Arts du mythe : the documentary serie

Sunday, 6 April at 8.15 p.m. : Mask, Kodiak Archipelago (new)

The historian Oleg Kobtzeff, whilst discussing the populations of the Great North, told us “to speak is almost indecent.” What is known about this moon mask? The centrepiece of a collection of 70 masks which came from the Kodiak archipelago in Alaska.

According to legend, these masks were made by a hunter who had dreamed about them. Thanks to them, the hunt proved fruitful. The Kodiak inhabitants, Sugpiaq or Alutiiq, associate them with songs and dances. Alphonse Pinart, without doubt the last eyewitness of these rituals, recorded them during his stay on the island in 1871. He brought back this extremely unique collection of masks and bequeathed them to the Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer.

The Kodiak archipelago, a Russian colony, purchased by the Americans in 1867, is losing sight of its own culture, where only a few of the senior members still retain a few fragments…

Director : Philippe Truffault

Sunday, 13 April at 8.15 p.m. : Fon Statue of the God Gu (new)

This work from Benin is considered as being « indisputably one of the most beautiful known specimens of African Negro art ». Upon its arrival in the west, this ritual object was called a « sculpture » in order to erase its true nature, of separating it from its mediatory responsibility between the visible and invisible worlds…

It is very unusual for the name of an author of an earlier African art object to be known in the twentieth century. This, however, is not the case as this grand iron statue was made around 1850 by a blacksmith called Akati Ekplekendo.

In the courtyards of Beninese houses, the Gu is usually only a clod of earth in which several metallic objects (bolts and keys) are mixed. Gu is seen as a functioning principle, a force with multiple facets which is not portrayed as a distinctive element.

The artist Akati Ekplékendo broke with tradition by changing a clod of earth to a human shape, creating a figure based entirely on the symbolism of Gu, the god of war and worked metal.

Director: Philippe Truffault

Sunday, 27 April at 8.15 p.m. : Mnong Gar Jar Stake (new)

The Mnong Gar live on the high Vietnamese plateaus and are called « Mountain dwellers» by other people.  For a long time, because they stay isolated on high ground, the populations on the plains have treated them as « savages ».

The anthropologist Georges Condominas lived in a Mnong Gar between 1948 and 1950, recording and taking photographs of everything that he saw. He brought back a stake jar, amongst other things, which is now in the Musée du Quai Branly.

This stake holds a jar containing rice beer. The stake and jar are essential in performing the buffalo sacrifice, an important ritual in Southeast Asia.

But why are these animals sacrificed?  What can one hope for by shedding buffalo blood ? Is this a barbaric act or, on the contrary, a sign of civilization ? To sacrifice is to eat with the gods. It also establishes man with the status that is particular to him, between creatures and deities.

These basic questions are carried by a simple stake, an ephemeral object designed for a buffalo sacrifice some years before the United States entered the Vietnam War.

Director: Jean-Loïc Portron

Sunday, 4 May at 8.15 p.m. : Effigy from the Marquesas Islands

The object consists of a wooden frame covered with tapa, a bark cloth (vegetal fabric). It is basically a human being where the head can clearly be seen in relief. This effigy is in the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly.

The bark cloth is covered in black and reddish-brown patterns drawn from tattoos and comes from the Marquesas Islands.

One could not be considered a complete man on this archipelago in the middle of the Pacific unless tattooed. Tattooing has been prohibited and the Marquesans have lost sight of these patterns.  However, some objects such as this effigy still remain.

No-one is really sure what it is, although the Marqueseans still recognize in it the power marked by the taboo.

Director: Jean-Loïc Portron

Sunday, 18 May at 8.15 p.m. : Hopi Doll

It is a small wooden doll of forty centimetres. The Hopi doll, or tihu, represents one of some 350 Kachina spirits, a mirror society that shares the lives of the Hopi Indians of Arizona for half of the year, livening up the villages with their dancing and especially bringing rain and fertility.

Hopi children learn to familiarize themselves with this invisible world thanks to carved and painted dolls, just like these spirits.These dolls have fascinated surrealists, who brought large numbers of them back to France and Europe.                                         

This one which is at the heart of this film belonged to André Breton and is now in the Musée d’Arts Africains, Océaniens et Amérindiens in Marseille.
Like the majority of Kachina dolls, they bear the symbols of rain, clouds and maize, elements essential for the survival of the Hopi.

