Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known local populations due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes, and their distinctive customs and dress.
The Tanzanian and Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, but the people have continued their age-old customs. An Oxfam study has suggested that the Maasai could pass on traditional survival skills such as the ability to produce food in deserts and scrublands that could help populations adapt to climate change.
2. By P. Suesskind 4. By Mathilde Guillemot
Warriors are the only members of the Maasai community to wear long hair, which they weave in thinly braided strands.
Two days before boys are circumcised, their heads are shaved. The young warriors then allow their hair to grow, and spend a great deal of time styling the hair. It is dressed with animal fat and ocher, and parted across the top of the head at ear level. Hair is then plaited: parted into small sections which are divided into two and twisted, first separately then together. Cotton or wool threads may be used to lengthen hair. The plaited hair may hang loose or be gathered together and bound with leather. When warriors go through the Eunoto, and become elders, their long plaited hair is shaved off.
Female diviner, Luba (Baluba), people, 1988 by Mary Nooter Roberts
This type of diviner is called a Bilumbu or Bwana Vidye
A Bilumbu diviner (diviner is called a nganga) can be possessed by the spirit of past Luba kings, this includes female kings. Luba society had both male kings (Mfumu) and female kings (Mwadi or Kifikwa). Bilumbu communicates with spirits through songs, incantations, and using percussions, spirits would then respond using visual codes.
Jean-Michel Basquiat was explicitly influenced by nsibidi designs and used many in his works, including anaforuana. Nsibidi is an ancient ideographic writing system mostly used by ‘secret’ men’s societies in southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon. Before the 20th century it was widely used by the general public for communication purposes, including for ‘love’ notes, and [body] decoration; nsibidi was transported to the Caribbean by Efik, Ibibio, Ejagham, and Igbo speakers where it influenced the creation of anaforuana (Cuba) and vévé (Haiti). Flash of the Spirit by Robert Thompson was Jean-Michel’s favourite book on African art history (via The Radiant Child) which has significant information about nsibidi. Several sources also make the link between his works and nsibidi, particularly in Grillo (1984) above. Nsibidi is all over the work, but I’ve circled out in red the ones that stood out to me. He also wrote out ‘NSIBIDI’ in this drawing.
Creatures from BARLOWE’S GUIDE TO EXTRATERRESTRIALS (1979), by Wayne Barlowe. I posted some different illustrations from this great book a few months ago.
The Nissifer and Dark One are from Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy
Tiberius Gracchus Jones is dead, betrayed by his squad when he discovers the dark secrets of a government threatened by the existence of The Horsemen. But, death is only the beginning. Tiberius embarks on a psychedelic journey through time, space and reality where the past will be revealed, the present will be clarified, and the future will be set.Witness the birth of a new god, and the end of the beginning…And, did you know that The Horsemen was first published in the 1970s? Learn the secret history of The New Mythology and its original creators with recreations of the title’s classic covers from current Horsemen writer/artist Jiba Molei Anderson!
