Unit 6: Africa, 1100–1980 CE

Interpreting African art on its own terms

An approach that analyzes African artworks through their specific cultural contexts—especially function, materials/process, performance/audience, and political or spiritual power—rather than assuming Western gallery-based meanings.

Function (African art)

The practical, social, political, or spiritual work an object does (e.g., authorize a ruler, protect a community, mark initiation), often more important than purely visual “beauty.”

Patronage

Who commissions, controls, or pays for an artwork (e.g., rulers, elders, societies, lineages), shaping its meaning, access, and use.

Performance and audience

The idea that many African artworks (especially masks/ensembles) are completed through public or restricted performance, and their meaning depends on who can see them and in what setting.

Masquerade

A performative system combining mask + costume + music + movement + setting + social rules, producing social or spiritual effects beyond the object alone.

Object–Activation–Outcome model

An AP essay structure for masquerade: describe the object’s features, explain how performance activates it (dance/sound/costume), and state the social/spiritual outcome of the event.

Materials as meanings

The principle that materials (mud, wood, beads, metal, ivory, etc.) communicate status, trade access, spiritual potency, and cosmology—not just “what it’s made of.”

Carving

A process of shaping materials (often wood, ivory, or stone) with knives/chisels to create sculpture or masks.

Casting

A metalworking process in which molten metal is poured into a mold to create forms such as Benin brass plaques.

Weaving

A textile process that interlaces fibers to create cloth or other woven forms used for dress, status display, or ritual.

Sudano-Sahelian architecture

A West African architectural style (Sahel region) characterized by earthen construction (often adobe), strong vertical elements, and climate-responsive design.

Adobe

Sun-dried mud/clay mixed with organic material (e.g., straw), used for bricks and mud plaster in earthen architecture like the Great Mosque of Djenné.

Toron

Projecting wooden beams on the Great Mosque of Djenné that reinforce the structure and function as built-in supports for replastering; they also define the mosque’s iconic appearance.

Crépinage (annual replastering)

The communal renewal of Djenné’s mud plaster, turning maintenance into a ritual of civic identity and keeping earthen architecture resilient.

Great Mosque of Djenné

A congregational mosque in Djenné, Mali (founded c. 1200; rebuilt 1906–1907) made of adobe with toron, showing Islamic identity adapted to Sahel climate and communal upkeep.

Great Zimbabwe

A monumental Shona stone complex in southeastern Zimbabwe (1000–1400) built without mortar, associated with political authority, controlled space, and long-distance trade.

Coursed granite blocks

Carefully stacked stone blocks arranged in horizontal layers (without mortar), the key construction method for Great Zimbabwe’s massive walls.

Great Enclosure

The best-known area of Great Zimbabwe, featuring huge curving stone walls enclosing elite/controlled spaces and expressing authority through scale and access.

Conical tower (grain-silo symbolism)

A tall structure within the Great Enclosure often interpreted as referencing a grain silo, symbolizing control of food supply and political power/royal prosperity.

Shona peoples

The African cultural group associated with building and inhabiting Great Zimbabwe, correcting colonial-era misattributions to non-African builders.

Walls of Benin

An extensive Edo earthwork system (800–1500) of ditches and ramparts that organized Benin’s urban/administrative space and demonstrated state power at landscape scale.

Earthworks (ditches and ramparts)

Large-scale constructions made by moving earth to form defensive and administrative boundaries; the core structure of the Walls of Benin.

Benin Wall Plaque

A 16th-century cast brass relief from the Oba’s palace depicting court life, hierarchy, and political order; originally mounted on palace walls/pillars.

Oba

The king/ruler of the Kingdom of Benin, whose palace and courtly imagery are central subjects of Benin brass plaques.

Cast brass relief

A metal artwork made by casting brass into a raised design, used in Benin plaques to create durable, prestigious images of royal authority.

Portuguese trade (Benin brass supply)

Exchange with Portuguese traders that helped provide brass for Benin court art, linking metal prestige to international trade and political economy.

Golden Stool (Sika Dwa Kofi)

An Asante sacred royal emblem (c. 1700) of gold over wood with gold attachments, understood as holding the spirit of the Asante nation and treated with strict protocols (not used as ordinary furniture).

