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CourierFebruary 1976 (29th year) 2.80 French francs

THE SEARCH

FOR

CULTURAL

IDENTITY

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TREASURES

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WORLD ART

GHANA

Abode for an ancestor-spiritThis terra cotta statuette (31 cm. high) was modelled by an artist of the Ashanti people(Ghana). The portrayal of an ancestor, it was placed on a tomb or in a cult shrine as anabode for the spirit of the dead person. Photo is taken from "African Masterpieces fromPrivate French Collections" by Marceau Rivière, with a preface by Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow,Director-General of Unesco. (Published in a trilingual French, English, German editionby Editions Philbi, Paris, 1975; price 180 francs, boxed.) Photo ©Studio Bernheim, Paris

ri erFEBRUARY 1976 29TH YEAR

PUBLISHED IN 15 LANGUAGES

English Arabic Hebrew

French Japanese Persian

Spanish Italian Dutch

Russian Hindi PortugueseGerman Tamil Turkish

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Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris - FranceEditor-in-Chief

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All correspondence should be addressed to

the Editor-in-Chief In Paris

Page

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cm Ä

ÏÏZ

THE ANGRY YOUNG MENOF OCEANIA

Young writers and artists are leadinga cultural reawakening in the Pacific

By Albert Wendt

12 AFRICAN ART,

WHERE THE HAND HAS EARS

By Amadou Hampâté Bâ

20 AFRICAN ARTS TAKE THE HIGH ROADAWAY FROM WESTERN ART

By Magdi Wahba

24 THE CHILDREN OF THE WHALE

Extraordinary legends make up the oral traditionsof Siberia's far north

By Yuri Rytkheou

28 THREE IN ONE

Latin America's originality as a continent of Indian,African and Iberian racial and cultural mixture

By Arturo Uslar-Pietri

33 UNESCO NEWSROOM

34 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

2 TREASURES OF WORLD ART

GHANA : Abode for an ancestor spirit

Photo © Luc Joubert, Paris

Cover

.Many countries and particularly thosewhich have only recently emerged fromcolonial domination are today engaged ina rediscovery of their cultural past. Theyare anxious not only to preserve ancientarts, crafts and oral traditions but also

to integrate the forms and values of thisheritage into the cultural patterns ofmodern, life. Articles in this issue examine

different aspects of this search forcultural identity in Africa, Asia, Oceaniaand Latin America. Cover shows detail

of wooden ancestor statue sculpted by anartist of the M'Bembe people in Nigeria(complete work is seen on page 16).

These bird of paradise feathers form part of an intricateheaddress worn by the people of the New Guinea highlands.

The relationship between birds and men is strongly expressedin the oral literature and art of Oceanic peoples, especially

those from New Guinea. Men identified themselves with

birds, and many masks and ceremonial costumes usedbird motifs and actual bird plumes to achieve this effect.

ElOl

THE ANGRY

YOUNG MENOF OCEANIA

"

Young writers and artistsare leadinga cultural reawakeningin the Pacific

by Albert Wendt

ALBERT WENDT, of Western Samoa, is aneducator, novelist, short story writer and poet.A former principal of Samoa College, WesternSamoa, he is now lecturer in Commonwealthand South Pacific literature and creative writingat the University of the South Pacific (Fiji).Among his published works is a novel. Sonsfor the Return Home (1973) and a collectionof short stories, Flying-Fox in a Freedom Tree(1974). A full collection of his poetry entitledInside Us the Dead will appear in June 1976.Mr. Wendt prepared a longer study on thesubject of his anlcle as a paper for the Unescomeeting on the study of Oceanic cultures heldat Nukualofa (Tonga) in December 1975.

These Islands rising from wave's[edge-

blue myth brooding In orchid,fern and banyan, fearful godsawaiting birth from blood clotinto stone ¡mage and chantto bind their wounds, burytheir journey's dead, as Iwatched from shadow root, readyfor birth generations after . . .

(from "Inside Us the Dead")

I belong to Oceania or, at least,I am rooted in a fertile portion of

it and it nourishes my spirit, helpsto define me, and feeds my imagin¬ation. A detached, "objective" analysis

I will leave to the sociologist and allthe other 'ologists who have plaguedOceania since she captivated the

imagination of the Papalagi (1) in hisquest for El Dorado, a SouthernContinent, and the Noble Savage Ina tropical Eden.

Objectivity is for such uncommittedgods. My commitment won't allowme to confine myself to so narrowa vision. So vast, so fabulouslyvaried a scatter of islands, nations,

cultures, mythologies and myths, sodazzling a creature, Oceania deservesmore than an attempt at mundane fact.

(1) Papalagi: a Samoan word meaningoutsiders or non-Oceanians, and often appliedto Westerners.

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Only the» imagination In free flight canhope if not to contain her to graspsome of her shape, plumage, and pain.

I will not pretend that I know her inall her manifestations. No one not

even our gods ever did; no onedoes (Unesco experts and consultantsincluded); no one ever will becausewhenever we think we have capturedher she has already assumed newguises the love affair is endless,even her vital statistics, as it were,

will change endlessly. In the finalInstance, our countries, cultures,nations, planets are what we imaginethem to be.

In our various groping ways, we areall In search of that haven, that Hawalki

(mythical homeland of the Maoripeople) where our hearts will findmeaning. Most of us never find it,or, at the moment of finding it, fail,to recognize it. At this stage in mylife I have found it in Oceania: it is

a return to where I was born, or, putanother way, it is a search for whereI was born:

One day I will reach the source again.There at my beginningsanother peacewill welcome me.

(from "The River Flows Back"by Kumalau Tawall,

Manus, Papua New Guinea)

Our dead are woven into our souls

like the hypnotic music of bone flutes;

we can never escape them. If we letthem they can help illuminate us toourselves and to one another. Theycan be the source of new-found pride,self respect, and wisdom. Converselythey can be the aitu (evil spirit or ghost)that will continue to destroy us byblinding us to the beauty we are socapable of becoming as individuals,cultures, nations.

We must try to exorcise these aituboth old and modern. If we can't do

so, then at least we can try andrecognize them for what they are, admitto their fearful existence and, by doingso, learn to control and live honestlywith them. We are all familiar with'

such aitu. For me, the most evil is r

5

Photo © Luc Joubert, Paris

Carved figures with long faces, narrow

noses, barely indicated eyes and prominent

chins, like this one, are a distinctive feature

of wood sculpture in the Lake Sentani

region of western New Guinea. Related to

male initiation rites, the statues are placed

inside and outside the men's clubhouses

in this region. Lake Sentani artists decorate

a wide variety of objects, from drums and

hooks to household utensils, with highly

stylized plant and animal motifs.

k racism: the. symbol of all repression.

Chill you're a bastard ...You have trampled the whole world

[overHere your boot is on our necks, your

[spearInto our intestines

Your history and your size make me[cry violently

for air to breathe.

(from "The Reluctant Flame"by John Kasaipwalova,

Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea)

The chill continues. to wound, trans¬form, humiliate us and our cultures.

Any real understanding of ourselvesand our existing cultures calls for anattempt to understand colonialism and

what it did and is still doing to us.This understanding would better equipus to control or exorcise it so that, in

the words of the Maori poet Hone

Tuwhare, "we can dream good dreamsagain", heal the wounds it inflicted onus, and with the healing will j returnpride in ourselves an ingredient sovital to creative nation-building.

Pride, self-respect, self-reliance will

help us cope so much more creativelywith what is passing or to come.Without this healing most of ourcountries will remain permanent wel-

Right, housebuilding skills and

artistic talent harmonize in the

construction and decoration of

this "tambaran", or men's

clubhouse, from the Sepik River

region of northern New Guinea.

House seen here was displayed at

a Papua New Guinea arts festival

held at Port Moresby. Painted

bark panels on façade depict

ancestor heads and other motifs

(see detail of "tambaran" facade

on our back cover). Leaning

against the house are giant yams

decorated in the Sepik manner.

Far right, a village craftsman in

New Guinea thatches a house

with tough grass cut from the

nearby mountain slopes. In

contrast to such traditional-style

homes, a rash of "modern" box¬

like houses is beginning to erupt

across Oceania.

fare cases not only economically butculturally. (And cultural dependencyis even more soul-destroying thaneconomic dependency.)

Without it we will continue to

be exploited by vampires of allcolours, creeds, fangs. (Our home¬grown species are often more ra¬pacious.) Without it the tragic mim¬icry, abasement, and humiliation willcontinue, and we will remain the often

grotesque colonial caricatures we weretransformed into by the chill.

As much as possible, we, mini insize though our countries are, musttry and assume control of our destinies,

both in utterance and in fact. To getthis control we must train our own

people as quickly as possible in allfields of national development. Oureconomic and cultural dependencywill be lessened according to the rateat which we can produce trainedmanpower. In this, we are failingbadly.

"In a flash he saw in front of his

eyes all the wasted years of carryingthe white man's cargo."

(from "The Crocodile" by Vincent Eri,Papua, Papua New Guinea)

If it has been a waste largely, wheredo we go from here?

My body is tiredMy head achesI weep for our peopleWhere are we going mother.

(from "Motherland"

by Mildred Sope, New Hebrides)

Again, we must rediscover andreaffirm our faith in the vitality of ourpast, our cultures, our dead, so that

we may develop our own unique eyes,voices, muscles, and imagination.

In considering the role of traditionalcultures in promoting cultural identityin the Oceanic Islands the followingquestions emerge: '

Is there such a creature as "tra¬

ditional culture"?

If there is, what period in the growthof a culture is to be called "tra¬

ditional"?

If "traditional cultures" do exist in

Oceania, to what extent are theycolonial creations?

What is authentic culture?

Is the differentiation we usuallymake between the culture(s) of oururban areas (meaning "foreign") andthose of our rural areas (meaning "tra¬ditional") a valid one?

Are not the life-styles of our townssimply developments of our traditional

life-styles, or merely sub-cultures,within our. national cultures? Why isit that many of us condemn urban life¬styles (sub-cultures) as being "foreign"and therefore "evil" forces contami¬

nating and corrupting the "purity ofour true cultures" (whatever thismeans)?

Why is it that the most vocalexponents of "preserving our truecultures" live in our towns and pursuelife-styles which, in their own termin¬ology, are "alien and impure"?

' Are some of us advocating the"preservation of our cultures" not forourselves but for our brothers, the

rural masses, and by doing thisensuring the maintenance of a statusquo in which we enjoy privilegedpositions?

Should there be ONE sanctified

official, sacred interpretation of one'sculture? And who should do this

interpreting?

These questions (and others whichthey imply) have to be answeredsatisfactorily before any realisticpolicies concerning cultural conserv¬ation in Oceania can be formulated.

Like a tree a culture is forever

growing new branches, foliage, and .roots. Our cultures, contrary to the r

^simplistic interpretation of our roman¬tics, were changing even in pre-papalagi times through inter-islandcontact and the endeavours of excep¬

tional individuals and groups who

manipulated politics, religion, andother people. Contrary to the utter¬ances of our elite groups, our pre-papalagi cultures were not perfect orbeyond reproach. No culture Isperfect or sacred even today.

Individual dissent is essential to the

healthy survival, development, andsanity of any nation without it ourcultures will drown in self-love. No

culture is ever static nor can it be

preserved (a favourite word with ourcolonizers and romantic elite brethren)

like a stuffed gorilla in a museum.

There is no state of cultural purity(or perfect state of cultural "good¬ness") from which there is decline;usage determines authenticity. Therewas no Fall, no sun-tanned Noble

Savages existing in South Sea para¬dises, no Golden Age, except inHollywood films, In the insanelyromantic literature and art by out¬siders about the Pacific, in the breath¬

less sermons of our self-styledromantic revolutionaries.

I do not advocate a return to an

imaginary pre-papalagi Golden Age orUtopian womb. Our quest should not

. be for a revival of our past culturesbut for the creation of new cultures

which are free of the taint of col¬

onialism and based firmly on our ownpasts. The quest should be for a newOceania.

Racism is institutionalized in all

cultures, and the desire to dominate

and exploit others is not the sole

prerogative of the papalagi. Eventoday, despite the glib tributes paidto a Pacific Way, there is much racialdiscrimination between our many eth¬nic groups, and much heartlessexploitation of one group by another.

Many of us are guilty whether weare aware of it or not of perpetuatingthe destructive colonial chill, and aredoing so In the avowed interest of"preserving our racial and culturalpurity" (whatever that means).

To advocate that in order to be a

"true Samoan", for example, one mustbe a "full-blooded Samoan" and

behave, think, dance, talk, dress andbelieve in a certain prescribed way(and that the prescribed way" has notchanged since time immemorial) Isbeing racist, callously totalitarian, andstupid. This is a prescription forcultural stagnation, an invitation fora culture to choke in its own bodyodour, juices, and excreta.

Equally unacceptable are outsiders(and these come in all disguisesincluding the mask of "adviser" or

8

"expert") who try to Impose on mewhat they think my culture is andhow I should live it and go about"preserving" it. The colonizers pre¬scribed for us the roles of domestic

animal, amoral phallus, the lackey, thecomic and lazy and happy-go-luckyfuzzy-haired boy, and the well-behavedcolonized. Some of our own people

are trying to do the same to us, toturn us into servile creatures they canexploit easily. We must not consentto our own abasement.

There are no "true interpreters" or

"sacred guardians" of any culture.We are all entitled to our truths,

insights, and intuitions into and in¬terpretations of our cultures.

To varying degrees, we as indi¬viduals all live in limbo within our

cultures: there are many aspects ofour ways of life we cannot subscribeto or live, comfortably with. We allconform to some extent, but the life-,

blood of any culture is the diversecontributions of its varied sub-cultures.

Basically, all societies are multi¬cultural. And Oceania is more so than

any other region on our sad planet.

Let me take just two facets of ourcultures education and architecture

and show how colonialism changed us.

Kidnapped

I was six when / Mama was careless JShe sent me to school J alone J fivedays a week.

One day I was J kidnapped by a band Jof Western philosophers J armed withglossy-pictured J textbooks and J regis¬tered reputations / "Holder of B.A. Jand MA. degrees" J I was held In aclassroom J guarded by Churchill andGaribaldi J pinned up on one wall /and j Hitler and Mao dictating I fromthe other / Guevara pointed a revol¬ution I at my brains J from his "GuerillaWarfare".

