mask dancers and traditional hunters in Cote d'Ivoire

Whilst I once spent a day in Abidjan following a cancelled flight, I knew there was plenty more than the National Museum that I got to see that day.  In particular, the country is well known for a variety of mask dances.  These dances, most commonly associated with funerals, are hard to find on your own - it's just a matter of luck if you arrive in a village when a funeral is happening - so, a little reluctantly, I signed up to a tour.  That way I would see dances organised for the benefit of the tour group - still the same dancers, the same music, and the same costumes, just for a different purpose.

We were a small group of very well-travelled people, so even the long hours in the tour bus involved some interesting conversations, as we travelled the length and breadth of the country.  We saw, I think, six different ethnic groups performing their dances for us, accompanied by musicians playing traditional instruments.  Of course a still photo cannot capture some of the amazing moves, but I can at least show some of the costumes.

As well as watching the mask dances, we also met a group of Dozo, the traditional hunters who also work, when needed, as militias, or 'defence forces' for their communities.  Whilst they are apparently sometimes now employed as security guards and they played a significant role in the recent civil war, their hunting is highly tied up with magic, so their hunting attire is covered with amulets to variously protect them and to strengthen their vision and hearing.  Music is also an important part of their tradition, and after an opportunity to ask a few questions of a group of Dozo, their griot (the singer, who is kind of the group history-keeper through his songs) and a couple of musicians accompanied us in our tour bus into a patch of sacred forest.  It was a bizarre experience driving along in the bus with these guys around us inging and playing music:

The griot had a tremendous voice and a twinkle in his eye, and I have to admit that we three women in the group all kind of fell for him!