In his article, Obioma boldly makes the assumption that under the powerful influence of westernisation, not only the world, but even Africans themselves have started to accept and believe the fact that everything which falls under the African label is inferior.

It must cast off its subservience”, author Chigozie Obioma touches on the issue of how westernisation has to a great extent affected Africa negatively.

“A person is a person through other persons. None of uscomes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak,or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We needother human beings in order to be human.”

In this way, the social order in past Africa and even up to today, in rural Africansettings, is preserved without the need for the presence of law enforcement agenciessuch as the police and the prisons.

b) The urge to overcome the limitations of one’s birth or background and to achieve somedistinctions of worth valorized in the communityNow, apart from the urge to protect against shame, the next motivational wellspringin the African context that promotes the emergence of the fully realized person(Nwoye, 2006) is the urge to overcome the circumstances or limitations of one’s birthor background. In some individuals, like Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things fall apart (1958),this urge can be very strong and compelling, acting as the prime centre of inspirationand initiative in people’s daily struggles and efforts. In that case, the African perspectiveis consistent with that of Alfred Adler, on the operation of the spirit of the great upwardsurge in human beings. Influenced by such a psychological incentive, children of poor orhumble parentage have this aspect as their greatest source of motivation or the greatupward drive, in search of opportunities to re-grade and to re-author themselves or tobetter their chances or destinies in life (Nwoye, 2006). They try in every way possible,through dint of hard work and self-discipline, to turn around or cancel out their deficitsocio-economic background, leading them into a more promising life alternative. Hence,as emphasized by one protagonist in Achebe’s (1958) classic novel, earlier cited, amongthe Igbo (and, more generally, African peoples), “a man’s (sic) achievement is dependenton the strength of his arm”, and not on the wealth or the achievements of his parents oron the type of family s/he comes from. The operative influence of this basic urge forcesan individual to not merely ride on the glory of his or her parents’ achievement, but tostrive to make and build up his or her own worth in life. In this way, children of the Africanpoor succeed in transcending or outgrowing the limitations of their humble backgroundor the humble beginnings they had inherited. The reverse motivation is, of course, thecrisis that is faced by some wealthy African families where children fail to make a markin life because the governing sentiment in them (the children) is that there is no need forsuch effort given that the parents have already achieved all the wealth that is needed tomake life worth living for generations of children yet to come!

Given this old association of the root term, “Afro”, in making reference to the “identifiableAmericans of African descent”, I prefer, in the context of this article, to use the termAfricentric, for making reference to the psycho-cultural frame of reference of thecontinental African peoples from whom the ancestors of the African Americans took theirorigination. In taking this option, I do so with the conviction that the term “Africentric” isindeed the more appropriate nomenclature than the term afrocentric when the aim, asin this article, is to highlight the distinctive contributions of African culture and traditionin the making of human personhood. Accordingly, the term Africentrism will be usedin this discussion in contradistinction to the term Eurocentrism that takes centre stagewhen attention is directed to any discussion about the psycho-cultural perspective ofthe people of European descent

I aim to attemptan African psychological rendering of that fundamentalindigenous African assumption, made popular by theNguni proverb, that “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (oftentranslated as “a person is a person through other persons”)

“umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”(often translated as “a person is a person through otherpersons”)

ABSTRACT – In this paper the use of the pigments in the Paleolithic is presented, and some ideas ofthe symbolic meaning of colours are suggested. The colour red might have been a symbol of transfor-mation, and as such, it was used in burials and for painting the Venus figurines. In the SlovenianPaleolithic, there is scant evidence of importance of colour and only a few finds of stones used forthe grinding of the red pigment have been found

