As we have seen, nonverbal behavior is a form of communication. Thompson has pointed out that "from urging warriors on to victory in Kongo, to urging sports players on to victory in Mississippi, the function of this gesture has changed very little". Thompson further underlines the meaning of this gesture by stating that the Supremes were "... striking the very pose Kongo elders used to stop misbehavior at a traditional dance" (1981:175).

There are an abundance of Kongo gestures that reappear in the Black Atlantic Visual and Performance traditions. One that is of importance for this paper is the nunsa pose represented in Kong ivory sculpture. A figure is standing or kneeling, with hands on thighs. "This is an ancient pose of assuagement, asking for forgiveness. yet she ontradicts this grace with a resolutely rendered sign; with head averted, she signals denial and negation" (Thompson and Cornet:168). This head averted pose has been recorded among Afro-Cubans during spirit possession; among Afro-Americans such as the Gullah and other African peoples in general. Johnson in documenting Black kinesic behavior notes that "To look another person in the eye (in the context of a dominant culture) is a nonverbal way of communicating trustworthiness, forthrightness, masculinity, truthfulness, sincerity, etc."(Johnson 1975:300).

Conversely, this can also indicate lack of respect. Annette Powell Williams in "Dynamics of a Black Audience," writes of how it is "an indication of total rejection is shown by turning one's head away from the speaker with eyes closed (Williams 1972:103). Further evidence is provided by John and Angela Rickford in their article, "Cut-Eye and Suck-Teeth". The cut-eye gesture, also known as rolling the eyes, is established as as nonverbal African survival:

The basic cut-eye gesture is initiated by directing a hostile look or glare in the other person's direction. This may be delivered with the person directly facing, or slightly to one side. In the latter position, the person is seen out of the corners of the eyes, and some people deliberately turn their bodies sideways to achieve this effect. After the initial glare, the eyeballs are moved in a highly coordinated and controlled movement down or diagonally across the line of the person's body. This `cut' with the eyes is the heart of the gesture, and may involve the single downward movement described above, or several sharp up-and-down movements. Both are generally completed by a final glare, and then the entire head may be turned away contemptuously from the person, to the accompaniment of a loud suck-teeth (Rickford and Rickford 1976:296).

All of these gestures have something in common; they are emblematic of power, whether it is the exercising of it, or acquiescence to it: "It is as if the recipient has no power to prevent this visual assault, the very fact that someone else's eyes can run right over him like this proclaiming his worthlessness" (1976:296).

Through these nonverbal gestures a glimmer of the ways in which African kinesics have survived in the New World is gained. In Kongo culture, the face averted connotes respect or disrespect dependent upon the intent of the symbol user. In West Africa, the averting the eyes connotes respect or contempt. Once the two cultures were brought together in the United States, the continental similarities blended with contrasting national characters and the range of symbolic behavior broadened.

Face is central to Yoruba aesthetics, also. In order to understand this, the concept of coolness has to be introduced here:

Cool philosophy is a strong intellectual attitude, affecting incredibly diverse provinces of artistic happening, yet leavened with humor and a sense of play. It is an all important mediating process, accounting for similarities in art and vision in many tropical African societies. It is a matrix from which stem ideas about being generous, clear, percussively patterned, harmonized with others, balanced, finished, socially perfected, worthy of destiny. In other words, the criterion of coolness seems to unite and animate all the other canons (Thompson 1974:43).

Coolness is a metaphor for proper living; it symbolizes moral aesthetic accomplishment. It requires an attention to balance and harmony. It shades into behavior as well as art: "Coolness is the proper way you represent yourself to a human being" (Thompson 1983:13).

In Yoruba art, the face is a focal point of this concept. Babatunde Lawal a Yoruba art historian calls attention to the connection between face and coolness when he says that to " ... tame or pacify is to `cool the face'" (cited in Thompson 1983:12). Lawal further notes that the head in sculpture is emphasized:

... the head (ori) is the biggest part of the sculpture because in real life it is the most vital part of the body... So important is the head in Yoruba culture that it has become the object of a cult, representing human destiny. A good ori ensures a happy and prosperous life, while a bad one condemns the individual to a life of failure (Lawal 1974:244).

