AFRICAN ARTS

the visual, performing, and literary arts of native Africa, particularly of sub-Saharan, or black, Africa. The arts include the media of sculpture, painting, textiles, costume, jewelry, architecture, music, dance, drama, and poetry. Within the huge geographic area of Africa are regions of radically different topography, climate, and natural resources. The economies of these regions, therefore, also differ radically from one another, as do the customs, religions, languages, and artistic expressions of their peoples. There is startling diversity within each of the regions as well. It is common to divide sub-Saharan Africa into the following geographic regions: the open grasslands of the Sudan stretching across the continent just south of the Sahara, the woodlands and forests of West Africa, the basin of the Congo River in Central Africa, the East African savannas, and the savannas and deserts of southern Africa. None of these regions has a uniform culture. The western Sudan, for example, is rich in sculptural styles and production, while sculpture has been little developed in the eastern part, where artistic expression is richest in music and oral literature. The European powers further divided the cultures of black Africa by creating colonies with boundaries that had little regard for traditional ethnic or linguistic groupings. The contemporary literatures of English-, French-, and Portuguese-speaking Africa, therefore, have a uniformity of theme and language that corresponds not to geographic regions or to ethnic affinities but instead to the rather arbitrary manner in which the colonial powers divided the continent. Colonization also introduced European religion, technology, and politics, which, together with the European languages, created a historical division in the development of black African arts that may be deeper than its regional divisions. Since the 19th century some cultural traditions of precolonial origin have disappeared, and, while others survive and indeed flourish, there has been every possible compromise with the cultural forms of the West. Despite its variety, African arts can be discussed as a whole for several reasons. One reason is that, while the artworks of different peoples may differ in form, the traditional roles of art and of the artist in the cultural life of the people are quite similar throughout the continent-and quite different from their roles in non-African cultures. Another reason is that the borders of modern African nations do not necessarily correspond to cultural borders, so that it is often necessary to discuss the arts not of one country but of an entire region. In addition, all black African arts, no matter how diverse, went through a common process of adapting to foreign cultures. It is a mistake to think of the subcontinent as having been isolated from the rest of the world until only recently. Trade across the Sahara is probably as ancient as the current stage of desiccation, which began in the 3rd millennium BC. Through this trade, Islam was introduced into and spread throughout much of West Africa, while the trade networks of the Indian Ocean had a comparable effect in East Africa. Coastal trade with Europe, resulting almost immediately in the transatlantic slave trade, began in the late 15th century. This long history of contact means that all discussion of African arts must address a common subject of outside influence. This article discusses the literature, music, dance, and visual art of black Africa, both in their traditional forms and in their adaptation to modern Western ways of life. Non-African forms of recent adoption are not discussed. For example, this article discusses the thousand-year-old influences of Islam in the literature and architecture of East and West Africa and of Christianity in the painting of Ethiopia, but it does not discuss Christian musical or modernist sculptural forms adopted since the colonial era. For a discussion of North African arts, see the article Islamic arts. For a discussion of white South African writers, see South African literature. For information on the geographic, economic, and historical background of African arts, see the articles on the major regions of the continent (e.g., Central Africa, Southern Africa). John Picton The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica the literary, performing, and visual arts of native Africa, particularly of sub-Saharan, or black, Africa. All the familiar media-sculpture, painting, textiles and other fabrics, costume, jewelry, architecture, music, dance, drama, and poetry-are found. What gives art in Africa its special character is the generally small scale of most of its traditional societies, in which one finds a more immediate interrelationship between art and other social forms and its bewildering variety of styles, each developed in its own particular ecological, historical, and social circumstances. The contemporary artist in Africa, living and working in a modern, urban environment, has, of course, all the richness of these cultural traditions to draw upon, even though he may