Browse Items (124 total)

This divination pot features ancestral faces, a man holding diviner sticks, a rooster, a large mouse, a puzzled monkey, elephants, a frog, a crocodile, and a royal dancer. It is one of a kind, lost wax cast bronze with varied bronze green patina.…

One-of-a-kind bronze royal bracelet with two rounded hinge halves. An elephant stands in the center with lions on either side.

A hand-wrought iron gong stands next to a carved wood tappa featuring a Goli Society Bo-Amun mask. There are holes in the base for attaching fabric. The gong has an encrusted brown patina and the tappa has a rich red brown patina.

A royal female with her hands on her knees is seated on a stool. The stool forms the handle to a fly whisk. The black horse hair is used to shoo away flies. Carved wood with a warm rich brown patina.

Three examples of Tajere - a form of rod currency made from basic forms of ingot in which metal was stored, exchanged and transported prior to being worked by metalsmiths. The iron bars come in varous sizes and shapes and remained an important…

This an example of a Mbuya mask, a type of mask created in multiple styles in the western and central Pende regions. The mask is worn by a dancer wearing a costume made of raffia or imported fabric. The dancer carries objects such as palm fronds or…

This mask is used by the Bwami Society and would be stored in a basket with turtle and snail shells, animal hides, parrot feathers, wild mushrooms, seeds and leaves to represent the natural world. The elders use these items to teach the young about…

T-shaped iron rods terminating at one end in lateral pointed appendages symbolic of wings or ears were widely used by Kissi people. Kissi pennies were often exchanged in bundles playing an important role as symbols of wealth and prestige, and when…

Copper ingots cast in the shape of an X were a form of currency. These originated in the copper-rich region of the Congo as well as in Northern and Southern Rhodesia. Molten copper obtained by smelling malachite ore was cast to create this X shape.

The Fang people are known to attach objects to their figures such as presented in this example of a fetish figure with a long coiffure at its back. Attached to a calabash and having additional amulets, there is compactness in the form which is a…