War of the Golden Stool (1900)

An anti-colonial conflict sparked in part by British attempts to claim/sit on the Golden Stool, showing its political and spiritual reality as a symbol of sovereignty.

Ndop

A Kuba commemorative royal portrait figure (wood; e.g., King Mishe miShyaang maMbul, c. 1760–1780) that represents ideal kingship and spiritual presence rather than a naturalistic likeness.

Surrogate kingship (ndop function)

The ndop’s role as a stand-in for the king’s presence/spirit (often kept in a shrine with royal charms), supporting legitimacy and continuity.

Ikenga

An Igbo personal/household shrine figure (19th–20th c.) associated with achievement, strength, success, morality, and social standing; often features horns symbolizing power.

Pwo mask

A Chokwe masquerade mask (late 19th–early 20th c.) representing an idealized female figure—typically danced by men—to honor womanhood, ancestors, fertility, and community continuity.

Bundu (Sowei) mask

A Mende/Sande women’s society mask (19th–early 20th c.) used in initiation/education; a major tradition in which women wear a wooden mask, expressing ideals of feminine beauty and discipline.

Sande Society

A women’s initiation and education society (Mende; Sierra Leone/Liberia) that controls Bundu/Sowei masking and highlights women’s ritual authority and leadership.

Palm oil black sheen (Bundu)

A lustrous surface created by palm oil on Bundu masks, associated with water, coolness, secrecy, humanity, and spiritual potency rather than mere decoration.

Aka elephant mask

A Bamileke beaded elephant mask (19th–20th c., Cameroon) worn by elite men in Kuosi society ceremonies; beadwork and form create spectacle that performs political prestige.

Kuosi society

A Bamileke men’s masking society linked to royal/elite authority; membership and the right to perform/own masks like the Aka elephant mask are restricted by status.

Cowrie shells (beadwork)

A material signaling wealth, prestige, labor investment, and trade access; often incorporated into beaded regalia like the Aka elephant mask.

Mblo portrait mask

A Baule commemorative portrait mask (early 20th c., Côte d’Ivoire) used in performance to honor a specific individual, balancing recognizable cues with idealized dignity.

Owie Kimou

A named Baule artist associated with Mblo portrait masks, demonstrating that African artistic reputations and authorship can be recognized and recorded.

Nkisi n’kondi

A Kongo power figure (wood and metal; late 19th c.) used for oath-taking, dispute resolution, protection, and enforcement; nails/blades record and activate communal actions.

Nail/blade activation (nkisi practice)

The act of driving (or sometimes removing) metal into a nkisi n’kondi to activate it as a witness/enforcer for agreements, requests, claims, or justice—evidence of use, not decoration.

Byeri reliquary figure

A Fang guardian figure (19th–20th c., Gabon/southern Cameroon) placed atop a container of ancestor bones to protect relics and reinforce lineage continuity and ancestral authority.

Reliquary container (Fang ancestor bones)

A bark container holding skulls/bones of important clan leaders, protected physically and spiritually by a byeri figure.

Lukasa memory board

A Luba mnemonic object (wood with beads/shell/metal; 19th–20th c.) used by trained specialists to recall histories, genealogies, political relationships, and moral precedents through recitation.

Mbudye Society

A Luba council of men and women who control and interpret historical/political knowledge using devices like lukasa, showing that controlling memory helps control legitimacy.

Tactile-visual code (lukasa reading)

The non-alphabetic system in which bead groupings and patterns cue trained readers to retrieve structured narratives by touching and interpreting the board during performance/recitation.

Olowe of Ise

A named Yoruba master sculptor (early 20th c.) known for innovative palace arts such as carved veranda posts, challenging the myth that African art is always anonymous.

Veranda post

A carved architectural support used in Yoruba palaces; functional architecture that also serves as public political imagery communicating hierarchy and governance.

Negative space (Olowe’s composition)

The intentional carving-out of open areas around figures to create visual complexity and emphasize forms—an important formal feature in Olowe of Ise’s veranda posts.