Coming Together and Falling Apart Something About Brooms and Nigeria
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Coming Together and Falling Apart Something about Brooms and Nigeria David T. Doris here is a popular saying in Nigeria, and if you ALL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE NOTED spend any time on the streets there you will see it often, painted in bright script on the sides of trucks and buses, or affixed with self-sticking letters to the rear windows of cars: No condition is permanent. Somehow it is always a little disconcerting to see this simple Tphrase emerge out of the noise and tumult of the streets. It lends perspective to all the commotion, shapes it, gives the world a caption. As true and pithy observations go, this one is hardly exclusive to this part of the globe, or to any particular histori- cal moment. Indeed, it is probably as close to a declaration of Universal and Inarguable Truth as we humans are likely to get with our pithy observations. The Truth it encapsulates is by turns sobering and liberating. Yes, our lives in this world are fragile and short—we know this, or we come to learn it—but it is not death alone that imparts to our lives a sense of impermanence; it is the ordinary ebb and flow of living in the world. No condition is permanent. We tend to remember this when conditions are lousy, when we need solace and a reason to hope that our lot will improve. Likewise, we tend to forget it, even deny it, when we probably would do best to remember it—when conditions are sweet and ripe, and all seems right with the world. In Nigeria’s southwest, there is a well-known Yoruba proverb that also emphasizes worldly being as perpetual flux, transform- ing a generalizing observation into a culture-specific metaphor: Ayé l’ojà, òrun nílé. The world is a marketplace; heaven is home. There is neither solace nor admonition in this phrase. In its insistence on materiality, it is even a bit cynical. The marketplace metaphor frames the experience of transience in this world, coolly, without judgment or ethical prescription. Individual for- tunes may rise and fall from moment to moment, with causes 1 Àrùgbá Sàngó (altar figure) and consequences that can be explained and even predicted by Maker unknown; Southern Ìgbómìnà region, early 20th century way of any number of knowledge or belief systems. But what Wood, fiber, beads; 42.6cm x 10.8cm x 12.1cm (16¾" x 4¼" x 4¾") remains constant and undeniable until the end—when we get to In a social world conceived as a marketplace, many classic Yoruba figures model and exalt the qualities of ideal human participation within a network of rest comfortably and forever in one heavenly home or another— exchange. This altar figure depicts a transaction between a woman and her god; is the necessary and ceaseless relationality of exchange. her gesture is one of both humble generosity and calm, confident expecta- Out of the clamor of the marketplace—the Yoruba world fig- tion. The reward for generosity, a thunderstorm of empowering energy, already crowns her head. ured as an arena of fleeting transactions—arises the ideologi- P HOTO: REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF THE SEATTLE ART MUSEUM, GIFT OF KATHERINE cal foundation of an ethics and of an accompanying aesthetics. WHITE AND THE BOEING COMPANY 42 | african arts AUTUMN 2009 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar.2009.42.3.42 by guest on 01 October 2021 af_42-51.indd 42 5/20/2009 7:39:17 PM Simply and generally stated, that which acknowledges, honors, and maintains the reciprocative flow of appropriate exchange is Useful, Good, and even Beautiful; that which brings it to a halt is Useless, Bad, and something quite other than Beautiful. Stat- ing it this way is absurdly reductive, of course; it does not take into account that acts are judged, and have real consequences, in specific social contexts. But the point is this: An individual’s for- tune might depend upon the quality of his or her exchanges with others —on the coolness, decency, venality, compassion, bitter- ness, cunning, or any other attribute of character (ìwà) brought to bear in each exchange—but it is always contingent upon acts of exchange as such, upon reciprocation and mutual recognition. This basic assumption finds nuanced expression in a wide spectrum of Yoruba social and cultural practices: from the call- and-response pattern of ordinary verbal and gestural greetings, to the inextricably paired processes of divination and sacrifice, to the fluid entanglements of political leaders and their sup- porters and of gods and their supplicants (Barber 1981), to the very notion of Yoruba “tradition” (àsà) as a continuing series of individual choices (sà) made in consensus with, and divergence from, the past (Yai 