In Yoruba philosophy, what is beautiful possesses ewa, the manifestation of the well-made or well-done. There is inner ewa and outer ewa. The outer concerns the surface quality of things or outer appearances in general. Inner ewa is the intrinsic worth of things. What posseses ewa is good; what lacks ewa is bad. In men and women, inner ewa is equivalent to iwa (character). The most important element in human beauty is not outer ewa, but inner character; "character is beauty" (1974:239-240).

As a result, the Yoruba recognize that while ugliness may repel, surface beauty is worthless without inner character. There is a great deal of emphasis placed on the acquisition of ashe (spiritual command, the power to make things happen) and also on itutu (mystic coolness). The supreme deity of the Yoruba, praised as the Lord of character, dispenses ashe and iwa in essence, as outward signs of inward grace. The ability to render things artistically becomes central and in Black cultures throughout the world, artistic ability becomes representative of beauty and character. "Iwa also means custom, the traditional ways of life" (Thompson 1983:11).

The Yoruba term ashe bears a striking resemblance to the Latin derived term art in its broadest sense; skill in making or doing. In African derived cultures this can be manifested customarily in music, art, verbal performance, manner of dress or sports. It is the Kongo and Yoruba legacies that lend further credence to Tate's observation of Black cultural style.

Thompson has tracked the Yoruba manifestations of coolness in the composure of the face to the United States. "Mystical coolness in Africa has changed in urban African American assertions of independent power. But the functions, to heal and gather strength partially remain. And the name, cool, remains" (Thompson 1974:45).

Once Africans were enslaved and brought to the New World, the issues of power and the importance of the ambiguity underlying symbolic behavior became primary. Once enslaved, the Africans were now at the mercy of the definitions imposed upon them by people who sought to exploit them at best and to destroy them if they could not. The results of this was to the creation of a relationship based on conflict, "... an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties, who perceive incompatible goals, scarce rewards, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals. They are in a position of opposition in conjunction with cooperation" (Frost and Wilmot 1978:9).

This conflict could not be openly acknowledged by either group. To do so for Blacks invited destruction; to do so for whites meant the destruction of a convenient way of life. In the transition from an independent to a subjugated people, standards that once informed the moral outlook were now labeled pathological, savage, primitive. Under slavery, and the legal oppression of segregation, what once were considered good manners and proper behavior became identified with servile behavior. "In the South Black males were taught - either overtly or covertly - not to look a white man in the eye because this communicated equality. Thus, not to look white males in the eye was really a survival pattern in the South" (Johnson 1974: 300). Nonverbal survivals such as rolling eyes, averting the head and deference to authority took on similar connotations.

A question presents itself. How do people beings with central ideas and beliefs about self worth and dignity react? Part of the solution may have been in the manipulation of symbolic behavior to one's own advantage:

There is an additional significance of loan-translations and convergences...., they must have been invaluable in the creation and maintenance of a subtle code by means of which slaves could communicate without fear of detection or punishment by Whites..., it is clear that the code was not restricted to linguistic material (Rickford and Rickford 1976:308).

Thus a command by a white could be rendered a greeting; an insult could be delivered as a polite response, as the well known tactic of `putting on old master' illustrates.

Another tactic utilized was the investment of communal values in the creation of institutions in the New World, and van Gennep's previously mentioned liminal distinctions of ritual asserts itself here. When Africans controlled their own cultures, rituals allowed for the incorporation of individuals on their own terms. The slave holders' attempts to subjugate Africans sought not only to limit their identities to that of slaves; it threatened to make them liminal in every way. This state of being, in Victor Turners's well known phrase, "betwixt and between", can dislocate an individual, and the resulting isolation can destroy a human being as easily and more completely than physical violence.

