Anger fumes from their nose as they aggressively stomp around on four legs, and buck their hind legs violently into the air behind them. You must be wondering what animal/creature I’m alluding to? You may be envisioning a fierce, large bull; or possibly, a vicious, strong rhinoceros. I’m actually hinting at the adolescent boys of the Bibjob people in the Bissagos Islands, a group of islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, in the 1940s. At the University of Michigan Museum of Art, I took a deeper look into an ox mask that caught my eye. The story behind the mask made me realize a correlation between adolescent boys in the past and the present, and their similar animal-like behavioral characteristics.

​

This artwork is a wooden mask that resembles an ox with long, vertical, and pointy horns. The horns are real with a cream color and a rough texture until the middle of the horn, then the horn switches to a sleek black color. The mask is painted primarily black with white thickly outlining the nose, and a white upside down triangle at the top of the head. There are faint white spots along the chiseled cheeks of the mask. Around the eyes are painted a thick, vibrant red circle with white and black spots making the ox look more aggressive. The eyes are round and glass with a glossy, piercing, charcoal black color. On each side of the mask, there are two small black and red ears that stick outwards. A thin spiraled rope is wrapped around the horns, in the nostrils, and dangling beneath the mask. Scuffs and other imperfections cover the mask, displaying the aggressive nature in which the mask was used.

​

The African Bovine mask, or vaca bruto, represented animals that related to both land and sea. These masks were mostly seen at festivals, national holidays, and male initiation ceremonies. The mask is danced in by adolescent boys when they reach a certain age group, representing the undisciplined child-like behavior and mentality they are leaving behind. The adolescent boys would crouch on all fours and began taking on characteristics of an ox, by bucking and prancing around.

 

This artwork stood out to me because I absolutely adore cows. I used to show them in the fair when I was younger. I’ve been bucked and shoved by these beautiful and occasionally dangerous creatures. Once anyone begins to train a calf, they have to “break” it. To break it means to break the calves aggressive habits and allow it to get used to human interaction. This process takes several weeks before the cow will allow human touch without jumping and flailing around to break free of the human’s touch. Once I took a closer look at this piece, I could see the intricate but amateur craftsmanship that created this art. The mask is fairly accurate to a real cow within its features, these including the shape of the mask, as well as the textures of the horns and eyes. The piece is extremely cool and unique.

 

I think the idea of the Bovine mask, relating adolescent boys to animals, is still a societal issue today. Constantly sayings will be used like “boys will be boys,” or “he’s a boy, it’s what they do”. But why do we accept this? Like the Bibjobo people, today we as a society still allow boys to act foolish, inappropriate, and animal-like strictly because they are boys. Girls never got this free pass to misbehave, this means that girls are held to a higher standard today as well as in the past. In the setting of the Bidjobo male initiation ceremony, boys would jump around and act absurd to get all the “boy” out of them. This could’ve created or helped the idea that adolescent boys will be reckless and that is just how it is. But if we as a society, stopped allowing anyone to think their actions are justifiable just because of how the people before us thought of things, then everyone would be held to the same standard of how someone is supposed to act, creating better characteristics of individuals. What this artwork represents is unfortunately still relevant today, and this is where history comes in.

 

Learning about history is essential to an education as well as just life and real-world issues. If we, as a nation, looked back on the past and see mistakes we’ve already made, we can avoid making the same mistakes or improve the mistakes that are still around. If our society learned about how, in the past, boys were held to different standards than women, we could work to change our views and become more equal. One way to learn more about history is to visit a museum, they’re full of it. There are several museums scattered around the University of Michigan, and this can allow an individual to gain a new perspective on how things were in the past and ways to improve them today. History is also vital to every classroom, regardless of the course. There is history in literature, science, social sciences, creative expression, and everything in between. The prominence of history in everything, comes from how history and prior experiences got us to where we are in our beliefs, advancements, and knowledge. The past has a direct effect on the present and the future.

 

Just by looking into one piece of art, one piece of history, I could relate the past to the present. This allowed me to see how much or how little we have changed over the years. This history also allowed me to gain a new perspective, and to infer ways to improve how our nation and the world works today.