employ different techniques and enjoy a different kind of patronage than did his traditional counterpart. It is usual, but mistaken, to equate art in Africa with sculpture. The earliest evidence of art is provided by the engravings and paintings on rock surfaces in the Sahara spanning a period of about 5,000 years to the present day. In the area in which Islam and Oriental Christianity linked Africa to the rest of the world in precolonial times, architecture predominates among the visual arts. Included here are parts of western and eastern Africa, taking in the magnificent mosques, built of mud, of Djnn and Mopti in Mali, the rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia, and the Islamic monuments of coastal eastern Africa. In areas where pastoral cultures predominate, stress in the visual arts is laid upon personal adornment and upon the aesthetic values of cattle. This is also the area in which rock art is mainly to be found. Pastoral cultures extend from the Sudanic region just south of the Sahara to the grasslands of eastern and southern Africa. Among the agricultural peoples of western and central Africa, who share the great river systems of the Niger and Congo, sculpture dominates the visual arts. Knowledge of the history of visual arts in Africa is very fragmentary. The earliest-known sculptures are the pottery heads and figures of the Nok culture of Nigeria (500 BC to AD 200). This also provides the earliest evidence for ironworking in sub-Saharan Africa, where the Iron Age directly follows the Stone Ages. The earliest evidence for the use of copper and its alloys comes from the Igbo (Ibo) village of Igbo-Ukwu, also in Nigeria, where sites of the 9th century AD have revealed cast bronze regalia among other works of art. These bear no relationship in style either to the famous brass castings of the Yoruba city of Ife (11th-15th century) or to those of Benin (15th-19th century), both in Nigeria. Other examples of antique pottery sculpture include the heads from Lydenburg in South Africa dated to about AD 500. Sculptures in stone are known from Sierra Leone, probably the work of Sherbro carvers and datable to no later than the 16th century, and from the Kongo peoples of the area near the mouth of the Congo River. In the 16th century, ivory was being carved with extraordinary skill at Benin and by the Sherbro of Sierra Leone. The earliest-known sculptures in wood may be certain portrait statues of kings of the Kuba, central Congo (Kinshasa), thought to date from the 17th century. Some of the finest sculptures in wood date, however, only from the 1920s: for example, the works of Yoruba masters such as Olowe of Ise (d. 1939) and Areogun of Osi-Ilorin (c. 1880-1954). The earliest-known textiles in sub-Saharan Africa are the bast fibre fragments from Igbo-Ukwu (9th century AD) and the cotton and woolen cloths found in the Tellem caves of the Bandiagara region of Mali (11th century and earlier). None of these artistic manifestations represents a beginning of any kind: each appears as fully developed in style. The performing arts-dance, drama, and music-are at least as pervasive in African culture as the visual arts. Perhaps the most distinctive features of African music are the complexity of rhythmic patterning achieved by a great variety of drums and the relationship between melodic form and language tone structure. Without this the text of a song is rendered meaningless; but, even in purely instrumental music, melodic pattern is likely to follow speech tone. The literary arts are probably the most universal and the most highly regarded of arts in Africa. They include myths, folktales, spells, proverbs, and, above all, poetry. These are the arts most inaccessible to outsiders, which probably explains why comparatively little attention has yet been paid to them. Most of these forms are oral, but written literatures have existed for several centuries in Hausa, Swahili, and Amharic. In the present century written literatures in other African languages, as well as English, French, and Portuguese, have developed. In many parts of Africa most people have some practical familiarity with techniques of manufacture and performance. Wherever there are professional artists, however, attitudes toward them vary considerably. The esteem an artist enjoys may have as much to do with the cultural role of art in that community as with his ability. The masquerade is a complex art form employing all the other media. Masquerades may entertain, cure disease, be consulted as oracles, initiate boys to manhood, impersonate ancestors, judge disputes, or execute criminals. The mask is essentially a dramatic device enabling the performer to stand apart from his everyday role in the community. The complexity of masquerade and its related public festivities suggests that it is the sub-Saharan's principal art form. Additional reading General No attempt has been made in the literature to bring together the arts of Africa as a whole. There is only one journal expressly devoted to all the arts of Africa, African Arts (quarterly), and even this concentrates primarily on