"Heroes": Principles of African Greatness Part 5—We Are...Women Warriors

Women have carved out a space for themselves in the heart of Heroes. While every other series contains significant artworks by women or features women heroes in history (indeed, in most both), this space brings together works that speak exclusively to female- -centered stories. 

In the spirit of both the original feminist anthem (“I Am Woman”), and the exhibition that announced the fruits of the museum’s Women’s Initiative (I Am . . . : Contemporary Women Artists of Africa, 2019), alongside which Heroes was launched, here we celebrate a wide range of women’s contributions to Africa’s history.

She is a vision of goodness—a protector, a nourisher, a provider.

Cradling her child in her arms while focused on a distant goal in the future, she sits upright adorned with attributes of Kongo leadership...

...including a chief’s knotted hat...

... and beauty, bearing elaborate scarified tattoos...

...filed teeth...

...and a smooth, serene composure.

Her piercing eyes are half-closed, but stare directly ahead. 

She is concentrating not just on the child in her lap, but on a larger, metaphorical goal, as-yet-unrealized, on the distant horizon. Collected before 1914, this figure is one of six examples attributed to an as-yet-unnamed master artist.

This figure likely served as a phemba, an icon associated with Kongo religious groups centered on healing and motherhood, particularly during periods in the 18th and 19th centuries when the trade in enslaved peoples was at its most disruptive in this region. Typically, maternal qualities of nourishment and protection, embodied in the gesture of this phemba, take on new meaning in such a horrific and traumatic context.

When meeting with the Portuguese governor, Njinga was given a mat, rather than a chair, on which to sit so as to indicate her subservience to the European power. 

Njinga ordered one of her servants to sit on all fours and sat on his back—looking the governor in the eye, as (at least) his equal.

· A skilled diplomat and military tactician, Njinga was queen of the kingdom of Ndongo, later conquering Matamba when forced out of her original court.

· Njinga offered sanctuary to runaway slaves while resisting the Portuguese who sought a more pliable leader for the kingdoms. 

· Njinga negotiated a treaty with the Dutch against the Portuguese—pitting one European power against another while protecting her kingdoms. 

Yoruba mothers are not to be messed with.

This mask is one of four identified as being by the same individual, an unidentified artist from the Anago region of Benin. 

The distinctive arrangement and size of its features are consistent with characteristics of this master, as are the flat-topped, rectangular ear, the profile of the eyelids, and the precise, triangular chip carving.

The embodiment of generosity.

As a testament to her compassion, a particularly self-sacrificing woman might have a spoon like this commissioned for her by her community.

Both Dan and Wè communities honored women who held the distinction of providing not only for their households, but also for unexpected visitors, traveling musicians, and seasonal farm workers. The emblem of a woman’s achievement became a specially commissioned spoon that may have also served as a generalized portrait of the owner.

Such spoons were trophies of a woman’s capacity, quite literally, to bring her community together.

Women are the ones that bear the greatest burden. We are also the ones who nurture societies.
—Leymah Gbowee,interview, 2008

Economist. Civil servant. Peacemaker. President. In Liberia, women have done it all.

A trophy of achievement, a spoon like this could also be awarded to a woman of great skill and accomplishment. A generous host, a philanthropist, an accomplished farmer, a magnanimous businesswomen might merit such a distinctive award.

If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.
—Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, commencement address, Harvard University, May 26, 2011

· Born and raised in Monrovia, Sirleaf studied economics and public administration at Harvard. 


 · Sirleaf served as finance minister under multiple pre-civil war Liberian administrations, earning a reputation for integrity in her clashes with the military governments. She was arrested several times and went into exile.



· In exile, Sirleaf served with multiple global institutions, including the World Bank, Citibank, and the United Nations.

· Sirleaf returned to Liberia in 2003 to chair the Commission on Good Governance, which sought to prepare the county for elections following two devastating civil wars. 

· Elected twice to the presidency (2006–18), she worked to secure foreign investment and to have Liberia’s entire foreign debt forgiven. She instituted a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to address Liberia’s devastating recent decades, on which Leywah Gbowee, with whom she shared a Nobel Peace Prize citation in 2011, served

She’ll tease you. She’ll unease you. She is the very embodiment of grace and charm.

This serene, show-stopping masterwork is the epitome of feminine beauty. The mask represents a beautiful young woman adorned with an elaborate hairdo. 

Historically, pwo danced in honor of the founding female ancestor of a particular Chokwe family’s lineage. A male dancer, dressed like a woman in a costume of braided fiber, wears a loincloth, carries a fan, and moves in slow, precise steps to emulate a  graceful young woman. 

Celebrating her beauty, pwo also extols the dignity and moral worth of a well-respected family. In a work such as this, the artist, at the height of his particular powers, deploys aesthetics as a means of articulating a sort of moral philosophy. In the case of pwo, outward representations of physical beauty stand in as a signifier for an inner moral beauty as well.

The very existence of this sculpture is a feminist act.

This clapping figure recalls the coming-of-age ceremony (iriabo) that initiates Kalabari girls into womanhood. When presented to the community, the initiates are typically dressed in valuable cloth wrappers and adorned with coral beads and necklaces.  Small Iriabo (Clapping Girl) claps her hands—four times a day, currently, in the Heroes gallery—as though preparing the way for a major event.

 Sokari Douglas Camp has taken up her welder’s torch as an artist in calm defiance of restrictions. Douglas Camp’s large, semiabstract, often kinetic, figurative works have been inspired by the sounds, movements, and colors of both communities to which she belongs — Kalabari society in the Niger Delta and African expatriates living and working in London. Yet, she was born in a community in which women have historically been prohibited from sculpting in wood and metal.

Could Clapping Girl be anticipating a new moment, in which women—in London, in Port Harcourt, or anywhere in between—are completely free to express themselves, on terms they set? Could she be helping us to imagine a moment, in the words of author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in which we are all, in fact, feminists?