Editing Senufo people (section)

==Society and culture==
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| footer = The handicrafts of Senufo people<ref name=shakarov41>{{cite book|author1=Avner Shakarov|author2=Lyubov Senatorova|title=Traditional African Art: An Illustrated Study|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H83wCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 |year=2015|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-2003-9|pages=41–45}}</ref>
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The Senufo are predominantly an agricultural people cultivating corn, millet, yams, and peanut. Senufo villages consist of small mud-brick homes. In the rainy southern communities of Senufo, thatched roofs are common, while flat roofs are prevalent in dry desert-like north. The Senufo is a patriarchal extended family society, where arranged typically cousin marriage and polygyny has been fairly common, however, succession and property inheritance has been [[Matrilineality|matrilineal]].<ref name="Shoup2011p253"/><ref name=britsenufo/>

As agriculturalists, they cultivate a wide variety of crops, including cotton and cash crops for the international market. As musicians, they are world renowned, playing a multitude of instruments from: wind instruments ([[Wind instrument|Aerophones]]), stringed instruments ([[Chordophone|Chordaphones]]) and percussive instruments ([[Membranophone]]s). Senufo communities use a [[caste]] system, each division known as a Katioula.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web
| url = https://africa.uima.uiowa.edu/peoples/show/Senufo
| title = Senufo - Art & Life in Africa - The University of Iowa Museum of Art
| website = africa.uima.uiowa.edu
| access-date = 2016-02-29
}}</ref> In this system the farmers, known as Fo no, and the artisans at the opposite ends of the spectrum. The term artisan encompasses different individual castes within Senufo society including blacksmiths (Kule), carvers (Kpeene), brasscutters (Tyeli), potterers, and leather workers, whose lives revolve around the roles, responsibilities, and structures inhabited by the individual class.<ref name=":2" /> Training to become an artisan takes about seven or eight years; commencing with an apprenticeship where the trainees create objects not associated with the religion of the Senufo, then culminating with an initiation process where they obtain the ability to create ritual object.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web| url = http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org/?lesson-plan=drums-of-africa| title = Creativity Resource for Teachers » Blog Archive » Drums of Africa| website = creativity.denverartmuseum.org| access-date = 2016-02-29}}</ref>

Regionally, the Senufo are famous as musicians and superb carvers of wood sculpture, masks, and figurines.<ref name=britsenufo/> The Senufo people have specialized their art and handicraft work by subgroups, wherein the art is learnt within this group, passed from one generation to the next. The ''Kulubele'' specialize as woodcarvers, the ''Fonombele'' specialize in blacksmith and basketry work, the ''Kpeembele'' specialize in brass casting, the ''Djelebele'' are renowned for leatherwork, the ''Tchedumbele'' are masters of gunsmith work, while ''Numu'' specialize in smithing and weaving.<ref name=richter37/> Outside the artisan subgroups, the Senufo people have hunters, musicians, grave-diggers, diviners, and healers who are called the ''Fejembele''.<ref name=richter37/> Among these various subgroups, the leatherworkers or ''Djelebele'' are the ones who have most adopted Islam, although those who convert retain many of their animist practices.<ref name=richter37/>

Traditionally, the Senufo people have been a socially stratified society, similar to many West African ethnic groups having [[caste]]s.<ref name="Sardan1984p56">{{cite book|author=Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan|title=Les sociétés Songhay-Zarma (Niger-Mali): chefs, guerriers, esclaves, paysans|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jwfsBQBCcvMC&pg=PA56|year=1984|publisher=Paris: Karthala|isbn=978-2-86537-106-8|pages=56–57}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Tal Tamari| year= 1991|title= The Development of Caste Systems in West Africa| journal= The Journal of African History| volume= 32| number= 2| pages= 221–250|publisher= Cambridge University Press| jstor= 182616| doi=10.1017/s0021853700025718| s2cid= 162509491}}, '''Quote:''' "[Castes] are found among the Soninke, the various Manding-speaking populations, the Wolof, Tukulor, '''Senufo''', Minianka, Dogon, Songhay, and most Fulani, Moorish and Tuareg populations".</ref> These endogamous divisions are locally called ''Katioula'', and one of the strata in this division includes slaves and descendants of slaves.<ref name="Shoup2011p253"/> According to Dolores Richter, the [[caste systems in Africa]] found among Senufo people features "hierarchical ranking including despised lower castes, occupational specificity, ritual complementarity, endogamy, hereditary membership, residential isolation, and the political superiority of farmers over artisan castes".<ref name=richter37/>

The Senufo people usually fall within four societies in their culture: Poro, Sandogo, Wambele, or Tyekpa. While all the societies fill particular roles in the governance and education of the Senufo people, the [[Poro]] and [[Sandobele|Sandogo]].<ref name=":2" /> Spirituality and divination are divided between these two gender-imperative societies with women falling under the Sando or Sandogo society, and men falling under the Poro society with the exception of men who are members of those of the women because of their mother.<ref name=":4" /> These societies are the two that create the majority of commissioned Seunfo art.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|last=Glaze|first=Anita|title=Call and Response: A Senufo Female Caryatid Drum |date=1993|volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=119–198 |doi=10.2307/4108736 |jstor=4108736|journal=Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies}}</ref>