the visual arts and secondarily on the dramatic context of many visual forms. It is, nevertheless, invaluable as a guide to research, exhibitions, and publications, and it is extremely well illustrated. Otherwise information about the arts has to be culled from a variety of journals concerned either with African studies as a whole-Africa (monthly); Journal of African History (quarterly); Odu (semiannual), mainly Nigerian in content-or with part of the continent only-Nigeria Magazine (irregular); Sudan Notes and Records (annual)-or from journals devoted to a discipline-Journal for Ethnomusicology (3/year); Yearbook for Traditional Music (annual); Objets et Mondes (quarterly); Man (quarterly); and Research in African Literatures (quarterly). John Picton Literature and theatre Oral traditions The single most authoritative work on oral literature is still the full and lucid work by Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (1970, reissued 1976), covering all the major genres (except epic) and discussing social context, function, and the aesthetic qualities of a wide variety of oral art forms. There are two scholarly bibliographies on oral literatures: Veronika Grg, Littrature orale d'Afrique noire: Bibliographie analytique (1981); and Harold Scheub, African Oral Narratives, Proverbs, Riddles, Poetry, and Song (1977). A handbook providing extensive annotated bibliographies on written and (to a lesser extent) oral African literatures is Hans M. Zell, Carol Bundy, and Virginia Coulon (eds.), A New Reader's Guide to African Literature, 2nd rev. and expanded ed. (1983).The following works cover and analyze some of the best and most representative collections of oral art forms from many parts of Africa: Uchegbulam N. Abalogu, Garba Ashiwaju, and Regina Amadi-Tshiwala, Oral Poetry in Nigeria (1981), containing articles on a number of different oral genres in contemporary Nigeria; B.W. Andrzejewski and I.M. Lewis, Somali Poetry: An Introduction (1964), a detailed and authoritative account of the main genres and their social context by a linguist and a sociologist; Ulli Beier (comp. and ed.), Yoruba Poetry: An Anthology of Traditional Poems (1970), a good introduction to the rich and complex Yoruba oral traditions; James Stuart (comp.), Izibongo: Zulu Praise-Poems (1968), long poems to kings and chiefs, rich in imagery and allusions, with a discussion of their form, function, and social context; A. Coupez and Th. Kamanzi, Littrature de cour au Rwanda (1970), analysis and texts of the royal poetry of the kings of Rwanda and accounts of the poets responsible for them; Pierre Smith (ed.), Le Rcit populaire au Rwanda (1975), 30 popular tales from Rwanda that interpret the history of the region in a different way from the royal praises; M. Damane and P.B. Sanders (eds. and trans.), Lithoko: Sotho Praise-Poems (1974), an authoritative anthology of praise poems of Basotho chiefs, covering 200 years; Francis Mading Deng, The Dinka and Their Songs (1973), a careful account of the performed poetry of the Dinka people of The Sudan; Ruth Finnegan (comp. and trans.), Limba Stories and Story-Telling (1967, reprinted 1981), stories from the Limba of Sierra Leone, with attention to the creative role of individual narrators; Veronika Grg-Karady, Noirs et blancs: Leur Image dans la littrature orale africaine: tude-anthologie (1976), an analysis of a large number of tales exploring the different perceptions of the relations between races that the stories reveal; Olatunde O. Olatunji, Features of Yorb Oral Poetry (1984), a full account of the oral genres from the point of view of Yoruba poetics; Denise Paulme, La Mre dvorante: Essai sur le morphologie des contes africains (1976), essays that discuss the social role of the tale and analyze eight archetypal African tales; Jeff Opland, Xhosa Oral Poetry: Aspects of a Black South African Tradition (1983), an analysis primarily of Xhosa praise poetry and poets, incorporating discussion of the interplay of print, literacy, and orality; and Harold Scheub, The Xhosa Ntsomi (1975), an important collection of Xhosa and Zulu stories with an emphasis on the creative role of the storyteller. Modern literatures in European languages The two fullest bibliographies are Janheinz Jahn and Claus Peter Dressler, Bibliography of Creative African Writing (1971, reprinted 1975), a list of more than 2,800 books, plays, articles, and anthologies, including works in African languages; and Bernth Lindfors, Black African Literature in English: A Guide to Information Sources (1979), a list of more than 3,300 critical books and essays on more than 400 African authors, complemented by a 1977-81 supplement (1986), with an additional 2,800 entries. An excellent collection of criticism is Albert S. Grard (ed.), European-Language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2 vol. (1986).Anthologies include Chinua Achebe and C.L. Innes (eds.), African Short Stories (1985), stories by major figures such as Ngugi and Ousmane but also containing new writers' work; Mrio de Andrade (ed.), Antologia da Poesia Negra de Expresso Portuguesa, prefaced