Dan Figural Container Liberia

Large Dan Figural Container

The 350,000 Dan live mostly in the western part of Côte d'Ivoire and into Liberia, where the land is forested in the south and bordered by a savannah in the north. They make their living by farming cocoa, coffee, rice, and manioc. They also live off game and fish. The Dan has the reputation of being fierce warriors, always battling their neighbors, the We, the Guro, and the Mano. From a cultural viewpoint, the Dan is close to the We populations situated in forest regions of the south, and against whom they have waged innumerable wars. Lacking a central authority, the various groups had neither a political institution nor unity. The village is under the authority of a chief and a council of elders. In addition, male associations attempted to bring about socio-political unity, reinforcing rules of behavior, demanding absolute loyalty and obedience from members, and giving an initiatory education to the young. These societies called upon the tutelary spirits of the bush. Even today, the most powerful is the secret society of the leopard, the go, which, without fully achieving its stabilizing and unifying goal, nevertheless grows from one year to the next. The leopard society acts as a major regulator of Dan's life and initiates young men during their isolated periods of three to four months in the forest. To attain adult status, all the boys and girls of the same age group undergo an initiation that includes, in addition to a specific teaching, circumcision for the former and clitoridectomy for the latter. To underline the transitional aspect of this trial, it takes place in the world of the bush ‚Äì the realm inhabited by spirits who, like the ancestors, can play a mediating role between humans and the supreme being Zran.

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