La via delle bare

Abstract

The Way of the Masks by Lévi-Strauss and the structuralist method, already tested for the analysis of kinship and myths, are at the center of this essay, whereby the book of the French Anthropologist is put to test with the abebu adekai, funerary objects of the Ga people of Ghana. Lévi-Strauss not only wondered whether it would be possible to apply the structuralist method to the “plastic art object”, but he prophetically observed that art is no useless epiphenomenon, but on the contrary an extraordinary source to comprehend aspects of politics, economy and society of which it is part. This article, beside investigating the issue of method in studying the funerary sarcophagi of the Ga, aims to highlight how beneficial and productive the legacy of Lévi-Strauss has been and will be in re-thinking the epistemological posture of the anthropologist in the various phases of the research, in order to better appreciate the work of art, in this case the funerary object, as a relational and systemic process in the context in which it is produced.