Chiwara

The Legend

According to the story, the animal used its antlers and pointed stick to dig into the Earth, making it possible for humans to cultivate the land. Humans watched the Chiwara and then followed in its footsteps to create their own farms. They loved the lessons of planting that they had learned from the antelope, the Chiwara, working animal. In fact, the Chiwara had used its hoofs to cover the seeds and humans watched this so closely that they became experts at planting seeds.

So bountiful did the Bamana farms become that they had too much corn for their own use. They wasted it, thinking that it was so easy to cultivate. Chiwara grew disappointed and went and buried himself into the Earth. This action disturbed the elders of the Bamana, who regretted that they had lost their chief agricultural teacher. They then ordered that a mask be made in memory of Chiwara.

No one can possess the Chiwara mask. It is held for the persons who are the best and fastest workers in the land, and so it is passed from one person to another depending on skill and expertise. It is a high prize to be able to dance the Chiwara dance and to wear the mask. A dance, representing both male and female genders, commemorates the teacher where the dancers wear the beautifully carved headdresses to indicate that they can never be separated as Chiwara was once separated from the people.

Once they dance the Chiwara dance and wear the Chiwara headdress, the chief teacher will always be with the people. The dancers are usually [Page 163]experts at imitating the antelope; they leap and turn, moving their heads and feet like the antelope. In fact, according to the Bamana, any person who tried to separate the two dancers, male and female, representing the great teacher spirit Chiwara would be killed. Thus, the dance carries with it moral lessons, social implications, and religious symbolism.

Figure. Masked performer with antelope headdress (Ciwara, Chiwara). Bamako (national district), Mali.

Source: Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.

One is struck by the beauty of the dance, where the dancers suggest fertility, reproduction, propitiation of the spirits and ancestors, and gratitude to the great agricultural teacher. The movement of the dancers is grounded in hundreds of years of tradition, and the dancers demonstrate the vignettes of culture and the nuances of communication in the Bamana society as they dance. They become, just for the time of the dance, the full embodiment of Bamana men and women. Children can see their own history in the dances of the experts.

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