Simona Petru206Fire also had important symbolic meaning; it wasthe agent of transformation. In times of cold andharsh weather, fire was indispensable, since it chan-ged cold into warmth. If ochre is treated with fire, itis transformed and it changes colour. If clay is burnt,it changes its structure and hardness. That is prob-ably why red was so important, since it was the sym-bolic colour of fire and transformation.As a symbol of transformation red ochre is present ingraves. Death is the ultimate transformation knownto human beings. Ochre was used in funeral rites,probably because it passes through a powerful colourtransformation when burnt. Together with the white-ness of bones and the blackness of the grave, redwas part of the mighty tricolour scheme which sym-bolised death. As a symbol of fire, red ochre mighthave been sprinkled over a cold dead body to warmit up and to restore life. The early co-occurrence ofthe use of fire, burials and ochre is known from Qaf-zeh Cave in 90 000 to 100 000 years old layers, wherethe skeletal remains and burials of the first earlymodern humans in the Levant were found (Hoverset al. 2003.508). Hovers et al argue that ochre wasselected and mined for its colour, rather than for anyother property. The specific hues of red had been de-sired. The symbolic use of ochre is suggested ratherthan practical (Hovers et al. 2003). The findingsfrom Qafzeh cave are the only certain evidence ofthe relation between ochre and human skeletons inMiddle Palaeolithic contexts, while in the Upper Pa-laeolithic, ochre becomes more frequent grave good(Riel-Salvatore & Clark 2001.454–457). It was im-portant in mortuary rites and was present in almosthalf of the known burials (Groenen 1991.18).Two interesting burials of children sprinkled withochre are from Lagar Velho in Portugal and fromKrems in Austria. In Lagar Velho a 25 000 years oldburial of a child who exhibits a mix of early Modernhuman and Neanderthal features was found. Thefour years old child was covered with red ochre andlaid on a bed of burnt vegetation together with pier-ced teeth and marine shells (Trinkaus & Duarte2003.32). The burial of two newborn children wasfound recently in Krems, Austria. The children weresprinkled with ochre and wrapped in skin, togetherwith a necklace of mammoth ivory. The 27 000 yearsold grave was covered with a mammoth shoulderblade. Besides the ochre, there were also other colo-rants found at the site: red chalk, graphite and mu-schelkalk – a type of limestone which was used forthe production of white pigment (Einwögerer 2005).In the Upper Palaeolithic, there was also a power-ful symbolic relation between ochre and femininity(Groenen 1991.24). Many Palaeolithic venus figuri-nes were painted with red ochre or hematite.

Two interesting burials of children sprinkled withochre are from Lagar Velho in Portugal and fromKrems in Austria. In Lagar Velho a 25 000 years oldburial of a child who exhibits a mix of early Modernhuman and Neanderthal features was found. Thefour years old child was covered with red ochre andlaid on a bed of burnt vegetation together with pier-ced teeth and marine shells (Trinkaus & Duarte2003.32). The burial of two newborn children wasfound recently in Krems, Austria. The children weresprinkled with ochre and wrapped in skin, togetherwith a necklace of mammoth ivory. The 27 000 yearsold grave was covered with a mammoth shoulderblade. Besides the ochre, there were also other colo-rants found at the site: red chalk, graphite and mu-schelkalk – a type of limestone which was used forthe production of white pigment (Einwögerer 2005).

There is another aspect of the close relation betweencolour and women in the Palaeolithic. After womenbecame pregnant and had children it was difficultfor them to hunt, so they had to switch to gathering.Good colour vision is indispensable for primates whoare mainly dependent on gathering and collectingberries and fruits of different colours (Dominy et al.2003), so women needed to develop excellent colourdiscrimination. Even today a feeling for colour is afemale province, and women use more names forcolour schemes than men. For hunting, colour visionis not very important, since colour-blindness doesn’taffect functional ability. Consequently, defective co-lour vision today is nearly a hundred times morecommon among males than females (Gage 1999.31

The problem of colour in the Palaeolithic is complex,and there are no easy answers to many questions re-garding preparation, use, and the meaning of pig-ments used in art, and in everyday life. But there isno doubt that colour was an important agent oftransmission of information and feelings of the firstartists. Together with speech, art also developed,since people became able to express their feelingsand thoughts through both, and to share the infor-mation that is the basis and reason for the evolutionof language and art.

was detected as binding. It was mixed with yellowochre, but not with red colorants. This might hadsymbolic meaning – yellow, that lacked the appear-ance of blood, needed additional ‘power’, so theymixed it with blood, while red was already powerfulenough (Williamson 2000). Human blood proteinwas also a constituent of red pigment in two Austra-lian caves dated to late Pleistocene. Art motifs inthose caves consist of hand stencils and panels cove-red with red pigment. It is interesting that even inthe recent past human blood was often used in Au-stralian Aboriginal ritual activities (Loy et al. 1990).In France, experiments were carried out to deter-mine the possible binding materials in Palaeolithicpaintings. As Couraud found, organic substances wereunsuitable, and the best binding agent was water, es-pecially cave water rich in calcite, since it fixes andconserves pigments on the wall (Couraud 1988.23).In some cases manganese was burnt and used forblack pigment. Burning might have had practical useto facilitate the making of the pigment powder, butit might have had also symbolic and even ritual as-pect. The same might be true for the burning ofochre and hematite. With burning, the colour ofochre changes from yellow to different hues of redor to violet (Leroi-Gourhan 1968.69). The burningof ochre might have already been known in the OldPalaeolithic site of Terra Amata, where pieces ofochre of various colours from yellow and red tobrown were found (Groenen 1991.14, with citati-ons). Fire played important role in Paleolithic ritu-als, which is confirmed in Central and Eastern Eu-rope, where clay was burnt to make figurines usedin rituals (Guineau et al. 2001.222). Perhaps theearly modern humans at Qafzeh cave were alreadyburning yellow goethite to transform it into red he-matite – fire was used intentionally to change theyellow colour to red (Hovers et al. 2003.502). Pos-sibly the transformation of a yellow stone to a redone was viewed as magical (Vreschner 1980.632

