2.27

(*test #1 was today)

discussion of Lint and Mardi Gras -> representations of transformation in today's society

Ancient Mexico
Current Mexico

discussion of Ballcourts
cultures which will be discussed

• Olmeca
• ruins in La Venta (3500-4000 bce)
• Olmec Heads
• assumed to possibly be ball players
• or head of ruler
• discussion of the heiroglypic systems ----->>>>>>>>>
  
• Classical Period (800 CE) - Contemporary City of Mexico
  
• Teotihuacan
• Maya
• Tikal
• Palenque
• Tenochitlan (Aztec)
• nahuatl language
• place of the cactus
• considered a Post Classic site

• Very clear writing system
• numerical positional system
• ex) Mayan Numerical system
• used to deal with both circular and sacred time
• US = base 12
• UK = base 10
• ancient Mexico = base 20
• solar system 365 day system
  
• used for secular time
• lunar calendar system
• base 20
• cycled cosmic relationship with the sacred vs. secular
• Sacrifice wasn't practiced by everyone in Ancient Mexico
• symbolic sacrifice vs. actual
  
• Idea of Axis Mundi

2.20

Yoruba ---->>>>>

• not a long history
• extentsive use of wood
• sculptures that go back at least 2000 years
• believe that the world is made up of the Aye (visible world) vs. orun (invisible world)
• Ase or character is the most important thing
• role of the artist is to capture ase (the essence of the individual and/or the natural world)
• have a wide range of Orishas (spiritual beings) ->not gods, or fully divine
  
• divided into hot gods (aggressive Gods) ex) Shango = mythically the 3rd Yoruba King, related to the fire, lightening
• cool gods ex) Eshu (ie the Trickster) or Babalawo (diviner)
• The Trickster (Eshu) = an individual that consciously breaks the rules in order to affirm what those rules should be, in order to learn what the consequences are for wrong doings
• sometimes displayed as a rabbit, coyote, jester, the fool
• The Babalawo = sees into the invisable world, a liminal being, grounded in the visible but has the ability to communicate with the invisible world
• uses a *divination bowl
  
• Yoruba people are spiritually led be an Oba = symbolic head of state (*oba crown*)
  
• comes from an old and distinguished line
• trace himself back to the son of the creator himself
• the crown itself bears the image of the original creator
• crown has power because it is the visible representation of something invisible
• only the Oba himself, members of his family or the creator himself are allowed to wear beadwork
• Looking at sculpture confront the idea of the masquerade tradition
• masks are not simply a represenation
• dancer is not necessarily an actor
• the man behind the mask is in the process of becoming , transformed into the mask that he is
• *Gelede mask (our mothers) = the power of older women in society, called 'witches' in our society which has negative connatation
• the superstructure represents her character
• another gelede mask
  
• Ifa (divination) - how one establishes a spiritual link
• Shango - represents forces of nature
• always has a bowlike shape on head
  
• Ibeji (twins) figures are carved to represent the death of a twin
• belief that if the carving is made that the other twin won't be taken
  
• now a photo is carried around
  
• Egungun (primal male ancestor)
• The market place is considered the most liminal space in the Yoruba culture
• because people from both the known and the unknown meet
• normally on the edge of a village *location also makes it liminal
• wilderness is usually on the edge of the village is also the unknown (dangerous)
  

2.13

Map of Africa

Discussion of prejudices in American society about Africa.

Papal decree that we did not have to honor Africans because they were gorillas

West African Hate God vs Central African power Figure that helps you to communicate

Nkisi Nkondi (Kongo, Democratic Republic)

• abdomen/mirror/bellybutton
• behind that is substances of power
• blood, hair, etc..microcosms of the forces of the world
• has a spear in one hand to ward off evil (hunter)
• mouth open because he is shouting – to scare off evil, God’s hear
• hunt down those things that are creating chaos, find that which has created imbalance and kill it

Syncretism – blending of two distinct cultures to produce something that is unique, or the adaptation of one culture to another

Memory Board (Lukasa) – Luba (Central Africa) – tells a sacred story

Oba Airowayoye ->Yoruba (Nigeria) one of the largest Nations in Africa

• Hereditary position ->head of the Yoruba people-> descendant from the creator
• Divine sacred beings -> exudes energy field
• Wears a beaded crown with images of the first King ie. The son of the creator
• On the top, a bird represents women because he can not rule without the guidance of women
• Oni of Ife (royal portrait) -> Yoruba (Nigeria)
• A life size head and historians could not believe that Africans were capable of making such elegant and realistic art

