Very old and forever young. Exotic. Mysteriously beautiful. Having unusual, unique names, arousing curiousity and emotions. The proof of their authentic African origin are names derived from several African languages: ceko - the things that go out (Mali), diyan dabo - the children of magic (Niger), kiebe-kiebe - move your head (Kongo), kono donkili - bird song (Mali), mani - little people (Mali), mighondji-mya-ghongo - ghosts from above (Gabon), prempreni - butterfly (Mali), sogo - game (Mali), tsitsavi - little master (Togo, Benin), xouss-maniap - make love (Senegal)... The linguistic roots deny the colonial theory about alleged European origin of the African puppet theatre.
An absurd hypothesis that it was Europe that civilized the black continent was undermined by Edward Gordon Craig. In March 1907, in his famous essay about actor and super-marionette Craig paid tribute to great African masters, the ones who "being in the service of simple truths" contradicted western individualists "possessed by a desire to manifest their own personality, as if it were the most precious and the greatest value of all". (O sztuce teatru, 1985, p. 96)
The first victims of colonial violence were native "fetishes". Their mass extinction was performed in the name of religion and "civilization"; it abruptly broke the natural harmonious development of African art. Most likely we will never know how many theatre puppets perished during such actions. The official history and oral accounts mention thousands of pieces of art destroyed by fire, water or axe. In the opinion of Malutama-Duma Ngo, theatrologist from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the damage done to folk puppets is irreversible.

At the beginning of the 20th century, despite colonial barbarism, Africa becomes "fashionable". Paris calls the tune; the local Bohemia discovers and even collects the masterpieces of African sculpture. Young Pablo Picasso is a frequent guest in Musée Ethnographique du Trocadéro (currently the Museum of Man), where he admires masks and fetishes. In his splendid Ladies of Avignon, as well as in other works from that period, the influence of African masks and sculpturesarly is clearly visible. Similar influence can be traced in the works of such artists as Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, André Derain, Max Ernst... A famous poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire also looks for inspiration among artists from the bush and jungle. He placed a wooden sculpture of a characteristic female head on one of his bookshelves. It comes from distant Congo, where it belonged to a secret society called "kiebe-kiebe" as an acrobatic puppet.
Even though it belongs to the best human achievements, African puppet theatre is a scarcely known area. Those who will attempt at revitalizing this part of theatre - a part enclosed in secrets whose betrayal was often paid for with life - have Sisyphean toil in front of them.
In many African traditions theatre puppet was taboo for children, women and uncircumcised men. If you saw it outside stage you were ran the risk of infertility, illness or death. Only eminent insiders knew the secrets of puppets and how to animate them, which granted absolute discretion.
These days Africa reveals more and more of its ancient secrets. This turn is a source of concern for many theatre people. One of them, Meyong Baba Bekate, an actor and researcher from Cameroon living in France, asks a direct question: "Why should Africans, who jealously guarded the secrets of their art and its mysterious and mythical character only yesterday, push its secularization ahead today? Is it a natural process of evolution or simply a case of opportunism? [...] As a consequence of such anarchic secularization, African art will completely perish so much the faster." (L'Afrique noire en marionnettes, 1988, pp. 48-49) That warning of an African specialist makes one reflect deeply.
African puppet is ancient since it already existed in prehistoric times. New excavations are very promising. Thus, wooden and clay figurines found in ancient Egypt and bearing clear traces of ancient systems of animation (fragments of ropes) have their "first mothers". In the 16th century AD Ibn Battuta recollects eminent poets met at the sultan of Mali. Those rhapsodists dressed up as birds recited poetry. Their disguise consisted of bird head with a red beak and a wide stiff feather cloak that covered the whole person. Similar "birds" have survived till present times and can be seen in the Republic of Mali where they participate in traditional puppet shows.
King Biton, the founder of Segu Kingdom and a great fun lover, established the first "ton" in the 18th centrury. "Ton" is an association of young people whom the king entrusted with the care of puppet theatre. "Ton" still function in Mali where they educate young men in the wise art of puppet.
An explorer from the 19th century, captain Hugh Clapperton, described a particularly successful performance at the court if Yoruba king in Nigeria. One of the protagonists was a boa, a snake-puppet incredibly animated by a traveling conjurer.
In 1878 in a village Mognogo inhabited by the Bamana people, a civilian traveler Paul Soleillet discovered African puppet theatre on water. That unique little water theatre, assembled on a pirogue and surrounded by other pirogues occupied by drummers and singing women, floatied down the Niger River, while the audience gathered on the banks.
The first performances of African puppeteers in Europe took place in the seventies of the 20th century. The beauty of puppets, the uniqueness of repertoire and the variety of characters gain more and more recognition among European audiences. The archaic elements that survive in African art are for us a fascinating lesson about a theatre that no longer exists in this part of the world. And they make us so much the hungrier for art.
It is hard to understand the essence of African puppet without reaching to myths. According to one of the legends of the Ibibio people from Nigeria, puppet theatre comes from an underground country of the dead, where it is extremely successful. The secrets of the theatre unknown to the living were stolen from the dead by brave Akpan Etuk Uyo, who paid with his life for the "sacrilege".
Another Nigerian myth relates that puppet art was invented by sorceresses who then handed it over to men.
The Kuyu from the Republic of Congo claim that the first puppet was brought from the bush by a mysterious beautiful woman who then entrusted it to the chief. As she handed the unusual present to him, she told him to guard the secret and made him to promise that he would regularly organize spectacular ceremonies, which is still done by the Kuyu. Their characteristic puppets consist of beautifully carved heads and necks which end with a short stick to grip the puppet.
The fishing people from the village of Bozo in Mali believe that their puppet theatre took its beginning in the bush and was popularized by one Toboji Centa, a fisher kidnapped by bush spirits who taught him how to carve and animate puppets. The Bozo people are still considered to be masters of the art. According to the Makonde people from Tanzania, the beginnings of animated puppets were yet different. Their parents were the first married couple, whose children - always twins - died one after another. The heartbroken father decided to carve two wooden figures - a boy and a girl. A miracle happened and the two figures came to life one night, which brought joy back to the house of the unfortunate parents. This is where the Makonde people puppet theatre starts from. In other myths the first "live" puppet may be made from butter or clay, or, like in Guinea, found in water by a potter woman. Some puppeteers believe that the first mother of their theatre was "akua ba", a puppet of fertility and a symbol of female beauty for the Aszanti people. The splendor of the mythical past of African theatre puppet gives it a very special position reflected in its numerous functions. It is used by a priest, a dignitary of the cult of the dead, the chief of initiation, a fortune-teller, a charlatan, a sorcerer and a traveling artist. It is neither completely sacral nor secular and it always oscillates between the worlds of the living and the dead. And it is very close to a mask, the two are almost inseparable, created by the same sculptor, and used in a similar way in initiation schools. Sometimes it remains in one family, inherited by a son from his father, or from a master by his disciple. A puppet and a mask may have the same names, the same repertoire, or may take part in the same performance. Sometimes one person may both dance in a mask and animate a puppet at the same time.
Miniature masks, puppets representing masks, puppets in the hands or on the backs of masks, like real children. Masks giving birth to puppets... Super-puppets! Animated from the inside by a "super-puppeteer" hidden inside. Making gestures, swirling, stepping on sand shadeless and traceless.

