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Stone heads recall Africa's forgotten past
By: Matthew Bunce
Broadcasted on BICNews 10 February 1998

FEATURE

GOHITAFLA, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - When Bernadette Vouinan tripped
over a rock with eyes and a nose in 1982, she unearthed one of the first
of more than 1,000 ancient stone head sculptures to emerge from Ivory
Coast's pre-historic soil.

The origin of the heavy granite and laterite stones of up to three
feet high and 2,000 years old remains a mystery. But some villagers have
no doubts, even challenging theories on East Africa's Rift Valley as the
cradle of mankind.

``We believe they were created and placed in the earth here by
God,'' said one farmer in the remote Marahoue valley in central Ivory
Coast where many of the heads have been found. Such lore attributes
flattened rocks found there to the creator's footprints as he stepped
back to heaven.

Farmers are often less star-struck, selling any heads they find to
tourists for a pittance.

Ivorian anthropologists staging an exhibition in the commercial
capital Abidjan this month hope to dispel myths and spur a wider
interest in promoting Africa's forgotten past.

``It means we have had art for a long time,'' said leading
anthropologist Georges Niangoran-Bouah, chief researcher on Marahoue.
``And where there is art there is civilization.''

The problem is that West Africa's tropical climate means clues to
history often rot, leaving only rich oral tradition.

GOD'S TEST-BED FOR HUMANS

``We Africans say man was not made in a day. And the most important
part of man is the head,'' Niangoran-Bouah told Reuters.

Folklore says the myriad facial designs -- many Marahoue heads have
no mouth, nose or eyes -- are but one sign of God's use of Marahoue as a
human test-bed. Later carvings with busts and full figures show man's
head at one third rather than one seventh of his height.

``African artists think God must have made a mistake,'' said
Niangoran-Bouah, holding a giant-nosed head nicknamed Charles de Gaulle,
one of his garden collection of 200 stones.

The faces, once used in mask rituals, are said to have been buried
by God to protect women and children from seeing them.

But some village wives have more pressing domestic concerns.

``They are very good. They withstand the heat,'' said one cook who
was using three around a fire to support her pots at Diacohou.

BEFORE OUR ANCESTORS

The heads have yet to be accurately dated but similar stones in
Senegal date back as far as 2,000 years.

``No one knows what role the heads played in ancient times,''
Niangoran-Bouah said.

``They are not the work of men known to us or our ancestors,'' said
Ta-bi-Tra, a hunter at Gohitafla, now inhabited by Ivorian President
Henri Konan Bedie's ruling Baoule tribe. Baoule warriors arrived there
under Queen Abla Pokou in the 17th century, displacing Gouro tribes who
in turn had pushed out the Wan culture in the 15th century.

``The Wan consider them to be ancestral objects,'' said
Niangoran-Bouah, citing the stories of nearby Wan descendants, including
a theory that the heads betrayed them to the enemy.

The heads are also seen as grave charms for Wan warriors, homes for
dead mens' souls or guardian spirits and talismans.

``We make offerings for a safe voyage, to find a good partner or fight
off evil sorcerers, eaters of souls, jealous people and poisoners,''
said one soothsayer. ``We trust them.''

Animal sacrifices in cult rituals ensured successful childbirth and
stone heads still play a part in ritual exorcisms and purification of
adulterers. One man described being inhabited by a spirit from stones
surrounding his house. ``I have 13 children, they all come from the
stones.''

Prehistoric stone heads have been found around the world, from
Africa to Europe and America. Marahoue's are thought to be among the
largest and oldest along Africa's Atlantic coast.

Ivorian standing stones are larger than average and found deeper in
the ground than similar African examples, suggesting a greater age of up
to 7,000 years, Niangoran-Bouah said.

Such African megaliths weighing between half a ton and 15 tons are
found in a northwestern strip on the Mediterranean and pockets in a wide
west-east sub-Saharan band between Senegal and Kenya. Villagers showed
Reuters a 19-foot rock said to be one of the largest African megaliths.

In Mali, to the north, anthropologists have been baffled by the
Dogon culture's ability to predict cycles of an invisible satellite of
the star Sirius, which appears every 60 years. The Dogon, whose God Amma
is said to have thrown a ball of clay into space to create Earth, is
just one example of deep civilization in Africa often brushed over by
colonists.

``This civilization before the pre-colonial period honorsour
country,'' Niangoran-Bouah said. ``During colonial times the stones were
probably kept hidden in the forest. The whites did not see them.''

That, for better or worse, is no longer the case.

Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service