Robes of Sokoto

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Robes of the Sokoto CaliphateAuthor(s): Colleen KrigerSource: African Arts, Vol. 21, No. 3 (May, 1988), pp. 52-57+78-79+85-86Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336444 .Accessed: 25/05/2011 18:57

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Robes of the Sokoto Caliphate COLLEEN KRIGER

1. THE CHIEF OF PATEGI AND HIS FOLLOWERS. PHOTO TAKEN BY THE REV A.W. BANFIELD IN NUPE COUNTRY CA. 1903.

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2. THE REV. A. W. BANFIELD WITH A NUPE MALAM IN PATEGI, 1903. BANFIELD DID NOT USE HIS ROBE FOR PROSELYTIZ- ING: HE WORE IT HERE TO ESTABLISH A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SCHOLAR WHO TAUGHT HIM THE NUPE LANGUAGE. THE MALAM WEARS A BLACK ROBE OVER A WHITE ONE.

T he "robe of honor," as it is known in the literature, has been an important

official garment in the Islamic world since the eighth century. In the Sokoto Caliphate (ca. 1810-1908, now northern Nigeria) this voluminous tailored vest- ment was referred to as the rigan giwa, "robe of the elephant" (riga=robe; giwa =elephant). It was distinguished by the color of cloth used to make it and by its embroidered imagery, either the composition called "Two Knives" or the related "Eight Knives." Like the epigraphic inscriptions on robes of honor elsewhere in the Muslim world, the embroidery signified good fortune and victory in war.

According to other interpretations the rigan giwa is a garment indicating ethnic affiliation or social prestige (Heathcote 1972a:12,14; Perani 1979:53) rather than an official robe of the Caliphate. A great deal of confusion has arisen in the literature from the various ethnic attributions - Hausa, Nupe, Yoruba - that have been given to robes embroidered with Two Knives and Eight Knives imagery. They are, however, unclassifiable in these terms. Members of many ethnic groups contributed to their production in the Sokoto state, the garments chang- ing hands at different stages in the process. Moreover, their most important feature was their use by the Muslim elite, regardless of ethnic affiliation (Fig. 1).

The rigan giwa was used to signify representatives of the Caliphate administration, and over time it became an indi- cator of high status and prestige. Con- sequently during the nineteenth century, robes that looked like them, though of lesser material and quality (Fig. 3), were in increasing demand and became available in the marketplace. The jihad, and questions concerning who could legally be enslaved, made it critical to be iden- tified not only as Muslim but as affiliated with the current regime (Lovejoy 1982:208-9).1 For this reason, the production and use of robes resembling the rigan giwa proliferated as the Caliphate expanded, contrary to Heathcote's suggestion that the reformers would have discouraged embroidered clothing (Heathcote 1972a:13). They were considered essential, for instance, to foreign

52

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3. "EIGHT KNIVES" EMBROIDERY COMPOSITION IN COTTON ON A SILK AND COTTON ROBE. COLLECTED BY COUNT CHARLES DE CARDI, A TRADER IN THE NIGER DELTA AREA FROM 1862 TO 1898. MUSEUM FOR TEXTILES, TORONTO.

visitors. Both Barth (1965, vol. 1: 513) and Nachtigal (1971, vol. 4:frontispiece; vol. 2:179-80) found wearing an embroidered robe to be a worthwhile though costly investment for their travels. Other Euro- peans were advised to don them in slave-raiding areas to insure safe pas- sage, and missionaries in Lokoja during the early 1890s adopted a policy of wearing them, as they believed these garments gave them greater authority among the upper classes (Fig. 2) (Nott 1896a:595; 1896b:29; J.A. Robinson 1891:111; C.H. Robinson 1897:90).

