Design and Music in a Changing Northern Sierra Leone Chiefdom

by Simon Ottenberg

This anthropological and historical study of Wara Wara Balodea Chiefdoma, an ancient and formerly very isolated, hill chiefdom in northern Sierra Leone. West Africa, called Wara Wara Bafodea is based on two-year’s personal study in 1979-1980, contrasting the chiefdoms music with its art and designs, to arrive at an understanding of the elements of its culture. It is also a study of changing cultures, with Wara Wara Bafodea culture and language becoming overwhelmed by both Muslim and Christian influencesan African society undergoing rapid change from an elemental indigenous society to a complex multicultural one.

About the Author

Simon Ottenberg, a retired University of Washington anthropologist, wrote four books and numerous articles on the traditional life of an Igbo group in southeastern Nigeria--their social groupings, family life, masquerades, and boy’s growing up. He authored a history of the Igbo town of Abakaliki from precolonial times until 1960. He curated an exhibition on seven modem Igbo artists at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and wrote a biography of the late modem Siena Leone artist, Olayinka Burney-Nichols He co-edited of a volume on African children’s masquerades.

DESIGN AND MUSIC IN A CHANGING NORTHERN SIERRA LEONE CHIEFDOM

Simon Ottenberg

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ISBN: 9781669822677 | $3.99

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