Playing Cards

Ahem Mediferai
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

Tamara Ivikovna Sajnav
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

Zeze Musicians, Wagago, Tanzania
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

Ahem Mediferai: From the album West Africa: Drum, Chant & Instrumental Music (1976). Chant performed by three male and four female Tuareg singers led by Ahem Mediferai. Recorded in northern Mali by Stephen Jay. The strong diagonal in the photograph of Ahem Mediferai on the back of the album, and its artist's impression on the front, made me experiment once again with the diagonal 'playing card' (mirroring) axis. I did three the past week, still a long way away from a deck.

Tamara Sajnav: The notes to this song by Alena Uican from the cd Sibérie 4 – Kamchatka: dance drums from the Siberian Far East are odd and short (by Henri Lecomte): "Born in Rekinniki in 1969. She does not work so she can raise her child. This song evokes movements of sea mammals, which she imitates while singing." Life is very mysterious; the more you learn, the less sense it all makes. The image in the painting is of a Koryak woman who appears on the cd cover. The cd is dedicated to the music of the Koryak, the instrument seen is shaman's frame drum as is Uican's.

Zeze Musicians: The zeze is a stringed instrument found throughout Tanzania. The Wagogo of central Tanzania are especially associated with the instrument. The Wagogo Soothing Song can be found on the LP Africa: Ceremonial & Folk Music [Explorer, 1975] and was recorded by David Fenshawe. Two zeze players, a drummer, and mixed choir can be heard in a song that was intended to lull a child to sleep who couldn't. I doubt it if it worked; the performance is quite ecstatic but the zeze has a very soothing sound. The musician depicted appear on a very small photograph on the back of the album and are likely the zeze performers heard on the recording.

Abelam

Abelam man, 1917
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

The Abelam are one of those groups of indigenous peoples that speak to my imagination. Like the Jivaro, Selk'nam, and the Andamanese, the Abelam of Papua New Guinea belong to those most remote and prehistoric one can imagine. Situated just south of the equator along the Sepik River, running from the Highlands of Papua north to the Pacific Ocean, the Abelam were first seen by westerners a mere hundred years ago remaining with characteristics of the stone age. No metallurgy or writing system they knew of, tools are just of stone or bone. I first learned of the Abelam through the collection The Music of Primitive Man [Horizon, 1973] that featured two short outtakes. One, Abelam Warning, belongs to the most outlandish recordings I've ever heard and was listed in a top 100 some ten years ago. Last year I came across the cd Music of Oceania: The Abelam of Papua Niugini [Musicaphone, 1983, Germany] and downloaded several tracks. Nggwal mindsha, antiphony to the ancestral spirits is now part of the latest top 100 edition. The sleeve features a photo of a characteristic Abelam ceremonial house. As primitive as the technology of the Abelam is, their ceremonial houses are exquisite and display highly advanced building techniques. The music was recorded by Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin who also wrote a lengthy paper of the distinguished architecture of the ceremonial houses. The first mention of these houses, and the Abelam for that matter, was recorded by another German, Richard Thurnwald in 1913. The individual in the painting above was situated in front of a ceremonial house in a 1913 photograph by Thurnwald. There are no women depicted in early photographs of the Abelam, and in more recent pictures women only feature as bystanders. Figures in ceremonial costume, at dances and in front of ceremonial houses are all men. Unlike in more recent photographs, in which men wear western style shorts or ceremonial attire, they are seen nude (at least the one that I painted). Remaining in recent photos is the unique hair fashion of Abelam men coiffed into a near perfect circle, like a halo, or sun disc. Noteworthy too in the appearance of the individual I painted are the feminine looking breasts. Perhaps this individual, standing while others in the photograph are sitting in front of him, is an important person, maybe a shaman. An often seen characteristic of shamans is gender ambiguity. I may be reading too much into this photo but a mind may wander and wonder at the marvels of such distant people.

No Way and No First

Nowayilethi Mbizweni
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

The first painting of 2020 is of Nowayilethi Mbizweni. This is my third painting of her and together they make an interesting triptych. The recording in (last year's) top 100 is again from Dargie's film Umngqokolo: Thembu Xhosa, Overtone Singing 1985-1998. On the particular section in the top 100 she's not performing solo or as a duet like she was in a previous top 100 but fronts the Ngqoko group seen in the movie. The group consists of about fifteen singers, mostly women but a few men are included too. Nowayilethi sits in front next to (her sister perhaps) Nofirst Mbizweni. The rest of the group are standing behind them. The term 'umngqolo' refers to the type of throat singing Mbizweni is known for and I now learned how to properly pronounce it with the Xhosa clicking sound included.