Each three-month term / they sentthreats to / my Mama and Papa.

Mama and Papa loved / their son and Jpaid ransom fees / each time.

Each time J Mama and Papa grew Jpoorer and poorer / and my kidnappersgrew / richer and richer / / grew whiterand I whiter.

On my release / fifteen years after // was handed I (among loud applause Jfrom fellow victims) J a piece of paper /to decorate my walls / certifying myrelease.

(by Ruperake Petaia,Western Samoa)

This remarkable poem aptly de¬scribes what can be called the "white-

fication" of the colonized by a colonialeducation system. What the poemdoes not mention is that this systemwas enthusiastically welcomed by

A SIDEWAYS LOOK

IN MAORI ART

One of the most striking art objects of

the New Zealand Maoris is the hei-tiki.

a carved jade or greenstone pendant

worn by Maori women, depicting the

human figure with distorted head, bodyand limbs. Jade hei-tiki below, with

sideways-tilted head, is 17 cm. high.Maori artists also carve elaborate wood

statues of human figures, lizards and

other forms to decorate their houses.

Right, Maori sculptor Papariki Harrisondemonstrates his woodcarving skill at

Unesco headquarters, in Paris, during

a presentation of Unesco's travellingexhibition on the Art of Oceania (See

"Unesco Courier", June 1975). Far right,

hei-tiki style sculpture carved by

Papariki Harrison.

Photo © Roger Guillemot,Connaissance des Arts, Paris

many of us, and is still being continuedeven in our independent nations a

tragic ironyl

The basic function of education in

all cultures is to promote conformityand obedience and respect, to fitchildren into roles society has deter¬mined for them. In practice it hasalways been an instrument for dom¬esticating human kind. The typicalformal educational process is like alobotomy operation or a relentlesslife-long dosage of tranquillizers.

The formal education systems(whether British, New Zealand, Aus-"tralian, American or French) that were

established by the colonizers in ourislands all had one main feature in

common: they were based on thearrogantly mistaken racist assumptionthat the cultures of the colonizers

were superior (and preferable) to ours.

Education was therefore devoted to

"civilizing" us, to cutting us away

from the roots of our cultures, fromwhat the colonizers viewed as dark¬

ness, superstition, barbarism, and

savagery. The production of bourgeoispapalagi seemed the main objective;the process was one of castration.The missionaries, irrespective ofwhatever colonial nationality or brandof Christianity they belonged to,intended the same conversion.

Needless to say, the most vitalstrand in any nation-building is edu¬cation. But our colonial education

systems were not programmed toeducate us for development but to

produce minor and inexpensive cogs,such as clerks, glorified office boys,officials and a few professionals, forthe colonial administrative machine.

It was not in the colonial interests

to encourage industries in ourcountries: it was more profitable forthem that we remained exporters ofcheap raw materials and buyers oftheir expensive manufactured goods.

So the education was narrowly"academic" and benefited mainly ourtraditional elite groups who saw greatprofit in serving our colonial masterswho, in turn, propped them up becauseit was cheaper to use them to run ourcountries. The elitist and "academic"

nature of this education was not

conducive to training us to survive inour own cultures.

Colonial education helped reducemany of us into a state of passivity,undermined our confidence and self-

respect, and made many of us ashamedof our cultures, transformed many ofus into Uncle Toms and what the

Trinidadian writer V.S. Naipaul hascalled "mimic men", inducing in us thefeeling that only the foreign is rightor proper or worthwhile.

Let us see how this is evident in

architecture.

A frightening type of papalagiarchitecture is invading Oceania: thesuper-stainless, super-plastic, super-

hygienic, super-soulless structure verysimilar to modern hospitals. Its most

nightmarish form is the new-typetourist hotel a multi-storied edifice of

concrete, steel, chromium, and air-conditioning.

This species of architecture ¡s anembodiment of those bourgeois valuesI find unhealthy and soul-destroying:the cultivation and worship of medioc¬rity, a quest for a meaningless andprecarious security based on materialpossessions, a deep-rooted fear ofdirt and all things rich in our cultures,a fear of death revealed in an almost

paranoic quest for super-hygieniccleanliness and godliness, a relentlessattempt to level out all individualdifferences in people and mould theminto one faceless mass, a drive to

preserve the status quo at all costs.

These values reveal themselves in

the new tourist hotels constructed of

dead materials which echo the spiri- .tual, creative and emotional emptiness r

1 Photo John Hooper © Camera Press, London

, in modern man. The drive is for

deodorized, sanitized comfort, the veryquicksand in which many of us arenow drowning, willingly.

What frightens me is the easy,unquestioning acceptance by ourcountries of all this without consideringtheir adverse effects on our psyche.In my brief lifetime, I have observedmany of our countries imitating whatwe consider to be "papalagi culture"(even though most of us will swearvehemently that we are notl). It isjust one of the tragic effects ofcolonialismthe aping of colonialways, life-styles, attitudes and values.

In architecture this has led and is

leading to the construction of dog-kennel-shaped papalagi houses (mainlyas status symbols, as props to one'slack of self-confidence). The changefrom traditional dwelling to box-shapedmonstrosity is gathering momentum:the mushrooming of this bewilderingsoulless desert of shacks and boxes

is erupting across Oceania becausemost of our leaders and style-setters,as soon as they gain power andwealth, construct opulent dog-kennelsas well.

Our governments' quest for thetourist hotel is not helping matterseither; there is a failure to understand

what such a quest is bringing. It maybe bringing money through the middle-aged retired tourist, who travels fromcountry to country through a varietyof climates, within his cocoon of

air-conditioned America-Europe-NewZealand-Australia-Molochland. But it

is also helping to bring those bourgeoisvalues, attitudes and life-styles whichare compellingly attractive illnessesthat kill slowly, comfortably, turning usaway from the richness of our cultures.

I think I know what such a death is

like: for the past few years I havewatched myself (and some of thepeople I admire) dying that death.

In periods of unavoidable lucidity,I have often visualized the ultimate

development of such an architectureair-conditioned coffins lodged in air-conditioned mausoleums.

The population of our region is onlyjust over five million but we possessa cultural diversity as varied as anyother in the world. There is also a

multiplicity of social, economic, andpolitical systems all undergoing diffe¬rent stages of decolonization,* rangingfrom politically independent nations(Western Samoa, Fiji, Papua NewGuinea, Tonga, Nauru) through self-governing ones (the Solomons, theGilberts, Tuvalu) and colonies (mainly

MUD MEN OF NEW GUINEA. With

their dried-mud masks and bodies

smeared with mud, these tribesmen

from Asaro River, New Guinea (above)offer a fearsome spectacle. Theytraditionally adopted this guise to

terrify their enemies. Today this

custom survives largely in the

colourful dance they enact here at a

gathering at Mount Hagen (Central

New Guinea) held every two years.During this show, thousands of

brilliantly-decorated tribesmen from

all over New Guinea's Central

Highlands take part in displays ofdancing and spear charging. A time-honoured feature of New Guinea life

is recalled by Port Moresby's Hiri

Festival (right) which commemorates

the great annual trading voyages

made by the Motu people along thewest Papuan coast. Traditional

singing and dancing and canoe races

take place at the festival.

10

French and American) to our oppressedaboriginal brothers in Australia. Thiscultural, political, social and economicdiversity must be taken into accountin any overall programme of culturalconservation.

If as yet we may not be the mostartistically creative region in ourspaceship, we possess the potential tobecome the most artistically creative.There are more than 1,200 indigenouslanguages plus English, French, Hindi,Spanish, and various forms of pidginto catch and interpret the Void with,reinterpret our past with, create new

sociological visions of Oceania with,compose songs and poems and playsand other oral and written literature

with.

We also possess numerous otherforms of artistic expression: hundredsof dance styles; wood and stonesculpture and carvings; artifacts asvarious as our cultures; pottery,painting and tattooing. We have afabulous treasure house of traditional

motifs, themes, styles, material whichwe can use in contemporary forms toexpress our uniqueness, identity, pain,joy, and our own visions of Oceaniaand the earth.

Self-expression is a prerequisite ofself-respect.

Out of this artistic diversity hascome and will continue to come our

most worthwhile contribution to human

kind. So this diversity must bemaintained and encouraged to flourish.

Across the political barriers dividingour countries an intense artistic

activity is starting to weave firm linksbetween us.

This cultural awakening, inspiredand fostered and led by our ownpeople, will not stop at the artificialfrontiers drawn by the colonial powers.And for me, this awakening is the firstreal sign that we are breaking from thecolonial chill and starting to find ourown beings.

As Marjorie Crocombe of the CookIslands and editor of Mana Magazinehas written: "Denigrated, inhibitedand withdrawn during the colonial era,the Pacific people are again beginningto take confidence and express them¬selves in traditional forms of ex¬

pression that remain part of a valuedheritage, as well as in new forms andstyles reflecting the changes within

the continuity of the unique world ofour island cultures . . . The canoe is

afloat... the volume and quality in¬crease all the time."

One of the recent highlights of thiscultural awakening was the 1972 South

Photo Geoffrey Heard © Camera Press, London

Pacific Festival of the Arts duringwhich we came together in Fiji toperform our expressive arts. Much ofit was traditional, but new voices and

new forms, especially in literature,were emerging.

Up to a few years ago nearly all theliterature about Oceania was written

by papalagi and other outsiders. Ourislands were and still are a goldminefor romantic novelists and film-makers,bar-room journalists and semi-lit¬erate tourists, sociologists and Ph. D.students, remittance men and sailingevangelists, UN "experts" and colonialadministrators and their well-groomedspouses.

Much of this literature ranges fromthe hilariously romantic through thepseudo-scholarly to the infuriatinglyracist; from the "noble savage" literaryschool through Margaret Mead and allher comings of age, Somerset Mau¬gham's puritan missionaries, drunks,and saintly whores and James Miche-ner's rascals and golden people, tothe stereotyped childlike pagan whoneeds to be steered to the light.

The Oceania found in this literature

is largely papalagi fictions, morerevealing of papalagi fantasies andhang-ups, dreams and nightmares,prejudices and ways of viewing our

CONTINUED PAGE 32

H

AFRICAN ART,WHERE THE HAND HAS EARS

'Every work of art/ says old Africa,'is like a silent word. Everything speaks.

Everything around us imparts a mysteriousenriching state of being.'

by Amadou Hampâté Bâ

THE meaning which we givenowadays to the words "art"

and "artist" and the special placewhich they occupy in modern societydo not entirely match the traditionalAfrican way of thinking.

"Art" was not something separatefrom life. It not only covered all formsof human activity, but also gave thema meaning.

Ancient Africa's view of the uni¬

verse was an all-embracing and relig¬ious one, and acts, particularly acts ofcreation, were seldom, if ever, carriedout without a reason, an intention, orappropriate ritual preparations.

No one who considers traditional

Africa from a strictly secular viewpointcan hope to understand it.

In traditional Africa there was no

AMADOU HAMPATE BA, of Mall, was amember of Unesco's Executive Board from

1962 to 1970 and has been his country'sambassador and minister plenipotentiary to theIvory CoastT'He ¡s-çurrently engaged on researchon African history; literature and ethnology,with special reference to the peoples of theNiger Bend area. Founder and later director ofthe Institut des Sciences Humaines (Instituteof Human Sciences) of Bamako (Mali), he haspublished many books and articles about Africa.His L'Étrange Destin de Wangrin (The StrangeFate of Wangrin) published in 1973 by Pressesde la Cité, Paris, was awarded the Grand PrixLittéraire de l'Afrique Noire. He recentlycontributed a chapter entitled La TraditionVivante (The Living Tradition) to Unesco'smajor publication. General History of Africa,currently in preparation. The author gave fullertreatment to the subject of the present article in astudy prepared for an International symposiumon "The Artist in Contemporary Society"organized by Unesco in Paris in July 1974.

division between the sacred and the

profane, as there is in our modernsociety. Everything was interconnec¬ted, because everything was imbuedwith a profound feeling of the Unityof Life, the Unity of all things within asacred universe where everything wasinterrelated and mutually dependent.

Every act and every gesture wereconsidered to bring into play the invi¬sible forces of life. According to thetradition of the Bambara people ofMali, these forces are the multipleaspects of the Se, or Great PrimeCreative Power, which is itself an

aspect of. the Supreme Being knownas Maa Ngala.

In such a context, actions, since theygenerated forces, were necessarilyrituals, performed so as not to upsetthe balance of the sacred forces of the

universe of which man was traditionallyboth the guardian and the guarantor.

The crafts of the iron-worker, car¬penter, leather-worker or weaver weretherefore not considered to be merelyutilitarian, domestic, economic, aesthe¬tic or recreational occupations. Theywere functions with religious signifi¬cance and played a specific rôle in thecommunity.

In the last analysis, in ancient Africaeverything was considered as art, aslong as knowledge of some kind wasinvolved and also the means and

methods of putting it into application.

Art was not only pottery, painting,etc. but everything at which peopleworked (it was called, literally, "thework of the hands") and everything

which collectively could contribute todeveloping the individual.

These creative activities were all the

more sacred since the world we live in

was considered to be merely theshadow of another, higher worldconceived of as a mysterious poollocated neither in time nor in space.

The souls and the thoughts of menwere linked to this pool. In it they^perceived shapes or impressions whichthen matured in their minds and found

expression in their words or the workof their hands.

Hence the importance of the humanhand, considered to be a tool whichreproduced on our material plane (the"plane of shadows") what had beenperceived in another dimension.

The forge of the traditional ironsmith,who had been initiated into both gen¬eral and secret knowledge handed downto him by his ancestors, was no ordi¬nary workshop, but a sanctuary whichone entered only after performing spe¬cific rites of purification.

Every tool and instrument in theforge was the symbol of one of theactive or passive life forces at work 'in the universe, and could be manipu¬lated only in a certain way and to theaccompaniment of ritual words.

In his workshop-sanctuary, the tradi¬tional African ironsmith was thus

conscious not only of performing atask or of making an object, but ofreproducing, by a mysterious analogy,the initial act of creation, thus parti- ^cipating in the central mystery of life, r

12

THE VOICE OF THE MASK.

