My name is Nikiema Yata, and I am a blacksmith. My father was also a blacksmith, and my grandfather too. All my ancestors, ever since we can remember, dedicated to this noble occupation. Among us, the profession of artist doesn't exist. We, the blacksmith, are in charge of making what foreigners call art. Actually, we only materialize what the occult science have revealed to us and our ancestors. We are the middlemen between the earth and the further on. This is why we are respected by rich men, and loved by poor men. Our family and our reputation extend over the Sahel, from the arid dessert to the impenetrable jungle.
Most of our culture, have been always hidden to the foreigners. Different from the others , the African culture is transmitted orally from one generation to the other, without writing. It has been an obstacle to its divulgation and, at the same time, it has avoided its popularization and blemish. This is why our culture and our art keep intact and unknown for most of the foreigners. Everybody has seen our masks, but very few know that each mask has a meaning that we only know. It has always been this way, and even though some foreigners thought they had unveiled, actually they have achieved it limitedly.
Only a few know that, when the mask is alive, it works as an intermediary between men and the spirits world, and we have to offer to the mask contributions and sacrifices. When the mask has carried its duties out, we have to bury it for two reasons. The first one, because it is a loved being, and it must receive respectful burial. The second one, to preserve it from the robbery which foreigners love so much. Many times have committed the sacrilege of taking the alive masks away, to deposit them in museums, where they are dying with lack of contributions and sacrifices.
But times are changing. The invasions from outside, that have tried to mediatize us since the ancient times, have lost now its belicism and spirit of conquest. The warriors that used to come attracted by the greed for submitting us and slaving us, have disappear. Instead of that, groups of volunteers come to help us against our poverty. They come because of many and variated reasons: goodness, religion, searching the love they don't have in their own country, curiosity for discovering another kind of life, desire of adventures..., and maybe the intuition that, if the world doesn't help us, Africa will exploit, and the explosion will shake the foundations of the Earth.
From the heart of Africa and with the consent of our African brothers, it is time to offer our masks and sculptures, together with the musical instruments we use in our rituals, and others manifestations of our culture as tapestries, swords, furniture, jewellery and clothes.
Note: Nikiema Yata is a fictitious character created by José Francisco Ortega.
