Wearing a mask making a contrast

How to Write a Summary of an Article? Gatsby wearing his gold hat, a kind of masks represent wealthy and upper class, dream one day he could have Daisy again. As a matter of fact, not only Gatsby, but also other main characters involved in this masterpiece all put on their own false fronts in order to chasing their dreams of life.

Akawo Odo Drama Origins of African Masks Africa possesses a long tradition of masking and it is believed that masks were integral to their culture long before the first century B. The wide variety of uses for masks, which included rituals of myth, creation, and hero worship; fertility rituals for increase; agricultural festivities; funerals or burials; ancestor cults; initiations, and entertainment, serves to prove that their usage has been extensive for hundreds of African tribes Black Cave paintings on rock walls from Tassili, Algeria, Fezzan, Libya, and the Bushmen of South Africa are the oldest evidence for the existence of African masks.

The Tassili images of dancers with masks were brought to public attention by the expedition of the French explorer, Henri Lhote, even though an Arab traveler, Ibn Batuta, wrote about the images in Eric Herold estimates these images to have been created by nomadic herdsmen possibly between and B.

However, some scholars believe, as Segy has reported, that masks of animal heads were used by Paleolithic man at least 35, years ago Black Thus, there is much ambiguity about the origins of African masks, and there is also no evidence to show a continuous connection between these rock paintings and the African masks of the last two centuries, which are seen in museums and photographed for art books.

In fact, many popular types of masks are only one hundred years old, while others are mysterious in their origins. The earliest three-dimensional tribal artifact known to have been produced in West Africa is a number of terracotta figures from the Nok culture in Nigeria.

Through carbon testing, these figures have been shown to date from circa BC and parallel the arrival of the Iron Age in South and West Africa.

The eyeholes and the holes in the mask for strings of beads or raffia attachments indicate that it was worn in some ceremony.

Recommended Pages

There are also a number of Benin Kingdom bronze cast masks that date back to 18th century but are believed to show centuries of artistic development World Beginning with the slave traders from the 15th century onto the colonial era, Africa was subjected to severe exploitation by the west.

Richard Andree was one of the first ethnographers to gain an informed insight into their beauty and value in the s and his work helped to alter some biased perceptions Kecskesi Also, avant garde painters in Europe, like Picasso and Modigliani, began to discover these masks in ethnographic museum collections, and used them as models for their own expressionistic formulations in painting and sculpture.

However, western attitudes persist in seeing African masks as curious and imaginative artistic objects, ideal for hanging on a wall. The African does not regard their masks as art. In fact, in most of the tribal cultures that make and dance in masks, there exists no word for art.

A mask, for the African, is an instrument of ritual, and without the costume, dancer, music, gathering of the tribe, and sacred place, a mask is meaningless.

This same inter-connected quality is part of the African way of viewing his or her world. That world is well ordered and communal in nature, unlike the highly individualistic cultures of the west. The art of the African is used in everyday objects, like pottery and clothes, and is not separated into museums.

The African lives a more integrated way of life, and spirituality is a regular part of it, orchestrated by ritual enactments.

We are all makers

Ladislas Segy has written how the strong connection with nature, the group, and the soul, helps to define the African worldview Black Fused oneness - Unlike the west, which attempts to control nature, the African is in harmonious connection with nature and at one with it.

Through participation with ritual, myth, and masks, the African interacts with nature, whereas the Westerner contemplates it as beauty. Group identity - We are extremely concerned about our individuality and personal rights; the African is more traditional, and concerned with community rights; certain people in the country of Niger do not have a word for religion - it exists so intimately in their lives that the separate thought of it does not exist.

Concept of the soul - The African believes that everything in nature has a power within. Even concepts like fertility or the wind have this indwelling spirit. In fact, African culture is animistic, believing that inanimate objects possess a soul.

Masks were therefore not just symbolic; they were "spirit traps" which contained the soul for the benefits of the living. It also illustrates a basic distinction between the African and Western worldviews.

African Myth Myths played a valuable role in advancing the worldview of African peoples and helping to maintain traditions within each tribe. Many of their stories contained explanations of how the tribe began or how the world was created.

Lesson: What Aspects of Our Identities Do We Show to Others? | Facing History

Others offered details about the history of the tribe or how they migrated from various areas to their present location. There were also stories of ancestors and heroes, explanations of the ceremonies they enacted, and even lessons on farming and crafts Black 8.

These myths enabled each generation to prepare the next for leadership and community service, and they were handed down through a vibrant oral tradition, which was centered on the griot, or storyteller.

The Maasai tribe from East Africa is unique in that they lack the ancestor cults found almost everywhere on the continent. This has much to do with the fact that the Maasai are nomadic, and hold no belief in a personal survival after dying - two reasons that explain why they do not bury their dead.

This world view is clearly reflected in the myth of Le-eyo, their great ancestor, who was supposed to say, when a child died, "Man, die, and come back again; Moon, die, and remain away" Cotterell However, when the next child died, he inverted the magic phrases accidentally, and proclaimed, "Man, die, and remain away; Moon, die, and return again.

It includes the costume and adornments worn on the body, and represents the embodiment of a tradition and guarantee for continuity. Lommel 9 It may be difficult for 3rd millennium students to imagine the impact for tribal peoples of seeing images of ancestors and heroes in carved masks.

We are so accustomed to a wide variety of visual sources for our daily information. But Africans living in tightly organized communities, like the Chokwe in Northern Angola, did not have printed sources as well as televisions, movies or web sites.Aug 08,  · A woman wearing a protective pollution mask walks on a street in Beijing on March 20, The last large coal-fired power plant in Beijing has suspended operations, with the city's electricity.

A mask that she would be wearing when she is with her twin brother is a mask that is totally opposite to his. The second stanza is rendering a scene that the speaker let her twin brother to be separated to each other to not let him know whatever she’s hiding by performing opposite of her twin.

With a simple scrap of old denim as your base, you can make this enchantingly haunting mask. The contrast of rugged denim with fantasy trims and hand-stitches, . Mask making is an ancient custom in Africa, and Festima is celebrated to protect the tradition. Festima masks made of wood, straw, leaves and textiles represent animals and ancestral spirits.

Many locals believe that mask wearers embody the subject of the masks. Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber hasn't been taking his three weeks as acting prime minister lightly at all. In fact, he's capitalizing on it. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade () Trivia on IMDb: Cameos, Mistakes, Spoilers and more.