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"A
Series By A Daughter of Eweland"
Anita Holloway will be Presenting At Ceana -2003 In
Toronto
" GOMEDZEDZE "
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Beginnings
Poem Eleven
I am singing,
Dunyo says I am singing.
The Creator sent us each according to his mission.
I speak about my portion.
Some say you can count Dunyo's songs,
That is no matter.
If you wear velvet
I shall come in calico.
The leopard does not die with only leopard speech.
Be silent and I will tell you mine.
It is nothing.
I sing Agoha
Some say my songs can be counted.
Song is the cover cloth I sewed,
I am
still singing.
Poem Eleven
is by Amega Dunyo, an Ewe poet from Tsiame in the
northern area of Keta Lagoon.
Tsiame, a small yet
significant village was adjacent to important military
headquarters for Ewe armies, and it also served as the
spiritual capital for one of the clans of the Anlo Ewe.
Dunyo was eighty-two years
old when this poem was published in 1974. The poet
refers to "The leopard," an animal used throughout
Africa to symbolize skill, cunning, and physical
strength.
This feline is also used
to indicate royal, political and spiritual power.
Urging us to listen so that we may die with more than
"only leopard speech," the leopard also asks us to avail
ourselves to the knowledge that will lead to wisdom.
Dunyo's words suggest that
we are strengthened and expanded through the study of
other "languages," or ways of perceiving the world.
These instructions recall
the Akan principle of "Sankofa," that is to learn from
the elders and the lives of the ancestors that are long
gone. We are beckoned to be silent so that we can hear
the song of life.
The references to fabric
and leopards in the Dunyo poem are critical to my
research into Ewe art and culture. The opening lines
reflect aspects of the Ewe concept of Se or
"destiny."
Like many cultures in
Africa, the Ewe believe that each human has a purpose or
mission for being. I believe that research into animal
representations in Ewe textiles is the fulfillment of my
Se.
How African peoples use
color, pattern, materials and images, (particularly
those of animals) to communicate important information
about cultural identity and belief systems has long been
a focus of my research.
For almost twenty years I
have studied how feline representations have been used
in the art of cultures not only in Africa, but also in
India and other parts of the world.
As a scholar and as an
artist whose primary medium is fabric, African textiles
hold a fascination for me as evidence of creative
traditions that are thousands of years old.
The complexity and
sophistication of the textile technology among the Ewe
are revealed in the animal representations used as
design elements throughout various weaves. Strip
weaving is an ancient art in Africa.
The basic principle in
this technique is the extension of long horizontal
threads (the warp) into which alternating threads (the
weft) are woven producing long "strips" of fabric,
averaging anywhere from three to five inches wide.
These strips are then sewn
together to make widths of cloth. In Ewe textiles, as
well as in their poetry, proverbs, folklore and myths,
animals are a means through which important ideas are
transmitted.
Through textiles, Ewe
artists chronicle the cultural history and identity of
their people. According to activist, writer and
literary critic Kofi Awoonor there is a "unity
of life among the Ewes. . . [that] manifest[s] itself in
[their] drums, music and dance, systems of worship,
gods, conception of the world, and ritualistic patterns.
Through
research into Ewe creative traditions, we learn much
about the Ewe
sensibility. Their art, like that of other cultures in
Africa, functions in various contexts.
African literary, oral,
performance and visual expressions operate as a means of
communicating important information about a culture's
identity - its history, values, religious practices,
social structure and systems of governance.
Media,
techniques, and aesthetic considerations are influenced
by a specific group's worldview. While there are
similarities in practices and beliefs among Africans,
various groups may differ in their specific attitudes
and approaches to social and spiritual conduct.
African societies
are dynamic cultures that have been impacted by
geography, climate, inter-ethnic exchange, colonial, and
post-colonial global forces. This is no less true for
the Ewe living primarily in the West African countries
of Ghana, Togo and
Benin.
Studies of Ewe arts have
focused on drumming and dance, ritual objects associated
with Ewe traditional religion, appliqué and weaving.
(Appliqué is the technique of sewing cutout fabric onto
a larger fabric surface.)
The Fon branch of the Ewe family migrated into present
day Benin and founded the Dahomean nation-state, which
reached its zenith in the seventeenth century.
A great deal of literature
may be found regarding the practice of traditional
religion in this area of West Africa and the influence
of these practices on later religious activity in the
Americas.
The Fon are noted for their "tapestries," fabric panels
that use appliquéd fabric in different shapes (many of
which represent animals) to record historical events.
Much of this production was associated with royalty,
each king being affiliated with a specific animal.
Part of a larger West African strip weaving tradition,
Ewe textiles tell a fascinating story of a creative
expression that has never ceased evolving through
innovation, trade, conquest and cultural exchange.
The Ewe skill in this
industry is demonstrated in the plying of threads that
produces a cloth with substantial body and surface
texture.
Certain questions thus arise as to how the animal motifs
woven in the cloths complement or reinforce social,
psychological, political, and occupational functions.
Because Ewe textiles share
many characteristics with those of their neighbors like
the Ashante, Fante, Ga and Baule, there has been a
tendency to trace much of Ewe aesthetic impulse to the
Ashante.
The Ewe, however, possess
their own framework from which textile designs develop.
Although Ewe weavers are skilled in other designs
(geometric and asymmetrical), animal motifs are a
distinguishing feature that is said to differentiate Ewe
textiles from those of the Ashante and other peoples in
Ghana that primarily use geometric motifs in their
weaving.
The use of animals in
textile design is connected to the proverbial wisdom,
folklore and mythic traditions that undergird all
aspects of Ewe traditional society.
To fully appreciate them,
it is essential to study and to understand Ewe history,
social and political structure, religious beliefs and
practices, inter-cultural contacts and exchanges.
My exploration of Ewe
textiles is as much an academic investigation as a
spiritual journey, the fulfillment of my Se. As
Amega Dunyo remarks in his poem, "The Creator sent us
each according to his mission."
Akpe.
(Thank you)
© Copyright
2003 Anita Holloway
You Can
Reach or Send Your Comments to Anita Holloway at
newdzi@earthlink.net
Kofi Awoonor, Guardians of the Sacred Word: Ewe
Poetry, New York: Nok Publishers, 1974, 70.
Awoonor, 10-11
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