Robes of honor in the greater Islamic world have varied over space and time and cannot be characterized precisely. Our sources for early Islamic textiles are mostly written descriptions of the gen- eral uses and characteristics of garments, including this type. Before the thirteenth century, textiles were often adorned with inscriptions praising Allah and wishing for blessings and victory. The name of the current caliph was cited, and some- times the workshop location and date as well. The name of the vizier, the caliph's principal minister, who usually was re- sponsible for overseeing the manufac- ture of robes of honor (Pence-Britton 1938:20), might also be included. Ser-

jeant has called the inscriptions a prop- aganda for the ruling dynasty (1972:18- 20, 23-24, 182), and dynastic changes were accompanied by changes in the inscriptions and colors of robes and banners.2 Not all inscribed gowns were robes of honor. That type was distinguished by a high quality of workmanship and precious materials. Silk was often the ground cloth, with inscriptions woven or embroidered in silk or gold (Gervers & Golombek 1977:82, 85). In the Mamluk Empire (Egypt, Syria, and the Western Arabian peninsula, thirteenth- sixteenth centuries), blazons granted by the sultan, representing signs of office, supplanted historical inscriptions (Mayer 1933:3-4). Robes of honor during this period featured hems or linings of rare and costly materials (Mayer 1952:57).

These garments were awarded by superiors to their subordinates, demon- strating their relationship or indicating the offer of protection, and were also awarded to officials upon their new ap- pointments (Serjeant 1972:16, 22, 24). Be- fore the thirteenth century they were primarily given by the caliph to his emirs, but in the Mamluk Empire, prin- ces, governors, and high officials also

presented them to their subordinates or to foreign ambassadors. Robes of honor became increasingly associated with military rank during the Mamluk period, and to refuse one was considered an act of rebellion (Mayer 1952:62-63).

The robes may have appeared in parts of sub-Saharan Africa at very early dates. Arab geographers reported what seems to have been the official use of robes and turbans there from the eleventh century onward (Hopkins & Levtzion 1981:82, 85, 94, 97, 188-89, 260, 265, 274, 299, 303). It is possible that in the Central Sudan robes of honor were used in Kanem, Songhay, Agadez, Borno, and the early Hausa states. They were certainly known to the early nineteenth-century Sokoto community. For instance, Shaikj Usman dan Fodio's vision in a dream, which figured in his decision to wage holy war, included the presentation to him of such a robe by the founder of the Qadiriya order, 'Abd al- Qadir (Martin 1976:20).

The significance of tailored garments in Muslim culture and robes of honor in the administration of a Muslim state must have been a factor in the efforts to promote the textile industry in the Sokoto Caliphate. Textile production

53

L,_ 4. "TWO KNIVES" EMBROIDERY COMPOSITION, SHOWN IN DIAGRAM BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL IS IN BLACK ON BLACK INDIGO CLOTH. COLLECTED BY FIRST LIEUTEN- ANT PICHT, LATE 19TH CENTURY ULMER MUSEUM.

had been important in the region of the Hausa states long before the founding of the Caliphate around 1810, but the nineteenth century saw a dramatic change in the scale of production. Re- ports of European travelers repeatedly referred to the thriving textile industry and trade, and by the early twentieth century, when the British compiled their census reports, the numbers of people occupied in textile work were surpassed only by those in the agricultural sector (Meek 1925, vol. 2:214-15).

The most significant factor in this rapid expansion was Sokoto labor policies. Institutionalized slavery pro- vided an important source of manpower for producing and processing raw materials and for spinning and weaving (Lovejoy 1982:201-7). Cotton and indigo plantations, often owned by wealthy merchants and members of the aristocracy and worked by slaves, were established throughout the Caliphate. These were concentrated especially heavily in what Lovejoy has described as the "textile belt," consisting of southern Katsina, Kano, northern Zaria, and Zamfara. In- digo dyeworks were at the belt's core, and cotton and grain cultivation in the outlying areas. Raw cotton was trans- ported over distances up to 160 kilomet- ers (Lovejoy 1978:356-58).

Much of the production of thread was probably the work of slaves. Little research has been done on spinning, de- spite the fact that the British listed it as the most important nonagricultural occupation for women in northern Nigeria in the early twentieth century. Process- ing and spinning cotton are extremely labor-intensive operations; even after the introduction of imported cotton thread from Europe, spinners out-

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5. "TWO KNIVES" COMPOSITION, SHOWN IN DIAGRAM BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL IS IN BLACK ON GLAZED BLACK CLOTH. COLLECTED IN NORTHERN NIGERIA, 1982. MUSEUM FOR TEXTILES, TORONTO.

numbered weavers by a ratio of over two to one (Meek 1925, vol. 2:224-26).3 Al- though the practice of wife seclusion must have contributed to the huge female labor force necessary for thread production, it can be assumed that a majority of the work was done by female slaves.

