Unveiling the African Tribal Mask

For thousands of years, dating well before Paleolithic times, rituals and ceremonies incorporating traditional masks were and to a lesser extent still are integral parts of African life.  The gradual effects of parceled out territories to Colonial governments, the ensuing damage to traditional economies, and the displacement of huge quantities of people due to Colonialism resulted in economies and food production systems being wrecked.  In general, the vast number of Africa’s people has lost some of their tribal identity and culture, hence masking ceremonies are no longer common place in Africa.

For many centuries, African tribal masks played a major role in:

• Rituals
• Celebrations
• Ceremonial and Tribal Initiations
• Crop Harvesting
• War Preparation
• Times of Peace and Conflict

This stamp is from a set of 12 issued in Guinea in 1965.

During a mask ceremony, the mask-wearing dancer goes into a deep trance where he communicates and brings forth messages of wisdom from his ancestors. Rituals and ceremonies are always accompanied with music and dance, using traditional African musical instruments.

Masks can be worn in three different ways:

1. as face masks, vertically covering the face
2. as helmets, encasing the entire head
3. as crests, resting upon the head and commonly covered by material as part of the disguise

Masks in Africa have great tribal, cultural, and traditional significance.

To begin the sculpting process, a carver offers a sacrifice to the spirit of a tree. Once the tree is felled, the sculptor leaves it for a day or two, so that the spirit of the tree can find a “new home”. Afterwards, he brings the tree to his workshop to start the process of carving the mask.  Prior to sculpting the mask, the artisan purifies himself and performs a prayer, consulting the divine forces and the spirits of his ancestors for guidance. The divine force will then be transferred to the mask during the sculpting process.

Q: “What are some similarities and differences you can recognize and celebrate between the African Mask and something you value in your culture?”

If you are interested in Ethnicitee African Tribal Mask apparel, click here!

The Stamp Collecting Round-Up

I wanted to alert the Ethnicitee Community to a really cool and informative site regarding the stamp world. Don Schilling is the blogmaster who is a philatelic phanatic. His blog is a wonderful source for anyone interested in learning more about these snapshots of humanity.

Something that really caught my attention was an article on the Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History. I came upon a quote from Cardinal Spellman which really resonated with me as it eloquently describes the beauty and meaning of Stamps;
"Stamps are miniature documents of human history. They are the means by which a country gives sensible expression to its hopes and needs; its beliefs and ideals. They mirror the past and presage the future. They delineate cultural attainments, industrial works, domestic, civil and social life. In a word, these vignettes give a vivid picture of the world, its occupants and their multifarious endeavors."
Francis Cardinal Spellman, c. 1950

Give Don a visit and tell him we said hello and thank you for such a terrific entry about Ethnicitee.
http://stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com/2008/06/ethnicitee.html

The “Miracle Year”

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest physicists of all time. He played a leading role in formulating the special and general theories of relativity; moreover, he made significant contributions to quantum theory and statistical mechanics.

The Annus Mirabilis Papers (from Latin for 'extraordinary year') published in 1905,contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter. The papers were commemorated in 2005 in a stamp from Israel and used to inspire this t-shirt design. The four papers published included his work on the photoelectric effect which postulates that light interacts with matter in discrete packets of energy known as quanta, his work on the random movement objects as direct evidence of molecular action which supports the atomic theory, his paper on electrodynamics of moving bodies which introduced the theory of special relativity and the paper which dealt with mass-energy equivalence which led to the equation; E = mc2, which suggests that tiny amounts of mass could be converted into enormous amounts of energy. These works clarified the essence of electromagnetic radiation and the atomic structure of material. The theories shed new light on the concepts of time and space and became the basis for modern physics.

Einstein had a very special relationship with the State of Israel.Chaim Weizmann a Zionist leader, President of the World Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel met Albert Einstein and the two scientists became good friends. Einstein was enlisted to help raise funds for the creation of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He also undertook to edit the university's first scientific journal. Along with Sigmund Freud, Ehad Ha'am, Judah Magnes and others, Einstein was a member of the first board of governors of the Hebrew University. Albert Einstein delivered the inaugural lecture of the Hebrew University. He began his speech in Hebrew, but continued in French, as his Hebrew was unequal to the task. Later he wrote:

 "I consider this the greatest day of my life. Hitherto I have always found something to regret in the Jewish soul, and that is the forgetfulness of its own people -- forgetfulness of its being, almost. Today I have been made happy by the sight of the Jewish people learning to recognize themselves and to make themselves recognized as a force in the world. This is a great age, the age of liberation of the Jewish soul, and it has been accomplished through the Zionist movement, so that no one in the world will be able to destroy it." (Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, World Publishing (1971) pg 393)

Active in Jewish causes he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, but declined, “being deeply touched by the offer but not suited for the position.”

Laos - Land of a Million Elephants

Located at the centre of the Mekong region, it is the only nation to share a border with all other countries in the region. Laos is bordered by Burma (Myanmar) and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Laos traces its history to the Kingdom of Lan Xang or Land of a Million Elephants, which existed from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century.

