Yacouba, secrets masqués Série-Collection : Peuples d'ailleurs

Patrice Landes
2009 - 48 min - Vidéo HD - Couleur et Noir & Blanc - France

The long history of the Ivory Coast is a kind of melting pot, in which different populations mingled. Some of them, for example the "Dan", also called Yacouba, have thus been confronted to tremendous changes, and had in the course of time to reorganize all their criteria of belonging: identity, social, and cultural. Sticking to rites inherited from their ancestors, the Yacouba have based their life style on a specific pantheist vision of nature. In a hostile world in which man permanently needs recognition and protection, the mask is a catalyst instrument around which all deeds gravitate, be they ritual, religious, sacred or cultural.
In this still preserved world, expressions and traditions rise from the past, in relationship with the call for nature. Songs carried by the winds recall myths and legends in which spirits mix with deities, and all of them are revived in present days ceremonies.