Book Review: Muntu by Jaheinz Jahn

I can’t say enough about this book. Over 50 years old, it is still worth revisiting for the force for which it makes its defense of African thought, philosophy and religion. Janheinz Jahn, a German scholar, originally wrote Muntu in 1958, around the time of intellectual ferment of luminaries like Fanon, Cesaire, and Senghor. The American edition first appeared in 1961 and was named book of the year by at least one major publishing organization. Jahn lays out the characteristics of African thought as illuminated through New World African religions like Santeria and Voudoun.

Unlike so much of today’s timid postmodernist theorization. Jahn is unafraid of the broad comparison and the book is infused with both an urgency born of passion for the subject matter, in addition to Jahn’s considerable erudition. He is equally at home discussing the implications of nommo, or the magic of the spoken word, as he is the function and symbols within Voudoun, or the difference between New World African religion and its parent in Africa. He also devotes a section to tracing the strands of African thought in the works of the so-called Negritude poets.

I will let William J. Austin, who has reviewed Jahn's work here, have the word on explaining the basic philosophical principles of African thought and aesthetics, according to Jahn:

The text is neatly divided into the major categories of African culture and religion, two forces which, as Jahn points out, flow in and out of one another like a river and its tributaries. Although Jahn makes mention of the cultures formed in northern Africa via the commingling of African and Arabic/Islamic impulses, his focus here is on “Black Africa,” or that larger portion of the continent below the Sahara. This section of Africa, however various in its individual cultural expressions, was surprisingly united in an overall religious structure that informed the ritual of worship, as well as the more pedestrian day to day activities. This over-arching structure contains four major forces: Muntu, Kintu, Hantu, and Kuntu. Muntu, or “human being,” finds its earliest known expression in the culture of the Bantu tribe. As a “force” it is plural, reflecting the myriad variations of humanity. Muntu, however, is not a self-activating force, but rather ‘sleeps,” dormant, while awaiting its activation via a more active sub-force known as Nommo. Nommo, quite simply, is language. The priests and elders of a tribe are most invested with Nommo, and maintain the power to enliven natural objects, and even man-made ones, through a ritualistic process of naming. But all human beings participate in Nommo to some degree. In fact, it is not until a parent names a child, that the child may be considered human, may be said to participate in Muntu. What we have, then, in the concepts of Muntu and Nommo, is not unlike the structuralist/post-structuralist emphasis on language as the begetter of personhood, of humanity. The linkage is certainly there, but it also obtains between Nommo and the Biblical declaration that “In the beginning was the word.”

In any event, Jahn’s detailed analysis makes clear the amazing similarities that reach across seemingly isolated cultures. Like Muntu, Kintu is plural, and represents the force or “spirit” in all non-human objects, animate and inanimate, including animals. Hantu is place and time, and Kuntu, perhaps the most complex concept of the four, represents modality, i.e., quality, style, rhythm and beauty. All four forces are united linguistically by the suffix and concept of NTU, or the essential compatibility and coherence of all things, human and non-human. The many in the one, the one in the many — this is familiar philosophical ground, and more evidence that Nommo does indeed unite all cultures, races, creeds, in their differences.

The one fault with the book is its almost complete lack of discussion about the impact of Islam and the Arabs on African culture and religion. No doubt there are other books that do this admirably, but it would have been quite interesting for Jahn to extend his thesis to some of the cultures of East Africa such as Somalia, the Swahili Coast or Zanzibar. Or even Ethiopia…the point being that these cultures have a much more ancient tradition of contact with Abrahamic religions, ergo we might expect to see a different kind of integration within an overall philosophy of Muntu then that which occured in the Americas under Jahn's rubric of neo-African culture.

How does Neo-African culture apply to African Islamic cultures of the East Coast, where extensive cultural mixing also took place? No doubt a variety of practices exist today which reincarnate the ancient beliefs in new forms, for example the practice of praying to Sufi saints and venerating their burial sites as holy places.

