Art Africain - African Art : Bocie Arts - African Vodun (Vaudou, Vodoon)

see a short video (30 sec.) of vodun trance in Benin (1,31 Mo)
(click right on this link, then click left on "save the target as...", choose your desk, for example, to copy the video and when "transe.wmv" is on the desk you can click on it to open it with your normal sounds and images reader).

lire une autre étude sur les fon et le "vodun"
consulter un site avec de nombreux objets "boccio" ou "bocie"
ou retour vers les autres études
ou retour au sommaire du site

The term "bocie arts" refers to a specific category of art, not to a culture. These objects are figural statues and non-figural objects; from the roots of the word "bocie," bo (which means empowered) and cie (which means cadaver), bocie signifies an "empowered cadaver"-an object of power which resembles a human being; and the non-figural objects, called bo, are objects in any form which have power. Regionally, bocie arts are found primarily in Benin (the region that was formerly called Dahomey) and Togo; occupied by several linguistically related groups, one of which is Fon (but there are more than 9 others)-this is important because words are important to understanding the meaning of this art. Bocie arts are not new to the 20^th century and did not originate in the 20^th century, but they continue to be made and used in the present day.

The 18^th century in Africa is marked by a tremendous amount of slave trade from the African west coast to (primarily) the Caribbean and the Americas, but it had an effect on the lives of people who remained in Africa-Dahomey, for example, developed an economy based on capturing people who could be sold to slave traders; those people who escaped capture often found their homes destroyed and engaged in further warfare; the money providers of families were the ones who were generally taken into slavery; a slave trade within Africa also developed in response to a European demand for palm oil. Bocie may manifest the psychological and physical attributes of suffering and the loss of empowerment: the cords and binding used in some of these figures may be a "reference to the trauma which resulted from state-induced or supported violence" (Blier, 26-7) but they are probably more than a reflection of imprisonment; they may be strategies for surviving trauma. In other words, the psychology of trauma is believed to involve the mental visualization, the desire, for a state of existence which came before the trauma. Before and after are made equal in the dreams of the person who has experienced trauma. We don't always see this expressed in artworks, but the bocie arts may in fact be a very explicit expression of this idea.

Bocie arts existed before slavery and responded to or addressed other types of concerns but they seem to have taken on a more pronounced and pointed psychological meaning in response to the trauma of war and slavery; this meaning may exist in the aesthetic of bocie arts which appears to be an aesthetic of negativity, destruction and dissonance, an aesthetic of shock

The bocie had an early role of protecting against witchcraft, and even if slavery and wars were not directly attributed to sorcery, sorcery and witchcraft were and are ways of explaining the unthinkable. They therefore become social constructs for dealing with trauma and a range of complaints which the bocie might then be used to protect against and which the bocie might express in visual terms.

There are several meanings of the word vodun (also spelled vodou). For another discussion of this concept, go to the unit on Haitian Vodou. The relevant meanings with respect to bocie arts are these:
the roots of vodou seem to be in a word vo which means hole and which may symbolize something hidden or secret, and the word dun, which relates to the word for divination signs. From these roots come the practices of burying or hiding potent substances in a hole in the ground or inside an object which then empowers an endangered person. The word vodun also signifies the idea of a messenger from the gods, a messenger of the invisible. A different etymology of the word suggests that the two roots, vo and dun, actually communicate the idea of resting in order to draw water, which then becomes the idea of finding an inner state of calm in order to find strength. Finally, there is a Fon word which is similar to "vodun": "fon hun." This word means to call on or awaken the gods. What each of these interpretations shares is the belief that people are both passive and active; things happen to them which they cannot control, but the powers of the gods give them the power to find inner strengths.

As is true of many African cultures and their arts, making the bocie involves a framework of interaction among several people or groups. The artist, the person who literally makes the object, may not be the person who activates or empowers it; and he may likewise not be the person who has determined the need for the object. The activator is often a priest or a sorcerer, and in some cases, this person is the same as the artist (this appears to be true in the case of making Ethiopian healing scrolls-see the unit on Ethiopian scrolls). In addition to the creator of the object and the activator, another person is an essential part of this team: the user (the person for whom the object is made).

Activating the bocie involves several steps: the object and its associated materials must be assembled but speech, heat, knotting or twisting, sacrifice or killing something to offer to a god, are all parts of the process of activation-[heat, speech, attachment, supernatural power]-we can identify this activation process as a ritual involving the producer of the object, the eventual user, and the object itself with the goal of securing or symbolically "suturing" the object to user just as the powers of the gods are sutured to the object.

The importance of speech lies in the words of sorcery which are then "attached" to the figure; the words are essentially embodied in the figure but the act of speaking them attaches them irreversibly;

fire, through heat, suggests vengeance and chaos and fever, but through the invocation of this heat, evil can be devoured and peace can be regained-the bocie is not literally burned but fire is attached to it in various ways: pepper, red parrot feathers;

tying is another part of the process of empowerment. Tying has several meanings in this context: taming or subduing the motivating fears, taking control of one's emotions, locking in place the power which will resolve the problem.

What is especially important to note here is that the empowerment process is synesthetic (involving more than one sense). This is also true of the user's response to the object, which is made in several sensory planes. The bocie arts, and this is also true of the arts of the Igbo mbari and even the Baule statues of spirit mates, are works which involve multiple senses and therefore privilege the sensory domains over the intellectual. This multisensory involvement is a significant source of their affective power.

"Through sensory emphasis, which includes sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell, each bocie becomes a means through which raw emotions are at once 'fixed' and addressed. The bocie, in sum, constitute an art of dialogue. They are works which encourage response and counterresponse in stressing action and force as a vital part of object signification."
(Blier, p. 94)

From here, you can go to the unit called "Bocie Review." I prepared it as a review for the students in my African Art class (winter 99). After you read the Bocie Review, then read the unit called Answer Guide. You don't need to have taken the exam to find more explanation and ideas about the Bocie in the answer guide, along with some essays written by students in response to the exam. Even more than my review, their answers will tell you what this is all about. And for more reading, try the book by: