Art through Functionalism in Hunter-Gatherer and

Pastoral Society Christine Barrera

Aesthetic value is understood and cultivated through cultural

perception. Aesthetics is the way one perceives, through feeling,

something that is beautiful and endearing. The Baaka pygmies

and the Nuer, groups of people located in different parts of Africa,

have comparable aesthetic values. Functionalism theory suggests

that all parts of a society function together to make a whole

organism, and in a social context, that organism is a society.

Things that are aesthetically pleasing in Pygmy and Nuer societies

arise out of things that have a purpose and add to part of the

functioning of the whole society. The Baaka are a group of people

that live in the central African rainforest and are part of a larger

group of people known as Pygmies. Traditionally, they are a

hunter-gatherer society. The anthropologist Colin Turnbull explains

in his ethnography The Forest People that this group of people

rely mainly on resources in the forest to maintain their ways of

life. Because every aspect of their life is dependent on the forest,

they believe in the forest as a god. The forest protects them from

the outside, and other bad things such as disease and death, but

it falls asleep sometimes, just like other living being. This is when

bad things can happen because it is not aware. The Baaka then
have to wake the forest up, and this is the purpose of the Molimo

Festival. In eastern African, the Nuer are a group of pastoralists of

which cattle permeate every aspect of their society in the same

way that the forest is part of the lives of the pygmies. E.E. Evans-

Pritchard wrote an ethnography only a few years before Turnbull

called The Nuer. Cattle give the Nuer economic value,

subsistence, and material needs. Because of their immense love

and pride in their cattle, they find aesthetic value in things

relating to cattle. The Baaka and the Nuer have different aesthetic

perceptions, but because of parallels in the content of their

lifestyles, their differing forms of aesthetics share in the context

of social maintenance.

Turnbull explains the aesthetic values in Baaka society. While

the molimo festival does produce pleasure for the Baaka, it is

more a production of functional value. The month long festival is

in fact very tiring for the Baaka men because they sing to the

forest until it is nearly dawn, and then some wake up soon after to

play a symbolic tug-of-war game with the molimo, or they will

spend the day hunting. Unlike arts in the West, the molimo does

not have any physical aesthetic value. Turnbull conveys his

Western aesthetic perception through his initial encounter with

the molimo; “I felt that I had a right, in the heart of the tropical

rain forest, to expect something wonderful and exotic” (Turnbull,

1961: 75). His description of his non-functional, or Western

aesthetic presuppositions makes the reader understand just how

function can hold a role in art, and what is aesthetically pleasing

may be judged through it’s functionality. The physical molimo

object is strictly functional, and holds no more value than being a

basic metal pole that will not quickly rot like the traditional

hallowed out wooden molimo. It is taken care of and frequently

given a drink of water from the river, but there is no value in

applying elaborate decoration. The technique and the beautiful

sounds that can be produced by the molimo is what have

aesthetic value in Baaka society. A player can produces

enchanting sounds with the molimo, as demonstrated by

Amabosu. “As the men sang in the camp, the voice of the molimo

echoed their song, moving about continually so that it seemed to

be everywhere at once” (81). The festival is aesthetically pleasing

through the way the forest is filled with sounds of the molimo, and

through the dancing around the kumamolimo fire, and songs with

lyrics such as “the forest is good.” Yet to reiterate, as engaging

and enjoyable that these aesthetic acts may be, the purpose of
them is to reawaken the forest in order to maintain social order in

Baaka society.

The Nuer incorporate aesthetic values in everyday life

and ritual through activities concerning their cattle. On a daily

basis, men decorate each other in salutation with their elaborate

ox-names. A man receives an ox-name first when he is initiated

into manhood and receives a cow from his father. This becomes

the preferred name for his friends to call him. Ox names are very

significant in Nuer culture, and have a sort of aesthetic quality

that is apparent through the frequency of their use in chants,

poems or shouts that they use when they have speared a man,

animal or fish. Besides these nicknames men use with each other,

the function of naming of the cattle has aesthetic value as well.