What is perhaps most interesting about Jahn’s thesis, as Austin pointed out, is that he brings out the true monotheism at the core of most African religion, explaining that this ONE God who is RULER OVER ALL is so distant from humanity that humans needs a variety of intermediaries in order to tap into the power of GOD's Being.

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African artists poor unlike their cousins

Interesting article...Doesn't this confirm that the bourgeoisie class is the class that begins to 'collect' art? And that the African bourgeoisie is not numerous enough to support African art? Or could it be that African art fetches a better price outside the continent where it is snapped up by 'exotic seekers' and amateur anthropologists? There is an abundance of creativity in the continent; shouldn't African artists be able to cash in in the same way? What do you think?

African artists poor unlike their cousins
BY OSEI G. KOFI

The failure of African artists to cash in on the current international windfall cannot be blamed on machinations by ‘blood sucking western capitalists’ but on Africans’ own failure to cotton on to a good thing – even when it stares us in the face, writes Osei G. Kofi.

Among the many godchildren of Globalization is the art business. It has grown from several hundred million dollars a year into a multi-billion dollar industry in a little over a decade. Bad news is that Africa is missing out on this bonanza.

Today art, especially contemporary art, brings together a vast, growing community of savvy artists, dealers, curators, galleries, museums, auction houses, publishers, film makers and internet designers in an exciting new marketplace where everyone seems to gain enormously. Unfortunately Africa and Africans are sadly locked out of this burgeoning business.
And this time it is not due to any machination by “blood sucking western capitalists” of the post-colonial order but by Africans’ own failure to cotton on to a good thing — even when it stares us in the face.

The just-ended Art Basel, the world’s biggest art fair, held every June in the Swiss industrial city of Basel, is a case in point. For five action-packed days last month the three hanger-size exhibition halls at Messeplatz on the banks of the sleepy Rhine, throbbed with feverish activity as the who-and-who of global art cut deals over an array of eye popping, heart thumping goodies.

A piece by Yinka Shonibare. PHOTO BY OSEI KOFI

There were fine samples from the usual suspects — Klimt, Picasso, Modigliani, Giacometti, Warhol, Kandinsky, Dali, Picabia, Pollock, Jasper Johns, Chagall, Calder, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Bacon and many more.

There were fresh offerings from the latter-day gang – Jeff Koons, Hockney, Niki Saint Phalle, Lucian Freud, Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge and the tragic Haitian prodigy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died of a drug overdose just after hitting the big time. There were mirthful splashes from post-Mao Chinese warriors, including the irrepressible Yue Minjun. There were modern-day Samurais, such as Takashi Murakami.

Art Basel 2009 hosted 300 tightly vetted art galleries showcasing some 2,500 artists. It drew 61,000 visitors and attracted 50 state museum groups on the hunt for additions to their collections. It was covered by 280 media representatives from Rio de Janeiro to Wellington; from Reykjavik to Johannesburg.

Showbiz personalities, fashion icons or moneyed folks who came to the annual feast in the plush carpeted booths included Brad Pitt, Naomi Campbell, Pharrell Williams, Roman Abramovich, Larry Gagosian, Christian Boros and super collector, Eli Broad of California — the man who moves the global art market like no one does. The last three personalities, for instance, plus London’s Charles Saatchi and Hong Kong’s David Tang are the Warren Buffetts of the art world.

Towering over the throngs of rich and perfumed glitterati in his signature faded slacks and polo shirt was Michel Pigozzi, the Swiss entrepreneur who, with curator Andre Magnin, are the forecourt of the enterprise to bring African contemporary art to western palates via their Africa Remix project. Pigozzi owns one of the largest collections of African contemporary art and has loaned several pieces to the UNAIDS to enliven the corridors of the Geneva headquarters.

Despite the global credit crunch, business was brisk in Basel. Martin Kippenberger’s I Am Too Political sold for $1.4 million (Sh106 million). Two of Paul McCarthy’s stainless steel sculptures, Piggies, sold for $1.5 million (Sh117 million) each. The bargains included Kirchner’s Two Reclining Female Nudes which bagged a buyer at $200,000 (Sh15.2 million).

