African Arts Gallery

Colors and chiefdoms in African art.
This statuette representing a male ancestor was first carved in wood and then covered with a rabane canvas inlaid with imported multicolored pearls. The physiognomy displays a distinctive expressiveness of African tribal art from the Grassland regions. Among the Bamiléké as in other ethnic groups, art objects testified to the place of their owner in society. Thus, the materials and shapes of objects varied according to social status. Located in the border region of Nigeria, the North-West province of Cameroon, Grassland  is made up of several ethnic groups: Tikar, Anyang, Widekum, Chamba, Bamoun and Bamileke . Several centralized chiefdoms, or kingdoms, based on customary associations, secret societies, are organized around the Fon who would have broad supernatural powers including that of being able to transform into animals such as the python, the elephant, leopard, or buffalo.