by his essay "Cultura Negro-Africana e Assimilao" (1958, reprinted 1970); Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (eds.), Modern Poetry from Africa, rev. ed. (1966, reprinted 1978); Jacques Chevrier (ed.), Anthologie africaine d'expression franaise, vol. 1, Le Roman et la nouvelle (198l), prose writing from Francophone Africa, including established and new writers and organized thematically; Stephen Gray (ed.), The Penguin Book of Southern African Short Stories (1985, reprinted 1986), a representative selection with translations from Afrikaans and Zulu; Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane (ed.), Hungry Flames: And Other Black South African Short Stories (1986), short stories by black South African writers with an introduction by Mzamane; Agostinho Neto, Sacred Hope (1974; originally published in Portuguese, 1974), collected poems depicting the struggle for independence; John Reed and Clive Wake (comps.), French African Verse (1972), poems presented chronologically with parallel French-English texts; K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (comps.), A Selection of African Poetry (1976), a wide selection, including some oral poetry, with excellent commentary; L.S. Senghor (ed.), Anthologie de la nouvelle posie ngre et malgache de langue franaise (1948, reprinted 1985); Prsence Africaine, vol. 57 (1966), also called Nouvelle Somme de posie du monde noir, an anthology of poetry by black writers, including Africans; Wole Soyinka (ed.), Poems of Black Africa (1975), a wide-ranging thematic anthology compiled by one of Africa's major writers; and Michael Wolfers (comp. and trans.), Poems from Angola (1979).Critical works on writing in French include Dorothy S. Blair, African Literature in French: A History of Creative Writing in French from West and Equatorial Africa (1976), an authoritative and thorough coverage of the literature, and Senegalese Literature: A Critical History (1984); Jacques Chevrier, Littrature ngre: Afrique, Antilles, Madagascar, 3rd ed. rev. and updated (1979, reissued 1984), with chapters on poetry, the novel, and the theatre, and discussing the writers Senghor, Csaire, Jacques Rabemananjara, and Frantz Fanon; Mohamadou K. Kane, Roman africain et traditions (1982), an examination of the major novelists with attention to social and cultural contexts; Lilyan Kesteloot, Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude (1974; originally published in French, 1963), a detailed account of the major writers of the Negritude school; and Locha Mateso, Littrature africaine et sa critique (1986), which argues for a critical approach that accepts an African worldview.Critical works on writings in Portuguese include Donald Burness, Fire: Six Writers from Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde (1977), a study of Neto, Luandino Vieira, Geraldo Bessa Victor, Mrio Antnio, Baltasar Lopes, and Honwana, with frequent comparisons between Lusophone, Francophone, and Anglophone writing, and Critical Perspectives on Lusophone Literature from Africa (1981), 22 essays in English and Portuguese on Lusophone African literature; Russell G. Hamilton, Voices from an Empire: A History of Afro-Portuguese Literature (1975); Gerald M. Moser, Essays in Portuguese-African Literature (1969), the first major work in English on Lusophone African writing; and Fernando Augusto Albuquerque Mouro, A Sociedade Angolana Atravs da Literatura (1978), on literary life in Luanda over more than a century and on the novelist Castro Soromenho.Critical works on writings in English include Ulli Beier (ed.), Introduction to African Literature: An Anthology of Critical Writing, new ed. (1979), still an important collection, with seminal essays on Yoruba and Hausa oral literature and on Francophone, Lusophone, and Anglophone writing; Michael Chapman (ed.), Soweto Poetry (1982), a collection of reviews, interviews, and critical essays on the black South African poets of the 1970s; David Cook, African Literature: A Critical View (1977), which discusses the links and contrasts between English and African literatures, with studies of Achebe and other key African writers; O.R. Dathorne, The Black Mind: A History of African Literature (1974), a broad survey of major contemporary writers and discussion of oral art, early written literature, and work in African languages; Georg M. Gugelberger (ed.), Marxism and African Literature (1985), important essays on major writers such as Ngugi and on new developments in African literary criticism; Christopher Heywood (ed.), Aspects of South African Literature (1976), valuable papers from a critical and historical perspective, including contributions from Nadine Gordimer, Mtshali, and Alan Paton; Abiola Irele, The African Experience in Literature and Ideology (1981), critical wide-ranging essays by a distinguished Nigerian critic; and Bernth Lindfors (ed.), Critical Perspectives on Nigerian Literatures (1976, reissued 1979), essays on oral literatures in the Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo languages and on the major Nigerian authors. Oladele Taiwo, Female Novelists