The Niger River came from the mouth of the Atlantic
Male and Female Chi Waras (antelope) -> Bamana (Mali)

• Farmers are REAL men
• A secret society
• Antelope represents the spirit of agriculture
• A culture hero teaches you how to be, how to speak, how to dance, how to farm

Kanaga Mask----->>>>

Mwo (Maiden) Mask - > Igbo (Nigeria)
Believe in duality – that the world is binary
Okoroshi Masks
M’bari house – dance, house, verb -> demands incredible sacrifice and can take anywhere from 3-5 years
Ala - the Goddess of earth, fertility and nature

2.8

Terms in Animism and Culture
Animism – giving life to inanimate objects, everything is interconnected, Mother Earth, Father Moon, defines each indiv group within the sphere in Native Amer. Society

Medicine Society – would include aspects of Shaman’s and sand paintings, society of faces, Reinforce maintain, balance and order, A society through ritual restores order and balance.

Origin Tale/ Emergence Story
Vision Quest – through meditation, contact with Spiritual beings etc.., most often applied to Native American, in order to learn who and why you are and what your place is

Shaman – born and not made (unlike priests), not witch doctors
Dualism (visible v Invisible Natures) – visible and invisible world = mass and energy


Overcoming the popular myth of the Indians/ Native Americans – corruption via popular culture, years & years of not understanding and romanticizing the Native American culture. (men are strong and wise, women are sex objects)
All jewelry and pots were viewed with an aniministic view

Black Elk – refers to “the great circle of the world”
Circular world, no beginning and no end
Drums are circular
Medicine wheel is circular
Circle of the Sun Dance
Axis Mundi = center of the world *columns often form an axis mundi
Most art creates a microcosmic version of the a macrocosm world, a way for us to perceive a larger vision


Kachina/Katsina (*2 diff spellings)
More than 500 diff Kachina
A spiritual being made tangible through dance
Represent the invisible world made visible
There are both male and female
There is male rain (violent) and female rain (gentle)
Come down for 6 months of the year and then go back
Starts in December
Tihu = a doll representation of a kachina, helping to identify, help girls to understand since men are the only ones that are permitted to dance
Pueblo Bauneto – rounded, have a solar alignment, squares were houses, circles were sacred spaces
Kiva – solar alignment, windows were in most, light would filter though and light particular niches, a giant sundial or giant clock/calendar, has in it’s center a protective opening (sipapu – birth hole) – people believe they emerged from the emergence stories, (this is where we were born), makes is sacred and the axis mundi
Prior to the raid by the Spanish, Kiva had a dome over the top
Decision was made to drop the kiva underground so that they couldn’t be seen and maintain the validity of culture, their covenant in the face of a larger culture that didn’t want them to do so

Navaho Sand Painting = gateway, liminal, threshhold
More about the process of ritual
Are directional
Deal with color and form
Geologic typography
Deal with world above and world below (father night and mother earth) earth has the 3 most vital crops = the 3 sisters ->corn, squash, beans, tobacco
Long process of ritual purification, of collecting earth in various colors, grinding the paint and setting up
*very fine grains are necessary
opens in the east for the sunrise, are directional for N, S, E and W
cosmic diagram (mandala) to bring in the powers of the ritual world
white represents the dawn sky
black “ the night sky (black means danger)

January 30th

discussion of Joseph Campbell and his work with myth and the hero’s journey
Australian Aboriginal society believed that there is no timeline
“The Map of Molongee”
the catfish dreaming
Route that his family/band around the territory that the catfish dreaming created
for them to exist in
doorway into the world of dreaming, the world of creation
undergo a mental transformation from real space ->mythic space (liminality/threshold)
liminal = not here and not there, a place that is in between and doesn’t exist

“God is the Architect of the World”
Gothic architecture is famous for it’s flying buttresses
Gothic cathedral is Directional Sacred Geometry. The Apst is in the East, which Jerusalem is east, so facing the alter means facing the Holy Land when you worship. When one walks in the church, one is entering upon a spiritual journey.