Mickalene Thomas’s canvas, Kerry On, a gravity-defying bosomy woman in a yellow blouse, went for $65,000 (Sh4.9 million).
The Chinese, Japanese and Latinos are all said to have done well. The thing with art fairs is that many moneyed buyers insist on anonymity and only a fraction of the sales are released to the press by the galleries.

Now, where is Africa in all this? Nowhere. So much of western contemporary art, as showcased in Art Basel, Venice Biennale, Berlin Forum, Frieze London and New York or on the walls of many an American or European gallery today bear the DNA of African classicism. That Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Calder and the other cubists, surrealists or post modernists owe a huge debt to Mother Africa is now a cliché.

At the risk of sounding a tad chauvinist, I dare say African artists beavering away in their modest studios or lean-to shanty homes in Kampala, Ile Ife, Kinshasa, Nairobi, Maputo, Dakar or Khartoum are the most innovative, accessible, refreshing and prodigious among their generation worldwide. And yet hardly any African artist was found in an important market such as Art Basel. Artists like Uganda’s Jak Katarikawe, dubbed “Africa’s Chagall”, South African Charles Sekano, Rwandan Sekajugo or Kenyans Kivuthu Mbuno, Sebastian Kiare and Tabitha Mburu all eke out a living on the margins of poverty after decades of dedication to their craft. Why?

Putting money on the wall?
The reasons are quite banal. Africa has been slow, too slow, in professionalising art. Our colleges offer art degrees but how many of the graduates can make a living as professional curators, gallerists, dealers or even understand the concept of an auction house? The entire East and Central African region has two commercial galleries of international standards, the venerable Gallery Watatu and its comely upstart, Ramoma, both in Nairobi.

A crucial factor is that Africans, rich Africans, refuse to buy art. The concept of “putting money on the wall” is alien to them. A while ago a major US business magazine did a cover spread on one of the newly minted billionaires of the Black Economic Empowerment class of post Apartheid South Africa. The paintings on the walls of the sumptuously appointed homes were distinctly run of the mill. There were no Jak Katarikawes, Marlene Dumas, William Kentridges, E. Saidi Tingatingas, Lilangas, Malangatanas, or Cheri Sambas. And yet these are some of the African artists slated to join the Rothkos, Modiglianis and Picassos of posterity.

Anyone who thinks that only frivolous people fork out thousands of dollars to acquire an art piece to adorn the home or litter the garden should think again. More than at any time since our ancestors drew fanciful images on cave walls and the Medicis were patrons of Florentine or greater European artistic creations, art, today, is gilt-edged investment, in fact the ultimate redoubt of a global financial system gone haywire.

Gallery Watatu’s hard times
Take for instance the Lauders, of the American cosmetics industry fame. Three years ago scion of the family plunked down $135 million (Sh10.3 billion)for Gustaf Klimt’s 1907 portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer at auction at Christie’s, New York. That painting today has a market value of at least $150 million (Sh11.4 billion). Seriously.

Just imagine if the Lauders had put the cash into Bernard L Madoff Investment (In)Securities, Lehman Brothers, or in AIG.
Take the case of Adama Diawara, owner of Gallery Watatu. The self-taught wily art supremo from Cote d’Ivoire is a veteran among the handful promoters of art in Africa. His Nairobi gallery, the oldest private gallery in sub-Sahara Africa, with impeccable pedigree, has fallen on hard times, largely due to the drop in the art buying expatriates visiting Kenya, failure of local patrons to make up the gap and, above all, the crippling rent charged by Lonrho House, downtown Nairobi.

However, Diawara is the proud owner of the largest single collection of the works of Tanzanians Lilanga and E. Saidi Tingatinga, the latter being the only African to have found an international art movement that now bears his name. If Diawara’s gallery was located in London, New York or Tokyo, banks and financial houses would not only pay him a monthly fee to hire some of his paintings to display in their premise.

They would also accept his Tingatingas and Lilangas as collateral for loans that would allow Diawara to construct his own gallery and buy advertising space in the Daily Nation and specialised art magazines abroad – all being the window to international art sales.

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