of Modern Africa (1985); and Eldred Durosimi Jones, Women in African Literature Today: A Review (1987), explore a topic largely ignored in earlier criticism. See also G.D. Killam (ed.), The Writing of East and Central Africa (1984); and Bernth Lindfors, Early Nigerian Literature (1982). Literatures in African languages Two indispensable general references are Albert S. Grard, African Language Literatures: An Introduction to the Literary History of Sub-Saharan Africa (1981); and B.W. Andrzejewski, S. Pilaszewicz, and W. Tyloch (eds.), Literatures in African Languages: Theoretical Issues and Sample Surveys (1985), containing essays on literature in more than 15 different languages, especially Yoruba, Hausa, Amharic, Somali, and Swahili. Also informative is Review of National Literatures, vol. 2, no. 2 (Fall 1971), a special issue devoted to black African literatures.Writings on specific language literatures include Adeboye Babalola, "A Survey of Modern Literature in the Yoruba, Efik and Hausa Languages," in Bruce King (ed.), Introduction to Nigerian Literature (1971), pp. 50-63; Pierre Comba, "Le Roman dans la littrature thiopienne de langue amharique," Journal of Semitic Studies, 9(1):173-186 (1964); Albert S. Grard, Four African Literatures: Xhosa, Sotho, Zulu, Amharic (1971), including a critical study and literary history of Amharic; Paul E. Huntsberger (comp.), Highland Mosaic: A Critical Anthology of Ethiopian Literature in English (1973), extracts from ancient and modern Ethiopian literature with a critical overview; Thomas Leiper Kane, Ethiopian Literature in Amharic (1975), an indispensable introduction to the literature; Margaret Laurence (comp.), A Tree for Poverty: Somali Poetry and Prose (1954, reissued 1970); J.W.T. Allen (comp. and trans.), Tendi: Six Examples of a Swahili Classical Verse Form (1971); Lyndon Harries (ed. and trans.), Swahili Poetry (1962), a descriptive survey outlining the themes and forms of early Swahili poetry; Jan Knappert (comp.), Four Swahili Epics (1964), and Four Centuries of Swahili Verse: A Literary History and Anthology (1979), a scholarly account covering verse in manuscripts and oral traditions; Rajmund Ohly, Aggressive Prose: A Case Study in Kiswahili Prose of the Seventies (1975); G. Fortune (ed.), African Languages in Schools (1964), containing a number of papers on Shona prose and poetry, and "75 Years of Writing in Shona," Zambezia, 1(1):55-67 (January 1969); Rudo Gaidzanwa, Images of Women in Zimbabwean Literature (1985), an analysis of women in books in Shona, Ndebele, and English; Zimbabwe: Prose and Poetry (1974, reprinted 1979), a collection of Shona prose and poetry in translation, including a translation of the short historical novel Feso by Mutswairo; George P. Kahari, Aspects of the Shona Novel and Other Related Genres (1986), a comprehensive survey of Shona prose writing to date; Abraham Kriel, An African Horizon (1971), a discussion of the ethical and philosophical significance of a number of Shona novels; A.C. Jordan, Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa (1973), 12 authoritative essays on oral and written Xhosa literature; and B.W. Vilakazi, "The Conception and Development of Poetry in Zulu," Bantu Studies, 12:105-134 (1938, reprinted 1968), a pioneering critical essay on oral and written Zulu poetry. African theatre Studies on contemporary African drama and on theatre in African languages include B.W. Andrzejewski, "Modern and Traditional Aspects of Somali Drama," in Richard M. Dorson (ed.), Folklore in the Modern World (1978), pp. 87-101; Michael Etherton, The Development of African Drama (1982), which analyzes the literary and traditional roots of African drama from East and West Africa and draws on a wide range of plays; Biodun Jeyifo, The Truthful Lie: Essays in a Sociology of African Drama (1985), a work setting plays by such diverse figures as Soyinka and Fugard in their sociological context and including an essay on the social and dramatic significance of Yoruba popular theatre; Eldred Durosimi Jones, The Writings of Wole Soyinka, rev. ed. (1983), a major critical introduction to Soyinka's drama; Robert Mshengu Kavanagh, Theatre and Cultural Struggle in South Africa (1985), a stimulating study of the cultural and political context of South African drama by Gibson Kente and other black South African playwrights and including plays by Fugard, Ntshona, and Kani; Oyin Ogunba and Abiola Irele (eds.), Theatre in Africa (1976, reprinted 1978), a collection of 10 essays on traditional and modern drama in Africa; Yeni Ogunbiyi (ed.), Drama and Theatre in Nigeria: A Critical Source Book (1981), an excellent survey and overview of Nigerian theatre, both traditional and modern; Bakary Traor, The Black African Theatre and Its Social Functions (1972; originally published in French, 1958), focusing on a particular variety of theatre in traditional societies in former French colonies and covering the plays of Keita Fodeba; and Harold A. Waters, Black Theatre in French: A Guide (1978), including a general introduction and covering the plots of some 150 plays, grouping them