Manufacturing centers were established for treadle loom weaving by both enslaved and free men. All over the Caliphate, large numbers of slaves were brought into the emirate capitals to weave strips that were sewn together in- to garments (Last 1967b:231-32; Lovejoy 1978:353-58, 361, 366-67; Mason 1981:54, 94; Shea 1983:101-2; O'Hear 1983:126-30). The earliest evidence of this comes from Clapperton, who reported that in 1824 male Nupe slaves were producing blue checked cloth in Sokoto (Denham & Clapperton 1831, vol 4:146). Cloth production became particularly heavy from Kano southward into northern Zaria, and in Katsina, as well as the areas around the Caliphate capitals of Sokoto and Gwandu (Lovejoy 1978:361,367). In the second half of the nineteenth century, Ilorin and the Nupe emirates also developed into important textile manufacturing centers. Emirate policies set low rates of taxation on textile work in Kano, Sokoto, and Ilorin, providing in- centives for skilled freemen to immigrate to these areas (Shea 1975:43; 1983:101; O'Hear 1983:136).

Much of this high-volume manufac- ture of textiles, including robes, was geared for export, but such was not the case for elaborately tailored, embroidered robes. If a large scale of production indicates an orientation toward export- ing, then such robes were probably not made to be traded out of the Caliphate but were part of a more local, luxury operation. Tailoring was an individual, urban occupation of free men. Moreover, a complex method of tailoring used for some robes, which involved more cloth

and resulted in a heavier garment, ren- dered them unsuitable for bulk trading over long distances.4 Embroidery was not an occupation that was organized for high-volume production. It was the part-time work of Quranic scholars who were often itinerant, setting up village schools or traveling between urban centers of learning (Nadel 1942:286; Heath- cote 1972a: 13-14; 1972b:123). At the same time, a potential for organization did exist in the Quranic schools, where students could serve as apprentices. As we shall see, this potential may have been developed in Sokoto, as it most certainly was in Nupe country in the later nineteenth century. What is important at this point is that both tailoring and embroidery tended to be concentrated in urban areas, which suggests a link with palace officials. Much of the urban textile production in Kano and Nupe emirates was destined for the palace (Shea 1983:101; Perani 1977:9,30; Mason 1981:34,54,94), for its own use or for use as tribute to the capitals of Sokoto or Gwandu.

Although some embroidered robes also appeared in the markets it does not mean that they were accessible to all. As European travelers frequently noted, tailored garments were worn only by Mus- lims. The availability of certain robes was further restricted by their cost. The price range for robes was extremely wide. For instance, two examples collected on the British 1841 Niger Expeditions were bought for 7,000 cowries each, while at the same time the Rev. Sch6n reported meeting a malam near the Niger-Benue confluence who was wearing a robe that he claimed cost 30,000 cowries (Schon 1970:116). An elaborately tailored example made of narrow strip cloth like a silk strip purchased in the town of Eggan on the 1841 expedition, with silk lining and imported-silk embroidery, could easily have cost over 200,000 cowries.6 Further north, in the textile-producing and -trad-

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ing center of Kano in about 1850, Barth reported that a "good" embroidered robe of cotton cost 18,000-20,000 cowries (1965, vol.1:513). Nachtigal listed prices for those manufactured in the Caliphate in the 1870s, and he distinguished the class of buyer. Robes for the middle class, he said, cost 12,000-24,000 cowries, while those for the aristocracy cost 48,000-80,000 cowries. Some robes, more finely woven but apparently not of silk, cost up to 160,000 cowries. The price of a "poor man's shirt," on the other hand, was only 2,000-4,000 cowries (Nachtigal 1971, vol. 2:182-84).7

Some robes were officially distributed by the state. The Sokoto Caliphate administration seems to have followed the customary Islamic practice of assigning this duty to the vizier, especially where robes of honor were concerned. The vizier, second in power to the caliph, was in charge of the treasury, which included thousands of robes acquired as tribute or booty, or sent as "gifts" to the caliph or the vizier from their subordinates (Last 1967b:103, 196-97). He then distributed them in recognition of service. Office- holders were invested with a robe and turban, which signified acceptance of the caliph's authority (Hiskett 1973:141; Last 1967b:234),8 and soldiers in military campaigns were also awarded robes (Hiskett 1973:185-86; Last 1967b:103).

