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Through a Clouded Mirror: Africa at the Pan American Exposition, Buffalo 1901
I. Introduction Through time it becomes difficult to separate our own beliefs about what happened in the past from the hopes and motivations of the people who actually lived through those times. Re-examining the past gives us a chance to learn from others’ lives and to reflect on our own values. On June 22 2002, the centennial anniversary of the day the African Village opened at the Pan-American Exposition, the Buffalo Museum of Science opened the exhibit, Through a Clouded Mirror: Africa at the Pan-American Exposition, curated by Kevin P. Smith. This temporary exhibit showcased objects from the collection including manuscripts, masks, instruments, jewelry and ceremonial clothing from the African Village at the Pan-Am. Through this website, visit the exhibit once again from the comfort of your home, school, or office. When the Pan Am closed in November 1901, the Buffalo Museum of Science acquired its collection of more than 500 African artifacts. This is the largest collection remaining from any of the African Villages that appeared in world's fairs during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Midways and traveling shows were to Victorian people what the World Wide Web, Disney World, the Discovery Channel, and National Geographic magazine are to us today – they provided glimpses of far-away places and cultures that few people in 1901 ever had a chance to see in person Photograph by Carlos E. Cummings, Collections of the Buffalo Museum of Science
Ongoing Research Almost every day brings new information about the people who performed, organized, and saw “Darkest Africa.” Each new piece of information teaches us that the realities of the African Villages at the Pan-Am and other World’s Fairs were far more complex and far more important than many of the stories told about them today.
Colorful Reflections: Different Meanings for Different Cultures We use mirrors every day as tools to see our own reflections. Since the image we see is reversed we also use mirrors metaphorically to describe a world where things are turned around, as in Lewis Carroll’s book “The Adventures of Alice Through the Looking Glass." The Bakongo people, who live around the mouth of the Congo River in Africa, view the reflective surface of lakes, pools, and streams as a film separating the world of dead ancestors from the world of the living. Movement across that reflective boundary happens at death, at birth, and when rituals invoke the power of the spiritual world for aid to the living We use the metaphor of mirrors in this exhibit to ask you to reflect on your own beliefs and what you believe about others.
Symbolism and Color The colors red, black, and white are used throughout these pages to honor the traditions of all the Africans who came to Buffalo in 1901.The people who lived in the African Village came from many western African cultures. Throughout western Africa the colors red, black, and white convey important ideas about life, death, and spirituality.
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Farther to the north, among the Fon of Dahomey and the Ashanti of Ghana, white represents coolness, calm, rejoicing, and harmony, while red is associated with heat, anger, warfare, and witchcraft. Black is associated with night and the ancestors. The common use of red, black, and white as a sacred palette links many African cultures. The various ways these colors are used reflects the diversity of African cultural traditions.
Sponsored by the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation. |