Among the Guro people in

the south of the Ivory Coast,

the sculptor ¡s a revered and

influential figure. He owes

his prestige not only to his

manual skill but to his

contact with the unseen

forces of the universe, since

it is he who creates sacred

objects such as this mask

(58 cms. high) of polished

hardwood. Ritual marks

can be seen on the face. Photo © Luc Joubert, Paris

13

W The same was true, of other crafts,in ancient traditional societies in which

the concept of the "profane" was vir¬tually non-existent, the craftsman'sfunctions were not performed formoney or to "earn a living", butcorresponded to sacred functions, topaths of initiation, each of which wasthe medium for a body of secret know¬ledge patiently handed down from gen¬eration to generation.

This knowledge was always aboutthe mystery of the primal cosmic unity,of which each trade was one particularaspect and form of expression. Therewere a great many craftsmen's trades,because there were also a great manypossible relationships between manand the cosmos, which was the greatdwelling place of God.

- While the art of the ironsmith is

linked with the mysteries of fire andthe transformation of matter, the art ofthe weaver is bound up with the mys¬tery of rhythm and the creative Wordacting through time and space.

In ancient times, not only was atrade or art considered to be the em¬

bodiment of a particular aspect of thecosmic forces, but it was also a meansof making contact with them. To guardagainst an unwise mixing of powerswhich might prove to be incompatible,and to keep secret knowledge withinthe family, these various categories ofcraftsmen came to practise a systemof marriage within their group, regula¬ted by numerous sexual prohibitions.

It is plain to see how these chainsof initiation or ramifications of know¬

ledge gradually gave rise, throughmarriage within the group, to the spe¬cial caste system of the area formerlyknown as the Bafour (savanna regionstretching from Mauritania to Mali).These castes enjoyed unique statuswithin society.

Let us take a look at the middle

class, which particularly concerns ushere, namely the class of the crafts¬men called, in Bambara, the Nyama¬kalaw.

Owing to the sacred and esotericorigins of his functions, the Nyama-kala could under no circumstances

become a slave, and he was absolvedfrom the obligation of war serviceincumbent upon noblemen.

Each category of craftsmen, or Nya¬makalaw, constituted not only a caste,but a school of initiation. The secret

of their art was jealously guardedwithin the group and strictly handeddown from generation to generation orfrom father to son. Craftsmen were

themselves called upon to adopt ahereditary way of life, with obligationsand prohibitions designed to keep alivein t.hem the qualities and abilities re¬quired by their art.

It cannot be emphasized too stronglythat ancient Africa can be understood

only in the light of an occult and reli¬gious conception of the universe,where there is a living, dynamic forcebehind the appearances of all peopleand objects.

Initiation" taught the right way toapproach these forces, which in them¬selves, and like electricity, were nei¬ther good nor bad, but which had tobe approached In the right way so asnot to cause short-circuits or destruc¬

tive fires.

We should remember that the first

concern was not to upset in any waythe balance of forces in the universe,which, the First Man, Maa, had beenappointed to uphold and preserve byhis Creator, as were all his descen¬dants after him.

At a time when so many dangersthreaten our planet because of humanfolly and thoughtlessness, it seems tome that the principle thus raised bythe old Bambara myth has lost noneof its relevance.

After the ironsmith come the tradi¬

tional weavers, who also possess ahigh tradition of craft initiation. Ini¬tiated weavers of the Bafour work onlyin wool, and all the decorative pat¬terns on their blankets or tapestrieshave a highly precise meaning connec¬ted with the mystery of numbers andthe origin of the universe.

Woodworkers, who make ritualobjects, notably masks, themselves cutthe wood they need. Their initiation isthus linked to knowledge of the secrets

of the African bush and of plant life.Those, who make canoes must also beinitiated into the secrets of water.

Then come the leatherworkers who

are often reputed to be sorcerers and,finally, also belonging to the Nyamaka¬law, there is the special caste of djeliwor "public entertainers" also known as"griots".

Griots are not only musicians,singers, dancers and story-tellers.Some serve as ambassadors or em¬

issaries, acting as intermediaries be¬tween the great families; others may begenealogists and historians They haveother roles but those I have indicated

are their principal functions.

The griots as a class do not havetheir own initiation rites, although indi¬vidually they may belong to particularsocieties which do have such rites.

But they are nevertheless Nyamakalaw,since in fact they manipulate one ofthe greatest forces capable of actingon the human soul: the spoken word.

While the nobles are bound by tradi¬tion to observe the utmost discretion

in word and gesture, griots are com¬pletely free in this domain. As thespokesmen and intermediaries of thenobles they enjoy a special status insociety.

As craftsmen in materials or in P

14

wsrH

j*-:~^.¡

Photo © Luo Joubert, Paris

ART OF SITTING PRETTY. In Africa, the line between arts and crafts is less sharply definedthan in other parts of the world. The African craftsman is an artist in the fullest sense of the word.Everyday objects, such as the two finely-wrought chairs shown here, display the same technicalmastery and wealth of inspiration as works of religious art. Left, farmer's chair from Togo(78 cms. high). Made of two pieces of wood whose position can be adjusted by means of a slitpierced through the backrest, it can be easily dismantled. The beauty of the chair lies in its grace,simplicity and perfect balance. Above, side view of a chair of the Lobi people (Upper Volta) : seatand back-support have been fashioned in the natural curve of the wood.

L speech, transformers of natural ele¬ments, creators of objects and forms,and manipulators of forces, the Nyama¬kalaw occupied a place apart In tradi¬tional African society. They fulfilled amajor rôle as mediators between theinvisible worlds and everyday life.

Thanks to them, everyday or ritualobjects were not simply objects butrepositories of power. Such objectsmost often served to celebrate the

glory of god and of ancestors, to openthe bosom of the great sacred Mother,the Earth, or to give material form toImpressions which the soul of an ini¬tiate drew from the hidden part of thecosmos and which could not be clearlyexpressed in language.

In the traditional religion-orientedworld, fantasy did not exist. A crafts¬man did not make something in a spiritof fantasy, by chance or to satisfy awhim. The work had a purpose and afunction, and the craftsman needed tobe in a state of mind which matchedthe moment of its creation. Sometimes

he would fall Into a trance, and whenhe emerged from it, he would create.

In this case the object was not con¬sidered to be his handiwork. He was

regarded merely as an Instrument ormedium of transmission. People wouldsay about his work: "God put it intoyou", or "God has used you to createa fine work".

Art was, in fact, a religion, a formof participation in the forces of lifeand a way of belonging to both thevisible and the invisible worlds.

The craftsman had to bring himselfinto a state of inner harmony beforebeginning his work, so that this har¬mony might enter the "aura" of theobject and have the power to movethose who saw it.

He was thus obliged to perform spe¬cial ablutions and recite litanies which

helped to put him "into the right frameof mind". Once he had achieved this,he accomplished his task and trans¬mitted to the work his inner "vibration".

By sculpting, shaping, embroidering,drawing geometrical lines on leatheror weaving symbolic patterns, thecraftsman gives material form and out¬ward expression to this inner beautywhich is within him in such a way thatit enters the "aura" of the object, andcaptures the attention of those who,see it for centuries to come. This isthe whole secret of his creation.

"A thing which has not kindled beau¬ty in you", says an old adage, "cannotkindle beauty in another who looksupon it". Artistic creation was there¬fore the outward manifestation of an

inner vision of beauty which, accordingto ancient tradition, was none otherthan a reflection of the beauty of thecosmos. Art was thus priceless be¬cause this whole creative process wassomething that could not be bought.

There are some statues which onecannot call "beautiful" in the aestheticsense of the term, and yet they some¬times move us more than a lovelypicture, because they are infused with

ANCESTORS AND RAINMAKERS! The M'Bembe people of easternNigeria live in a savanna region where a slow-growing, dense-grainedwood is found. This tough material has led M'Bembe sculptors todevelop a distinctive style, emphasizing only the basic lines of the formsthey carve. Above, M'Bembe statue of an ancestor, relic of thedecoration of a great ritual drum between 400 and 500 years old.(Our cover shows a detail of this work.) The tree's growth-ringsare clearly visible on the statue, showing that it was carved acrossthe grain of the wood. Right, two figures of rain spirits ("nommo")of the Dogon people (Mali). Wrought-iron statues, 30 and 40 cms.high respectively, their hands are raised in a gesture of incantation,calling down life-giving rain from the sky.

a power which can attract or repel,according to the intention behind thework.

Occasionally, in the bush, one stum¬bles unexpectedly upon a circle ofstatues raised by the Komo (custo¬dians of traditional customs and be¬

liefs among the Bambara people ofMali) which seem to have sprung outof the earth. The shock which theyproduce is so strong that unless theirmeaning has already been explained toyou, your first instinctive reaction Isto run away.

An object may also serve as an ins¬trument for the transmission of know¬

ledge by means of the symbols whichit bears, such as tapestries, whosepatterns may be deciphered, or carvedstools whose geometrical lines have aprecise meaning.

The work of art, whatever form ittakes, is viewed by traditional Africainsas a porthole through which one cancontemplate the infinite horizon of thecosmos. One can see many things ina work of art depending on one's owndegree of development. The seer canuse it to contemplate the occult world.

Secular art, which was certainly veryrare in ancient times, differed fromreligious art only in the sense that the

secular object was not "consecrated",and therefore not "loaded" with spiritu¬al energy. And there can be no 'doubt that an object which has beenconsecrated and used for ritual does

not make the same impression as asecular object on anyone who is atall sensitive.

Secular art was considered to be

the "shadow" of religious art. It wasthe visible tip of the iceberg for theuninitiated. One example of the"shadow" role of secular art is the fact

that copies were sometimes made ofreligious masks for the Koté, ortraditional theatre.

It goes without saying that secularart has developed chiefly since thecolonial era and that it has become

very rare to discover an authenticand spiritually "loaded" object.

As soon as a mask had been

consecrated, in the Komo tradition, forexample, or among the Dogon people,it could no longer be seen in the open.It was hidden from the eyes of theuninitiated and remained either, in its

hiding-place in the bush or, in the caseof the Dogons, In the cave of themasks. Some Dogon masks are someaningful and so sacred that theyare taken out only once every sixty

16

years for the great Sigui ceremony.

The conclusion to be drawn from allthis is that traditional African art was

not produced haphazardly, and thatit served a central purpose in thehuman community.

Most works of art, whether plasticor in the oral tradition, had severallevels of meaning: a religious meaning,a meaning as entertainment and aneducational meaning. So it wasnecessary to learn to listen to tales,teaching and legends, or to look atobjects on several levels at once.This, in fact, is initiation the profoundknowledge of that which is taughtthrough things, through appearances,and through nature itself.

Everything which is, teaches throughmute speech. Form is language.Being is language. Everything islanguage.

But, you may say, all that was truein the past. How do things standnowadays?

True enough, the past few decadeshave witnessed the destruction, or!systematic disappearance, of most ofthe great traditional initiatory andcraft centres. This has happened forseveral reasons: firstly, colonization

policy with its usual and universallyapplied tendency of effacing systemsof values and indigenous customs inorder to replace them by its own; next,the promotion of trade by chambersof commerce. These, supported bythe authorities, harassed craftsmenand drove most of the workshops outof business.

To mention only two examples, the¡ronsmiths were forbidden to make

certain tools that competed with manu¬factured products imported from thecolonial mother country and plant-healers were prosecuted for the"illegal practice" of medicine.

Gradually, Negro-African art cameto be no longer tolerated except at a"folklore" level, and, even then, onlyIf it was remodelled and adapted tosuit the tastes of the rulers.

The trend became even more marked

immediately after independence, withthe general spread of customs andideologies imported from abroad andthe invasion of values based on money.Not only are initiation centres increas¬ingly rare, but even where mastersstill exist, disciples are lacking.

Western-type studies, the attractionof large neighbouring towns and thedesire to earn money draw young

people like a magnet and carry themoff towards other aspirations.

Traditional African custodians of the

arts, sciences and ancient skillsstill exist. But they are few and asa rule fairly elderly. The treasure ofknowledge, patiently handed downfor thousands of years, can still beretrieved and rescued if we act while

there is still time and are willing tolisten to what the old sages have totell us.

Since Independence, the modernAfrican artist has been struggling toassert himself. His search for auth¬

enticity and originality is both difficultand poignant, for it is not always freefrom outside Influence.

Today's African artists are on thethreshold of a new era, during whichthey will have a vital role to play. Butthe importance of this role will dependon how they respond to the challenge.

Ideally, no doubt, they should beable to return to the very roots ofAfrican tradition by seeking Instructionfrom the masters who are still

alive instruction not so much in a

technique as in a way of "tuning in"to the world.

The only message I have for youngAfrican artists is to draw their attention

to the profound meaning of theirancestral heritage. This would leadthem to take a fresh, more under¬standing and, above all, more receptivelook at the works of art of the past,for these were not only "aesthetic"works (aestheticism had very little todo with African art) but also a meansof transmitting something transcendent.

Each object from the past is likea silent word. Perhaps the youngartists of today, more sensitive andmore receptive than most people, willbe able to hear this silent word.

I can only hope that the variousgovernments concerned, aided perhapsby international institutions, will realizethe importance of this problem and atlong last recognize the full educationaland cultural importance of the arts.

We live in a very curious age.The amazing development of scienceand technology goes hand in hand,contrary to all expectations, with aworsening of living conditions. Alongwith the conquest of space has comea sort of a shrinking of our world,which has been reduced to its material

and visible dimensions alone, whereasthe traditional African craftsman, who

had never moved from his little village,had the feeling of participating in aworld of infinite dimensions and beinglinked with the whole of the livinguniverse.

The old African saying goes (andperhaps the artist of today can hear it)"Listenl Everything speaks. Every¬thing is speech. Everything seeks toinform us, to give us knowledge or anindefinable, mysteriously enrichingand constructive state of being."

"Learn to listen to silence", says oldAfrica, "and you will discover that itis music."

Amadou Hampâté Bâ

17

In traditional African society, every human activity, including

a trade or craft, had a symbolic and sacred quality. Since there

was no division between the sacred and the secular, each craftsman

in working performed a religious function. Each trade reflected

one of the many relationships between man and the universe.

In this forge (photo 1 ) in the country of the Dogon people of

the Niger Bend area of Mali, a young apprentice fans the fire by

working a pair of bellows. The air which fills the bellows is

traditionally associated with semen, the generative substance of

CRAFTSM,

WITH THE

»

life. Another fertility-symbol can be seen on the door of a millet-

granary, carved by a Dogon sculptor in the form of breasts (2).

