African Art Glossary

A resist-dyed indigo cloth tradition of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, created using techniques such as tie-dyeing, starch-resist painting, and stitch-resist methods.

The practice of honoring deceased family members and lineage founders through ritual, prayer, and the creation of art objects believed to facilitate communication between the living and the dead.

Thousands of metal plaques and sculptures from the Kingdom of Benin (present-day Nigeria) created from the 13th century onward, looted by British forces in 1897.

Reliquary guardian figures carved by the Fang people of Gabon and Cameroon, placed atop containers of ancestral remains to protect and honor the dead.

Also known as mudcloth, a Bamana textile from Mali created by dyeing handwoven cotton with fermented mud and plant-based solutions to produce geometric patterns.

A mythical being in Bamana cosmology who taught humans agriculture, honored through masquerade performances featuring carved antelope headdresses.

The lost-wax casting technique used to create detailed metal sculptures by replacing a wax model with molten metal inside a clay mold.

A Dogon funerary ceremony in Mali involving elaborate masked dances intended to guide the souls of the deceased to the spirit world.

A Yoruba masquerade tradition honoring the spiritual power of elderly women and mothers through carved headdresses, dance, and music.

A West African oral historian, storyteller, and musician who preserves and transmits cultural knowledge, genealogies, and history through performance.

An ancient Yoruba city in present-day Nigeria and the spiritual homeland of the Yoruba people, renowned for its naturalistic bronze and terracotta portrait heads dating to the 12th-14th centuries.

A Dogon mask with a tall double-cross superstructure representing the duality of the world and used in Dama funerary ceremonies in Mali.

A handwoven strip cloth of the Ashanti and Ewe peoples of Ghana, made from silk and cotton on narrow looms with patterns encoding historical and philosophical meanings.

A stylized, often copper- or brass-covered wooden figure made by the Kota people of Gabon to guard containers of ancestral relics.

A people of Mozambique and Tanzania known for their sculptural traditions, particularly Shetani spirit figures and Ujamaa communal carvings.

A performative event combining carved masks, costumes, dance, and music in which the performer embodies a spirit or ancestor for social, religious, or political purposes.

The tradition of painting bold geometric patterns on house walls practiced by Ndebele women of South Africa as expressions of cultural identity.

A spiritual object or power figure from the Kongo peoples of Central Africa, believed to contain forces that can be directed by a ritual specialist for healing, protection, or justice.

An early Iron Age civilization in central Nigeria (c. 1500 BCE - 500 CE) known for producing some of the oldest terracotta sculptures in sub-Saharan Africa.

The traditional ruler or king of the Kingdom of Benin (and other Yoruba/Edo polities), who served as both political leader and patron of the arts.

A Western art historical term for the appropriation or imitation of non-Western art forms, now widely critiqued for its ethnocentric and reductive framing of African and other traditions.

The process of returning cultural objects to their countries or communities of origin, particularly those taken during colonialism.

Paintings and engravings on rock surfaces created by prehistoric peoples, found abundantly across Africa including at Tassili n'Ajjer, Drakensberg, and Twyfelfontein.

An Adinkra symbol of the Akan people depicting a bird looking backward, representing the proverb 'Go back and fetch it' and the importance of learning from the past.

A Swahili term meaning 'familyhood' or 'community,' also the name for Makonde communal carvings depicting interlocking human figures symbolizing collective unity.