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Abstract
Anthropomorphic, naturalistic, carved from wood and embellished with paint and human hair, mapiko masks are the centerpieces of spectacles produced by groups of Makonde men in Mozambique. While Makondes consider mapiko to be a vehicle for imparting elemental truths about gender, authority, and the past, placing mapiko in historical perspective reveals that the art form, from its masks to the members of the groups who collectively perform it, has been highly variable over time. A Language for Change: Creativity and Power in Mozambican Makonde Masked Performance circa 1900–2004 argues that this mutability is rooted in changing Makonde historical experience over the course of the twentieth century. Far from being passive reflections of evolving circumstances, however, mapiko creation and performance practices have constituted a central, structuring schema through which Makonde individuals have pursued and articulated fluid social identities.
This dissertation argues that, above all, mapiko constitutes both a domain for the enactment of social, political and economic power and an aesthetic and conceptual language through which this power is articulated. In Makonde thought, the masked dancer is simultaneously an incarnated ancestral spirit, a dramatic representation of a character, and a recognizable individual performing within a competitive context. Built upon these contradictory concepts, mapiko discourse constitutes an especially subtle and responsive language for the negotiation and expression of social power thin Makonde society.
This dissertation focuses on mapiko practice in the eras of Portuguese colonialism and postcolonial Mozambican socialism. Theorizing practices of mask creation, masked performance, and the status of the mask in Makonde society, A Language for Change traces the emergence of new kinds of artists, new sculptural and performance genres, and new mask subjects and styles. It shows the relationships between these developments and shifts in authority in Makonde society and beyond, and demonstrates that as various individuals have attained social authority they have acted out their empowerment within the medium of mapiko, strategically innovating and selectively engaging its conventions to challenge those whom they seek to supplant in the social order.
