Ivory Coast: Dan Masks

The Dan people - Ivory Coast: Dan Masks

music recorded from 1965-1967; released in 1992

Technically speaking, a person wearing a mask acquires beneath this disguise another personality. According to Black African religious belief, the wearer of the mask abandons his human personality to incarnate a supernatural being, most often an ancestral spirit, a mythical figure or a bush spirit. This metamorphosis occurs, from the technical point of view, in three ways: in outward appearance (costume, facial mask), behaviour (gestures, dance movements) and in the voice.

While African masks, above all the face mask, are readily identified worldwide thanks to museum collections and books on African art, their distinctive voices are much less well-known. The voice is, nevertheless, essential to mask performances. Although it is true that there are masks without a voice, there are others which exist exclusively through their sound without any visual disguise.

The Dan people, with their great variety of masks, live in the mountainous West of the Ivory Coast and, and over the border, in the Liberian outback. The greatest part of modern-day Dan country lies in an Atlantic forest zone which, in the mountainous Northern region, gives way to Sudanese savanna. The Dan are great cultivators of dry rice, manioc and, nowadays, of coffee; they also breed small animals and cattle. On the Ivory Coast, where their official name is the Yacuba, the Dan numbered approximately 250,000 in the sixties; in Liberia where their official name is Gio their number was estimated at roughly 100,000. "Dan" is the name of their language (themselves they call "people who speak Dan"), and it is under this name that they have become renowned for their plastic arts, especially their beautiful masks in sculpted wood.

These facial masks are called geego, "head mask", the more general name gee (glo in the South-Western part) designating the whole character. The gee, supposed to come from the bush, are supernatural beings endowed with special powers. Although everyone knows it is the village men who incarnate these gee (in principle the women are supposed to ignore this, but are well aware - in fact they even have their own masks) this in no way diminishes their supernatural power: sacrifices are made to them, blessing is implored of them and they are obeyed. A want of respect for masks is a serious offence, in the past severely punished, to one's society and religion.

Masks have their own hierarchy - some have a strong supernatural power and only appear two or three times in a lifetime. Others are just for public entertainment and brought out at any number of festivities. Some have no voice, others speak. There are many which both speak and sing or yet have a voice manifested through music. A mask's voice and its place hierarchically have no connection: music is used just as expressively with the most modest masks as with the most powerful.

The Dan have two distinct kinds of masks: the "dressed masks" (gee basi) and the "doffed masks" (gee kpa). The first are masks that one sees everywhere: men with a costume covering them entirely and a facial mask (geego). The second are sound masks created solely by their voices.

A mask is generally accompanied by an assistant-interpreter geesioe who repeats or "translates" his words when they are hard to understand, dialogues with him and, in the case of a mask who expresses himself through singing or instrumental music, sings with him. The Dan classify their "dressed" masks in a certain number of categories according to their appearance (facial mask, head-dress, costume), their behaviour (peaceful or violent, dance, acrobatics) and their voice (if they have one). As well as their classifying name, a particular mask in a certain village has a proper name of its own. With certain "doffed" masks, no distinction seems to be made between their classifying name and their identical proper name.

Since the Dan consider their masks (gee) as supernatural beings, neither the spoken nor sung voices of their incarnation can be human. Their wearers must transform their voices into the voices of supernatural beings. The Dan have perfected three techniques to achieve this - they either distort their own voice, alter their vocal timbre by speaking into an instrument, or replace the voice with instruments hidden from the uninitiated. (Hugo Zemp,translated by Jeffrey Grice)

Tracks 1 to 9 are devoted to "Dressed masks" and tracks 10 to 16 to "Doffed masks".

Tracklisting:

1. Geego "Male Mask" {4:13}

2. Geegble "Long Mask" {4:26}

3. Geekezi "Wicked Mask" {4:21}

4. Geenoonoe "Young Girl Mask" {3:01}

5. Glukoeglo "War-making Mask" {3:42}

6. Kagee "Masks with forked Sticks" {3:49}

7. Wepoekoegee "Mask that makes Comedy" {3:14}

8. Giata (The Masks' Race) {3:18}

9. Gia {4:14}

10. Geeglu "Multiple Mask" {3:10}

11. Gbinggee "Night Mask" {3:20}

12. Geemaanoe "Little Bird Mask"/Geeyibo "Mask that eats Water/Pawo {4:20}

13. Geewova "Mask with the big voice" {0:47}

14. Kong (Women's Mask) {3:44}

15. Wodongdogo/baagadioe/geiyomlo {3:12}

16. Blibana (Women's Mask) {2:40}

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