In most African countries, cotton-weaving is an exclusively male

occupation, while cotton-spinning is done by women who, like

this Chad village woman (3) are often helped by their daughters.

A Senufo artist of the Ivory Coast (4) colours in animal shapes

he has outlined with a knife on pieces of white material joined

together and stretched out on a board. He stains the figures with

-nud and plant and vegetable dyes.

ANSHIP IN TUNE

! UNIVERSE

Photo © Léon Herschtritt, Paris Photo © Fulvio Roiter Venice

19

AFRICAN ARTSTAKE THE HIGH ROAD

AWAY FROM WESTERN ART

by Magdi Wahba

THREE general features appearto be common to all the indepen¬

dent African countries: their shared

experience of European colonization,the social mobility of their new élitesand the absorption of their cultures-into the wider context of politics,religion or social institutions. Ifnecessity be the mother of inventionshe is also the stepmother of a mono¬lithic philosophy of social organization.

The poor, the weak, the hungry canill afford variety of experience andexpression, nor can they indulge in theluxuries of disputation. Their lives arehaunted by the spectres of starvation,poverty, despair and the gruel kitchen.Nothing else really matters, and it isagainst such a background that cul¬ture must struggle to obtain a precar¬ious foothold.

Ministries and Departments of Cul¬ture have sprung up in most Africancountries whose aim is to embodythe national ideals and culture in ac¬

tivities, academies and museums, butthe most widespread means of dif¬fusion is still the radio and, to a lesserextent, television. The purveyors ofculture find very soon that their bestchance of success is in reducing theirmessage to an oral one, fitting intothe broadcasting system.

The cosy, ubiquitous transistor hasthe virtue of cheapness coupled withthe freedom of privacy. Besides itfits into the general spirit of oraltradition which has been the main

transmitter of most of African culturesince time immemorial. The radio is

also the most important means ofdissemination in the Islamo-Arab

MAGDI WAHBA of the Arab Republic ofEgypt is an authority on problems of cultureand education in Africa. A member of the

department of English at Cairo University, hewas Irom 1966 to 1970 an Under-Secretary inEgypt's Ministry of Culture. He is the author ofCultural Policy in Egypt, published in 1972 inUnesco's "Studies and Documents on CulturalPolicies' series.

countries of Africa, where the spokenword and the traditions of chant,

recitation and song are truly historicaland dominant.

Yet the question may be asked, canculture be limited to the broadcastingof words, images or music? Is not thetrue repository of culture the printedword? Roger Caillois, French phil¬osopher and writer, in a thoughtfulintroduction to a Unesco meeting ofcultural policy experts in Dakar in1969, raised this question with regardto African culture.

In substance, his words were a cryof alarm with regard to developingcountries. There was, he felt, a terribletemptation to skip the stages ofdevelopment and to go directly totelevision and the tape-recorder,without passing by reading andwriting. And yet, he maintained, thereis no true substitute for reading andwriting as stimuli for critical thought.He was convinced that cultural de¬

velopment was closely linked withschools and universities, with readingand writing. Is culture, in its broadest,universal sense not primarily the cul¬ture of the book?

If such is the case, then there islittle choice, especially against abackground of almost universal pov¬erty, but to link cultural disseminationand the preservation of cultural valueswith the educational systems of Africa.Here also may be posed the problemof the visual arts.

In the European context, after theage of the great cathedrals, artcertainly became an expression ofindividual, identifiable talent. Theartist bore a name and his name was

transmitted down to posterity bymeans of a culture based on accumul¬

ated book-learning. In most of Africa,art has always been functional, deeplyinvolved in the material, social andreligious needs of the community. Butit is also anonymous.

In North Africa, of the ancient artsof mosaic, copper beating, marquetry,and calligraphy, it is the latter onlywhich has some claim to indi¬vidualization. In Africa south of theSahara the traditional arts are becom¬

ing more and more part of a museumof folk-arts preserved with some effortfor the benefit of the tourist trade and

the research of the ethnologist.

Oral tradition, also anonymous,nevertheless survives with much more

vigour, becoming adapted to thevarious modern literary forms withremarkable ease, and thus entering,as it were, the limelight of an individu¬ated author.

Again, in North Africa, the romancesof the Arabian Nights and the epicchronicles of the Hilaliya and the talesof Antarah have obtained literarypassports to modern respectabilityin a variety of literary and dramaticadaptations, which have lifted themfrom the trough of anonymity, but alsocut them off from their social origins.

How many graduates from the edu¬cational systems in Africa wish toexplore their community and find waysand means by which they can beactive in enhancing the quality of thesociety to which they belong? How ,many schools or universities for thatmatter would happily abandon didac¬tic for non-didactic methods of ins¬

truction in order to produce a newgeneration with an intellectual curiositywhetted instead of stifled?

One of the causes of the medio¬

crity perpetuated in many Africaneducational systems is the almostblind insistence on the transmission of

certitude to wavering consciences.How can culture, local or universal,flourish in such a wilderness ofcertitudes?

Further questions we might ask are:What culture? Whose culture?

In the Islamo-Arab North there is acommon language which for historicaland religious reasons subtends a

20

common world outlook. There is a

classical heritage in that language,which can supply the people withcommon literary memories.

If a certain amount of generalizationmay be allowed, this is a condition notto be found easily in other Africanlanguages, with the possible exceptionof Swahili in the east and Wollof in the

west. English and French will remain,for a long time to come, the mainorgans of cultural and instructionaltransmission in many parts of Africa.

There is something dramatic aboutthe way in which a civilization of"orality", based on the perpetuationsof memory, is having to come to termswith the written word, in English orFrench or in the transcription of thevarious national languages.

Inevitably, the epic chants andrhythmic encomia of the "griots" losetheir immediacy when written down orbroadcast on the radio. Anthologieswith introductions by learned anthro¬pologists are saving oral tradition, butthey are also freezing it in time. Neverhas it been more true than now that "an

old man dying is a library going up inflames", to quote a Malian sociologistand historian, Amadou Hampâté Bâ(author of our article on page 12). Theproblem of music and the visual artsis no less dramatic.

In modern Arabic music, before therevival of the classical heritage, it hasbeen possible to trace influences asvaried as the rhumbas and tangos ofthe 1930s together with the odd barhere and there from Tchaikovsky orBeethoven or even Bach. These have

been added, together with such exoticinstruments as the accordion and the

electric guitar, to the classical rhythmsand melodies of traditional Arabic

music without any sense of incompa¬tibility or strangeness.

And yet Arabic music is not a folkmusic in the accepted sense of theterm, nor is it strictly "pop" music.Its classical repertoire is held as muchin reverence by one hundred millionArabs as, say, Beethoven's laterquartets are by music-lovers the worldover.

As for the music of Black Africa its

close association of the human voice

with percussion instruments places itwell within that civilization of "orality"mentioned above. The roots of this

music are in ritual and in folk memory,and their various attempts to come toterms with Afro-Cuban, Afro-Americanor even plainly Western Europeanrhythms and instruments have createdwhat may be regarded as a veryconfused mixture of modern dance

music and ritual rhythms.The integration of the artist into

society cannot be the result of anyspecial sort of legislation. Artists arenot artificially induced phenomena.They are often "made", but generallythey are "born", they are there, andsomething has to be done aboutthem.

Neither prophet nor legislator, ack- wnowledged or unacknowledged, the r

When Ramses Wissa Wassef, an Egyptian architect, set up a weavingworkshop for teenagers near Cairo, his aim was to integrate art intoeveryday life and to improve the status of the craftsman, too oftenconsidered as a manual worker rather than as an artist. (See UnescoCourier, July-August 1965). Spontaneously and without the help ofpreparatory sketches, the young weavers create remarkable tapestries.Below, detail from a tapestry depicting a traditional circumcisionceremony, by a girl artist, Rawhia Ali.

21

Il

1

Photo © Abdel Fattah Eld, Cairo

artist is often tempted to withdrawfrom the traffic of an acquisitive oran ideology-ridden society. He layshimself open to the charge of isolationand sterility, and his work may beregarded as no more than a creationof private fancy. This is not a pleasantsituation for the artist, since one ofhis main motives is to communicate

and to be appreciated.

The educational systems have toascertain, first of all, the ultimate des¬tination of the artist in African societybefore they can be expected to planthe manner of his training. Almostinevitably, the artist is to become apublic servant, a teacher or a state-supported artist.

Perhaps that is why most of theAfrican educational systems concen¬trate on the technical training ofschoolchildren in the rudiments of

draughtsmanship, mechanical drawingand those crayon or water-coloursketches of themes which inculcate

national pride at an early age andwhich grace the walls of so manyexhibitions of schoolchildren's art all

over the world.

Naturally this remark may be re¬garded as unfairly sarcastic, but thefact remains nevertheless that these

various practices do not properlyconstitute an initiation into the world

of art. They are more in the natureof tedious exercises akin to the

drawing of maps by young children.

In Egypt, the late Ramses WissaWassef had to face this problem whenhe started the weaving centre at Har-rania outside Cairo, where he en¬couraged young peasant children todevelop their own artistic gifts. Hisfirst inspiration came from reflectionon the question of the artist and thecraftsman. (See "Unesco Courier"article, July-August 1965.)

"By defining one as a creator, andthe other as a manual worker", he haswritten, "our civilization, with itsconventional classifications, routines

and ill-considered generalizations, hassundered art and craftsmanship, andis threatening to strangle both ofthem" (1).

The great interest of Ramses WissaWassef's educational experiment isthat it is applicable with slight modi¬fications anywhere in Africa. Highlysuccessful and, one might add, ex¬tremely lucrative for the young wea¬vers' co-operative, it is also an impor¬tant contribution to modern philoso¬phies of artistic education. Easily inte¬grated into the environment, whetherrural or urban, this experiment pro¬vides the key for combining the vir-

(1) Ramses Wissa Wassef, Woven by Hand.Translated from the French by Denis Mahaffey.Hamlyn, London, New York, Sydney andToronto, 1972.

tues of teaching and play without anyartificiality or concession to outsideinfluences.

This integration of the arts into whatcan loosely be called "life", is verymuch part of the general philosophyof the arts which has flourished in,

Egypt over the last thirty years or so.Hassan Fathy's world-famous experi¬ment in building the village of Gournain Upper Egypt is another illustrationof the desire to return to the roots

of a culture without sinking into thepitfalls of folklore.

Here the problem is not strictly theteaching of an art of self-expression,but rather the teaching of a craft whichis essential for the welfare of a rural

community the craft of building. Letme be allowed to describe the problem,in the author's own words:

"If a village is to be built by its ownfuture inhabitants, then we must givethem the necessary skills. Howevermuch enthusiasm the co-operativesystem may engender, it will do littlegood if the people don't know howto lay bricks. . . We need a methodof teaching the peasant the elementsof practical building so that he cancontribute usefully to the building ofhis village, but we don't want to turnhim from a productive farmer into askilled but unemployable mason . . .

"By training the . villagers on thepublic buildings, which will be erected

22

NILE VALLEY

FARMERS

WHO BUILT

THEIR

OWN VILLAGE

An Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy, has shown how a community can affirm andenrich its cultural identity by using ancient skills and materials and adapting themto modern uses and needs. He did so by teaching the villagers of Gourna inUpper Egypt to build the houses they badly needed, using mud bricks, a cheap,locally available material. Using designs which in some cases were inspired bytraditional Egyptian architecture, the villagers were able to construct a beautifulvillage whose cool, hygienic and comfortable dwellings combine modernity withreal character. Opposite page, facades of farmers' houses in one of thevillagestreets.Above, vaults under construction in the training centre where farmers learn tobecome masons. Top, village craftsmen's school nears completion.

first as the core of the village, wecan make use of the architects and

máster-craftsmen engaged by thebuilding authority, and they can passon their skills to the people. Then,even if the authority cannot afford tobuild many private houses, the skillswill have been implanted, the vil¬lage centre will be there, and the

inhabitants will be able to go onfor themselves. . . The maturing ofskill is an experience of considerablespiritual value to the craftsman,and a man who acquires the solidmastery of any skill grows in self-respect and moral stature. In factthe transformation brought about inthe personalities of the peasants when

Photos © Hassan Fathy, Cairo

they build their own village is ofgreater value than the transformationin their material condition" (1).

Both Hassan Fathy and the lateRamses Wissa Wassef had to come to

terms with the problem of integratingthe arts and crafts into a society wherethe pressures of sheer survival mighthave monopolized the attention of mostpeople.

This Integration is second nature,however, In such ritualistic societies

as that of the Mambila on the highplateau in the province of Sarduana inNorthern Nigeria. For the Mambilathere has never been relief from a

subsistence economy and yet thearts are lively because of their in¬tegration into the tribal initiationswhich constitute the spontaneouseducation of the Mambilas.

The men learn to work on jron,wood, bamboo and cotton fabrics,while the women specialize In the mostelaborate basketwork from childhood.Artistic work is associated with the

social expression of changes in sta¬tus, such as engagement and acces¬sion to adulthood. Art becomes

therefore a linguistic system of sym¬bols which Is not perfected for its own ^sake or for the sake of entertainment, r

(1) Hassan Fathy, Gourna, A Tale of TwoVillages. Ministry of Culture, Cairo, 1969.

23

kHairdressing, sculpture and painting^become so many media for expressing

highly emotional "language" ritualis-tically.

The techniques and materials of artare determined by the uses to whichtheir products will be destined.There is no pottery or sculptureamong the Peuls of the southernSahara, for example, because theirnomadic lives do not permit of suchluxuries, but the rich ornamentationof their dress makes up for this, pro¬viding an avenue for extremely com¬plex artistic inventiveness.

Different environments and social

customs have emphasized certainpurely functional or ritualistic formsof art, such as mask-painting amongthe Chokwes of Angola, and tattooingin countless hunting communities allover Africa. Carving In wood or othermaterials is also tied up with the ritualsignificance of the work of art.

The initiation of the tribal artist is

generally undertaken by the black¬smith of the village, whose positionis regarded as something betweenteacher, technocrat and maker of toolswhich he will then use himself in

carving. This Is the case among theBambara of Mali, the Baoule of theIvory Coast and the Kongo of Zaire.

