African Women and their Art and Culture
African Women’s roles in history varied little from culture to culture throughout history. Africa is one of the oldest nations in the world.
The Egyptian peoples as well as other native Africans have contributed to the societies seen today.
Within the art and crafts of Africa one can learn their roles, the application of art to their work, and the recognition of the roles the women had.
Africa had and has the mentality that all members of a village must be involved in raising children.
There are gender specific roles in the African culture that can be seen in the variety of art and crafts found in museums and for sale.
The art will have some very particular influences. Family, mother, and children are all seen in the arts and crafts of Africa.
For example, the Mother of the Tree of Life is an African piece available to see in an American museum. It is not the only piece of its kind. The piece has many children on the tree with the mother being the central figure.
The art and crafts created by the African cultures varies, but the roots of the meanings will rarely deviate. The women are revered because they offer children to the society and create a larger family.
African women express their artistic abilities with a wonderful array of styles and colour, shown in the elaborate beadwork and jewellery along with the variety of cloths produced for their traditional dress.
While other roles such as to gather fruit and vegetables is also important for women, the art concentrates more on the fertility aspects of women and family over the more mundane roles in their culture.
The ceremonies are also a way to show healing, fertility, and faith to the earth for Mother Nature and its offerings.
Mother of Twins is another interesting piece that will show the roles of women to the African culture and the beliefs among the society.
The birth of twins while highly celebrated now was not always considered natural. In fact it was considered unnatural for humans to birth twins. The Bambara and Yoruba societies had a different thought process.
They believed the bearer of twins should be considered good luck. Special gifts would often be given to these mothers in honour of their bearing of twins.
Yoruba has several ceremonies for the parents and twins to be involved in at the start of their birth. Art was created honouring the birth of twins and the mother.
If a twin were to die then an image must be carved by the mother of that dead twin to contain the half soul of the other twin.
The images are said to contain the soul so that the dead twin may see how it is cared for in death and will then send more children to the mother.