“In naming a Nuer cow one has to notice its colours and the way

in which they are distributed on its body” (Evans-Pritchard, 1940:

41). In all the aesthetic and functional importance that Nuer base

on their cattle, they have realized and named several hundred

color varieties that a cow can be named from. Interestingly, some

colors or color combinations are named after other animal names

such as leopard and crocodile. Naming cattle, then, requires skill

to understand this schmorgaspord of cattle names based on

colors and value of vaguely different colors and bodily distribution

of color patches. To add more aesthetic and social value to the

cattle, the Nuer cut their horns so that they curve at different

angles as they grow. As Pritchard says, “if we were to count every

possible mode of referring to animals… they would be found to

number several thousand expressions…which bears eloquent

witness to the social value of cattle” (45).

The Nuer frequently incorporate a cattle motif into all forms

of art including sculpture and poetics. Sometimes a cattle owner

may get a boy to lead his favorite cow around the camp in the

morning, while he leaps and sings behind the cow. Through this

aesthetic act of cattle appreciation, the man reinforces his high

ranking place in society as a man with a highly valued, beautiful

cow. In the evening too, he will walk among the cattle ringing a

bell and singing praises of his friends, his loves, and his cattle

(37). The forms of art produced among Nuer society members is

about cattle, but it seems to maintain the aesthetic value and

happiness of the people in society. The Baaka use aesthetics

however, for personal pleasure, but moreso in order to make the

forest happy. “So we call out the molimo and it makes [things]

good, as they should be” (Turnbull, 1961: 91). The function for the
molimo festival is in accordance with the environment, everyday

food and firewood is collected from the families around camp.

However, this only occurs when the Baaka think it is necessary,

such as in the event of a molimo festival. This food is for the

molimo, but it is eaten in large quantities unhesitantly by the men

who sit around the kumamolimo. This act of ritual eating seems

somewhat parallel to the cattle sacrifice of the Nuer, but Turnbull

draws no connection to the festival feast and need of increased

subsistence. If anything, the purpose of these ritual feastings is in

accordance to celebration, and is a prevention of death

(symbolically and physically).

In the context of both Baaka and Nuer society, these forms

of art take place only amongst the men in each society. Baaka

women and youth pretend to fear the molimo. They are not part

of the festival except in their acting naively which allows the

festival to continue with its ritualized aesthetics with the men

only. Despite the beauty and aesthetic significance of cattle in

Nuer society, EE Evans-Pritchard notes that “to a girl the cows are

essentially providers of milk and cheese and remain such when

she grows up and is married”(40). Even so, the females find the

cattle aesthetically pleasing, and just because they cannot own a

cow, they still engage in art and focus on the pleasure that cattle

provide. In an example from Evans-Pritchard, he gives the verses

of a song girls have sung that talks about the milk of a cow. “The

shorthorn carries its full udder to the pastures/ Let her be milked

by Nyagaak/ My belly will be filled with milk” (Evans-Pritchard,

1940: 47). Notably, while the song is a praise of the cattle, it is

directly a praise of the cow’s milk, which is the main concern of

cattle for women. Even while women are not direct participants in

the maintainence of social order through aesthetic ritual like the

men, they show support and belief in what the men do. Although

womens aesthetic perception of the cattle is the same, they act

this out in a parallel aesthetic and social sphere.

It is relatively easy to see the Nuer’s functional aesthetic

value of cattle as a result of the context of their way of life. The

Nuer believe colors and certain designs on the cattle to be

beautiful, but what is most pleasing and desirable in a cow is the

look of strength and health. A hump on the back of the cattle that

wobbles when the cow walks is thought to be especially beautiful,

so this hump is manipulated and exaggerated when the cow is

young. Part of the wealth that cattle provide is their culinary uses.

The cattle are of dietary importance for the Nuer in many ways.
Milk, cheese and coagulated blood are all very desirable and can

be consumed from a healthy cow while it is alive, but the Nuer

value cattle that have died naturally and those that have had to

be sacrificed. As they say, “the eyes and the heart are sad, but

the teeth and the stomach are glad” (Evans-Pritchard, 26). From

Turnbull’s account on the Baaka, it is difficult to say what exactly

they find to be aesthetically pleasing about the Molimo festival,

but the song and dance is used in a completely functional way.

The forest for the Baaka is like cattle are for the Nuer. These

things sustain the life of both groups through what they offer. But

also, the Baaka sustain the forest through believing in its

goodness and waking it up happily when needed. The Nuer care

dearly for their cattle as well. Through the functional value of the

forest and the cattle comes an aesthetic value that is in turn

symbolic for everything that is important to the Baaka and the

Nuer.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E
1940Oxford University Press
Turnbull, Colin M.
1961New York: Simon & Schuster