The vizier was also in a position to supervise embroidery work and select the finest examples for presentation. Quranic scholars often supported themselves by embroidering robes (Heathcote 1974a:20; 1974b:623; 1972b:123; 1972c:166; Nadel 1942:379; Perani 1979:96, n. 5),and since the vizier was also in charge of the promotion and encouragement of Quranic teaching (Last 1967b:182), garments from the treasury could have been

embroidered according to high stan- dards at relatively low cost. Because the early Sokoto community was so suc- cessful in developing the new capital into a center of Quranic learning, it is therefore likely that Sokoto also became an important embroidery center.

A similar pattern of official robe distribution probably also existed at the emirate level of government. Evidence for this comes from the association of the rigan giwa with emirate office-holders.

The term giwa, "elephant," has been applied in both the Hausa and Nupe lan- guages to these robes and also to high- ranking emirate authorities: in Hausa, it was a greeting to important officials such as sarki and madaki; and in Nupe, to those in the civil and military nobility (Bargery 1934:382-83).9 This suggests a link between the rigan giwa and holders of high office in the Caliphate as well.

It would have been important for the rigan giwa to be identifiable as a robe ac-

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6. "EIGHT KNIVES" COMPOSITION IN IMPORTED SILK ON SILK AND COTTON ROBE. GIVEN TO COMMODORE A. P EARDLEY-WILMOT BY THE KING OF DAHOMEY IN 1862. MUSEUM OF MANKIND, LONDON. LEFT 7. MOTIF FROM THE WEARER'S RIGHT SIDE OF THE EARDLEY-WILMOT ROBE. THE PLAITED CORD AND BACKSTITCH USED AS OUTLINE DE- VICES ARE REPLACED BY CHAIN STITCH IN LATER ROBES, WHICH ALSO SHOW LESS THAN HALF THE DENSITY OF THE EYELET STITCHES IN THIS EXAMPLE.

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quired from the state. Embroidered imagery and certain kinds of cloth probably served this function. We have several descriptions of the rigan giwa recorded at different times and places in the Caliphate, each specifying the color of the ground cloth. Barth, reporting from Kano in 1851, described it as a black, glazed (pounded with indigo) robe (1965, vol. 1:512); in the 1870s Nachtigal wrote that it was made of blue and white checked cloth (1971, vol. 2:183); Robinson defined it in his Hausa dictionary as a glazed indigo robe (1914, vol. 1:293); and Banfield in his Nupe dictionary said it was made of red and white striped cloth (1914:150). We do not know the historical reasons for this variation. While there were differences in the kind of cloth used, the garments shared a particular embroidered imagery. In surveying examples of giwa-type robes, that is, those made of cloth of glazed indigo, blue and white checks, or red and white stripes, I found that two related embroidery compositions predominated:1? the Two Knives design, occurring on glazed indigo robes; and Eight Knives,

appearing more often on blue and white checked and on red and white striped examples. Both were used on white robes, worn by pious and learned Mus- lims (Clapperton 1966:204; Greenberg 1946:63; Nicholas 1975:476). 11

The rigan giwa can therefore be characterized as a tailored robe of one of several colors of cloth, embroidered with a certain imagery. But if garments answering similar descriptions were available in the markets, was there a way of distinguishing between the two? In accordance with the pattern elsewhere in the Islamic world, the official rigan giwa was further set apart by value. In the marketplace the highest priced robes could be purchased by only a very wealthy elite who would wear them, for example, when they were acting as Caliphate representatives to establish trade relations with foreign rulers.12 In the capital, the vizier could select for distribution the finest of the thousands of robes available to him. Caliphate robes of honor were the best of their kind.