Director: Philippe Truffault

Sunday, 1st June at 8.15 p.m. : Kanak Spear-like Wooden Totem (new)

Originally from New Caledonia, this spear-like wood carving adorns the roofs of great ceremonial huts and represents the founder-ancestor of a clan. As such, it is the place of passage between the worlds of the living and the dead.

If the spear is not heard without the hut, the hut is not heard without the pathway.  It is the spear that passes the word and those who carry it. What is said and done in the hut must leave by the “speaking-pathway”. Thus the act and the word merge.

In addition to its symbolic function, this spear-like wooden totem also has a political function. It is the property of the chief and marks his power over the clan; an aspect that brought about it being adopted unanimously by the Kanak freedom fighters and has appeared on their flag since 1984.

Director : Frédéric Ramade

Sunday, 8 June at 8.15 p.m. : Dogon Heddle Pulley

Weaving is an essential act in the Dogon culture in Mali. Weaving also brings speech, structures it and gives it a sense of meaning.

Constructed in the image of the world, the pulley is in the middle of the loom, opposite the weaver. The action of the feet makes the pulley’s axle sing.  This is the primordial Word.

The pulley in this episode portrays two twins, a male and a female, joined by the head, the primordial being. Reported amongst the expeditions of the ethnologist, Marcel Griaule, its patina bears witness to its usage, its irregular curves of the work of the artist who produced it.  It is this, without doubt, that was so beautiful in the eyes of the Danish collector, René Rasmussen.

Director: Ludovic Segarra and Philippe Truffault

Sunday, 15 June at 8.15 p.m. : Rock Crystal Skull (new)

Magnetic gaze, puzzling workmanship, light trap : encircled by questions, this rock crystal skull came from a distant era, then the ancient capital of the Aztecs and finally from the shop of Eugène Boban, a famous antique collector.

One of these rock crystal skulls is in Paris and, like those at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, or the British Museum in London, is the bearer of certain mysteries, not the least of which is the hole that goes straight through the skull.

Here are a few facts about the Parisian life story of this bizarre object : given to the Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1883 ; in 1929 with the photographer Man Ray ; a long stay at the Musée de l’homme, where many came from the other side of the world to look at it; a rather odd appearance in 2006 at the new Musée du Quai Branly; and currently is hidden away in the basement of the Louvre.

It is being examined there by an electron microscope and is being bombarded by elementary particles. Will it now reveal its secrets ?

Director : Philippe Truffault

Sunday, 22 June at 8.15 p.m. : Maori Pendant

This deep green carved jade figure, fifteen centimetres high, the eyes accentuated by red sealing wax, the head turned sideways, brings us to the heart of the Maori culture.  This pendant is currently in the Musée du Quai Branly.

It is an Hei tiki, « hei » meaning pendant and « tiki » a mythical human form, the figure of an ancestor.
Each pendant bears a name as witness to the history of an important person. This pendant, which is at the heart of the film, lost this reference when brought back by European navigators.

The film opens a window for us, through the sharp gaze of a sculptor, an historian, museum curators, a modern artist or one of the Ngai Tahu chiefs, on a complex culture where mythology is still very much alive.

Director: Jean-Loïc Portron

Sunday, 29 June at 8.15 p.m. : Chinese Shadow Figure (new)

The Musée du Quai Branly has a complete set of Chinese shadow figures. On of these figures represents Guan-Yu, a 3rd-century warrior, and symbolizes fidelity and moral rectitude.  He joined the Chinese pantheon when he became the god of war, trade and secret societies.

Legend recounts that a Taoist priest was present at court one day before the Son of Heaven, who was crying bitterly following the death of his favourite wife. The priest then promised the despairing emperor that he would make the ghost of his loved one appear on a screen. And thus, this is how the Shadow Theatre came about by invoking dead souls and bringing the dead back to life.

In 1965, the Cultural Revolution finally abolished these ancient reactionary practices. It tracked down the superstitions and eradicated these « old fashioned practices ». Theatre companies were disbanded, shadow figures and repertory collections burned, exhibitors and musicians humiliated…

Nowadays, former red guards have converted to the market economy and the Shadow Theatre, deeply engrained in the Chinese culture, has survived.

Director: Jean-Loïc Portron