Theatrical puppets and masks have their own specific voice: squeaky and nasal, believed to be the voice from the underworld. To change his "earthly" voice, a puppeteer uses a whistle or pipe which in Africa may be made from the shell of an ostrich egg or snail, bone, metal or cane corked with a cobweb or membrane from bat's wing.
The voices of Hausan puppeteers are so distorted that they need to cooperate with "interpreters" who repeat what the puppets say. There are no puppets without music. Puppets are always accompanied by drums, gongs, rattles and bells. Often, the same rattles and bells are used to call the dead... Many African puppeteers are also known for their magic tricks. A Hausan puppet master transforms pieces of wood into cigarettes, multiplies coins, changes sand into millet, takes the shape of a devil or snake, swallows horns of small animals, chews glass and razor blades, sits on a pointed peg and swirls, pierces the tongue and cheeks with metal skewer, pushes all sorts of daggers into the chest and knives into the eyes, cuts the throat with a razor, plays with fire...
Such incredible fusion of magic and puppets makes up the African puppet theatre... but is that all?! Puppet, fetish, mask, animated sculpture, theatrical puppet have all something in common -magic. Magic and fascination with movement.

Oleńka Darkowska-Nidzgorska

Script: Oleńka Darkowska-Nidzgorski, Denis Nidzgorski-Gordier
Photos: Denis Nidzgorski-Gordier
Design: Andrzej Dworakowski
Co-operation: Annick Turner, Jo and Pierre Pacitti

Vernissage: 22 VI 2004, 18.00 Muzeum Podlaskie