The robes themselves clearly reveal a complex hierarchy of value. Because a

range of choices in material and technical qualities is possible at each step in production, there may be extreme differences in market worth for apparently similar roles. My analyses of the textiles purchased on the 1841 Niger Expedition show that price was correlated with materials, thread quality, and density of the weave.13 Hausa vocabulary indicates that distinctions in quality were made for certain patterns of weave and their variations.14 It follows that similar distinctions were made for the final steps in the process of constructing embroidered robes. The method and quality of the tailoring, the presence of lining, the material used for the lining and its quality, the materials used in the embroidery, and the density and detail of the embroidery are all factors that further af- fected value.

An example of what I believe to be a Caliphate robe of honor is in the Mu- seum of Mankind in London (Figs. 6,7).s5 In workmanship and materials it is clearly superior to all others I have analyzed. The ground cloth shows an elaboration of the red and white striped

8. THE EARLIEST KNOWN EXAMPLE OF THE "EIGHT KNIVES" COMPOSITION. IMPORTED WHITE SILK ON WHITE COTTON ROBE. COLLECTED BY DR. W. STANGER AT THE NIGER- BENUE CONFLUENCE, 1841. WISBECH AND FENLAND MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGESHIRE.

9. "EIGHT KNIVES" COMPOSITION IN COTTON AND SILK ON A BLUE AND WHITE STRIPED COTTON ROBE. COLLECTED BY THE REV. A.W. BANFIELD, NORTHERN NIGERIA, 1929. ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM, TORONTO.

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10. "EIGHT KNWVES" COMPOSITION ON A BLUE AND WHITE CHECKED COTTON ROBE. COLLECTED BY COMMANDER COLIN DUNDAS, ROYAL NAVY OFFICER OFF THE COAST OF WEST AFRICA, 1862-66. ROYAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND, EDINBURGH.

cloth referred to in Banfield's description of the rigan giwa. (The magenta silk imported from Europe via Tripoli was often described as red.) Here, the pattern of the silk strip cloth is similar to strip mentioned earlier that was purchased in Eggan in 1841, which was by far the most expensive textile in the Niger Expedition collection. The robe is an especially fine example of the complex tailoring method of folding each cloth strip to make a built-in lining, adding to its weight and value.16 It is lined at the hem with finely woven silk strips sewn together and cut on the bias. The entire Eight Knives composition is done in a smooth, glossy silk, apparently imported; the embroidery is particularly dense and even, and the workmanship is consistent and detailed. This garment was presented through high-level dip- lomatic channels; it was a gift to Com- modore Arthur P. Eardley-Wilmot, the British Senior Officer on the West Coast of Africa, from the King of Dahomey in December 1862.17 It can be attributed as a Caliphate robe on the basis of the cloth used, garment form, method of tailoring, and embroidered imagery, done in monochrome.18 Although it is not certain how it came into the possession of the Dahomean king, it is appropriate that he would have a Caliphate rigan giwa, given the important trade relations between the two states (Manning 1982:45) and the role that costly robes played in affirming such relations.

The Two Knives and Eight Knives embroidery compositions share the same vocabulary of imagery, although the lat- ter may be more recent, apparently developing as an extension of the former. Eight Knives seems to have been ab- ruptly introduced, for there are no known examples of nineteenth- or early twentieth-century compositions representing intermediary stages. Evidence also indicates that although both types were used on Caliphate robes, Eight Knives was more prevalent during the nineteenth century and could therefore be interpreted as signifying the new dynasty established at Sokoto.

The stability over time of the Two Knives imagery is the most convincing evidence of its antiquity. It has occurred most often on black robes and white robes, and we find references in the literature to a long tradition of wearing black robes with white robes, one on top of the other (Fig. 2). The Hausa language has had different regional terms for this practice, indicating its wide distribution in Hausaland prior to the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate.19 A black robe and a white cotton and silk robe collected at Eggan market in 1841 on the Niger Ex- pedition show abbreviated versions of the Two Knives composition; the roun- del over the wearer's right chest is miss- ing, and there is no patterning to the couched embroidery of the two "knife" shapes. A black robe embroidered with Two Knives, now in the Ulmer Museum,

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11. "EIGHT KNIVES" EMBROIDERY IN COTTON AND SILK ON BLUE AND WHITE CHECKED COTTON ROBE. COLLECTED BY COUNT CHARLES DE CARDI BETWEEN 1862 AND 1898. MUSEUM FOR TEXTILES, TORONTO.

has been published as dating from the mid- seventeenth century (Fig.4). Accession information shows, however, that the robe probably dates from the late nineteenth century.2o Nevertheless it remains an important piece, showing the consistency of the Two Knives design over time.21 Its embroidery closely re- sembles that on a black robe collected in northern Nigeria in 1982 (Fig. 5) in stitches used, composition, and scale.

