CHIWARA (CI WARA)

Agriculture, labour

Chiwara belongs to the agrarian cycle of Bambara thought. The myth, of which several versions have been collected, makes him a being of primordial times, often presented as the son of old Musokoroni: half man, half antelope, he dug the earth with his claws and his staff and taught humans to cultivate millet. Faced with the negligence of men, who wasted the grain, he sank into the ground; to honour his memory, the farmers carved the crest-masks that bear his name. The initiation society dedicated to him, the chiwara ton, counts among the six great Bambara initiation societies described by Dominique Zahan, with the ndomo, the komo, the nama, the kono and the korè; it is the only one to join men and women together, just as working the fields demands both sexes. At the festivals of sowing, of harvest and at farming contests, two dancers bent over staffs, their bodies covered in fibres, wear the crests fixed on basketry caps: the male with the openwork mane precedes the female carrying her fawn, while the women sing the praises of the best farmers, themselves honoured with the title of chiwara. Become a national emblem in Mali and a major piece in collections of African art, the chiwara crest remains the symbol of the accomplished farmer.