In the Musée de l'Homme in Paris

there is a great statue of the godGu, god of war and patron of allblacksmiths, which was brought overfrom Dahomey during the latter halfof the 19th century. Made of bits ofscrap iron, chain and railway girdersfrom Europe, it is none the less anAfrican representation of a dominantgod, whose province is both destruc¬tion and the making of llfe-perpetu-ating works of art.

It Is from this foundation of absolute

social integration without any pretenceof exhibitionistic Individualization or

academic drawing, that educationin the arts must begin if it is not tocontribute to a pale parody of westernEuropean art.

Basically, the problem in Africa isone of coming to terms with theoutside world. It is no use pretendingthat nationalism Is enough, or thatcultural resistance can find a modus

vivendi with technological progress.Nationhood ¡s a fact, not an angryargument, and the so-called African"personality" is nothing if it is not theaggregate of millions of individuallyunique personalities.

The true challenge lies, therefore,In the response to that very simple,that poignantly simple, Article 1 ofthe Universal Declaration of Human

Rights: "All human beings are bornfree and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason andconscience and should act towards

one another in a spirit of brother¬hood." In the last analysis, is anythingelse either verifiable or true ?

Magdl Wahba

THE CHILDREN

OF THE WHALE

Extraordinary legendsmake up the oral traditionsof Siberia's far north

by Yuri Rytkheou

WHY is It that research on oral

traditions, especially thoseof the peoples of the North, hasconcentrated mainly on tales of fantasyor on heroic epics divorced fromeveryday life? What has become ofall the realistic stories and historical

legends, many of which are sufficientlyprecise and authentic to take the placeof written sources?

Could It be that this type of storyrepresented a mass culture which hasbeen gradually vanishing like an out-

YURI RYTKHEOU is a Soviet writer whose

work is rooted in the oral folk tradition of his

people, the Chukchi of far eastern Siberia. Hisbooks on the Chukchi have been translated

Into many languages. Among his publishedworks are The Chukot Saga (1956), The Meltingof the Snows (in Russian, 1958) and A Dreamin Gathering Mists (1959). He has also produceda collection of Chukchi tales, published InFrench with Unesco assistance as Contes de

la Tchoukotka (Les Publications Orientalistes,Paris, 1974). The complete version of thepresent text has just appeared in Unesco'sinternational quarterly "Cultures" (Volume II,No. 4, 1975).

dated fashion? I do not believe this

is the case.

I think It would be wrong to considerthe vast store of folklore which has

not been published in collections oftales and legends as the mass cultureof the era before such stories were

recorded In writing.

We should remember that there was

an unwritten law, a kind of tacitcensorship Imposed by the rules ofsociety which restricted the diffusionof these stories. The Chukchi peopleof northeastern Siberia, near the

Bering Strait, for instance, have aproverb about the power of the spokenword. "A word can kill a man", they

say.

I heard Chukchi tales and legendsfrom the lips of my grandparents, whobrought me up. As I lay under thecover of the reindeer-skin rug, myheart would skip a beat when a passingguest, come to seek the warmth of ourhearth, began to recount some tale^unknown to me. "

24

The Chukchi and Eskimo peoples of northeastern Siberia have a rich folklore of tales, fables,proverbs, songs and dances. One legend relates that they have a common ancestor, a whale-father.Photo shows a famous Eskimo singer and dancer, Nutetein, who composed songs in the Chukchalanguage, accompanying them on the ¡arar, the traditional Chukchi drum made from the skin ofa walrus's stomach stretched across a circular frame. . Photo was taken shortly before his death.

25

The folk tales of the Chukchi, unlikemodern written literature, contained awealth of circumstantial detail about

place and time of year, though thehero of the tale was seldom named,

only his tribe and the language hespoke.

How then were books reconciledwith this ancient and familiar art of

story-telling in the traditional settingof the yaranga, the Chukchi tent ofseal or reindeer skins? When I was

a child, the Chukchi had alreadyceased to look on books as an

unfathomable miracle. Some would

speak with a condescending smile ofthe time when these solid slabs of

pages were mistaken for the well-tanned skins of some mysteriousbeast, and reading was likened to thefamiliar process of nosing out tracks,with the sole difference that ¡n this

case it was human speech that wasbeing "nosed out".

But in my childhood books werealready familiar objects; only theircontents were regarded as miraculous.

In the beginning, books naturallyousted oral folk literature which, alongwith the yaranga, skin boats and furthigh-boots, was regarded as a relicof the past, a sign of backwardness.

At the same time we could not

discard folk literature completely.

In my own experience, oral literaturewas a constant, familiar element inour lives, and one which we acceptedas natural. Even at the time when

I was studying at the university andhelping to compile textbooks forChukchi schools and anthologies andcollections of stories, for me oral folkliterature was a reality, somethingexisting and developing Independently.

But it was only when I began mycareer as a writer that I was led toreflect about the role of the oraltradition.

AD I not studied the history ofI B world literature and attendedlectures on folklore, aesthetics andother academic subjects, I" might per¬haps never have pondered on thesources which were to provide theroots for my literary work. These rootswent straight back to the oral folktradition of my own people.

But there was one thing that made 'me pause: contemporary literature isso totally different from unwritten loreand especially the tales, legends andmyths and moral stories of the Chuk¬chi people. Who would listen to merecounting these tales, however newthey might be, even if I wrote themdown? And what could I hope todiscern with the help of the artisticvision of my forbears? Would I notbe like someone attempting to make

new discoveries in astronomy whileusing a telescope as . rudimentary asGalileo's?

At the time when I was writing myfirst stories there already existed, inboth Soviet and world literature, a

quantity of works describing themysterious life of the land of themidnight sun, the people of the Arcticwastes, the realm of ice and snow.

A few books had been written bycaptains of whaling vessels who hadobserved the life of the shore encamp¬ments through their binoculars and,on the basis of what they saw, hadtried to describe the life and character

of the Arctic peoples. Most of theother accounts of the Chukchi and

Eskimos expressed sympathy with theirstruggle for existence, combined withastonishment and admiration for theirachievements. These books credited

my people with all kinds of real virtues,now half forgotten, such as their out¬standing honesty and capacity forself-sacrifice, their warm hospitality,their readiness to help the traveller,qualities described as now rare amongthe peoples of so-called civilizedsocieties.

But surprising as It may seem, myown feeling when reading thesestories was one of profound andgrowing irritation. I could almost seethe well-meaning author making asthough to pat me condescendingly onthe head and with a pitying smile onhis face, offer me a crumb from histable. It never occurred to him to

invite me to sit by his side, or evensimply to shake me by the hand. Hisattitude was one of pity and sympathyfor his younger brother, whom he wastrying, perhaps even sincerely, to helpand please.

There were of course also some

works, European, American and Soviet,full of genuinely humane feeling. Butall viewed the subject as It were fromoutside, and while being enrapturedby It, the authors were no less en¬raptured by their own nobility.

About the middle of the 1950sI decided to write a story about acontemporary of mine, a man who haddiscovered modern culture through aseries of astonishing and often dis¬tressing adventures. I wanted to findout what happened when a man whohad his roots in an ancient culturecame into contact with a great moderncivilization with all its diversities anduneven values. So I wrote the book

that was subsequently entitled TheMelting of the Snows.

I delved back into the memories of

my own childhood, to those momentsof vision when I suddenly seemed tosee things with extraordinary clarity.I found it impossible, of course, toconvey the atmosphere of my child¬hood days without recapturing myattitudes and those of the peopleamongst whom I lived. And it wasthen that I saw how our whole way of

life had been coloured by the oral folktraditions which formed the back¬

ground of our everyday philosophy.

The whole of The Melting of theSnows was permeated by the talesand legends of my childhood days.And I realized that in a book of this

kind, I could not do without them.Had I tried to eliminate all the folk

elements, there would simply havebeen nothing left. And as time wenton, I found It more difficult to dowithout the resources of folklore.

A few years ago, I set to workon the novel A Dream in the

Gathering Mist. This is the story of aCanadian man who is to spend all hislife amongst the Chukchi people. Itsprincipal theme is the brotherhood ofmen regardless of their origins, thecolour of their skin and the stage theyhave reached on the road to social

progress. j

I had to find a way of enabling theChukchi to convey to the Canadiantheir ideas about the brotherhood of

man, so I made one of the heroes ofthe novel, Toko the hunter, who hadgiven the Canadian shelter, recountthe ancient legend of the origin of theseafaring folk, the hunters of the sea.

"...old men say that on theseshores, In days long ago, there liveda young maiden. And so beautifulwas she that even the mighty sun,gazing at her in wonderment, remainedalways in the sky, and the starscame out in daylight to behold her.Wherever she trod, flowers sprang up,and fountains of water spurted forth.

"The fair maiden went often down,to the shores of the sea, for she lovedto watch the movement of the waves

and listen to their rippling. Thewhisper of the wind and the waveswould sometimes lull her to sleep, andthen the beasts of the sea would

gather on the shore to gaze upon her.The walruses would come up on to theshingle, and the seals stared at themaiden with their unblinking eyes.

"Then one day, an enormousGreenland whale came swimming past.His curiosity aroused, by the clusterof beasts on shore, he came closerin, perceived the maiden and was soentranced by her beauty that heforgot whither he was going, and onwhat errand bent.

"And when the sun, exhausted, hadsunk down on the horizon to rest

awhile, the whale swam inshore again,touched the shingle with his snout,and turned into a comely youth. Themaiden, seeing him, cast down hereyes. So the youth took the maidenby the hand and led her into thetundra, into the soft gras.';, and laywith her on a carpet of flowers. Andso It was that, every time the sun sank

26

down on to the horizon to rest, thewhale swam inshore, turned into a manand lay with the fair maiden.

"Time went by, and she knew thatshe was with child. So the whaleman

built a large yaranga where he tookup his abode with the maiden, andnever again swam out to sea.

"Whale-babies were born, and theirfather put them in a small lagoon.Whenever they swam up to the shorein search of food, their mother would

,go down to meet them. They grew¡apace, and soon there was no longerroom for them in the lagoon, and theybegan to yearn for the freedom of theopen sea.

"Their mother grieved to see themgo, but all to no avail, for whales arebeasts of the deep. So the whale-children swam away out to sea; andtheir mother conceived once more, but

, this time she bore not whales buthuman children. The whale-children

never forgot their parents, and oftenswam Inshore to gambol in their sight.

"Time passed. The children grewup and the parents grew old. Thefather went out hunting no more andhis sons procured the food. The firsttime they set out to sea, the fathercalled them to him, and pronouncedthese parting words:

" 'For the bold and the strong, thesea will provide. But remember onething: your brothers also live in thesea as well as your distant cousins thedolphins and the finback whales.Never raise your hand against them.'

"Soon after this the father died: and

the mother grew too old to accompanyher sons out to sea. The sons took

wives, and many children were bornto them. They needed more and morefood. So the whale children became

seafaring people Chukchi and Eski¬mos living by trapping and huntingthe beasts of the sea.

"Then came a year when there waslittle game to be caught offshore. Thewalruses no longer followed the pathto the village, the seals swam off todistant parts, and the hunters wereforced to ßo far out to sea where theyperished, some on the Ice-fields, somein the ocean depths.

"Only the whales were always there,gamboling merrily off the shore. Thenone day, one of the hunters said:

" 'Why do we not kill the whales?Just think of all that meat and blubberl

Why, one carcass would suffice for usall, both us and our dogs, the winterthrough.'

" "But have you forgotten, then, thatthe whales are our brothers?' the

others objected.

" 'How can they be our brothers?',scoffed the one who had spoken first.'They live not on land but in the water,they have long, ungainly bodies and

they know not a word of humanlanguage.'

" 'But legend says ..." protestedthe others.

" 'A fine lot of old wives' tales . . .the first hunter cut them short, andwent off to prepare his boat, takingall the most skilled and stalwart

oarsmen along with him.

"Catching a whale presented noproblem, for they all swam up to theboat, as they always did when theysaw their brothers putting out to sea.But this time their trust spelled deathto one of their number.

"Once harpooned, It was a longstruggle, to drag the whale to shore,and all the folk of the village, includingeven the women and children, weresummoned to help.

"The man who had caught the whaleentered the yaranga to tell his motherof the prey he had captured for thepeople. But she already knew andwas dying of grief.

" 'I have killed a whale', he said ashe came in, "a solid mass of meat andblubber."

" 'It Is your brother you have killed',his mother replied, 'and if today youare ready to kill your brother justbecause he looks different from

you, what will you be ready to dotomorrow?'

" "And so saying, she breathed herlast."

B;I Y using this ancient fable in mynovel, I was able to convey my

meaning without boring my readerswith a long didactic exposition.

There is of course nothing novelabout my discovery that works of oraltradition may often be the only meansof reaching the modern reader, andindeed increasing numbers of Sovietwriters are adopting this device.

It is impossible, for instance, toconceive of Chlnghiz Aitmatov's tale,The White Steamer, stripped of thepoetic legend of the Horned DeerMother, the ancestress of the Kirghizpeople.

Aitmatov has, I think, succeeded inmaking the best possible use of theancient myths of his people, and hehas found the ideal solution to the

problem of the modern writer and oralfolk tradition.

The writing of the other newlyliterate peoples of the Soviet Arctichas developed along roughly the samelines. Many of their writers are mycontemporaries, personal friends ofmine, and most of them studied withme in Leningrad. But for all theirsimilarities, they differ widely fromone another both in the character of

their work and in their attitude to ouroral folk traditions.

Vladimir Sanghi, who Is of Nivkhnationality, was born on the Island ofSakhalin, in the easternmost part ofthe Soviet Union. He was steepedfrom earliest childhood in the en¬chanted atmosphere of Nivkh oralpoetry with which are blended elementsof the culture of the North Pacific

Ocean, the transitional zone betweenthe warm tropical waters and thefrozen Arctic seas.

Sanghi, after completing his studies,returned to Sakhalin and began tomake a collection of the island folklore.

He started his literary career bypublishing folktales in Russian and hisnative language, and in this way hediscovered his vocation as a writer.

THE Mansi poet Yuvan Shestalovbelongs to a people of hunters

and reindeer breeders living in theArctic foothills of the Urals. The

Mansi, like the neighbouring Khantypeople, belong to the Finno-Ugrianlinguistic group. As a poet, Shestalovdraws deeply on the treasures of hisnative folklore. Some of his poemsand song-cycles are based wholly onsubjects taken from oral poetic tra¬dition, while others are simply atransposition of folk legends.

