Beauty and Adornment in the Sahara: Tuareg and Wodaabe (Part 2)

• Post Date: 11/18/2024
• Author: Haley Collins, registration assistant
• Reading Time: 8 minute read

• Exhibits tag
• In-Depth tag

The Wodaabe people mainly live in West Africa, including Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon and have an estimated population of 125,000. They are a subgroup of the Fulani ethnic group and speak the Fula language. The Fulani also refer to themselves as Fulbe. The Wodaabe are divided among two major tribes: the Degereyi and the Alijam. These are further divided into subgroups and familial systems. The word Wodaabe means “people of the taboos” and refers to the emphasis of cultural taboos. The Fulbe way or lawwol pulaaku is a moral path that has 3 attributes: semtuudum, self-control; munyal, patience; and hakkillo, intelligence. These customs are integrated into the Wodaabe people’s daily lives, and the Wodaabe also place emphasis onto beauty. Beauty standards for the Wodaabe are especially important to the ritual dances and ceremonies. The Wodaabe are known for the Gerewol dance, in which 2 tribes come together for feast and festival.

Wodaabe are pastoral nomads and herders, migrating around West Africa with their animals. They have a patrilineal tribal system and are also egalitarian. Following French colonial administration, the Wodaabe were forced to elect chiefs, but they still remain democratic in their decision making and political power. After the colonial era, the Wodaabe have spread elsewhere across the Sahelian region in North Africa. As of the 21st century, the Wodaabe have found themselves neighboring the Tuareg, which has led to the influence and assimilation of Tuareg art into their aesthetic repertoire.

Wodaabe Beauty

For the Wodaabe, beauty (wodi) and existence (woodi) are linked. Beauty and aesthetics are integral to Wodaabe daily life, and each person prioritizes maintaining a beautiful appearance. Ritual and magical practices, music, dance, and bodily ornamentation are reproduced largely by Wodaabe youth.

The Wodaabe artistic practices mostly revolve around ornamentation, such as tattooing, body painting, and costume embroidery. Basic aesthetic principles found in all Wodaabe art forms are symmetry and geometry. The geometric forms include zigzag lines, triangles, hourglass shapes, and circles. Other common elements are astrological features like moons and stars, trees, scorpions, lizards, and people. Personal beauty standards include symmetrical, narrow faces with long noses; thin lips, big, white eyes and teeth; and long hair. Men are expected to be tall and slim and to have stiff posture to achieve this look. Men’s clothing is expected to be elegant and extravagant, using these artistic forms of symmetrical and geometric designs. Behavior is also judged for its beauty. A beautiful man is expected to be charming and intelligent, reminiscent of the Fulbe ways of life. Being beautiful based on simply one’s appearance is important, but personality is also a determining factor of beauty. Similarly, being a skilled dancer can also compensate for one’s appearance.

The most recognized ceremony of the Wodaabe is the rainy season gathering, or ngaankya. The participants are two lineages from the 2 major tribes, Alijam and Degereewol. This week-long festival culminates with the Gerewol dance, or war dance, in which the young men of either tribe adorn themselves according to Wodaabe beauty standards. This includes painting their bodies, faces, and necks red and using white feathers and beads as accessories. Wearing beautiful clothing and jewelry is also a necessity, including Tuareg amulets. In the dance, the young men have straight, stiff posture, and use light, graceful movements. Also, they roll their eyes back to expose the white of their eyes and open their mouths to show their white teeth. Each man is judged by the young women from the opposing tribe to be crowned the most handsome, and the winner is called seekoowo. This is a prestigious honor, and the seekoowo will be recognized for years following their victory. The Gerewol is also a place in which marriages between members of the opposing tribes are formed.

Wodaabe Today

The Wodaabe concept of youth is a broad range of years that encompasses more than biological development. Youth ranges from ages 16 to 40 and is known as sukaabe. Young men and women’s roles in ceremonial and cultural activities refer to this broader range of youthhood. In fact, there is no rite of passage or developmental designation of adulthood; youth is distinguished by a particular set of social obligations and aesthetic knowledge, especially in relation to dances. For the Wodaabe “youth culture is the essential realm of cultural self-assertion."

Everyday forms of ceremonial behaviors are symbolic modes of identity expression. Ceremonial dances and the ornamentation of the body are essential to Wodaabe daily life and are the context in which people exercise their roles and express their identity as youth. Also important to the ceremonial activities are ritual and musical knowledge. This knowledge is perpetuated through individual relationships and reenactment of social activities they witness. Often this is shared amongst youths themselves, but not across different age groups. As the Wodaabe have traveled north in the 20th century, they have become neighbors of the Tuareg. With this newfound connection, the Wodaabe have begun to incorporate Tuareg materials into their own aesthetics. This includes blue veils, camel-riding equipment, and notably Tuareg jewelry. As the Wodaabe place utmost importance on aesthetic knowledge and bodily ornamentation, they are open to integrating new materials into their own material world.

Majority of goods that Wodaabe own are acquired when travelling to other cities during the dry season. Travelers are mostly married women of all ages. Since the 1970s, women have become the chief earners of income within their households. The objects that Wodaabe choose to integrate rarely fulfill a practical function and are acquired because of their aesthetic value. Their consumption habits reflect their own cultural knowledge of art production and beauty. Additionally, the Wodaabe only seek cultural resonance from fellow Wodaabe. Their consumption habits do not reflect a need of approval from outside persons, and the objects are acquired to be perceived as beautiful according to Wodaabe standards only.

Conclusion

For the Tuareg and Wodaabe, art and beauty act as a method of identity creation and are integral to modern social and economic activities. The artifacts in this exhibit in the Featured Object Case on the second floor balcony are made and used by Tuareg and Wodaabe people in their daily lives and showcase a persistence of cultural knowledge that is continuously reproduced by youth into the 21st century.