249. Dance of D'mba, Baga Sitemu. Made entirely from memory,this D'mba headdress signals the kind of reinvention of form that has and will accompany the renewed interest by the Baga in regaining something of the magnificence that was. Photo: Frederick Lamp, 1987.
it became obvious that my study would be not simply of the Baga, but of the Baga and our research team, where I became, immediately, the central focus. In effect, the Baga social laboratory became one in which centuries of Baga artistic history were replayed in the space of a few years. Just as they had done over and over again before, the Baga were now using a watershed—the overthrow of an antagonistic government and the coming of a personality with an imprimatur—to redefine and reinvent themselves. Once again, a new phase of representation and meaning certainly must emerge. Prognosis: Innovators, Preservationists and Futurists History is not a repetition, but a continual process, the normal course of events in a chronological movement marking at each step a salient point. At migration, we were powerless, yet we refused to submit, directed by our spirits towards the coast. Then colonization brought servitude without insurrection, but we refused to submit blindly. The gloomy sound of the tali, the infernal rhythm of the drum, the bewitching smell of white palm wine—the Saga remained attached to his sacred forest under the vigilant watch of the supreme divinity, a-Mantsho. Now trumpets and drums beat, interminable discourse CHAPTER XII • THE PRESENT DILEMMA COPYRIGHT PROTECTED
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