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... and the east African coast. Some groups like the YORUBA of Nigeria carve a great variety of objects. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS At least three basic themes occur again and again in traditional African art: 1 the distinction between bush and village, 2 the problematic relationships between the sexes, and 3 the struggle to control various forces, natural as well as supernatural, to achieve the favored end. The dualism of bush and village is everywhere in Africa, although the forms by which it is expressed vary from place to place. The basic idea is that the world consists of two complementary spheres: one a wild, chaotic, uncontrolled, high-spirited region (or nature); the other an ordered, controlled, measured, predictable domain (or culture), the human world of the village. The IBO of Nigeria show this dualism by means of masks and headdresses: the male symbolizes the elephant, the most powerful of all bush creatures; the female symbolizes ...