“The Power of the Ciwara is Awesome”: How “Traditional” Bamana Culture Becomes “Modern”

Stephen Wooten
University of Oregon

According to farmers on the Mande Plateau in central Mali, “the power of the Ciwara is awesome.” For them, the Ciwara complex with its well-known antelope-style headdresses has a profound effect on their world. It helps to protect people in their fields and to insure successful harvests. However, the awesome power of their Ciwara now extends well beyond their local agrarian world. Indeed, the headdress form, the most visible material expression of the complex, has come to play a significant role in the formulation of modernity “at home” within the wider Mande world and “abroad” in the Western world. In this paper I begin by establishing Ciwara as a “traditionally modern” local institution, a cultural product that is resolutely contemporary and most certainly not a timeless “traditional” artifact. I then map Ciwara’s migration and integration into the fabric of life in “modern” Mali and the West. Specifically, I explore the its efficacy in the context of Mali’s nationalist project, the formulation of a regional cultural identity, the development of a contemporary multi-ethnic urban Malian culture, its role in French cosmopolitan rap music, its powerful place in the construction of elite identity among Euro-American art collectors and its significance in African-American heritage celebrations. In the process I explore the cultural politics of these transformations and reflect on the lessons that can be learned about the role of “traditional” ingredients in the construction of self-consciously “modern” subjects and contexts.