Typically, the Senufo villages are independent of each other, and each has a male secret society called ''Poro'' with elaborate initiation rituals in a patch of forest they consider as sacred.<ref name="Daddieh2016p427"/><ref name=richter37/> The initiation rituals involve masks, figurines, and ritual equipment that the Senufo people carve and have perfected. The secrecy has helped the Senufo people to preserve their culture in the times of wars and political pressure. Senufo wear specially-crafted [[brass]] [[jewelry]], such as those mimicking wildlife.<ref name=shakarov41/> <blockquote>''"The main function of Poro is to guarantee a good relationship between the living world and the ancestors. Nerejao is an ancestress who is recognized as the true head of the Poro society. Divination, which is governed by the Sandogo society, is also an important part of Senufo religion. Although [[Sandobele|Sandogo]] is usually considered a women's society, men who are called to the profession and inherit through the matrilineal line are permitted to become diviners."<ref name=":2" />''</blockquote>

[[File:Figure, Senufo, used during tyekpa society funeral ceremonies - Glenbow Museum - DSC00210.JPG|thumb|Caryatid Figure used during tyekpa society funeral ceremonies along with Ceremonial Drums]]
The ''Sandogo'' are women diviners among the Senufo people. They have their own rituals and secret order.<ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Farris Thompson|title=African Art in Motion: Icon and Act|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u6A2ppfTB5MC&pg=PA82|year=1974|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-03843-1|page=82}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Rosalind Hackett|author2=Rowland Abiodun|title=Art and Religion in Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yCJ71rRnzhgC|year=1998|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=978-0-8264-3655-9|pages=122–123}}</ref> In addition, the Senufo people have ''Wambele'' and ''Typka'', who perform sorcery and rituals.<ref name="Shoup2011p253"/>

Within Senufo culture, the female form is held above all others in terms of beauty and aesthetics and caryatid figures are seen with various cultural connotations.<ref name=":5" /> This is tied into the worship of the spirit, "Ancient Mother", or the spirit, "mother", Maleeo, who is revered as the guiding entity by all Poro society initiates and members.<ref name=":5" /><ref>[http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1961.198# image of deity from Cleveland Museum collection now available on line ]</ref> The goddess Maleeo has a partner, the god Kolocolo, who is seen as the identifying deity of the Sandogo, who granted the people marriage and this particular type of lineage to allow communication from humanity and the spirit world.<ref name=":2" /> Caryatid figures are seen as representations of the role of women as spiritual mediators and the Sandogo use them in ceremonies as symbols of this bilateral celestial discourse.<ref name=":5" /> Likewise, in the case of the Poro, there are writings about caryatid figures being used in ceremonies where they are brought out to commemorate advancement in the age-grade cycle,<ref name=":5" /> as well as being used to raise funds by initiates of the society. Calved figures were used in a tyekpa funeral ceremony as dance sculpture, held upon the head of the dancers while the ceremony takes place.<ref name=":5" />

The traditional Senufo religion is a type of [[animism]]. This Senufo belief includes ancestral and nature spirits, who may be contacted. They believe in a Supreme Being, who is viewed in a dual female-male: an Ancient Mother, ''Maleeo'' or ''Katieleo'', and a male Creator God, ''Kolotyolo'' or ''Koulotiolo''.<ref name="Shoup2011p253"/>

===Influence===
The art of Senufo people inspired twentieth-century European artists such as [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Fernand Léger]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Peter Read|title=Picasso and Apollinaire: The Persistence of Memory|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cuUlDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA29|year=2008|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24361-3|page=29}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Keith Sawyer|title=Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GlT1AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA190 |year=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-516164-9|pages=190–192}}</ref><ref name="Goldwater1986p152">{{cite book|author=Robert John Goldwater|title=Primitivism in Modern Art|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l-Ldmim-CA0C&pg=PA152 |year=1986|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-70490-9|pages=152–154}}</ref> The cubism and masks found in Senufo pieces were a significant influence for Pablo Picasso's African period.<ref>[http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20151206-senufo-african-art-inspired-picasso-comes-france Senufo African art that inspired Picasso comes to France], RFI (2015); [http://www.clevelandart.org/events/exhibitions/senufo-art-history-and-style-west-africa Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa], Cleveland Museum of Art (2015), Quote: "Some of the most beloved artistic creations of sub-Saharan Africa, masks, figures, and decorative art labeled as Senufo have been the subject of numerous studies by African, American, and European scholars since the 1930s. The interest in sculpture identified as Senufo was largely stimulated by its discovery by the artistic avant-garde in the early twentieth century. Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger were among those to find inspiration in the oeuvre of their West African counterparts."</ref>

The term ''Senufo'' has become a category to art collectors and scholars, a symbolism for the artistic traditions of West Africa, starting with the early twentieth century. Old pieces of Senufo art are found in many leading museums of the world.<ref>[http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/smpa/hd_smpa.htm Senufo Sculpture from West Africa: An Influential Exhibition at The Museum of Primitive Art, New York, 1963], Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi (2010), Art History Department, Emory University</ref>

Cornélius Yao Azaglo August, a photographer, created a photographical journal of Senufo people from 1955 onward.<ref>{{cite book|author=Cyril K. Daddieh|title=Historical Dictionary of Côte d'Ivoire (The Ivory Coast)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_VptCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA95|year=2016|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8108-7389-6|page=95}}</ref>