So it Is clear that oral folk tradition

plays a considerable part in themodern literature of the newly literatepeoples, even though writers rarelydraw on this material when dealingwith present-day society on thegrounds that it provides no solutionsfor the urgent problems of our time.And yet contemporary literature offersmany examples of the use of mytho¬logical themes for the solution of vitalartistic problems.

But the question still remains as tohow to use this invaluable material

for the enrichment of contemporaryculture, how to find a place for it notonly in books, archives and recordings,but also as a source for literarycreation. And this is a question towhich I can see no simple answer.Indeed, there probably can be none,for every modern writer evolves hisown individual attitude to the rich oral

heritage of his own people.

Yet a return to one's origins, to theunsullied sources of folk art nearlyalways leads to new artistic dis¬coveries. No works of man breathe

such joy and optimism, such faith inthe triumph of good over evil, suchsubtle humour and such sensitive

understanding of social harmony andjustice as we find in oral folklore.

These, I believe, are the qualitiesthat for countless centuries have

enabled oral folk traditions to shapethe attitudes of each new generation.

Yuri Rytkheou

21

THREE IN ONELatin America's originality as a continentof Indian, African and Iberianracial and cultural mixture

THE vast ensemble of land,

history and peoples which wecall (inappropriately to say the least)Latin America has a great variety ofdistinctive characteristics. Racial inter¬

mixture (mestizaje) is its most typicaland striking feature.

This word, discredited because ofthe derogatory connotations given toit for many reasons by Europeans,in reality implies much more than asimple question of mixed blood.

It Is true that there has been a

considerable and significant inter¬mingling of peoples in Latin Americaduring the past five centuries of itshistory. The Spaniards Interbredwith the Indians. In fact the first

direct contact between Indian and

European was probably that of rapeand from the earliest days there werecountless mestizos born throughoutthe length and breadth of the SpanishEmpire in the Americas.

The rise of new institutions and

political structures in the centres ofpower In Lima, in Mexico City andin Santo Domingo was contemporarywith the appearance of a large mestizopopulation. But Spaniards and Indianswere not alone In this Interminglingof peoples. Soon black slavesappeared on the continent, formingthe principal If not the sole labourforce on the plantations, in cattle-raising and in domestic service.

This intermixing of races, practisedto varying degrees depending on theperiod or the region, was both wide¬spread and significant. More import¬ant than Its social effects, however,was a much less visible and far more

profound process the meeting, con¬frontation and fusion of living culturalheritages.

The dominant and characteristic

heritage was brought in the 16th and

ARTURO USLAR-PIETRI, Venezuela's am¬bassador and permanent delegate to Unesco, Isone of Latin America's most famous writers.

Author of many novels, short stories and essayssuch as La Otra América (The Other America)he has been professor of Hispano-Americanliterature at Columbia University (U.S.A.). Hisnovel Las Lanzas Coloradas has been publishedIn English as The Red Lances (Knopf, NewYork, 1962).

17th centuries by the Spaniards, inthe form and image of a closedhierarchical society with its seigneurialorder, its Catholic faith, a dispositionfor belligerence and mysticism, and ascorn for work and manual occupations.

The second heritage was that of thegreat indigenous civilizations, staticand marked by a concept of work,order and values that was un-

assimilable in the new social context.

Finally appeared the heritage of theNegroes from the west coast of Africa.They were wrenched from a variety ofcultures and ethnic groups, thrustforth from the holds of slave ships,with their languages, beliefs, songs,dances and traditions, and broughtface to face with two other cultures

in an unknown environment.

These three cultural heritages metin confrontation and intermingled toform an amalgam which was notconfined to particular areas but spreadin varying degrees throughout theentire continent, forming the sub¬stratum of its social and cultural life.

The encounter of these three

historical forces on this vast new

geographical stage wrought greatchanges In each of them, and In timeforged the dominant characteristics ofthe new society.

The Spaniard who had come to theIndies was subjected to far-reachingchanges which affected almost every¬thing he did. He soon ceased toresemble those who had remained

behind in his native peninsula. Hislanguage, his food, the rhythm of hislife, his relationships in work and hisplace in the hierarchy all changed.

More often than not he had to learn

to live in a tropical climate, or in theshadow of the all-pervading forest orat heights where it was difficult forhim to breathe. The absence, at first,of cows, oxen and beasts of burdenmade his adaptation to the newcircumstances a traumatic experience.Instead of wheat and beef he had to

eat new foodstuffs, Including hithertounknown South American producesuch as the potato, the yucca, thetomato and maize.

The chroniclers of that time echo

the astonishment of the Spaniard faced

with this new experience. They tellof the need to eat "roots" and theyseek Ingenuous metaphors to describeand name new fruits such as the

guava, the avocado pear, the annona,the coconut and the pineapple.

New objects brought with themstrange names. The Spanish languagebecame host to South American neo¬

logisms which not only designated newthings but also described new relation¬ships. Words such as cannibal, hurri¬cane, canoe, hammock and caciquewere destined to pass into all theEuropean languages. When theSpaniard who had lived in SouthAmerica returned to Europe he wasconsidered a foreigner and given thename "Indiano".

No less fundamental was the

change experienced by the Indians andthe Negroes. They were subject tothe working relationships of Europeand to forms of servitude which theyhad not known in the past. They sawnew types of -buildings arise" incor¬porating Spanish and African features.They became acquainted with articlesof furniture they had never seenbefore, such as the bed, objects suchas the saddle, strange drinks, a newlanguage, new ways of behaviour, aradically different form of worship andan unaccustomed mode of dress.

Those who were born in the 'new

environment created by the minglingof the three races were subject to thecontinual interaction of the threecultures. A child such as Garcilaso

de la Vega, called "El Inca" (1539-1616) who was to be one of thegreatest chroniclers in Spanish of histime, was born and brought up in ahouse in Cuzco (Peru) that was typicalof this mixing of cultures.

In one wing his father, Captain Se¬bastian Garcilaso de la Vega discussedwith his comrades in arms, his friarsand his counsellors the affairs "ofCastile and Almería from the view¬

point of an expatriate Castilian. Inanother, his mother, the Inca PrincessIsabel Chlmpu Ocllo with her relatives,members of the last Inca royal family,would converse In the Quechualanguage, recalling the annals and pastgrandeurs of the Incas. .

A difficult and constant process ofinterpénétration of these two contrary

28

The clothes worn by the Indians of Tarabuco In Bolivia are anexample of the assimilation and transformation of various aspectsof Hispanic culture in Latin America. As well as his cloak, thetraditional "poncho", this Indian wears a hat whose shape recallsthe helmets of the conquistadors. The instrument he is holding,a charango, resembles the small Spanish guitar known as thebandurria, although it is higher-pitched and has fewer strings. Atfestival time, the Indians of Tarabuco wear spurs, possibly anotherreminder of the conquistadors, to beat out their dance-rhythms.

visions of the world went on in the

child's mind, shaping a mentality anda sensibility that could never becompletely either that of an Indianor that of a Spaniard. It was thisparticular sensibility and vision whichlater enabled him to write his "RoyalCommentaries of the Incas", the firstgreat original testimony of the NewWorld as it faced Europe, and the firstexpression of an awareness of whatit meant to be a Hispano-Amerlcan.

Two and a half centuries later, ina house in Caracas (Venezuela), a boynamed Simon Bolivar was to inherit

the combined legacy of the threeraces, by now mingled and modified.His governess during the deeplyformative years of his childhood wasone of his family's slaves, a Negresscalled Hipólita. Many subconscioustraces of the songs and fables that theslave retained from her remote African

heritage must have remained in themind and sensibility of the futureLiberator of Latin America.

Years later, returning from hisextraordinary liberation campaignswhich had carried him as far as thehigh-plateaux of Bolivia and Peru,Bolivar was making a triumphal entryinto Caracas when he noticed Hipólitaamong the crowds pressing round toacclaim him. He immediately dis¬mounted from his horse and went and

hugged her to the astonishment of allaround him.

This process of mingling and trans¬formation extended to all aspects oflife.- Nothing could be adaptedand transplanted without undergoingchanges and modifications arisingfrom the interaction of the three

cultural heritages and the geographicalenvironment.

The mixture of influences was not

identical in all Its social aspects norin all countries. In music the presenceof the Spaniard and the Negro wasmore predominant than that of theIndian. The Spanish guitar and theAfrican drum began a long counter¬point which has still not drawn to anend and which has created originalrhythms and songs that have spreadacross the entire world.

In architecture and decoration, how¬ever, the influence of the Indian was.

more apparent than that of the Negro.

29

.The great blossoming of architecturalforms which has been called the

"baroque of the Indies" is one fruitfulinstance and proof of this. All overLatin America,. from the high-plateauxof the Andean cordillera to the

Mexican meseta, admirable examplesexist of this new sensibility. Thebaroque facade was endowed with afresh gracefulness and a wealth ofdecoration wrought by local craftsmen.

Buildings such as the Church ofLa Compañía in Quito (Ecuador) orthe Sanctuary of Ocotlan in Mexicocould never have seen the light ofday In Spain. The ruins which standin the forests on the sites of former

Jesuit missions in Paraguay are theresult of this remote and far reachingencounter which took place throughoutSouth America.

The meeting of these cultures ledto their separation from their originalsources at a historic period in theirevolution. This too was part of thegreat process of transplantation andconfrontation. Thereafter, Negroesand Indians were cut off from anyfurther developments in the culturesfrom which they had sprung.

This was true also for the Spaniards.Spanish culture in Latin Americatended to become outmoded and to

lag behind the later changes thatoccurred in Spain. In some casescommunication between the two conti¬

nents was inexistent and in others it

was slow and incomplete.

The Spain of the 17th century lastedmuch longer in Latin America than itdid in the Iberian peninsula. Thechanges introduced by the Bourbons

not only concerning customs andvalues but also language reachedLatin America late and incomplete. AHispano-American of the 18th centuryspoke a Spanish which was dated andretained customs and tastes which in

Spain had almost disappeared.

Cultural intermixture and a different,slowed-down historical "tempo" havesince been fundamental and lastingcharacteristics of the whole of LatinAmerica.

This is not, however, a passiveoriginality created by contrastingfactors or a fortuitous mingling offoreign elements. «It is an originalitythat comes from a positive awarenessand acceptance of enrichment fromother sources which Is exemplified inall the great epochs of Latin Americancultural creation, be It the "baroque ofthe Indies" or modernism In literature.

Modernism flourished in Latin

.American letters between 1880 and

1914 and produced personalities asoutstanding as the poet and authorRuben Dario. Here we have a man

born in the shadow of the volcanoes

of Central America, in a remotecorner of Nicaragua where culturesmingled, who not only managed toproduce a miraculous symbiosis ofthe most traditional and the most

modern in European letters but was

Photo © Vautier-Decool, Paris

also responsible for the greatest andmost fertile upheaval ever experiencedin the literatures of Spain and LatinAmerica.

Neither Spain nor any other Euro¬pean country could have given birthto a man like Dario. His native

cultural environment taught him toreceive and combine ancient and

modern, Spanish culture and Indianculture, tradition and innovation,standing apart from schools andperiods, with none of the historicallimitations of Europe.

The break for which Dario was

responsible was not the result ofdissension between various "schools"

but sprang from a free acceptance ofthe whole varied, and even contradic

tory, cultural universe which was hisas a Latin American. He was able to

draw on what belonged to yesterdayand what belonged to today from theheritages of the Chorotega Indians andthe Castilians of the past to the FrenchInfluence of his own time, without feel¬

ing that he was breaking any boundsor infringing any temporal standard.

This accretion of sources and this

mingling of periods and styles can befound in all the major creations ofHispano-American art. What in recentyears has been called the Latin Am¬erican "literary boom" is nothing morenor less than a somewhat belated

discovery, in the work of certain majorwriters, of this mingling which, bowingto European standards, some have

30

Photo © Eduardo Barrios, Paris

CARNIVAL IN ORURO (BOLIVIA)

The fusion of different cultures which has accompanied ethnic intermixture in LatinAmerica is one of the continent's most distinctive characteristics a unique, creativeprocess still going on today. The builders of the Church of Santa Prisca in Taxco nearMexico City (opposite page) were influenced by and incorporated Spanish architecturalfeatures in the building. But they transformed the baroque of the Iberian peninsulainto a rich, exuberant style that is characteristically Latin American. Above, carnivalscene at Oruro (Bolivia). The black-painted faces of the dancers and the shape of thedrums they beat recall the presence of the African Negro in Bolivia and his influence on itslife and culture. From the 18th century African Negroes settled in Bolivia's yungas(tropical valleys) to escape the harsh climate of the high Andes and the arduous workingconditions of silver and tin mines situated at altitudes of up to 4,000 metres.

called "baroquism". In this particularcase, rather than "baroquism" itshould be called Hispano-Americanism.

In my opinion this is the greatcontribution of the veritable creative

originality of Latin America to westerncivilization. Western civilization is

the offspring of a wider and morecomplex mingling which has gone onfor fifteen centuries between the

most contradictory of heritages andinfluences.

The incredible and, at times, almostIrreconcilable mixture of the Latin and

the Germanic, the Christian and thepagan, created new cultural forms andnew languages. Into the melting potwere cast German traditional law and

Roman Law, primitive beliefs and

Christianity, the poetic genealogy ofBarbarian deities and Jewish prophecy,along with Greek philosophy, theaesthetic norms of the classical world

and the concepts of a vast mosaicof nomad tribes and primitive peoples.

From this amalgam sprang Roman¬esque and Gothic and from It camethe languages of today. From thissource, too, came the fundamentalcharacteristics of the first civilization

which was to spread throughout theentire world.

This process came to an end inEurope many centuries ago. We couldperhaps say that it ended with theReformation and the Renaissancewhich to a certain extent stabilized

and guided the future of Europe. But

today the only great ensemble of landsand peoples where this processcontinues with full creative force isLatin America.