In contrast Eight Knives transformed considerably during the nineteenth century. In 1897 von Luschan illustrated what appeared to be a process of change in the imagery of twenty of these embroideries in German collections (1897:250). The examples he showed were not dated, however. Drawing from several museum collections, I have selected eight robes decorated with the Eight Knives imagery whose dates could be reasonably established, covering a period of ninety years, from 1841 to 1930. The modifications over time parallel the sequence illustrated by von Luschan. The most dramatic change takes place in a motif running vertically along the right-hand edge of the composition as it is viewed. On early robes (Figs. 8,10), it is shown as several parallel lines forming a curved band or arc;22 on later ones it has become a series of squares and rectan- gles containing knot forms, interlaces, checkerboards, or crossed lozenges (Figs. 9,11). Such transformations during

Continued on page 78

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of prejudiced beliefs about the practice of Afro-Caribbean religions held by people outside the religions.

As for the "sense of aesthetic play" in the religions, I really didn't mean that this was anything new. I agree that the statue of Darth Vader as Guede that I saw in a Bel-Airehounfor last November was simply the latest transformation of a religious impulse that adopted chromolithographs for analogous reasons in the last century. I feel that in documenting such representations, I am simply updating the observations made by Mr. Courlander and others over the last decades.

Donald Cosentino University of California, Los Angeles

AKO PHOTO CORRECTION May I make a correction to Robin Poynor's "Ako Figures of Owo and Second Burials in Southern Nigeria" in your November 1987 issue? All three photographs on page 63 are mine, and Figure 2 was taken in the Palace in Owo in late 1958.

Frank Willett The University of Glasgow

CLARIFICATION ON SO'O MASKS In our article "So'o Masks and Hemba Funer- ary Festival" (Nov. 1987), a sentence was omit- ted from the caption for figures 3 and 4, which reads: "So'o society member's mask(?)..." Retaining the next sentence, "Some so'o masks are kept inside members' houses and are not used in masquerade performance " would have made sense of the "?" That is, we are making a distinction between a "member's mask" and a "dance mask." Also, on page 33, column 1, line 13, the phrase should be "more frequent human warfare."

Thomas D. Blakely and Pamela A.R. Blakely Brigham Young University

CONTEMPORARY ART IN GREENLAND I very much enjoyed the First Word on arctic art (Nov. 1987) and second John Povey's views. I was in Greenland last summer and became familiar with Greenlandic art and the art school at Nuuk, the capital. The development of modern art there has followed much the same path as that in the Canadian arctic, including the strong influence of individual Europeans. It has not yet reached the degree of commercial success of Canadian arctic art, especially here in the U.S. (You will have noticed by now that I've avoided using the word "Eskimo." The Greenlanders find it as offensive as American blacks find the word "negro." We learned this within the first hour of being there. Yet in the Canadian arctic the same does not apply.)

The point made about Westerners placing a high value on prior ritual use with regard to African art is an important one. I don't think that they do so only because they value ritual use for its own sake. Ritual use is usually associated with objects that are aesthetically superior (at least in European eyes) compared to contemporary copies, reproductions, or whatever taxonomy of nouns and adjectives one chooses to apply to the stuff recently hacked out. The reasons for this have all been

thrashed out by others. However, as John Povey pointed out, sub-Saharan Africans have not yet produced the kinds of contemporary art one sees in the arctic, save for a few rare exceptions.