thematically. Elizabeth Ann Wynne Gunner Music Works dealing with the distribution of style areas and the history of African music include Francis Bebey, African Music: A People's Art (1975; originally published in French, 1969); Wolfgang Bender, Sweet Mother: Moderne Afrikanische Musik (1985), dealing with highlife and related popular styles; Billy Bergman, Goodtime Kings: Emerging African Pop (1985), a discussion of eight styles of popular music; O. Boone, Les Xylophones du Congo Belge (1936); David Coplan, In Township Tonight! South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre (1985), a survey of South African popular music and its history; E.M. von Hornbostel, "African Negro Music," Africa, 1(1):30-62 (January 1928), a pioneer survey in the field; A.M. Jones, African Music in Northern Rhodesia and Some Other Places, rev. ed. (1958); Gerhard Kubik, The Kachamba Brothers' Band: A Study of Neo-Traditional Music in Mala wi (1974; originally published in German, 1972); Alan P. Merriam, "African Music," in William R. Bascom and Melville J. Herskovits (eds.), Continuity and Change in African Cultures (1959, reprinted 1970), pp. 49-86, a valuable and concise survey of salient features; Paul Oliver, Savannah Syncopators: African Retentions in the Blues (1970), which traces African roots of the blues; John Storm Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds (1972, reissued 1974), which surveys black popular music in Africa and the Americas; Gilbert Rouget, "La Musique d'Afrique noire," in Roland-Manuel (ed.), Histoire de la musique, vol. 1 (1960), pp. 215-237; Klaus P. Wachsmann (ed.), Essays on Music and History in Africa (1971); and Klaus Wachsmann and Peter Cooke, "Africa," in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 1 (1981), pp. 144-153. See also L.J.P. Gaskin (comp.), A Select Bibliography of Music in Africa (1965), an annotated work useful for locating earlier sources.The following deal more specifically with musical instruments of Africa: David W. Ames and Anthony V. King, Glossary of Hausa Music and Its Social Contexts (1971); John F. Carrington, Talking Drums of Africa (1949, reprinted 1969), describing how drums are used to transmit messages in Central Africa; E.M. von Hornbostel, "The Ethnology of African Sound-Instruments," Africa, 6(2):129-157 (April 1933), a survey of types, their distribution, and prehistory; A.M. Jones, "African Drumming: A Study in the Combination of Rhythms in African Music," Bantu Studies, 8:1-16 (1934, reprinted 1967), a pioneer study of cross-rhythms in Zambia; Percival R. Kirby, The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa, 2nd ed. (1965), the standard work on this subject; Gerhard Kubik, Ostafrika (1982), a well-illustrated survey of East African music and instruments, with a wealth of detailed information; J.S. Laurenty, Les Cordophones du Congo Belge et du Ruanda-Urundi (1960); Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 3 vol. (1984, reprinted 1985), which extensively covers African instruments; Hugh Tracey, Chopi Musicians: Their Music, Poetry, and Instruments (1948, reprinted 1970), about the Chopi of Mozambique, who are famous for their timbila xylophone orchestras; Margaret Trowell and Klaus P. Wachsmann, Tribal Crafts of Uganda (1953), including a discussion of musical instruments; Klaus P. Wachsmann, "The Primitive Musical Instruments," in Anthony Baines (ed.), Musical Instruments Through the Ages (1961, reprinted 1978), pp. 23-54; and Ulrich Wegner, Afrikanische Saiteninstrumente (1984). See also two works in Essays for a Humanist: An Offering to Klaus Wachsmann (1977): David K. Rycroft, "Evidence of Stylistic Continuity in Zulu 'Town' Music," pp. 216-260; and Frank Willet, "A Contribution to the History of Musical Instruments Among the Yoruba," pp. 350-389.Theoretical and practical aspects of African musical structure are to be found in the following: Paul Berliner, The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe (1978, reprinted 1981); A.M. Jones, "African Rhythm," Africa, 24(1):26-47 (January 1954), and Studies in African Music, 2 vol. (1959, reprinted 1978), based mainly on Ghana and Zambia but also with much general discussion; Joseph Kyagambiddwa, African Music from the Source of the Nile (1955); J.H. Kwabena Nketia, African Music in Ghana: A Survey of Traditional Forms (1962), Drumming in Akan Communities of Ghana (1963), Folk Songs of Ghana (1963), and The Music of Africa (1974, reprinted 1986), the last a useful survey dealing mainly but not exclusively with West Africa; David Rycroft, "Nguni Vocal Polyphony," Journal of the International Folk Music Council, 19:88-103 (1967), an examination of overlapping antiphonal parts in polyphony among the Zulu and their neighbours; Artur Simon (ed.), Musik in Afrika (1983); Kwesi Yankah, "Beyond the Spoken Word: Aural Literature in Africa," Cross Rhythms, 2:114-146 (1985); and Hugo Zemp, Musique Dan: La Musique dans la pense et la vie sociale d'une socit africaine (1971), an in-depth study of music and its context among the Dan of Cte d'Ivoire.The journal African Music (irregular), the only periodical devoted solely to African music, has published a great number of valuable and scholarly articles in this field, including, on the history of African music, Gerhard Kubik, "Harp Music of the Azande and Related Peoples in the Central African Republic," 3(3):37-76 (1964); and Andrew Tracey, "The Original African Mbira?" 