Christopher Damon Roy 1947–2019

Near my village of Sayaga, that night, the moon was bright and very high. Young boys and girls stayed out late, some drinking tea or dolo (millet beer), others discussing the year's harvest and next season. When the whole village was asleep, a little before dawn, a deafening noise awoke the inhabitants. They rushed out of their huts and headed to the spot from whence the noise had come. The loud noise they had just heard came from the fall of the baobab tree, which had stood at the entrance to the village. It was lying on the ground. The village chief, the chief of land, and other heads of families were all shocked and puzzled. The village chief asked how a healthy seventy-one-year-old baobab that was so solid could have fallen so easily. Immediately emissaries were sent to neighboring villages to inform them of the situation and to consult the soothsayers.

In fact, at the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, another living baobab, Christopher Damon Roy, age 71, passed away Sunday, February 10, 2018, at 3 am in Iowa City, surrounded by his immediate family. Christopher Damon Roy was one of the baobabs of the study of Burkinabè peoples and cultures. He loved African arts, he loved traditions, and he loved the African people.

He is survived by his beloved wife, Nora; his son, Nicholas Spencer Roy; his daughter, Megan Deirdre Roy and granddaughter, Sylvia Elizabeth Dolci; his sister, Robin Roy Katz and nephew Teddy Katz; his brother, Matthew Roy, nieces Katelin and Emily, and nephews Robby and Chris.

Roy was born on September 30, 1947, in Ogdensburg, New York. He received his Bachelor of Arts from St. Lawrence University in upstate New York in 1970 and a PhD in African art history at Indiana University in 1979. He was professor of art history and Elizabeth M. Stanley Faculty Fellow of African Art History at the University of Iowa.

His lifelong love of African art—a field he did not study until years later, when he was at graduate school—came from his first visit to Africa, as a student in 1966. During his various trips to the continent he met many people from sub-Saharan Africa and so, when he applied to the Peace Corps, he asked to be sent to there. As a Peace Corps volunteer, he was sent to Upper Volta, known today as Burkina Faso, from 1970–72. He married his wife Nora at the City Hall of Ouagadougou. They met while students at St. Lawrence, before they went into the Peace Corps. This memory certainly strengthened his attachment to Burkina Faso.

1.

Christopher Roy and Boureima Diamitani in the village of Sayaga, 2001. Chris filmed his A Day in the Life of an African Village in Sayaga and traveled there many times.

Photo: courtesy of Boureima Duamitani

2.

Christopher Roy drinking dolo in a village in Burkina Faso, 1984.

Photo: collection of Chris Roy

During his time as with the Peace Corps in Burkina, he served as the acting director of the National Arts Center of Ouagadougou until 1972. He was charged with creating an open-air museum, and for that reason he drove around the country looking for and hiring artists to show their work in the space.

In 1976, for his doctoral research, he returned with Nora to the area to study Mossi sculptures for sixteen months. He would return almost

3.

Chris and wife Nora and their goat, Heidi, in Burkina Faso, 1972.

Photo: collection of Chris Roy

every year over the following decades because of the region's rich art history. His last visit was in 2015, just before the publication of his book Mossi: Diversity in the Art of a West African People. During this stay he was able to meet with the Mogho Naaba, the king of the Mossi, at his palace in Ouagadougou. He also met the Larle Naba, the minister of the Mogo Naba, and...