I've given this much thought since being in Greenland. The Greenlanders have in a sense made a break with their "traditional" repre- sentational art forms. Their contemporary art stands on its own merits. Yet their sculptures and paintings and sketches often depict now vanished traditions. Thus there is still a link to the past, but unlike the vast majority of Afri- cans who sculpt today, they are not imitators or copiers.

The fact that there is a market in the West- ern world for the imitations and copies sculp- ted in Africa in part, I think, impedes the emergence of contemporary art and artists. For the market serves as the patron, and bends the artists to its will in both subtle and forceful ways. Only when the market begins to reject this type of art or independently makes a demand for new African genres will change occur. There must be thousands of tal- ented African artists imprisoned today in a cycle of sculpting copies from art books in order to earn their daily bread. While so doing they cannot achieve the freedom necessary to use their creativity. They are limited to exercis- ing only their technical skills.

Pascal James Imperato New York State Journal of Medicine

78

Sokoto Robes Continued from page 57 the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suggest that the Eight Knives composition was not yet a firmly established visual statement and was probably more recent than Two Knives.

Further support for a younger age for Eight Knives imagery comes from evidence that the rigan giwa probably served as a model for workshop production of embroidered robes in the later nineteenth century, and that this was the favored of the two compositions. A transition to workshop production can be ob- served in the contrast of workmanship between early- and late-nineteenth-century robes. Early examples show dense and consistent embroidery techniques. Even more important, the careful workmanship suggests the hand of a single embroiderer. Later robes lack such detail and consistency, and the re- pertory of stitches has been reduced to three main ones: patterned couching, chain, and eyelet. These changes strongly suggest a greater scale and organization in the embroidery process. The 102 examples of embroidery collected by Frobenius in Nupe country around 1910, now in the Museum fir V61lker- kunde, Munich,23 confirm such workshop production and, in some cases, the stages in production.24 But their most remarkable aspect is their homogeneity. Of the 65 pieces that are pockets, showing the main portion of the embroidery composition, 48 display Eight Knives and only 17 show Two Knives; another

15 pieces are fragments of Eight Knives compositions that may be partners to the pockets. Such an overwhelming demand for this imagery by the end of the nineteenth century testifies to its currency in the Caliphate.

An iconographical analysis demonstrates associations of motifs with official insignia and protective devices. The motif on the wearer's right chest and back has been repeatedly referred to as tambari, or "king's drum" (e.g., Menzel 1972, vol. 3: no. 112; Mischlich 1942:116). The tambari signified Hausa chief- taincy (Smith 1960:160; Nicolas 1975:147; Fer- guson 1973:273) and has been included in emirate insignia (Harris 1932:105-6; Daniel 1932:82-83). I do not mean to suggest, however, that it is a direct visual representation of a drum. Tambari has also been a title for Hausa and Tuareg war leaders (Barth 1965, vol. 2:356; Harris 1932:105),25 and it may well be that the title came to be associated with their robes. Components of the motif, such as the crossed circle and the spiral, have appeared on pen- dants, weapons, and on palace and mosque facades across the Sahara region, contexts that indicate protective properties (Gabus 1958:42, 54, 67, 76, 79,154-55, 371, 379; Nicolas 1975; pls. 1,2; Prussin 1976:16-19; 1986:221).

Another motif appears twice on the wearer's left side. Eight-pointed stars have been noted as talismans on Islamic banners used both in war and on pilgrimage (Welch 1979:76-77). The double square, or eight- pointed star, served as protection against the "evil eye" in Moorish iconography (Wester- marck 1904:217). Its widespread appearance in the Islamic world in Quran illumination and on tomb covers further indicates protective functions (James 1980:21; Safadi 1978). Robes acquired around the 1930s and later show this motif changed beyond recognition and no longer active (Fig. 9).

A motif that appears on the pocket edge of Two Knives embroideries also appears in early Eight Knives compositions. It is a square di- vided into nine equal squares (3 x 3), with five of them (the corners and center) completely filled in with embroidery. On later Eight Knives compositions, it has been transformed into a crossed lozenge or interlace form. The only name recorded for this motif is "house of bees" or "house of five."26 By name and by form, then, it refers to the number five, noted as a charm against the evil eye (Westermarck 1904:212-15; Tremearne 1968:175).