Pigments them-selves might also have had supernatural powers inPalaeolithic, as they had for the San people of SouthAfrica. In San society, the transformation of the pig-ment into paint was accompanied by ritual proce-dures (Lewis-Williams 2002.255

Pigments were mixed together with other compo-nents to obtain colours. Extenders were added for amany reasons – to economize the consumption ofpigment or to improve colour characteristics, suchas different shades, adhesion and durability. Investi-gations in the Ariège region in France indicated thatin some cases feldspar was used as an extender,while in others biotite or talc was used. Different re-cipes for the preparation of colour were known, andresearch of portable art from well-dated contexts inthis region indicated that recipes could be chronolo-gically defined. But it is also possible that the use ofrecipes depended on the season, the social occasionor ritual, in which case they might have had symbo-lic meanings (Clottes et al. 1990).

Red pigments were produced from iron oxides, likehematite or limonite, and from ochre. Hematite wasthe most frequently used mineral. It occurs in theform of aggregates of small red crystals, or in theform of bigger black crystals, which are difficult tocrush (Clottes et al. 1990). White was obtained mo-stly from kaolinite or illite

Only mineral colours are preserved for a long time,which could be the reason there is such a scarcity ofcolour in Palaeolithic art. There might be coloursmade from organic material extracted from plantsor animals, but such material does not survive overthe course of thousands of years. Another problemis that the extraction of plant pigments like green orblue is complicated, and the plants which could beFig. 1. Ibex from Niaux (from Graziosi 1956.Tav. 198). Black and whitepainting. Red, black or white| The dawn of colour symbolism205used in the process grow mostly in tropical areas(Couraud 1983.107; 1988.20). The only organic pig-ment preserved is charcoal, which was used for blackcolouration. Manganese oxides were also used forblack colouration. These oxides can be found on thewalls of limestone caves as a product of alteration(Clottes et al. 1990.178)

Black and red are quite common in Palaeolithic art,while white is almost completely absent at firstsight. But it should not be forgotten that the wallson which images are depicted are frequently white.Artists produced white hues by leaving areas oflimestone wall blank, or they even scraped the dustoff the wall surface to create an area of white. In thepainting of the ‘Chinese horse’ at Lascaux (Fig. 2),blank wall represents the unpainted white under-belly of the horse (Marshack 2003). That white pig-ments were used was confirmed in the Magdaleniancave of Bedeilhac, where a white clay plaquette wasfound. It was used as a crayon to colour animal hideor human skin (Marshack 2003). It is also possiblethat white paint was frequently used, but since itwas less durable than other colours it was not pre-served. Such is the case with the San paintings atRose Cottage Cave and from other South Africansites, where the parts of the paintings which werecoloured white disappeared with time (Williamson2000.755; Lewis-Williams 2002.146)

So notonly words express our fe-elings, but also the sound ofspeaking itself. Different voi-ces make different impres-sions on us. Some peoplehave pleasant voices, andwe react positively to them,while others may provokenegative feelings. So we com-municate with sound, as wellas with words, and we alsocommunicate our feelingsthrough colours.

Both influence our feelings. With some co-lours we have the impression of energy, while otherscalm us down; the same applies to sound. Speaking

In languages with only a fewterms for colours, the term red includes many hues,which means that it includes all reds, oranges, mostyellows, browns, pinks and purples. Separate namesfor these colours and for other colours like blue andgreen evolve later (Berlin & Kay 1999). The varietyof names for colour also depends on the environ-ment in which people are living, or on their main ac-tivity.

So white and black basi-cally express what colour really is