From Mexico to Argentina thisvast formative process Is still goingon with an intensity that varies fromregion to region, characterizing theidentity and vocation of this entirefamily of peoples. The great culturalcurrents of the original three sourcesand the others that joined them In themaking of the New World are todaydeveloping, in fruitful and unexpectedassociations, their capacity to producenew possibilities of existence andexpression. '

Latin America, whose name is so .inappropriate, is neither a new Europe ^

31

nor a "Far West" but a metamorphosis'of what is Western on a stage open tothe influence of all that is non-

Western. This has never happened

elsewhere during any of the greatperiods of the global expansion ofwestern culture.

Throughout most of Asia and Africathe European presence had a markedimpact but it remained superimposedand separate, as a kind of historicalexile which reproduced European lifeand forms on top of the unasslmilatedand even segregated cultures of theAfrican and Asian peoples. In Asiaand Africa the original culture andpeoples were submerged under thesuperimposed imported structures ofthe countries and societies of Europe.

Only in Latin America do we finda living process of cultural Intermin¬gling similar to that which producedthe culture of the Western world.

And this is not only its principal origi¬nality but also its most importantcontribution to the cultural future of

the world society of tomorrow. In noother part of the globe is there acomparable example of the creativeinteraction of different cultures.

The capital importance of this

process has been underlined by manyillustrious Latin Americans. Bolivar,

in the days of his struggle for thepolitical freedom of the SouthAmerican continent, spoke of thischaracteristic and its consequences.He even declared that Latin America

constituted a sort of "microcosm of

mankind", "neither Indian nor Spanish"

and that its full flowering on the sceneof history constituted "the hope ofthe universe".

This ¡s a trait of major importancefor a vast family of peoples at a timewhen the world is. advancing towardthe broadest forms of co-operationand integration which have ever beenenvisaged.

Today we talk of continental

integration and global systems ofInternational co-operation, and yetconstantly come up against the diffi¬cult obstacles which history hasplaced between peoples of the samecontinent.

Europe and Asia are complicatedmosaics of languages and sub-cultures,of religious differences and oldquarrels of identity which are a majorhindrance to the process of integration.

None of these conflicts exists in

Latin America. Shared by two sisterlanguages Spanish and Portuguese

which are practically identical meansof communication, Latin America hasone dominant creed and a similar

cultural past. Today it constitutesthe largest family of peoples unitedby a community of language, culture,religion, history and territory. Itspresent population of almost 300million will rise to 500 or 600 million

by the year 2000. The most elemen¬tary sense of unity and collaborationshould transform their continent into

one of the most significant theatres offuture world history.

From the Tropic of Cancer to theAntarctic, from the summits of theAndes to the coasts of the Pacific

and the Atlantic, with every kind ofclimate and type of soil, with all thenatural resources, land and water

necessary for immense development,Latin America is today the world'sgreatest reservoir of geographical inte¬gration and united peoples. Moreover,Its tradition of racial intermixture

enables it to draw close to and freelycommunicate with all the cultures of

the modern world.

Arturo Uslar-Pietrl

THE ANGRY YOUNG MEN OF OCEANIA Continued from page 11

crippled cosmos, than of our actual

islands. I am not saying we shouldreject such a literature, or that papalagishould not write about us, and vice

versa. But the imagination mustexplore with love, honesty, wisdomand compassion.

Writers must write with aroha, aloha,

alofa, loloma (1), respecting the peoplethey are writing about, people whomay view the void differently and who,like all other human beings, livethrough the pores of their flesh andmind and bone, who suffer, laugh, cry,copulate, and die.

In the last few years what can becalled a South Pacific literature has

started to blossom. In New Zealand,

Alistair Campbell, of Cook Islanddescent, is acknowledged as a majorpoet; three Maori writers HoneTuwhare (poet), Witi Ihimaera (novel¬ist), and Patricia Grace (short stories)

have become extremely well known.

In Australia, the aboriginal poetsKathy Walker and Jack Davis continueto plot the suffering of their people.In Papua New Guinea, "The Crocodile"by Vincent Eri the first Papuan novel

(1) Respectively Maori, Hawaiian, Samoanand Fijian words each meaning love, com¬passion, charity.

to be published has already becomea minor classic. Also in that countrypoets such as John Kasaipwalova,Kumalau Tawali, Alan Natachee, and

Apisai Enos, and playwrights likeArthur Jawodlmbari are publishingsome powerful work.

Papua New Guinea has establisheda very forward-looking Creative ArtsCentre, which is acting as a catalystin the expressive arts movement, a

travelling theatre, and an Institute ofPapua New Guinea Studies. KovaveMagazine, put out by a group of PapuaNew Guinea writers, is already arespected literary journal.

Mana Magazine and Mana Publi¬cations, established by the SouthPacific Creative Arts Society, havebeen a major catalyst in stimulatingthe growth of this new literature,especially In countries outside PapuaNew Guinea. Already numerousyoung poets, prose writers andplaywrights have emerged. Some ofthem, we hope, will develop into majorwriters.

Our ties transcend barriers of

culture, race, petty nationalism, andpolitics. Our writing is expressing arevolt against the hypocritical andexploitative aspects of our traditional,commercial and religious hierarchies,

colonialism and neo-colonialism, and

the degrading values being imposedfrom outside and by some elementsIn our societies.

In the traditional visual arts there

has been a tremendous revival. That

revival Is also finding contemporaryexpression in the work of Maori artistssuch as Selwyn Muru, Ralph Hotere,Para Matchltt and Buck Nin; in thework of Alol Pilioko of the Wallis and

Futuna Islands, Akis and Kauage ofPapua New Guinea, Aleki Prescott ofTonga, Sven Orquist of WesternSamoa, Kuai of the Solomons, andmany others.

The same is true in music and

dance. The National Dance Theatres

of Fiji and the Cook Islands arealready well known throughout theworld.

This artistic renaissance is enrichingour cultures further, relnforcinq ouridentities, self-respect, and pride, and

taking us through a genuine de¬colonization; it is also acting as a

unifying force In our region. In theirindividual journeys Into the void, theseartists, through their work, are ex¬plaining us to ourselves and creatinga new Oceania.

Albert Wendt

32

BOOKSHELF

UNESCO BOOKS * PERIODICALS

World Problems in Education, byJean Thomas. 1975, 166 pp. (24 F);Constructive Education for Children,by W.D. Wall. Co-published withHarrap, London (Available throughUnesco except in U.K. where Harraphas exclusive rights) 1975, 349 pp.(54 F paperbound; 68 F hardbound)Both published in the InternationalBureau of Education's "Studies andSurveys in Comparative Education"series.

New Unesco Source Book for

Science Teaching. Published as a"Modern Asia Edition" by CharlesE. Tuttle Company, Tokyo, 1975.

Source Book for Geography Tea¬ching. Published by Orient LongmanLtd., New Delhi, under arrangementwith Unesco, 1973. 254 pp. (Rs 15.00)

Script Writing for Short Films, byJames A. Beveridge. 3rd impression1975. 45 pp. (6 F); Access: Techno¬logy and Access to CommunicationsMedia, by B.R. Webster. 1975, 54 pp.(8 F) Both published in Unesco's"Reports and Papers on Mass Com¬munication" series.

Music in Film and Television. An

international selective catalogue,1964-1974, compiled and edited bythe International Music Centre, Vien¬

na (Austria). Co-published with Ju¬gend und Volk, Vienna and Munich.1975, 197 pp. (24 F)

Nutrition Education Curricula, byGary A. Griffin and Luise Light.("Educational Studies and Docu¬ments" series, No. 18) 1975, 53 pp.(8F)

The Modern Living Museum is thetheme of Museum, Unesco's quar¬terly on museography (Vol. XXVII,No. 2, 1975). Each issue 17.50 F;annual subscription 60 F.

Professionalism in Flux, theme ofUnesco's quarterly International So¬cial Science Journal (Vol. XXVI I,No. 4, 1975). Each issue 16 F; an¬nual subscription 52 F.

Aspects of Culture in Modern So¬ciety, theme of Unesco's internatio¬nal quarterly Cultures (Vol. II, No. 2,1975). Each issue 22 F; annual sub¬scription 75 F.

OTHER BOOKS

Flags Through the Ages andAcross the World, by Whitney Smith.McGraw-Hill Book Co. New York

and Maidenhead (U.K.) 1975, 360 pp.($34.95 until 31 May 1976; $39.95thereafter)

Thomas Mann (1875-1975). Twoessays on Mann by Peter de Men¬delssohn and Herbert Wiesner and

a bibliography of translations of hiswork. Heinz Moos Verlag, Munich,Germany (Fed. Rep.) in collaborationwith Inter Nationes, Bonn-Bad Go-desberg, Germany (Fed. Rep.) 1975,94 pp.

To Understand is to Invent: The

Futuro of Education, by Jean Piaget.A "Viking Compass edition" publi¬shed by Grossman Publishers, NewYork, 1974. 148 pp. ($2.25)

LU GflUnesco's latest guideto world translations

The Bible retains its place as the world'smost translated book In the latest (25th)edition of Index Translationum, Unesco's .annual international bibliography of trans¬lations (see also page 35). This edition,covering nearly 40,000 translations appear¬ing In 1972, also reveals that for the firsttime Marx (62 translations) and Engels (59)outscored Lenin (57 translations against381 in 1971). Authors translated Into over30 languages include Dostoievsky (44),Tolstoy (43), Jules Verne {41), Gorki (40),Pearl Buck (38), Balzac (37), Shakespeareand Solzhenitsyn (35 each). As in 1971the U.S.S.R. published most new transla¬tions (4,463) followed by Spain (up from3rd to 2nd place with 3,204 titles). In 3rdplace Is the Fed. Rep. of Germany (2,767)followed by the U.S.A. (2,189), Japan (2,180)(up from 7th to 5th place) and France(2,176).

Cultural policies in Africa

A Unesco-sponsored IntergovernmentalConference on Cultural Policies In Africa,meeting recently In Accra (Ghana) studieda wide range of subjects ranging from therole of African languages and the massmedia to the relations between culture and

development, education, technology and theenvironment Speaking of education inAfrica today, Unesco's Director-General,Mr. Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow, told the con¬ference: "Any educational system must en¬sure the preservation and the transmissionof the values of a given society. ThusUnesco encourages its Member States todefine educational policies which corres¬pond with their own realities and to theneeds of their economic, social and culturaldevelopment. Modern education cannottherefore ignore African languages andshould require knowledge and mas¬tery of them".

Elm tree disease:

an ecological disaster

Millions of elm trees in Europe andNorth America died In 1975 of a new strain

of Dutch elm disease. In this ecologicaldisaster nearly 2 million elms died in south-em England last summer alone. Dutch elmdisease, so named because it was firstidentified and studied In the Netherlands

50 years ago, Is caused by a beetle whichImplants a poisonous fungus under an elm'sbark. The tree fights back by producinga gummy antibody which clogs its sappassages, starving it of water and nutrientso that it chokes Itself to death. No cure

or preventative is known, and scientistsare currently seeking disease-resistant elmvarieties.

Sharing works of art

A 13th century carved ivory comb, current¬ly delighting visitors to New York's Metro¬politan Museum of Art, will travel to Paris.In 1978 for a five-year stay at the LouvreMuseum. The comb, which will alternate

visits to each city, was bought Jointly by

the two museums in 1972. Such "co-

ownership to expedite art exchanges bet¬ween countries " Is urged in a Unescoproposal to be studied by specialists fromdifferent countries at a forthcoming Parismeeting.

Mediterranean pollution

Ninety per cent' of the sewage of theMediterranean basin is piped or dumpedinto the sea untreated, reports Paul E. Ressin "Unesco Features". Other pollutioncomes from dangerous heavy metals andchemicals dumped by industrial plants. Themercury level In some species of fish, forexample, Is close to or above the safetylevel recommended by the World HealthOrganization.

Engineersand the environment

The effects of engineers' and technicians'work on the environment will be a majortheme of a Unesco-organlzed internationalconference on the education and trainingof engineers and technicians, to be heldin New Delhi (India) from 20 to 26 April1976. The meeting will also discuss howto adapt technology to local needs in thedeveloping world, the need for revisingtraining programmes, and how to promotecloser co-operation between education andIndustry.

Old arts

via new media

Unesco is supporting research Into waysof adapting old arts to new media. During1976 a workshop will be held in Salzburg(Austria) to look Into the problems of con¬verting stage plays for television. It Is beingorganized jointly with the International Ins¬titute for Music, Dance and Theatre in theAudio-Visual Media. In India, the Theatre

Institute of the University of Chandigarhis to adapt ancient legends to modern thea¬trical presentation, calling on artists fromneighbouring Asian countries as well asIndia.

Flashes...

Unesco will help Kuwait in a 5-yearplan to reorient its educational system,introducing primary and secondary com¬prehensive schools.

Italy has agreed to exempt from valueadded tax private services and work forthe restoration of Venice if handled byUnesco.

Over 84 per cent of all women ofworking age in the German DemocraticRepublic are employed and over 80 percent of the country's schoolteachers arewomen.

Tourism is now Nepal's biggest sourceof foreign exchange, the annual numberof tourists having risen from 6,000 in 1962to over 70,000 in 1974.

M Tunisia Is launching a new school build¬ing and equipment programme, preparedby a Unesco mission, with the aid of an$8.9 million loan from the World Bank.

33

Letters to the Editor

THE UNITED NATIONS

AND WORLD PEACE

Sir,

Your November 1975 Issue reminded

us, in your usual graphic and movingway, of the awfulness of the 1939-45war, of the U.N.'s contribution to thepeace, and of the relentless preparationsbeing made for the eventuality of yetanother world war.

I believe that we are unlikely to getmuch disarmament except reciprocallywith a general growth in internationalco-operation and in the mutual trustwhich this should engender. The dis¬tressing thing is that while the U.N. hasheaded up an impressive growth ininternational co-operation, extendingfrom purely technical matters such astelecommunications to huge undertak¬ings like a global strategy for attaininga new economic order, this co-operationis not producing a fully reciprocal in¬crease in mutual trust. The reason for

this is simply the phenomenon of thearms race itself.

Any natural increase in trust whichshould accrue from co-operation is stul¬tified: between the super powers by thedetermination of one or the other to hold

the advantage; and between all othercountries by the economic and politicaltemptations to sell and buy more andmore weaponry, including potentiallydangerous nuclear reactors.

