Section IV: Ethnography
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| Ethnic Art - West Africa |
The ethnography section, which will soon be inaugurated, displays the collection of African art that a refined scholar from Lucca, Florio Santini, generously donated to the museum in 2003. There are about 120 bronze, silver, ivory, wood and stone findings, which outline the history of large kingdoms of the past and tribal ethic groups some of which no longer exist, craftsmen of important and lively artistic and cultural expressions which characterized large regions of Africa, from Guinea to Senegal, to Nigeria, to Congo, and as far as Western Mali between the 15th and 19th century.
Surprising bronze statues, made using the lost-wax method, provide an introduction to the representative and celebrative court language of the great and practically unknown kingdoms of Benin, founded in the 15th century by the Yoruba ethnic group, one of the most numerous in Africa. At the peak of its expansion, in the 16th century, this flourishing civilization occupied a territory between the River Cross in Nigeria up to the Alto Volta, in Ghana, creating numerous commercial and political ties with European settlers, who, at the end of the century brought about its demise.
The phenomenon of Western colonization also involved nearby Ghana; the colonizers developed ties with the Ashanti tribes, mostly for gold trade, as gold was found in the territory of this large population in several surface deposits controlled by the king.
Tools coming from different ethnic groups, objects of daily use, furniture and ritual objects related to animistic worship of black Africa, refer to an ideological and spiritual world often enlivened by studies of the origins and development of the universe, surprising in its actuality.
The bolts and the granary doors of the villages of the Dogon ethnic group, a group practically extinct, situated at the foot of cliff of Bandjagara, in Mali are a good example of this; these furnishings sculpted with anthropomorphic figures, represent an explicit reference to the worship of the ancestors, invoked to protect the crops and the dwellings.
Spirituality permeates every aspect of daily life, but finds its main expression in the collective ritual ceremonies, during the course of which, valuable wooden masks were often used. The museum exhibits, for example, a rare and ancient Teke mask, an ethnic group between Gabon and Congo, and two Baga masks, from the population from Guinea.
The section, exploring the complex and articulated world of ethnic groups that have characterized Black Africa throughout time, is also a point of departure for reflection on intercultural dialogue, which the museums are today called on to bring about.
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