities and groupings that today are recognized as the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele tribes.
In the 16th century, the Ndebele split into Northern and Southern branches; the northern branch, which assimilated with the Sotho-Tswana, has all but disappeared today. In the early 1600s, King Msi and his followers left their cousins, who later became the mighty Zulu nation, to settle amongst the low hills around which present day Pretoria is built. After his death, his two sons Manala and Ndzundza fought over the chieftainship, and the Ndebele split into two main factions. Manala and his followers went northwards, towards present day Pietersburg and have been largely assimilated by the surrounding Pedi. Ndzundza and his followers, who today are known as the Southern Ndebele, went east and south and they have remained distinctly Ndebele and culturally independent of their neighbors.
In the 1840s, the Ndzundza migrated once again to find a fortress from which they could defend themselves. King Mabhogo led his people to an area now known as Mapoch's Caves, in the hill country east of Roosenekal. Mapoch's Caves are located at the top of a long, steep climb through dense growth and deep ravines. The network of caves beneath the earth made the place practically impenetrable against attack. However, the rich farmland of the area allowed the Ndebele to prosper and accept refugees of other tribes who had been displaced by the Difaqane (the scattering of the people by the Boer invaders).
In 1849 and 1863, the Ndebele successfully warded off attacks by the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (ZAR), or white Boer invaders and settlers. Unlike some of the other tribes in the region, the Ndebele refused to negotiate or be bribed by the Boers, as their King Mampuru was bitterly opposed to white settlement. In October 1882, the intractability of the Ndebele led to a proclamation of state, whereby Commandant General Piet Joubert was authorized to use whatever means necessary to take King Mampuru. One month later, a formal declaration of war against the Ndebele was issued.
For eight months the Ndebele held out in subterranean tunnels in their mountain stronghold at Mapoch's Caves. Every attack on them was easily repulsed, and the Ndebele repeatedly led Joubert's men into ambushes. Joubert eventually changed tactics and cut off supplies from the outside, destroyed the Ndebele crops and livestock, and starved the Ndebele out of their stronghold. When defeat came,
retribution was swift and relentless. The cohesive and threatening tribal structure of the Ndzundza Ndebele was broken up and all of their tribal lands were confiscated and divided among the Boers. King Mampuru was hanged.
The people were forced to work on white-owned farms in forced labor for five years. The resulting system was in fact slavery, and the farmers had absolute power over their indentured laborers. Many Ndebele were prevented from leaving at the end of the five-year term, and even today, more than 100 years later, there are still laborers working on farms whose conditions have not changed since their ancestors were indentured in 1883. The Ndebele had no recourse in custom or law to the harsh rule of the Boers, and physical assault remained a commonplace of life. Those who were allowed to leave were left to fend for themselves where and when they could, and lived a nomadic life.
From the early to mid-20th century, the Ndebele were in the wilderness, figuratively and literally, and as a result, maintained a strong tribal identity in the face of the government forces that sought to destroy them. Their mural art and beadwork and their strict adherence to culturally based rules of personal adornment maintained their cultural unity and reinforced their distinctive Ndebele identity. Thus, Ndebele art has a cultural, indeed a political, significance that lies beyond its aesthetic appeal. Through the 1950s, the Ndebele Kings were not willing to negotiate with the dominating central white government and allow the Ndebele to be grouped with other tribes in a homeland, instated subjects to the Apartheid regime.
Pressure for tribal recognition and a separate homeland within the Ndebele gained momentum, and in 1968, King David relented and allowed himself to be recognized by the South African government as paramount chief. In 1974, the Ndebele homeland was established and resettlement was begun. More than 10, 000 Ndebele were forcibly removed from their homes near urban areas where they worked and were unceremoniously dumped in the homeland to satisfy the National Party government's desire for ethnic separation. The government's failure to create industry and jobs within the new homeland resulted in many people having to spend over 8 hours a day and half of their wages commuting to and from the city.
Another problem that arose in the new homeland was the result of the corrupt chief minister Skosana and his white, government appointed advisors. By 1981, Skosana and his unelected legislature owned 70 percent of all businesses. In 1985, State President P.W. Botha announced the incorporation of the Ndebele into the Lebowa homeland as a step towards "independence" of the Ndebele homeland. Violence and an outright civil war followed, with Skosana and his supporters on one side, and the people, led by the royal family, on the other. By August 1986, 160 people had lost their lives, 300 had been detained by the authorities, and hundreds had gone "missing". Schools had been raided and students savagely assaulted and tortured. The students retaliated by burning the Skosana clique's
homes and businesses, and faced with such destruction, the legislative assembly backed down. In 1988, Ndebele women were granted the right to vote and elections were held for the first time. A landslide victory for the anti-independence party of Prince James Mahlangu resulted, and the homeland was reincorporated, reversing the history the National Party had sought to construct.
The Ndebele artists who came to Tacoma to create the wallpainting are from the Mpumalanga Province in the Northeastern part of the country (see maps at right).
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