a brief note on African agency in its historical contacts with the rest of the world.
a brief note on African agency in its historical contacts with the rest of the world.
the indigenous and the foreign in Benin art
Contacts between people of different societies and cultures are one the most important subjects of research undertaken by historians and anthropologists.
But in African historiography, most studies of cultural contacts and discovery used to be concerned with the study of foreign perceptions of Africa and Africans, with relatively few studies being devoted to the African view of non-African people and societies, and how they evolved over time, especially during the era of mutual discovery beginning in the late 15th century.
Carved ivory salt cellars made by Sapi artists in early 16th century Sierra Leone, showing indigenous and foreign motifs.
This asymmetrical focus on the perspectives of non-Africans has created a false division between active and passive participants in cultural contacts, not just in research about the individual figures who participated in these exchanges, but also in the analysis of the "hybridized" objects, structures, and styles produced as a result of the contacts between African and non-Africans.
Fortunately, the recent shift to studying the perspectives of Africans in their cultural contacts with the rest of the world has revised previous ideas about Africa's role in the era of mutual discovery. As more research re-evaluates the impact of Africa's international relations on global history in general and African history in particular, a more coherent perspective on the initiative of Africans and their artistic creativity has emerged.
Recent publications such as David Northrup's 'Africa's Discovery of Europe’ and Michał Tymowski's 'Europeans and Africans' have positioned Africans as fully articulated historical agents in the era of mutual discovery. While studies focused on the material impact of such interactions like Verena Krebs' ‘Medieval Ethiopian Kingship’ and Manuel Joao Ramos' ‘The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art' have reframed previous ideas about African agency in the creation of the 'hybridized' artwork and architecture of the period.
18th century Ethiopian manuscript miniature depicting a long battlemented building similar to the Gondarine palace of Empress Mentewwab. Mss Or. 791, British Library.
My articles about the African diaspora in India, China, Arabia, Yemen and the Persian Gulf, Palestine, ancient to modern Europe, the Iberian peninsula, and Western Europe, have continued this theme of highlighting African agency in its contacts with the rest of the world. Similar articles such as the Aksumites in Yemen, the West Africans in Medina and Cairo, and the Ethiopians in southern Europe, explore the contribution of these diasporic Africans to the diverse cultural and intellectual traditions of their host societies.
The impact of Africa's contacts with the rest of the world and the African perception of non-Africans appear in the art traditions of the kingdoms of Kush, Benin, and Loango, as well as in the artworks of the Sapi, all of which demonstrate the evolution in the image of the European in African art.
Among these four African societies, the kingdom of Benin provides the most comprehensive visual document representing foreign objects and peoples in African art across five centuries of contact. The nature of cultural exchanges between the indigenous and the foreign in Benin’s art is the subject of my latest Patreon article.
Please subscribe to read about it here:
(left) Crowned head from Ife, Nigeria, ca. 14th century (right) Head of Augustus found buried in Meroe, Sudan ca. 25BC.
the naturalistic artworks of Ife were erroneously thought to be the product of an ancient society influenced by Greco-Roman tradition, but besides the similarity in sophistication, the kingdom of Ife had no contact with the ancient Mediterranean.