1994). Even the Yoruba conception of the image as àwòrán articulates a particular relationship of exchange. More or less closely trans- lated as ‘that which we look at and remember,’ the term àwòrán is rich in implications (Adepegba 1983:14; Drewal and Drewal 2 Ààlè eléríko (‘witness not’) or ààlè oògùn (medicinal 1990:1–4; Lawal 2001, 1996:98–99). By definition, the significant ààlè) Maker unknown; near Ìlobù, Òsun State, July 26, 1996 or memorable image engages the viewer in a visual and cognitive Broom (ìgbálè), medicinal packet (oògùn), fiber dialogue, recalling the past to mind in the present and prompt- Ààlè are object-assemblages intended to protect proper- ing the viewer’s responsive identification with a legacy of cul- ties from the anti-social actions of thieves. Some ààlè are hidden from view; their punishing capacity is drawn tural and social ideals. Identification is expected, of course, but it exclusively from the potent words and medicines they is not inevitable. A viewer may choose to disavow such interpel- contain. The man to whom this ààlè belonged requested lative images, but there are consequences for such disavowals, as that I not reveal his name or the name of his village. we will soon see.1 It is no surprise then that what has come to be regarded as parent exchange. The àwòrán in question are called ààlè. I have the canon of Yoruba art is replete with àwòrán that model and discussed them previously in the pages of African Arts (Doris exalt reciprocity. They make visible fi( ara hòn) the qualities of 2005), and elsewhere as well (Doris 2002, 2006, in press), so I ideal participation in an intersubjective network. As an example, will introduce them only briefly here. I offer an àrùgbá, an altar figure for the òrìsà (personified divin- Ààlè are object-assemblages assigned the task of protect- ity) Sàngó (Fig. 1). Kneeling figures such as this, with gift-laden ing otherwise unwatched properties from thieves. Some ààlè hands held forward in performance of sacrifice, depict also that are packed with punishing words (òrò) and medicines (oògùn), humble gesture’s necessary and anticipated reward. Supplicant and do not need to be seen in order for them to act. Such ààlè and deity are each accountable to the other, and each benefits. oògùn are meant to combat committed thieves, who are widely Empowering gift is met with empowering gift; generosity returns regarded as incorrigible, unresponsive, and useless (kò wúlò), as a crown of thunder. The diversity and persistence of such not quite fully human. Other ààlè are created so that any pass- àwòrán in Yoruba culture over the past two centuries of dramatic erby might see them and recognize the lawful intention they social change suggest that the exchange they depict is both foun- make present in the landscape. Like the àrùgbá outlined above, dational and lasting. They monumentalize the fluidity of trans- such visible ààle (ààlè àmì, literally ‘sign ààlè’) are “things we actions, rendering in concrete, durable form the give-and-take look at and remember”; they call a viewer to acknowledge the that constitutes the person as a person within a network of per- authority of the past before taking action in the world now. But sons, and the world as a functioning marketplace. unlike the honorific àrùgbá, built of durable stuff to praise and With such moral and ethical weight placed on images to rep- perpetuate excellence and social usefulness, ààlè are ephem- resent, reinstall, and indeed reenact an ideal reciprocity within eral displays of ordinary, often deteriorated objects rendered as a viewer’s consciousness, it follows that there are also àwòrán emblems of warning, threat, and condemnation. When installed that detail the social repercussions for denying that ideal. It as ààlè, once-useful objects become object lessons in useless- follows too that the target audience for such àwòrán would be ness; they index their transformations from a previous state of thieves, or rather would-be thieves, men and women whose ethi- fullness to their present state of ruin. There is a clear representa- cal choices and hidden acts disrupt absolutely the flow of trans- tional logic at work here: what has happened to these objects can AUTUMN 2009 african arts | 43 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar.2009.42.3.42 by guest on 01 October 2021 af_42-51.indd 43 5/20/2009 7:39:27 PM also happen to the viewer. Ààlè portray in appropriately abstract, The Broom has come to be used for sweeping not only dirt in the yard analogical form the thief’s prospect of utter abstraction from the but [is] that which the society can use to sweep away bad elements realm of the useful and the human. in their midst. Everyday houses and rooms are swept to keep them Many ordinary things are used in the creation of ààlè.