In this way, the value placed on sports, verbal arts, music or dance, rather than being a submissive response was in fact a continuation of the pursuit of ashe and allows for the incorporation of members into a society. In doing this, the lien style face (social, sacred) which whites attempted to limit and destroy was maintained. The mien face, which whites tried to limit the definition to that of slaves only, was clearly distinguished. So, Black culture invested its members with the self worth that white culture sought to deny. In this way, the slave could maintain a variety of identities; social and individual, sacred and secular. Just as coolness in Africa was sought to reach a transcendent balance, coolness residing in the iwa/ character/ custom/ traditions symbolized by the face became an avenue for power. "Power is a relational concept; it does not reside in the individual but rather in the relationship of the person to his environment. Thus, the power of an agent in a given situation is determined by the characteristics of the situation" (Morton Deutsch quoted in Frost and Wilmot:52).

The transition from African communal societies to a European individualistic one, other conflicts result. Individuality is an idealized aspect of the social existence of people - it ignores the fact that much of the time a human being is "subject to the impact of social actions beyond his control and responsibility and that his subjective volitions are constrained by the necessity of having to meet the social expectations of others..." (Ho 1976:882). By focusing solely on the individual, the reciprocity between individuals and societies is lost in Western formulations of face, and variations in face behavior are missed. In a communal society, social cohesiveness, dependence networks, and societal values of interpersonal harmony are of prime importance. In an individualistic one, there is an emphasis on social mobility, expressive neutrality and personal achievement. (Redding and Ng 1982). The resulting collision of these conflicting models on Black culture is exemplified in the original examples with which I began this paper; basketball and verbal dueling. Individualistic face, the positive value one effectively claims for himself by the line others assume that he has taken during a particular contact, merges with communal face, the respectability and/or deference which a person can claim for himself from others, by virtue of the relative position he occupies in his social network and the degree to which he is judged to have functioned adequately.

Black culture, given control of its own institutions allows for a tremendous range of expression within those institutions. The taunting and boasting in games, often considered bad sportsmanship by white culture is acceptable because one of the purposes the game fulfills is to provide a setting for personal expression. The game it breaks down when the line is not recognized and the required reciprocity is excluded from consideration. This has some very problematic effects. The price that is paid for getting in someone's face is often violence, because the social face that exists outside the rules of the games is a more stable and sacred construct than the impermanent, secular mien that is often at stake within games. If the opportunities to define oneself are limited, the rules break down more easily. The appreciation that is given to a good musician, artist, dancer, or speaker is only one aspect of the self, it is not the entire persona. Without access to the opportunities that mien can provide, protection of lien becomes all encompassing:

"Losing face" is an expression which...refers only to public, discrete events...; At stake is nothing less than the effective maintenance of one's standing in society... Face behavior takes on a defensive quality when the individual appears to be excessively concerned with protecting his face -relative to the objective requirements of the situation in his cultural context. This is more likely to occur when at some level he senses danger signals ... that his face is being threatened and that he does not have the resources to protect its integrity. In any event, the more defensive an individual is, the more awkward and ineffective he is likely to be in his face-protection maneuvers (Ho:871-872).

Ultimately, face in African American culture serves as a buffer to such breakdowns which have historically threatened the harmony and the existence of the community. The transformation of Kongo and Yoruba moral aesthetics in the New World is the result of the reciprocal exchange between community and individual; the bestowal of self worth on the member in return for the social cohesion needed to maintain the culture from the external oppression. In the end it diminishes the effect of a zero sum society in which the benefit for one translates into a loss for another. In an individualistic society, where acquisition is highly valued, mien is valued over lien, because status is sought rather communal incorporation. When Black people have control of their own institutions, these two conflicts can be mediated; when there is no institutional appeal, the results can be the devestating Black on Black violence that occurs all too often among those labeled the `underclass'. Lacking access to jobs or the life affirming self definition that Black culture attempts to provide, face becomes expressed in terms of territorial imperative : "get out of my face". In such instances, face is reduced to position rather than possesion. And in the end, when nothing else is available, face is all one has left.

References

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----------- African Art in Motion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

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