Nimba Headdress
Dublin Core
Title
Nimba Headdress
Creator Biography
Africa
Culture
Baga/Nalou culture
Place Made
Republique de Guinea and Guine-Bissau, Boffa-Boke' area
Description
The massive Nimba headdress, also known as the D’mba, is the principal work of art of the Baga and the Nalou peoples. The headdress presents, in stylized form, the feminine ideal of noble motherhood: She assumes an erect posture to show elegant comportment, and she has finely braided hair, scarification that marks her as a mature woman, and large, heavy breasts that sag to show that she has borne and nurtured many children. The Nimba represents a powerful spirit whose job is to ensure growth and fertility, both human and agricultural; she is the incarnation of life and nature, the vision of a woman at the zenith of power, beauty, and affective presence.
Each community traditionally has its own Nimba, which is brought out and danced at the different stages of the rice-growing agricultural calendar, particularly at the sowing and at the harvest of the rice. The headdress also sometimes appears on shrines, and community elders may decide to have the Nimba dance to honor a significant visitor in a hospitality ritual, or to have the headdress danced for a birth ceremony or an ancestral commemoration ceremony. Between appearances, the headdress is kept in a secret hut or in a special forested area near the village. In some communities, an individual woman’s name is given to the headdress to distinguish her from the Nimbas of other villages.
For each ceremonial dancing of the Nimba, a strong dancer – usually male – solemnly assumes the persona of the Nimba. He carries the heavy headdress out into the dance area on his shoulders, and he dances for about two hours. To prepare the Nimba for dancing, a hoop of vine is passed through the holes at the base of the four supports, and a long raffia skirt is attached to it just under the figure’s carved breasts, to cover the dancer’s body down to the ankles and conceal his identity. As the headdress completely covers his heads, he uses the two peepholes carved in between the figure’s breasts to see. While the right to dance the Nimba headdress is always an honor, in some regions this is a hereditary honor.
Research and Conserved by Rebecca Steiner, 2011, MSU student
Each community traditionally has its own Nimba, which is brought out and danced at the different stages of the rice-growing agricultural calendar, particularly at the sowing and at the harvest of the rice. The headdress also sometimes appears on shrines, and community elders may decide to have the Nimba dance to honor a significant visitor in a hospitality ritual, or to have the headdress danced for a birth ceremony or an ancestral commemoration ceremony. Between appearances, the headdress is kept in a secret hut or in a special forested area near the village. In some communities, an individual woman’s name is given to the headdress to distinguish her from the Nimbas of other villages.
For each ceremonial dancing of the Nimba, a strong dancer – usually male – solemnly assumes the persona of the Nimba. He carries the heavy headdress out into the dance area on his shoulders, and he dances for about two hours. To prepare the Nimba for dancing, a hoop of vine is passed through the holes at the base of the four supports, and a long raffia skirt is attached to it just under the figure’s carved breasts, to cover the dancer’s body down to the ankles and conceal his identity. As the headdress completely covers his heads, he uses the two peepholes carved in between the figure’s breasts to see. While the right to dance the Nimba headdress is always an honor, in some regions this is a hereditary honor.
Research and Conserved by Rebecca Steiner, 2011, MSU student
Date Created
20th cent. (before 1974)
Century
20th
Item Dimensions
131 cm h x 48 cm w x 63 cm d
Medium
sculpture
Materials
wood & pigment
Techniques
carving
Acession Number
1985.40
Accession Year
1985
Photo Number
20110071