African Carving: A Dogon Kanaga Mask - PREVIEW

Purchase: http://www.der.org/films/african-carving.html The Kanaga mask is used in deeply sacred rituals by the Dogon people of Mali. Carving this mask is as important a ritual as the ceremonies in which the mask is used. The carver, a blacksmith, finds the proper tree and, in a secret cave outside the village, he shapes the mask with gestures which repeat the movement of the dancers who will wear it. When a dancer wears the Kanaga mask he becomes the Creator symbolically. He touches the ground with his mask and directs a soul to Heaven. Although these dances are now frequently performed for the public, the meaning of Kanaga is retained by the Dogon who fear, respect and depend on the power of the mask.

a film by Thomas Blakely and Eliot Elisofon
in collaboration with Robert Gardner for The Film Study Center at Harvard University
distributed by Documentary Educational Resources

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Africa
• Mail
• Dogon
• mask
• carving
• craft
• ritual
• ceremony
• religion
• anthropology
• documentary
• film

[Idawa61]

the dogon did a dance for the star sidi bado for the last 200 years or more and had to show european scientist where to find the star , the gravitational pull of the star , the weight of the star and other info the europeans had found sirius a and named the sister star the dogon had shown them sirius b , but the europeans did not find the star until around the late 1950's or later and still do not posses the ability to prove or disprove the knowledge given by the brothers on the continent