#so'o

Monkey mask  (so'o)

Maker: Hemba artist

Date: Early to mid-20th century

Medium: Wood

Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo

My parents asked me to draw a background for a clock. I wanted to represent something usual, like leaves or landscapes, but in the end the only thing I really wanted to draw was this concept I was having in my mind for weeks. It’s clearly been inspired by the... i don’t know what to call it... story? of creation, about the original sin and Adam and Eve. There is a tree full of fruits, with a snake on it, and it’s the tree of knowledge. It is forbidden to eat the fruits of the tree, but the woman gets corrupted by the snake and eats the fruit, giving it, then, to the man. So they gain the original sin and are sent out from Eden. Mine is kind of a re-creation (like a new dawn and yes, I’m talking about Saab).What I drew is not an event that replaces that story, but it is a new story after the first. What we see is the man who makes up for the past. The drawing is full of symbolism. The tree of knowledge is represented by a man (So’o). There is a sort of concept of sacrifice around the man, because it’s him who gives his gift to the human kind (which is represented by tha man on the right, Vilya, here), and it’s him who protects the human kind from the snake and the fruit that made him miserable in the past. The story is re-written: the tree hides the fruit to the man, sacrificing his right arm that has been taken by the snake (as if the tree was taking the corruption instead of the human kind) and offers him a spider. The spider represents destiny.

The reading I wanted to give here is that, in the new era, for us there will be no corruption. And we will not be taught the truth by taking a fruit, but we will choose the truth and we will seek for it on our own. So we will be free to understand what is really corrupted, what is sinful, and what is not. We will be free from dogmas and will be, as the drawing can tell, the center of our own story, as the tree-man, is.

You may notice that there is no woman here. I’m sorry for that, but the concept didn’t include one. I can say that, instead of a woman as representation of the other people of human kind, we have two homosexuals. In fact, the drawing is mostly about this. It’s about what is wrong, what we were taught to be wrong, and what is actually right, innocent, without sin. It holds the message that many things we were taught to be wrong are actually pure, and that we are soon to be free from stupid prejudices, because we will follow not a divine tree anymore, but ourselves and our deep sense of love and tolerance.

After facing a pirate boarding and surviving the explosion of the ship he was in, So’o was kidnapped by pirates and shot to the chest with an arrow. Believed dead by everyone, was later found in their prison and escaped together with the other hostages thanks to Vilya’s friends. Once reunited with the brother, he is disguised so that the Captain doesn’t find out that he is in the ship with them, to not create further problems.

Vilya won’t allow anything and anyone else to separate him from his lover ever again.

So’o Goldsmith

The meaning of the drawing is more complex than it looks. I couldn’t make it obvious just by looking, but I switched the positions. Both So’o and the fawn are metaphors, they stand for something else.

The fawn stands for So’o, the fawn represents So’o, that is purity, chastity, innocence, beginning, beauty.

While So’o stands for Vilya, because he is where Vilya should be, embracing So’o (which is the fawn), protecting him and giving him his love.

He looks straight to us in a glance that expresses fear, the sensation of being lost, the fear to not be able to protect neither the fawn nor himself. It is very important to him to protect the innocent, the hope of an entire kin, the hope of humanity. Innocence. I guess I switched positions because this is how Vilya feels. He doesn’t feel strong as he is, he doesn’t feel himself. He feels weak and pure like the person he is protecting, which is So’o.

The quote is from the song Smother by Daughter

Oh no

I’m sorry if I smothered you

I’m sorry if I smothered you

Sometimes I wish I’d stayed inside

my mother

[so o] (noun). Caste. Blood color.