Surely the General Assembly mustsoon become deeply alarmed at thedreadful dangers into which the humanrace is drifting. This Is now our mainhope, since the various alliances andthe parties to strategic balances havehad their chance and have failed to

arrest this drift. It is also a reasonable

hope, for the General Assembly hasrecently shown it has the patience, skilland responsibility to arrive at a globalconsensus on the outlines of a new

international economic order. If it can

do that, might it not be able to nego¬tiate a consensus for survival?

The General Assembly might take aninitiative on each of the three main

elements in the overall danger.

First, the arms race between the su¬

per powers. This is leading to theinvention of ever more horrific weaponsof destruction. It has led to the distor¬

tion of the entire economies of the superpowers and to the waste of vast humanand material resources which are ur¬

gently needed to redeem half theworld's poverty.

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talksseem to be getting nowhere becauseone side or another insists on superio¬rity. Could not the General Assemblyset up an Arms Monitoring Board tocollate and publicize all the informationavailable from such bodies as SIPRI

(Stockholm International Peace ResearchInstitute) and the various national andUniversity Institutes of Strategic Studieson actions which disturb the strategicbalance and give a new thrust to thespiral of the arms race?

Second, the arms trade in weapons.Most industrialized countries have gotthemselves into a situation where manyof their biggest firms depend for viabi¬lity and much of their labour force de-

OPEN LETTER FROM 50 SCHOOLCHILDREN

The text reproduced here in facsimile is an open letter presented toMr. Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow, Director-General of Unesco, by children ofthe primary school at Etterbeek near Brussels (Belgium) when Mr. M'Bowvisited the school in November 1975.

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"50 CHILDREN... ARE DETERMINED.

TO FOLLOW WORLD EVENTS... AND

WANT TO STAY OPTIMISTIC

Brussels 1975

Whether you are left-wing . or right-wing, whether you are believers oratheists, Europeans, Africans or Asians-members of one community or another,civilians or military, whether you aresupporters or opponents of . . .

Whoever you may be. . . please tellus. . .

. . .why there are so many wars, con¬flicts, wrongs. . .why the noblest ideals are so oftencontested, suppressed or misused. . .why you teach us splendid ideaswhich you yourselves then fail tofollow.

Tell us the name of the person whowon't dismiss our letter with a shrug ofthe shoulders. . . and he or she will beour friend.

A group of 12-year-old children"

pends for employment, on arms sales.And many non-industrialized countriesare avid buyers because of local inter¬national tensions, or because of do¬mestic insecurity or a need for prestige.

A U.N. Arms Monitoring Board wouldhelp here too by objectively exposingthe facts of the traffic. But a far greatercontribution would be for the General

Assembly to negotiate a general accep¬tance that the new international econo¬

mic order must include provision forprogressive steps in the registering,control and reduction of arms sales if

it is to make sense at all.

Third, the sale of nuclear reactors

which produce near-weapons-gradewastes is breaking down such safe¬guards as were obtained by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, so that we feel our¬selves returning to a situation like thatof the 1930s when any nation decidingto go beserk could do so, but this timearmed with the bomb:

The one difference now is that the

General Assembly has recently movedtowards a single vision of interdepen¬dence and has had significant successesIn harmonizing the will of member states,whereas in the 1930s the Assembly ofthe League of Nations was falling intodisarray. It is to the General Assembly,therefore, that we must look again, thistime to negotiate at an early date theacceptance by all states of control ofall nuclear wastes by the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency.

I cannot believe that the U.N. Gener¬

al Assembly, which showed such indus¬try, patience, skill and determination toarrive at a consensus on a new interna¬

tional order for the world, will now fail

to protect that emerging order fromself-destruction. There is no one elseto do so.

Basil Hembry,Wimbish, Saffron Waiden

Essex, U.K.

NEW STATUS FOR WOMEN

Sir,

On the occasion of International

Women's Year 1975, it is understand¬able that the "Unesco Courier" should

have given much space to this themeand possible consequences of accord¬ing a new status to women. But sinceyou had dealt adequately with thesubject in your March 1975 issue, I wasdisappointed to find the entire August-September number also devoted to thisquestion.

It is not that I lack interest in the

problems of women's status throughoutthe world. But in my view the wholepresentation of International Women'sYear has been too much like a

publicity campaign. What good it willdo and who will benefit from it is

difficult to say. Most women who havebeen questioned about the impact ofInternational Women's Year say thattheir lives are no different now from

what they were in 1974. Considerationof women's status must inevitablyinvolve that of men too. So why notlook at the human condition as a

whole?

Richard GatryBonne, France

ACCIDENTS AT WORK

Sir,

By 1974 the number of seriousaccidents at work had risen to a world

figure over 1,700,000 yearly. What stepshave been taken at the international

level to prevent accidents at work?

In view of the alarming world figures,would it not be worthwhile to consider

devoting some space to the subject ofpreventing accidents at work?

Eduardo Torre Olivé

. Havana, Cuba

34

répertoireinternational

des traductions

international

bibliographyof translations

Indextranslationum

25

Im prevés de l'ithe unesco pressparis

Multilingual with bilingual

(English-French) introduction

931 pages - 224 F

Just published

by The Unesco Press

Unesco's annual guideto world translations

Index Translationum presents a detailed picture of

jworld translations, recording those published in a single

year, and including new editions of previously publishedbooks.

Compiled with the help of librarians in many countries,¡t enables readers to follow, year by year, the flow oftranslations from one country to another and to trace theworks of individual authors as they appear in translation.

The latest edition gives data on 39,143 titles published

in 1972 in 57 countries (See also news item page 33).

Where to renew your subscriptionand place your order for other Unesco publications

Order from any bookseller or write direct to the NationalDistributor in your country. (See list below; names ofdistributors in countries not listed, along with subscrip¬tion rates in local currency, will be supplied on request.)

AUSTRALIA. Publications: Educational Supplies Pty.Ltd., P.O. Box 33, Brookvale, 2100, NSW; Periodicals: Do¬minie Pty., Limited, Box 33, Post Office, Brookvale 2100,NSW. Sub-agent: United Nations Association of Australia,Victorian Division 5th floor, 134-136 Flinders St., Mel¬

bourne (Victoria), 3000. AUSTRIA. Verlag GeorgFromme & C0., Arbeitergasse 1-7, 1051, Vienna. BEL¬GIUM. "Unesco Courier" Dutch edition only: N.V. Handel-maatschappij Keesing, Keesinglaan 2-18, 2100 Deurne-Antwerpen. French edition and general Unesco publica¬tions agent: Jean de Lannoy, 1 12, rue du Trône, Brussels 5.CCP 708-23. BURMA. Trade Corporation N" 9, 550-552Merchant Street, Rangoon. CANADA. Information Ca¬nada, Ottawa (Ont.). CYPRUS. "MAM", Archbishop Ma-karios 3rd Avenue, P. 0. Box 1722, Nicosia. CZE¬

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pest V; A.K.V. Könyvtarosok Boltja, Néopkoztársaság utja16, Budapest VI. ICELAND. Snaebjorn Jonsson & Co.,H.F., Hafnarstraeti 9, Reykjavik. INDIA. Orient LongmanLtd., Nicol Road, Ballard Estate, Bombay 1; 17 ChittaranjanAvenue, Calcutta 13; 36a, Anna Salai, Mount Road, Madras2; B-3/7 Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi 1 ; 80/1 Mahatma Gandhi

Road, Bangalore-560001; 3-5-820 Hyderguda Hyderabad-500001. Sub-Depots: Oxford Book & Stationery Co. 17 ParkStreet, Calcutta 16; Scindia House, New Delhi; PublicationsSection, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, 72 Thea¬tre Communication Building, Connaught Place, New Delhi1. INDONESIA. Bhratara Publishers and Booksellers, 29Jl. Oto Iskandardinata III, Jakarta; Gramedia Bookshop, Jl.Gadjah Mada 109, Jakarta; Indira P.T., Jl. Dr. Sam Ratulan-gie 37, Jakarta Pusat. IRAN. Kharazmie Publishing andDistribution C°., 229 Daneshgahe Street, Shah Avenue,P.O. Box 141486, Teheran. Iranian National Commission

for Unesco, Avenue Iranchahr Chomali No 300, B.P. 1533,

Teheran. IRAQ. McKenzie's Bookshop, Al-Rashid Street,Baghdad; University Bookstore, University of Baghdad,P.O. Box 75, Baghdad. IRELAND. The EducationalCompany of Ireland Ltd., Ballymount Road, Walkinstown,Dublin 12. ISRAEL. Emanuel Brown, formerly Blums-tein's Book-stores, 35 Allenby Road and 48, Nachlat Ben¬jamin Street, Tel-Aviv; 9, Shlomzion Hamalka Street Jeru¬salem. JAMAICA. Sangster's Book Stores Ltd., P.O.Box 366, 101 Water Lane, Kingston. IAPAN. EasternBook Service Inc., C.P.O. Box 1728, Tokyo 100-92. KE¬NYA. The E.S.A. Ltd., P.O. Box 30167, Nairobi. KOREA.Korean National Commission for Unesco, P.O. Box Central64, Seoul. KUWAIT. The Kuwait Bookshop Co., Ltd.,P.O. Box 2942, Kuwait. LESOTHO. Mazenod Book Cen¬tre, P.O. Mazenod, Lesotho, Southern Africa. LIBERIA.Cole and Yancy Bookshops Ltd., P.O. Box 286, Monrovia.

LIBYA. Agency for Development of Publication & Dis¬tribution, P.O. Box 34-35, Tripoli. LUXEMBOURG. Li¬brairie Paul Brück, 22, Grand-Rue, Luxembourg. MA¬LAYSIA. Federal Publications Sdn. Bhd., Balai Berita, 31,Jalan Riong, Kuala Lumpur. MALTA. Sapienza's Li¬brary, 26 Kingsway, Valletta. MAURITIUS. NalandaCompany Ltd., 30, Bourbon Street, Port-Louis. MO¬NACO. British Library, 30, bd des Moulins, Monte-Carlo.

NETHERLANDS. For the "Unesco Koerier" Dutch edi¬

tion only: Systemen Keesing, Ruysdaelstraat 71-75,Amsterdam-1007. Agent for all Unesco publications: N. V.Martinus Nijhoff, Lange Voorhout, 9, The Hague.NETHERLANDS ANTILLES. G.C.T. Van Dorp & Co. (NedAnt). N.V., Willemstad, Curacao.N. A. NEW ZEALAND.Government Printing Office, Government Bookshops at:Rutland Street, P.O. Box 5344, Auckland; 130, OxfordTerrace, P.O. Box 1721, Christchurch; Alma Street, P.O.Box 857 Hamilton; Princes Street, P.O. Box 1104, Dunedin;

Mulgrave Street, Private Bag, Wellington. NIGERIA.The University Bookshop of Ife. The University Bookshopof Ibadan, P.O. Box 286; The University Bookshop ofNsukka; The University Bookshop of Lagos; The AhmaduBello University Bookshop of Zaria. NORWAY. All pu¬blications: Johan Grundt Tanum (Booksellers) Karl

Johans-gate 41/43, Oslo 1. For Unesco Courier only; A.S.Narvesens Literaturtjeneste, Box 6125, Oslo 6. PAKIS¬TAN. Mirza Book Agency, 65 Shahrah Quaid-e-azam, P.O.Box No. 729, Lahore 3; The West-Pak Publishing Co. Ltd.,Unesco Publications House, P.O. Box 374, G.P.O., Lahore;Showrooms: Urdu Bazaar, Lahore, and 57-58 Murree

Highway, G/6-1 Islamabad. PHILIPPINES. The ModernBook Co., 926 Rizal Avenue, P.O. Box 632, Manila D-404.

POLAND. All publications: ORWN PAN Palac Kultury iNauki, Warsaw. For the Unesco Courier only: RUCH, ul.Wronia, 23, Warsaw 10. PORTUGAL. Dias & Andrade

Ltda, Livraria Portugal, rua do Carmo 70, Lisbon. SIN¬GAPORE. Federal Publications (s) Pte Ltd., Times House,

River Valley Road, Singapore 9. SOMALI DEMOCRA¬TIC REPUBLIC. Modern Book Shop and General, P.O. Box951, Mogadiscio. SOUTHERN RHODESIA. TextbookSales (PVT) Ltd., 67 Union Avenue, Salisbury. SRILANKA. Lake House Bookshop, 100 Sir ChittampalamGardiner Mawata P.O.B. 244 Colombo 2. SUDAN. AI

Bashir Bookshop, P.O. Box 1118, Khartoum. SWEDEN.All publications: A/B CE. Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel,Fredsgatan 2, Box 16356, 10327 Stockholm 16. For theUnesco Courier: Svenska FN-Forbundet, Skolgránd 2, Box1 50 50 S- 1 04 65, Stockholm. SWITZERLAND. All publi¬cations: Europa Verlag, 5 Ramistrasse, Zurich. LibrairiePayot, rue Grenus 6, 1211, Geneva 11, C.C.P. 12-236.TANZANIA. Dar-es-Salaam Bookshop, P.O.B. 9030 Dar;es-Salaam. THAILAND. Nibondh and Co. Ltd., 40-42

Charoen Krung Road, Siyaeg Phaya Sri, P.O. Box 402,Bangkok; Suksapan Panit, Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Ave¬nue, Bangkok; Suksit Siam Company, 1715 Rama IV Road,Bangkok. Librairie Hachette, 469 Istiklal Cad-desi, Beyoglu, Istanbul. UGANDA. Uganda Bookshop,P.O. Box 145, Kampala. SOUTH AFRICA. All publica¬tions: Van Schaik's Bookstore (Pty). Ltd., Libri Building,Church Street, P.O Box 724, Pretoria. For the Unesco Cou¬rier (single copies) only; Central News Agency P.O. Box1033, Johannesburg. UNITED KINGDOM. H.M. Statio¬nery Office, P.O. Box 569, London, S.E.I., and GovernmentBookshops in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Man¬chester, Birmingham, Bristol. UNITED STATES. Uni-pub, Box 433, Murray Hill Station New York, N.Y. 10016.U.S.S.R. Mezhdu- narodnaja Kniga, Moscow, G-200.YUGOSLAVIA. Jugoslovenska Knjiga, Terazije, 27, Bel¬grade: Drzavna Zalozba Slovenije, Titova C 25, P.O.B. 50,Ljubljana

OPEN HOUSE

ART OF

OCEANIAsee page 7