African Ceremonies [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Carol Beckwith (Author), Angela Fisher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2002

The monumental two-volume original edition of African Ceremonies has sold a remarkable 30,000 copies in the United States alone at a retail price of $150. Now Abrams is proud to publish a newly designed, very affordable one-volume edition of this definitive work on the traditional rituals of Africa, containing more than half the magnificent photographs that were in the original edition plus new images that will focus fresh attention on specific ceremonies. Many of these rituals are vanishing; never have they been portrayed with the intimacy and skill that Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher bring to this glorious book. The book is accompanied by an audio CD of African ceremonies.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

By a recent count, the continent of Africa comprises some 1,300 cultures. Some of them number millions of people, some only a few families; some are thriving, while others are in danger of disappearing, the victims of acculturation or, in extreme cases, of genocide. This diversity--and the dangers to it--is little known outside Africa. Photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher highlight both matters in African Ceremonies, an extraordinary two-volume collection of some 850 full-color images. The two artists have traveled to almost all the continent's 53 countries in the last three decades, documenting traditional tribal life in earlier books and articles for National Geographic, among other publications. Here they focus on the religious customs of several dozen peoples, combining stunning images with well-written essays to illustrate the enduring power of traditional beliefs.

Among the book's finest moments are a record of the Fulani cattle crossing, when for 10 days young males drive their herds across the wide Niger River to receive gifts from their grateful compatriots; a sequence showing a healing ceremony of the Himba people of Namibia and Angola, whose "wild women," possessed by lion spirits, are riveting actors on the page; and a remarkable series of photographs of Wodaabe courtship dancers, who compete to attract wives by charming them with exaggerated smiles and the skilled use of cosmetics. The authors note that, as women, they entered places men never could--and as foreigners, they were also often welcomed as "honorary males" and allowed to witness male-only ceremonies. Many of these rites are in danger of extinction as old ways are forgotten and in some cases suppressed. Beckwith and Fisher have captured them before it's too late. Beautifully designed and manufactured, African Ceremonies makes a fine companion to Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Wonders of the African World, and invites leisurely reading--and constant revisiting. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Beckwith and Fisher, two western photographers (the former American, the latter Australian) fascinated by the rituals of Africa, spent 10 years traveling the continent to document their passion on film for the first edition of this stunning book. In 1999, it was released in a slip-cased, $150, two-volume edition; it featured 850 images of the various namings, initiations, weddings and coronations the women witnessed during their travels, as well as countless other moments of consequence with their generous hosts. Now comes the concise edition, which boasts more than half the original collection assembled in a single, large, full-color book and accompanied by a CD of ceremonial African music by composer David Bradnum. The images are bright, intimate and genuinely exotic, and they speak to a diversity of fascinating and wildly inventive rituals. From the Pedi people's beadwork to the Do-society's shaggy raffia outfits, the images capture a multitude of beautiful costumes on beautiful people, celebrating their life cycles from birth to death. For those interested in the tribal cultures of Africa, this would be a tough volume to miss. Over 400 color photographs
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; Concise edition (October 8, 2002)
• ISBN-10: 0810934841
• ASIN: B001H55M9G
• Product Dimensions: 14.1 x 10.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,070,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As brilliant as Saharan sunlight, November 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: African Ceremonies (Hardcover)

Beckwith and Fisher exceed their prior masterpieces with thistwo-volume collection of photographs and descriptions of traditionalceremonies. The diversity of settings, the splendor of styles and smiles, and the care and reverence they bring to this work speaks to their respect and faithfulness to the quest. The text is as clear as the customs are intriguing. The photographs capture the breadth of scenes and go to the details.

This is not the work of dilettantes or voyeurs, nor is it an exercise of academic minutiae, sensational reporting, or sentimental travel writing. AFRICAN CEREMONIES has been born of the drive in the human race to celebrate life and mystery, the wisdom of elders and officials who have granted access to private domains in a number of nations, and the hard work and devotion of two extraordinary women who have paid their dues in the field for decades.

There is something still missing, however, in their publishing odyssey. One can hope that they are hard at work on a volume to crown the splendor of their last six--a celebration of life in everyday terms. Who are better prepared to assemble visual albums of villages where there are no K-Marts? From cotton boll to blanket, palm nut to fragrant oil, log to canoe, their keen and practiced eyes can show us the process of lives much like our recent ancestors lived when they too cooked over open fires and chased birds from the fields before harvest.