5(2):85-104 (1972); on musical instruments, K.A. Gourlay, "Long Trumpets of Northern Nigeria-In History and Today," 6(2):48-72 (1982); David K. Rycroft, "The Zulu Bow Songs of Princess Magogo," 5(4):41-97 (1975/76), the late princess having been an expert performer and a leading authority on Zulu music and its history; and Andrew Tracey, "The Nyanga Panpipe Dance," 5(1):73-89 (1971); and, on theoretical and practical aspects, Rosemary Joseph, "Zulu Women's Music," 6(3):53-89 (1983); Gerhard Kubik, "The Structure of Kiganda Xylophone Music," 2(3):6-30 (1960), a detailed analysis of performance and output, "The Phenomenon of Inherent Rhythms in East and Central African Instrumental Music," 3(1):33-42 (1962), and "Composition Techniques in Kiganda Xylophone Music," 4(3):22-72 (1969); and Andrew Tracey, "Mbira Music of Jege A. Tapera," 2(4):44-63 (1961), and "The Matepe Mbira Music of Rhodesia," 4(4):37-61 (1970). Gerhard Kubik David K. Rycroft Dance and dance theatre Among the studies of particular traditions are James W. Fernandez, Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination in Africa (1982), concerned with Gabon; W.D. Hambly, Tribal Dancing and Social Development (1926, reprinted 1974), material on dances of southern, East, and West Africa; Peggy Harper, "Dance," in Saburi O. Biobaku (ed.), Living Culture of Nigeria (1976), pp. 25-32, an analysis of tradition and change in a wide range of Nigerian cultures; Robin Horton, The Gods as Guests: An Aspect of Kalabari Religious Life (1960), which describes a cycle of Kalabari ritual festivals in the Niger Delta and the central role played by masquerade dancers; T.O. Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 1890-1970: The Beni Ngoma (1975); Paul Spencer (ed.), Society and the Dance: The Social Anthropology of Process and Performance (1985); Robert Farris Thompson, African Art in Motion (1974, reissued 1979), a book on African sculpture that contains interesting writing on mime and dance as features of masquerade performance; Hugh Tracey, "The Dancers and Dances," ch. 3 in his Chopi Musicians: Their Music, Poetry, and Instruments (1948, reprinted 1970), pp. 84-105, an excellent descriptive account, and African Dances of the Witwatersrand Gold Mines (1952), an illustrated description of Bantu dances as performed by workers in the gold mines of South Africa; and Archibald Norman Tucker, Tribal Music and Dancing in the Southern Sudan (Africa) at Social and Ceremonial Gatherings (1933), a useful study of music and rhythms in the dance.Selected articles in the journal African Arts (quarterly) include Paula Ben-Amos and Osarenren Omoregie, "Ekpo Ritual in Avbiama Village," 2(4):8-13, 79 (Summer 1969), describing the role of masquerades in a ritual festival of the rural Bini of Nigeria; Jean M. Borgatti, "Age Grades, Masquerades, and Leadership Among the Northern Edo," 16(1):36-51 (November 1982), on the masquerade ceremonies of the Edo in the Bendel state of Nigeria; Paul Gebauer, "Dances of Cameroon," 4(4):8-15 (Summer 1971), a study of the dance traditions of a number of cultures in Cameroon; Peggy Harper, "Dance in a Changing Society," 1(1):10-13, 76-77, 79-80 (Autumn 1967), a study of ethnic traditions of dance within Nigerian cultures and the emergence of theatrical forms in urban centres; Pascal James Imperato, "Contemporary Adapted Dances of the Dogon," 5(1):28-33, 68-72 (Autumn 1971), dealing with tradition and change in the masquerade dances of the Dogon, and "Dances of the Tyi Wara," 4(1):8-13, 71-80 (Autumn 1970), a study of the use of animal masks by the Tyi Wara masqueraders of the Bambara; and J.A.R. Wembah-Rashid, "Isinyago and Midimu: Masked Dancers of Tanzania and Mozambique," 4(2):38-44 (Winter 1971). Also useful are the following articles: Peggy Harper, "Dance in Nigeria," Ethnomusicology, 13(2):280-295 (May 1969), on the form and social function of the dance of the Yoruba in Nigeria, "The Kambari People and Their Dances," Odu, 7:83-96 (April 1972), a study of dance as an expression of the way of life of rural Kambari in Nigeria, and "The Role of Dance in Gelede Ceremonies of the Village of j," Odu, 4:67-94 (October 1970), a study of dance and dancing masquerades.Few works exist on dance drama of Africa as a special study, and most of them are in French. Additional descriptive material can often be found in more general works by anthropologists, cultural historians, and travelers. See especially Saka Acquaye, "Modern Folk Opera in Ghana," African Arts, 4(2):60-63 (Winter 1971); Keta Godeba, "La Danse africaine et la scne," Prsence Africaine, 14-15:202-209 (June-September 1957), on traditional dance forms; Peggy Harper, "African Tradition in Theatre and Liturgy," Theoria to Theory, 11(3):185-193 (December 1977); 'Biodun Jeyifo, The