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Gallery Themes : Bedu Masquerade

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navigation symbol Bedu Masquerade
navigation symbol About Bedu - introduction
navigation symbol Making the Bedu mask - sculpting Bedu
navigation symbol Painting Bedu
navigation symbol Performing Bedu - Zorogo
navigation symbol Performing Bedu - Classic Bedu dances
navigation symbol Initiation to Bedu
navigation symbol Greeting Bedu
navigation symbol Listen to the sounds of Bedu.
navigation symbol Making the Bedu collection at Brighton
navigation symbol Bedu as a theme in Performance Gallery
navigation symbol References
 
 
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  Greeting Bedu

People who speak Zorogo can command the Bedu mask to make certain movements such as "walk like a crocodile swimming in the water" or "hang on, your costume doesn't fall well, I'll arrange it for you."
People who speak Zorogo can command the Bedu mask to make certain movements such as "walk like a crocodile swimming in the water" or "hang on, your costume doesn't fall well, I'll arrange it for you."

Once, Adama Outtara, a proficient speaker of the secret language of Bedu initiates, Zorogo, arrived in Sapia. He sat down in the shade and a blacksmith came to greet him. To honour the blacksmith he told the following story in Zorogo:

"Blacksmiths, they forge iron. Then others go to the bush. They make the wood beautiful and come to the village. They make the costume of wood beaurtiful. Then, young men stand up, they go and take it and put it on their heads and go walking around the village. Go and salute the elders, the old women, the young people, the children, all of them. They will say it is Bedu."

This story was meant to tell the blacksmith that he should not come to greet a speaker of Zorogo. Instead he should stay at home and the others should come and salute him because without the blacksmith there would be no sculpting, no Bedu and no Zorogo.

Greeting the elders Greeting the children
Greeting the elders Greeting the children
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