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars African Ceremonies (Beckwith and Fisher), June 19, 2000

By 

Elisabeth Braun (Villanova, PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: African Ceremonies (Hardcover)

I received African Ceremonies as a birthday present two months ago and soon began to read the book carefully since the photographs beg you to listen to the stories they tell about people, their lives, their aspirations and their ceremonies. For centuries Africa was a continent of massive migrations and vibrant cultures. All had their high time, declined in the normal course of events and left a legacy for their successors. Yet most ceremonies, although embellished and refined over time, remained largely the same. The hypnotic photograph of the Voodoo dancer from Ghana on the front of the slip case, for example, speaks of a time of spirits, oracles and divinations. Of soothsayers and intermediaries between man and the higher powers as well as of the unshakable belief that intervention is needed to protect man from evil, to solve his troubles, to cure his illnesses and generally to secure good fortune. And the Berber bride in her bejeweled headdress and cloak on the spine of the book reminds us that not all Africans are of black skin colour and that depending on what coast of Africa one finds oneself on, influences from out of Africa have helped to create new Africans. And with them ceremonies.

Beckwith and Fisher have been photographing Africa for over thirty years, and like a ripe savoury wine African Ceremonies was many years in the making. With the expert collaboration of writers and designers each volume now contains three sections: Birth and Initiation; Courtship and Marriage; Royalty and Power in Volume 1; and Seasonal Rites; Beliefs and Worship; Spirits and Ancestors in Volume 2. The Dagara shaman Malidoma Patrice Som‚ from Burkina Faso, a special friend and guide to the photographers, sets the tone in his Foreword by saying that Beckwith and Fisher's travails are really a labour of love for Africa and that the two women responded "to an urgent call from the continent's ancestors to record sacred ceremonies before it is too late." And record they did: the two volumes contain over 700 pages and hundreds of exquisite colour photographs showing 43 ceremonies in 26 countries.

Birth, childhood, initiation, marriage and death are fateful events in an African's life. The first photograph in African Childhood of a Surma father in Ethiopia surrounded by five children with their bodies painted has universal appeal as do those of ochred Himba children in Namibia and young Krobo girls draped in their beautiful cloths from Ghana. The initiation ceremonies and practices leading a young boy or girl from childhood to adulthood are elaborate, and while they are sometimes difficult for us to look at they have nevertheless been part of African life for time immemorial. The rituals of the Taneka initiation in northern Benin, of Ndebele womanhood in South Africa or Maasai warriorhood in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania are deeply rooted in the land and its people. Glistening with red ochre body paint and adorned with various implements, marching one behind the other across the arid savannah, the page literally palpitates with the excitement and eagerness of these young Maasai boys to at last become adults.

The photographs of a Tuareg wedding deep in the Saharan desert pulsate with a life unknown to the viewer. Descended from the ancient Berbers of North Africa who fought and then mingled with invading Arabs centuries ago, the two-page photograph of guests arriving in their finery on their camels from across the arid land is a breathtaking symphony of colours any contemporary fashion designer would love to create. The beautiful photographs of African Brides later in the book are a reminder that, whatever one's culture, a wedding day is one of the most significant days in a woman's life.

In the best of times man and nature in Africa have lived in harmony and in the spirit of reciprocity, and across the continent seasonal rites are a time-honoured means by which people seek the protection of the spirit world for themselves, their land and their animals. The tall lean Dinka of the southern Sudan, elegant in their traditional beaded corsets, are devoted to their cattle. So are the Omo from the Omo river valley in southwest Ethiopia who perform an elaborate bull jumping ceremony to prove the young initiate's prowess. Bedik planting rites from southeast Senegal call on the spirit world to appease the powers of nature and bless the crops and the people who work the fields. The Ewe people of Togo and Ghana perform a yam blessing ceremony, and for the agriculturist Bobo of Burkina Faso nature is a benevolent entity that only human actions can upset. Their colourful bush mask rituals are meant to reestablish that equilibrium.

To most Africans the worlds of the living and the dead are equally real, and the funeral is the last transitional rite before the departed joins the world of the spirits forever. The Surma burial rites in the southwest region of Ethiopia on the border with Sudan, and the collective Dogon Dama funeral in Mali south of the Niger, which takes place every dozen years, are fantastic ceremonies to witness. To have been allowed to photograph them speaks volumes about Beckwith and Fisher's talent to win the confidence of their subjects as well as of their ability not to let the lens become an annoying intruder.

African Ceremonies is photographic story telling and adventure at its finest. It is art rather than ethnographic documentation and will, no doubt, be the definitive photographic record of African ceremonies for a long time to come..................

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally!A Nonethnocentric Perspective on African Traditions!, December 5, 1999

By 

Hayden M. Fink (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: African Ceremonies (Hardcover)

The New York Times Sunday Book Review section today had a wonderful review of this book (2 volumes in a slipcase). The documentation of ritual and people performing rituals as the seasons change in Nature and life cycles turn for People is a sacred task. The photographers appear to have embraced their subjects with care and respect - perhaps others will follow in this way in the future. What strikes me most about the book and the reviews is the genuine approach of the authors to the dignity, honor and respect of the African People they have photographed and documented. This alone makes the book a winner for me.

Regarding the book, I am particularly impressed by their treatment of sacredness without judgment and jaded lens. Indeed the art and form of ritual itself creates tradition. The music of these images is at once visual and alive celebrating the sacred as timeless expressions of culture and community.