BAMANA ANIMAL PUPPETS, Mali

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BAMANA Animal Puppet 33 29"x24" $800

BAMANA Animal Puppet 34 22"x13" $800

BAMANA Animal Puppet 36 36", $500

BAMANA Animal Puppet 37 34.5" $800

BAMANA Animal Puppet 38 44.5" $1000

BAMANA Animal Puppet 39 49" $1200

BAMANA Animal Puppet 46 21.5" $600

BAMANA Animal Puppet 47 41" $700

BAMANA Animal Puppet 48 37" $800

BAMANA Animal Puppet 49 35.5" $800

BAMANA Animal Puppet 50 22" $400

BAMANA Animal Puppet 51 30" $400

The puppets below have been sold and are left here for reference and educational purposes.

BAMANA Animal Puppet 32 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 35 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 40 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 41 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 43 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 44 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 31 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 42 SOLD

BAMANA Animal Puppet 45 SOLD

Photographs © Tim Hamill

BAMANA, ANIMAL PUPPETS, Mali

Sogo bo, the puppet masquerade drama of the Bamana, is an exploration of the moral universe. The largest group of masquerade characters and the oldest performed in the theater are bush animals. In Bamana communities, the bush is defined as the domain of men and the interpretation of the theater's bush animal characters are informed by beliefs and values associated with hunting and with hunters as men of action and society's heros. Over the last decades, at the same time that the actual area of uncultivated land has constricted and the number of hunters have diminished, the definition of the bush and the nature of the hunter/hero have been extended to other arenas of endeavor. In the Sogo bo theater, bush animal masquerades remain important precisely because they are richly drawn and complex metaphors through which to explore the nature of knowledge and power [and] the relationship of the individual to the group.

from The Sogow by Mary Jo Arnoldi in Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali. New York: Museum of African Art.

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