The Asian or Asiatic Elephant (Elephas maximus), sometimes known by the name of one of its subspecies – the Indian Elephant, is one of the three living species of elephant which include the African Bush Elephant and the African Forest Elephant. It is the only living species of the genus Elephas.

Domesticated elephants have played an important role in the socio-economic life of rural Laotians for centuries. They have used them for work, in religious and cultural ceremonies, and for carrying goods. These wonderful creatures have always been highly respected by the people and in former times the king officially assigned the elephant as the national animal. The king frequently donated elephants to neighboring countries as a sign of friendship and friendly relations and to cement political ties.

Currently there is a growing opposition and a reconsideration of the capture, confinement, and use of wild elephants. Animal rights advocates allege that elephants in zoos "suffer a life of chronic physical ailments, social deprivation, emotional starvation, and premature death". The opposing position taken by zoos is that the standards for the treatment of elephants are extremely high and that minimum requirements for such things as minimum space requirements, enclosure design, nutrition, reproduction, enrichment and veterinary care are set to ensure the wellbeing of elephants in captivity.

A Life Free Of Violence

Violence against women collectively refers to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women. It cuts across cultural and religious barriers, impeding the right of women to participate fully in society. Similar to a hate crime, this type of violence targets a specific group with the victim's gender as a primary motive. The United Nations General Assembly defines "violence against women" as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."

The Cayman Islands issued this stamp image in A “LIFE WITHOUT VIOLENCE: ITS OUR RIGHT" campaign launched by UNIFEM in 1997. UNIFEM is the women’s fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programs and strategies to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality. In coordination with other UNITED NATIONS agencies the campaign’s objective is to firmly place gender violence on the public agenda as a health and human rights issue, placing a spotlight on violence against women, probably the most pervasive human rights violation that affects as many as one in three women. We used this stamp image as inspiration for one of our ladies shirts. We thought it was so important an issue that we printed the design on our contoured short sleeve t-shirt as well as a thermal hoody to enable our customers to bring attention to this immensely important issue no matter what the season.

In 1993 the United Nations acknowledged the global dimensions of female targeted violence when the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. This declaration noted that this violence could be perpetrated by assailants of gender, family members and even the "State" itself. Worldwide governments and organizations actively work to combat violence against women through a variety of programs. The Commission on Human Rights adopted resolution 1994/45 of 4 March 1994, in which it decided to appoint the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, including its causes and consequences. A UN resolution designated November 25th as International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Violence against women continues to be a major human rights violation and progress is tied to the political will and commitment to allocate the necessary financial and human resources to address this tragedy.

For More Information;

UNIFEM
http://unifem.org/
Womenshealth.gov
http://www.4woman.gov/violence/
United Nations Human Rights Commission Women and Violence
http://www.un.org/rights/dpi1772e.htm
Human Rights Council Discusses Violence Against Women 6/5/08
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/NewsRoom?OpenFrameSet

Cave Art

Imagine exploring a cave in the outback in Australia and coming upon this depiction of the Dreamtime. I thought that this was so unique and cool we used it as inspiration for one of our original t-shirt designs.

Aborigines are the indigenous inhabitants who live in mainland Australia, Tasmania and other adjacent islands. Thought to be the oldest continuously maintained cultural history on Earth (50,000 years or more), this example of Paleolithic cave art depicts the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime explains the origins and culture of the land and of its people. It presents in a number of inter-related narratives (or myths) explaining Aboriginal Australian origins and culture, and therefore has a complex relationship to the prehistory of Australia. The art produced 32,000 to 11,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age is known as Paleolithic Art. The Dreamtime is the central, unifying theme in Australian Aboriginal mythology. The condition that is Dreamtime is met when the tribal members live according to tribal rules and traditions and are initiated through rituals and the hearing of tribal myths.

The Dreamtime, also called the Dreaming, consists of four aspects: The beginning of all things; the life and influence of the ancestors; the way of life and death; and sources of power in life. Dreamtime consists of all four of these aspects at the same time because it is a condition beyond time and space where all things exist at once. There is an image in the lower central portion of the cave art. The image is found in many cave paintings in Australia. What do you think it is? Remember, the artwork is somewhere between ten and thirty thousand years old.

Youth Against Colonialism

Colonialism is the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either settler colonies or administrative dependencies in which indigenous populations are directly ruled or displaced.

I was moved by both the meaning and the irony of this stamp depiction and therefore chose it for one of our t-shirt designs. The Soviet Union has been a poster child for colonialism. Yet, this stamp issued in 1962 pictures the youth of three races and the broken chains of colonial oppression. It commemorates the International Day of Solidarity of Youth Against Colonialism.

Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward defense of its western borders and ensured its control of the region by transforming the East European countries into satellite states. Soviet troops intervened in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and cited the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet counterpart to the U.S. Johnson Doctrine and later Nixon Doctrine, and helped oust the Czechoslovak government in 1968, sometimes referred to as the Prague Spring. To further its influence, the Soviet Union concluded friendship and cooperation treaties with a number of states in the non-Communist world, especially among Third World and Non-Aligned Movement states like India and Egypt. Moscow advanced state interests by gaining military footholds in strategically important areas throughout the Third World. The Soviet Union provided military aid for revolutionary movements in the Third World. For all these reasons, Soviet foreign policy was of major importance to the non-Communist world and helped determine the tenor of international relations.

