April 2025
Highlight Artifact

This vertical Tji Warra headdress represents a mythical antelope—an essential figure in Bamana cosmology. The male version, as seen here, features backward-curving horns to reduce harm during ritual combat and a bristling mane that evokes masculine aggression and strength. It is worn during agricultural fertility ceremonies to honor Ci Wara, the hybrid antelope-human spirit believed to have taught humans how to cultivate the land.
The form is elegantly abstracted: the antelope's legs and body are minimized, while the horns, neck, and spine are dramatically elongated, creating a sense of bounding energy restrained by ceremonial dignity (Goldwater 1960).
Symbolism and Duality
 

• The male mask symbolizes power, strength, fertility, and the agricultural hoe, which its geometry echoes.

• The female counterpart (not pictured) has straight horns and may feature a child on her back, symbolizing maternal care, fertility, and pedagogy.

Together, they are danced in pairs:

• Male dancers wear masks with curved horns, suggesting sexual aggression but also contained energy.

• Female dancers emphasize protection and nurturing, often accompanied by scenes mimicking the tilling of land and blessings for pregnancy.

Ritual & Performance
These masks are used in fructification ceremonies. Worn with raffia costumes, they perform in dramatic pantomimes that mimic the cycles of planting, sexual union, and cosmic regeneration. The raffia costumes are sometimes daubed in mud—symbolizing freshly tilled earth.
The roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus) is both a totemic symbol and a prized game animal, revered for its agility, grace, and association with natural cycles of fertility. The Tji Warra performances are communal acts that re-inscribe cosmological order and agricultural sustainability.
Bamana History & Legacy
The Bamana (also called Bambara) are a Mande-speaking ethnic group spanning Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. The name “Bamana” translates to “those who refuse Islam” — a testament to their long resistance to forced religious conversion and cultural assimilation.
Historical highlights:

• Empire of Mali (ca. 1226–1670): Built by Mandé ancestors, enriched by trans-Saharan gold trade (Niane 1975)

• Bambara Empire (1640–1861): Founded by Bitòn Coulibaly in Ségou

• 1861: Conquered by the Islamic Toucouleur Empire, yet the Bamana retained traditional cosmologies

Despite colonial pressure during the French era, Bamana oral traditions, masks, and rituals were preserved and documented by scholars such as Germaine Dieterlen and Jean-Paul Colleyn.
Territorial Reach
The Bamana occupy territories at the intersection of present-day Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. Their spiritual practices and agricultural cosmology have persisted for centuries and remain active in contemporary ceremonial life.
Selected References

• Appiah, Kwame Anthony & Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Encyclopedia of Africa (2010)

• Blier, Suzanne Preston. African Creation Myths as Political Strategy, African Arts (2004)

• Colleyn, Jean-Paul. Bamana (2009); The Power Associations (2001)

• Dieterlen, Germaine. Essai sur la religion Bambara (1951, 1955, 1968)

• Djata, Sundiata A. The Bambara Empire by the Niger (1997)

• Goldwater, Robert. Bambara Sculpture from Western Sudan (1960)

• Imperato, Pascal James. The Dance of the Tyi Wara (1970)

• LaGamma, Alisa. Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture (2002)

• McNaughton, P.R. The Mande Blacksmiths (1988); Bamana Blacksmiths (1979)

• Monteil, Charles. Les empires du Mali (1968)

• Niane, D.T. Recherches sur l'Empire du Mali au Moyen Âge (1975)

• Zahan, Dominique. Antilopes du soleil (1980); The Bambara (1974)