Yoruba Popular Travelling Theatre of Nigeria (1984), an excellent account; Bakary Traor, The Black African Theatre and Its Social Functions (1972; originally published in French, 1958), the standard work; and Pierre Verger, Dieux d'Afrique (1954), on the nature and forms of ritual and mime. Peggy Harper John Picton Architecture A general introduction to building in Africa is Susan Denyer, African Traditional Architecture: An Historical and Geographical Perspective (1978). See also Paul Oliver (ed.), Shelter in Africa (1971, reissued 1976), case studies, and Dwellings: The House Across the World (1987). Early stages of African urbanism are discussed in Basil Davidson, The Lost Cities of Africa (U.K. title, Old Africa Rediscovered, 1959, reissued 1970); and Richard W. Hull, African Cities and Towns Before the European Conquest (1976).Of the regional studies, the most notable is James Walton, African Village (1956), which deals with southern and East Africa; it is brought up-to-date in Franco Frescura, Rural Shelter in Southern Africa: A Survey of the Architecture, House Forms, and Constructional Methods of the Black Rural Peoples of Southern Africa (1981). Visually impressive, though with less substantial research, is Ren Gardi, Indigenous African Architecture (1974; originally published in German, 1973), which deals with savanna forms of West Africa; other fine examples are to be found in Jean-Louis Bourgeois, Spectacular Vernacular: A New Appreciation of Traditional Desert Architecture (1983), with photographs by Carollee Pelos; and Jean Dethier, Down to Earth: Mud Architecture (1982; originally published in French, 1981).Of the local studies, the early and influential one by Jean-Pierre Bguin et al., L'Habitat au Cameroun: Prsentation des principaux type d'habitat: Essai d'adaptation aux problmes actuels (1952), records the styles of former French Cameroun with immaculate drawings and photography. A noteworthy successor, Jean-Paul Bourdier and Trinh T. Minh-Ha, African Spaces: Designs for Living in Upper Volta (1985), examines comparatively a number of compounds in Burkina Faso. Also important is Labelle Prussin, Architecture in Northern Ghana (1969), in which the forms and functions of six compounds are compared. Four villages in eastern Botswana are discussed in Anita Larsson and Viera Larsson, Traditional Tswana Housing (1984). See also Kaj Blegvad Andersen, African Traditional Architecture: A Study of the Housing and Settlement Patterns of Rural Kenya (1977).Perhaps the most exhaustive anthropological study is Friedrich W. Schwerdtfeger, Traditional Housing in African Cities (1982), comparing the architecture of Zaria and Ibadan, Nigeria, with that of Marrakech, Mor. Hausa mosques and palaces are discussed in J.C. Moughtin, Hausa Architecture (1985). The symbolism of built forms is movingly described in Marcel Griaule, Conversations with Ogotemmli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas (1965, reprinted 1980; originally published in French, 1948). Cult houses or shrines are the subject of Michael Swithenbank, Ashanti Fetish Houses (1969); while Ulli Beier, African Mud Sculpture (1963), is largely devoted to Igbo mbari houses and Yoruba palace reliefs. Studies of palaces include G.J. Afolabi Ojo, Yoruba Palaces: A Study of the Afins of Yorubaland (1966); Jacob Egharevba, A Short History of Benin, 4th ed. (1968); and James S. Kirkman, Gedi: The Palace (1963), a study of a number of Arab-Swahili centres. Of these, Lamu survives and is examined in Usam Ghaidan, Lamu: A Study of the Swahili Town (1975). A detailed study of the influence of Islamic forms on sub-Saharan architecture is to be found in Labelle Prussin, Hatumere: Islamic Design in West Africa (1986). Ruth Plant, Architecture of the Tigre, Ethiopia (1985), surveys the rock-cut Ethiopian Christian cave churches, many dating from the 13th century. Colonial influence on African town form is discussed especially with reference to Lagos in Akin L. Mabogunje, Urbanization in Nigeria (1968). Problems in rapid urban growth are the subject of Josef Gugler and William G. Flanagan, Urbanization and Social Change in West Africa (1978); while design by contemporary African architects is included in Udo Kultermann, New Architecture in Africa (1963; originally published in German, 1963), and New Directions in African Architecture, trans. from German (1969). In addition, a number of journals, including Tribus (annual), occasionally publish articles on African architecture. Paul Oliver Visual arts Recommended general accounts are Frank Willet, African Art: An Introduction (1971, reprinted 1985); J. Vansina, Art History in Africa: An Introduction to Method (1984); Werner Gillon, A Short History of African Art (1984, reissued 1986); and Robert Layton, The Anthropology of Art (1981), in part about Africa. For a survey of modern developments, see Ulli Beier, Contemporary Art in Africa (1968).The best account of sculptural traditions is still Eliot Elisofon, The Sculpture of Africa (1958, reissued 1978), with text by William B. Fagg; while for other visual media, see John Picton and John Mac