An allegorical tale that teaches core lifetime and business management principles through the life story of a monkey named Pete. Meet Pete. As a young monkey growing up on the safe side of The Hedge, he longs for adventure, fame, and fortune, and eventually leaves the security of his home to explore new horizons. Along the way, Pete becomes a husband, a father, and a business leader. New communities, characters and experiences present opportunities to learn management and life skills. Pete eventually reaches The City and is tasked with managing the critical shortage of The City’s primary resource. Pete is sent on a risky journey to find more resources and uncovers impending catastrophe heading toward his home community and The City. All of Pete’s leadership skills are tested as he races to save his family, his community, and even his foes from certain destruction. The Monkey and the Maize is a fictional story with core messages about leadership, management, community and integrity that span multiple life roles—from a young couple learning how to be good parents to a first-time manager learning how to lead to a corporate CEO who wants to continue to grow. The five roots of life—Faith, Family, Fellowship, Food [Work], and Forgiveness—are woven throughout this tale providing its firm foundation. “Mr. Marble hasn’t just penned another book on leadership. At the core, he brilliantly describes a journey that is both relatable yet inspiring. The Monkey and the Maize will create a moment of self-reflection and awareness for its readers by being real, not superficially didactic.” —Dave Kipe, Chief Operating Officer, Majestic Steel USA

This remarkable study explores the use of the visual and performing arts to promote nonviolence and social harmony in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on Gelede, a popular community festival of masquerade, dance, and song, held several times a year by the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. Babatunde Lawal, an art historian and African scholar who has taught in Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States, is himself a Yoruba and has taken an active part in Gelede. He writes from the perspective of an informed participant/observer of his own culture. Lawal bases his book on extensive field research--observations and interviews--conducted over more than two decades as well as on numerous published and unpublished scholarly sources. He casts significant new light on many previously obscure aspects of Gelede, and he demonstrates a useful methodological approach to the study of non-Western art. The book systematically covers the major aspects of the Gelede spectacle, presenting its cultural background and historical origins as preface to a vivid and detailed description of an actual performance. This is followed by a discussion of the iconography and aesthetics of costume, and an examination of the sculpted images on the masks. The book concludes with a discussion of the moral and aesthetic philosophy of Gelede and its responsiveness to technological and social change. The Gelede Spectacle is illustrated in color and black-and-white with over 100 field and museum photographs, including a rare sequence on the dressing of a masquerader. It offers, in addition, more than 60 Gelede song texts, proverbs, and divination verses, each in the original Yoruba as well as in translation. Lawal's interpretations of these pieces indicate the rich complexities of metaphor and analogy inherent in the Yoruba language and art.