Nandnla

Mihrab
Niche or marker used to indicate the direction of prayer usually in a mosque. ( HYPERLINK "http://archnet.org/library/dictionary/entry.tcl?entry_id=DIA0470" http://archnet.org/library/dictionary/entry.tcl?entry_id=DIA0470)

Shiva

Narasimha = manifestation (avatar) of Vishnu – god charged with protecting and serving the human race

Dusk and Dawn are two times of day when the spirit world gateways are open because they are liminal. In a doorway because it’s a threshold.

Anamism = (an·i·mism) (an¢[ibreve]-miz-[schwa]m) [L. anima soul] 1. the obsolete doctrine that the soul is the source of all organic development. 2. the belief that nonliving objects and phenomena (such as clouds) are inhabited and motivated by a nonphysical agent; it is a characteristic of the thinking of early childhood. 3. the theory that behavior is controlled by an immaterial mind or soul.
animism
animism 2

Relic’s are direct link (ex. Blood of the animal is the life force of the animal

Feb 1 Sacred Land/Sacred Landscape

O'Riley: Chapter 7: 280-303
Black Elk Chapter 1 ("The Offering of the Pipe") (pdf)
Read the article and look at the illustrations of the Ohioan Serpent Mound
HYPERLINK
reading
reading 2

2.1 - Lecture notes

discussion on land on how land “created the Amer. Character”
Illusion of rugged individualism

Beginning of a Vision Quest (*the hero’s journey)
New Mexico
Put himself into a liminal space – leaving the secure and familiar, walking into the unknown
At some point, he will begin to meditate, wait for a vision – ancestors will tell him what he is meant to be
The “leap of faith”
Not supposed to tell anyone what he sees

The Serpent Mound (Hoppewellian)
Mississippian mounds
Cahokia was large
Pilgrimmage route was visited by many people from different areas
Noticed that the curves of the snake matched the solar alignments – four divisions
Around 1070, there was a supernova and Halley’s comet
What if the serpent was really a comet?

The basis for Ritual Life – corn husk masks from the Iroquois
Created by and danced by women
Masks relate direct back to agriculture and the earth are made from that material
Danced at the time of planning and the time of harvest
Open mouthed and open eyed reflecting talking

Kachina was a cloud reflecting the earth and weather

The Sacred Pipe
Accompanied prayers, song, music
Smoke became the super highway for the ritual – to communicate with the Gods

Ruisdael – artist, Dutch Baroque painter
Breaking away from the Spanish – landscape painting emerges
Once they become an independent nation – there was a surge of Nationalism
William of Orange led
This land is who we are and is our land
A Religion based on a newfound sense of patriotism and nationalism
Same is true for America – after the War of 1812

The Hudson River school of painters
Celebrated the power of America through the power of it’s land (Cole)
Also going through our Industrial Revolution which was destroying the land
Loss of frontier/open land will rob Americans of what the country was founded on
“The Expulsion from Eden”
“Sun tunnels” is a project that is tied into the relationship to a larger solar, cosmic reality (*created by earth artists)
debris that is tainting pristine land

2.15

2.15

Dogon (basic Dogon site)- represented by 3 main societies, create both square houses (people), round houses

• Not a taxonomy of power (stratiphied)
• each mask is chosen to be danced by the head of the masks
• made by one person who is the blacksmith and lives on the edge of the society
• liason between the living and the dead
• stole a piece of fire from the sun and slide down the rainbow
• controls earth, air, water and fire
• not allowed to dance or marry (can only marry the daughter of another blacksmith)
• daughter of blacksmith is a potter
  

Bandiagara Escarpment

Awa Society (Death) - pernial society, all post-pubescent men will be a part of this society. It is a way of escorting the soul/spiritual essence into the world of the deceased.

• is most familiar to our society
• the ritual starts at dusk and ends at dawn
• ancestors come down and celebrate with the living and leave at dawn taking the recently deceased with them
• starts with the least sacred and progresses to the most
  

Kanaga Mask - the least sacred mask, may represent human form, seen most often in museums and publications,

Binu Shrine (Ancestors)- Second society, deals with ancestors/relationship to sacred being, deals with protection, real or mythical ancestors, the very first people (Nomo)

Lebe (Earth God) - Third Society, individual who is responsible for placing them in the Bandiagara Escarpment, represents the Hogon

• stool symbols with sky at top and earth at bottom, 4 pairs of twins (merged male/female) connecting the two, validates the origin of the Dogon people,
  
• there is also one figure that is a hermaphrodite - women of the lip pierced
  

Nigeria is a very large river.