Russia continues to exert influence as seen currently in the Middle East. Playing an active political, economic, military, and cultural role in the Middle East, the Russia has sought to undermine Western power there, with a view both to reducing the strategic threat to the U.S.S.R. from Iran, Turkey, and the Mediterranean and to increasing Soviet influence in world councils. Currently Russia attempts to balance a strategy of endorsing watered-down UN resolutions while deepening its relations with Iran in its continued efforts to project influence in the region.

Lunar Landing

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Neil Alden Armstrong, American astronaut, test pilot, and Naval Aviator spoke these words broadcast from the moon and into history as he placed his left foot on the surface of the moon, the first human to ever do so, July 21, 1969.

As you may now be aware, (see last post on Close Encounters) I am a big fan of Space exploration. If you ever have a chance to go to the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. (you should make it a point of visiting this special museum), it is amazing how small the Gemini capsules were and how unbelievably brave these men and later women truly are. The museum also has a robust collection of objects and artifacts regarding the Apollo program. The Apollo program began in 1961 and continued through 1975 with the goal of conducting manned moon landing missions. This was a goal announced by President Kennedy in 1961 and was achieved on July 20, 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission. In total six Apollo spaceflights landed astronauts on the moon, the only humans to have landed on another celestial body. The program spurred advances in many areas of technology peripheral to rocketry and manned spaceflight including major contributions in the fields of avionics, telecommunications, and computers.

The image of the first step taken on the moon, celebrated in this stamp from Mexico is another example of the way in which the graphics portrayed on postage stamps and the inspiration for our t-shirts, both celebrate and respect what is positive and alluring about one another. In appreciation of the monumental achievement of landing on the moon, Mexico commemorated the event in this 1969 classic. What enhances the uniqueness of this image even further is the fact that the postal system of Mexico is said to have begun with the Aztecs, who operated a system of messengers.

Close Encounter

I have always been fascinated by Astronomy, Space Travel and the possibility of Alien Life. When Star Trek first aired in 1966 I was 13 years old. I was mesmerized by what I saw and could not wait until I heard those now immortal words of William Shatner; “Space... the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” Later I couldn’t wait for the next episode of Lost In Space, and more recently watched every episode of The X files.

When I came upon stamps which portrayed Alien sightings I knew I wanted to use those images for inspiration for one of my designs. To see a South American country featuring an event that took place in North America captures the essence of celebrating and respecting something unique and cool in one another.  The Nicaraguan Postal Authority published a series of five stamps documenting close encounters of the third kind in North and South America. The image chosen for this t-shirt commemorates a close encounter which took place in North America.

A close encounter in ufology is an event where a person witnesses an unidentified flying object. This terminology and the system of classification behind it was started by astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek, and was first suggested in his 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. He introduced the first three kinds of encounters; First kind; a sighting of one or more unidentified flying objects. Second kind; is an observation of a UFO, and associated physical effects from the UFO. Third kind; is an observation of what Hynek termed "animate beings" in association with a UFO sighting. An additional category added by others includes the Close Encounter of the Fourth kind; where a human is abducted by a UFO or its occupants.  Extraterrestrial life is life originating outside of the Earth. It is the subject of astrobiology, and its existence remains hypothetical. There is no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.

November 7, 1969 Kansas, USA
While driving home slightly after midnight on Interstate 70, two women suddenly observed two bright lights in the sky. Under hypnosis, they both related similar reports of being taken aboard a craft by alien life forms. The extraterrestrials were described as being slender with large hairless heads, slanted non-blinking eyes, and four long slender fingers on each hand. Neither women had ever seen or expressed any belief in UFOs previously.

Sharjah Commemorates Arab Astronomers

In searching for an image from the Middle East which reflected the rich history and contributions to civilization from this embattled land, this triangular stamp from Sharjah captured the essence of what I was looking for. Sharjah is one of The United Arab Emirates. The Emirates were formed from tribally organized Arabian Peninsula sheikhdoms along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf and the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Oman. The area became Islamic in the 7th century. The Emirate of Sharjah is the third largest emirate in the United Arab Emirates, and is the only one to have land on both the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

This stamp commemorates the achievements of Arab Astronomers whose achievements include measuring the earth’s circumference, the determination of the solar year, advances in optics, lenses and mirrors, the position of planets at any given time and the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses. The achievements recognized on the stamp reflect the scientific inroads to modernity which began centuries ago in the Islamic world.

Yet, Sharjah mirrors the cultural conflict between modernity and tradition. Sharjah is the cultural capital of the UAE and yet is considered the most conservative of the emirates. Sharjah is the only Emirate in which the sale, possession and consumption of alcohol is banned. It also maintains the strictest decency laws in the UAE, introduced in 2001, with a conservative dress code required for both men and women. Mixing between unmarried men and women is illegal, and according to a Gulf News Article: "A man and a woman who are not in a legally acceptable relationship should not, according to the booklet, be alone in public places, or in suspicious times or circumstances."