Into The Kpanguima

The African roots of womanism can be seen in African women’s social and spiritual formations, such as the West African Sande society. Art historian Sylvia Ardyn Boone examined the social, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of the Sande society in her classic book, Radiance from the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art (1986), published well before the womanist idea was in wide circulation. Yet the Sande-originated ideas, orientations, and practices in Boone’s text help to elucidate the elusive core dimensions of womanism and demonstrate why womanism is the fruit of a distinctly African intellectual genealogy, born of African cosmology. Womanism is, then, a New World vehicle for many of the ideas and dispositions that have historically been preserved and transmitted by such African women’s social and spiritual formations. Inherent in the organization and spirit of these ideas and dispositions is a unique orientation to social and ecological problem solving, rooted in woman-gendered Africanity. This chapter explores not only the connections between the Sande worldview/praxis and womanism but also the life and work of Boone as a unique Black intellectual who made these connections possible.