CULTURE
The most outstanding
feature of the country's cultural life is its dancing. The Sierra
Leone Dance Troupe is internationally known. The different communities
of the nation have their own styles of costume and dance. In addition,
certain closed societies, such as the Wunde, the Sande (Bundu),
and the Gola, have characteristic ceremonial dances. A wide range
of agility, gracefulness, and rhythm is displayed; in addition,
there are elements of symbolism in most of the dances. Drums,
wooden xylophones (called balaphones), and various stringed instruments
provide the musical background.
The carving of various
wooden masks in human and animal figures for the dances is especially
advanced in the southern region. The Sande mask worn on the head
of the chief dancer during the ceremony attending the reappearance
of the female initiates from their period of seclusion is perhaps
the most well-known carved figure in Sierra Leonean art. It is
a symmetrically stylized black head of an African woman with an
elaborate plaited pyramidal coiffure adorned with various figures
and with a facial expression of grave dignity and beauty.
Ivory figures are
characteristic of the Sherbro, Bullom, and Temne peoples of the
coastal and northern regions. Fine examples of these figures,
which were bought or commissioned by Portuguese traders during
the 16th century, are still extant. There are also steatite human
figures, sometimes distorted, called nomoli, or, in wooden form,
pomtan (singular, pombo), which certainly date earlier than the
16th century and were used probably for ancestor worship or fertility
rites. At present, they are used for ceremonies to ensure abundance
of crops.
