Togo - West Africa - page 918

Bronze & Brass Casting
West Africa's best-known castings were created for the Kingdom of Benin in present-day
Nigeria. Plaques, statues and masks were produced to decorate the palaces and compounds
of the kings and chiefs, and their discovery (and plundering) by Western governments and
collectors did at least serve to challenge the prevailing view that African cultures were
primitive.
West African brass and bronze is often cast using the cire perdue (lost wax) technique.
The casting process involves creating a sculpture out of wax, which is then dipped in a silt-
and-mud solution. When the sculpture is dry, clay is built around the form to create a strong
mould. The mould is then heated and the wax is melted out. Molten bronze is then poured
into the empty mould and, when cool, the mould is broken away to reveal the bronze sculp-
ture. Each cast is therefore unique. This process is thought to have produced the 1000-year-
old beautifully intricate statues of the Ibo-Ikwu, which can be seen today in the National
Museum in Lagos. Today, latex is often used instead of wax, which creates even finer de-
tail.
West Africa: African Art and the Colonial Encounter, by Sidney Littlefield Kasfir, can be a little academic, but the influ-
ence of colonialism on African art forms is a fascinating subject.
The Yoruba cast ritual staffs called edan . These comprise male and female figures in
bronze, surmounting an iron tip and joined together by a chain. Figurative weights for
weighing gold were cast by the Ashanti, and often symbolised the colourful proverbs for
which they are known.
THE BLACKSMITH - MASTER OF THE BLACK ARTS
In many West African societies, an almost mystical aura surrounds the blacksmith who, perhaps more than any oth-
er artisan caste, occupies a special place in community life. Feared due to their strange communion with fire and
iron, which is believed to render them immune to evil spirits and give them special powers, and respected for the
pivotal role they play in ritual and daily life, blacksmiths provide an unbroken connection to West Africa's past.
They are the makers of all manner of tools, weapons and household implements, but they also serve as intermediar-
ies (between social groups and between the human and spirit worlds) and operate at the heart of many traditional
ceremonies.
Despite their pivotal role in traditional life, blacksmiths often live on the margins of the community with whom
they work. Among the Dogon people of Mali, for example, blacksmiths may not marry outside the blacksmith
caste, but the blacksmith's anvil is considered the foundation of the village; if the anvil is moved, it is believed that
the village may drift. Within Tuareg society, blacksmiths (known as inaden ) are customarily viewed with suspicion
by other Tuareg, and the blacksmiths traditionally lived on the periphery of towns and villages, even though Tuareg