The 3 x 3 square belongs to a large family of magic squares whose history is ancient. Rep- resenting the universe in Chinese iconography from the fourth century B.C., magic squares first appeared in Arabic literature in about A.D. 900. Sufi mystics adopted the 3 x 3 square, which to them represented perpetual motion. In written examples of the square, numbers were placed in each compartment so that the sum in any direction equaled fifteen. Two squares of 3 x 3 cells appear on a talismanic bowl attributed to the Mamluk period (Ittig 1982:88-90).27 Magic squares with numbers, along with messages in Arabic script, were drawn on sub-Saharan charm gowns, and variations of magic squares have

been noted as amulets (Meinhof 1923-24:224- 26; Prussin 1976:18; 1986:76, 90-91; Bravmann 1983:25, 37-41).

As already mentioned, the arc-shaped motif on the wearer's left side of the Eight Knives composition underwent substantial transformation in the nineteenth century, the parallel lines of early examples becoming a vertical series of interlaces and crossed lozenges. In all cases, however, it is termi- nated by a three-tiered pointed form at each end. Another vertical motif in the lower pocket area, usually showing several cloverleaf- shaped protrusions, underwent a similar transformation; later robes show it as an interlace or series of crossed lozenges. On early twentieth-century robes, these two vertical images have become almost indistinguishable from one another. I have not found specific references to names for either of these vertical motifs, but there is some evidence that they may have been associated with various reptiles. Both have components that are included in a corpus of embroidery imagery whose Hausa name translates as "heads of lizards."28 All of the "lizard heads" extend from interlaces or knot forms such as those appearing in the robe embroidery.

An obvious interpretation of the association of lizards with interlace forms would be that it demonstrates a process by which abstract Is- lamic imagery was incorporated into a prior, non-Muslim veneration of reptiles. But such an interpretation would be misleading because it fails to take into account the wide range of Islamic iconography and the com- plexity of its incorporation south of the Saha- ra. The conjunction of reptilian and interlace imagery has a long and widespread history. Pairs of dragons with interlacing tails represented the dragon or serpent thought to cause eclipses and natural disasters in Hindu, Cen- tral Asian, Persian, and Islamic traditions. The dragon interlace is believed to have been introduced into Islamic art from Central Asia via the Turkish dynasties, and came into use in the Maghreb during the Mamluk Empire. It was incorporated into the talismanic vocabulary of Islam and was used, for example, with magical inscriptions on medicine bowls and on gates as protection against the entry of evil spirits (Ittig 1982:91-93; pl. 2; Ibrahim 1976:12- 14; Azarpay 1978:367, fn, 21). Similar contexts for the use of both reptilian and interlace imagery have been noted in the former Sokoto Caliphate region and environs (Clapperton 1966:142; Heathcote 1974a:21; Kirk-Greene 1961:75; Prussin 1976:16-19; Gabus 1958, vol. 2: 379-80; 387-88). Moreover, there may well be a historical relationship between eclipse dragon myths and sub-Saharan traditions of the rainbow serpent. The Hausa Gajimari, like other legendary rainbow serpents, was associated with the presence or absence of rainfall. It has been described as a rainbow in the sky and a double-headed snake on earth, paired with a female thunder deity (Greenberg 1946:40-41, 56). Its appearance in the sky, bicephalous form, male-female aspect, and the reference to thunder correspond to attributes of the eclipse dragon. Gajimari may have been associated with interlace imagery, since the em-

broidery on the shoulder of the robes has been referred to as bakan gizo, or "rainbow; Gajimari" (Mischlich 1942:116; Bargery 1934:63). Whether such an association was originally intended by the embroiderers is not clear, and it may well be that it stems from a popular reading of the imagery.

The tapered shapes that give the embroidery compositions the names Two Knives and Eight Knives pose several problems in interpretation. Formally and technically, they have been the most stable elements of the embroideries. Although they are knife-like, it is not certain that they do indeed represent knives. Aska, the term for the tapered shape, is more accurately translated as "razor" than "knife." It may, instead, refer to users of the robes, askar being an Arabic-derived Hausa term for soldier (Menzel 1972, vol. 3: no. 114; Fletcher 1912:79-81; Mischlich 1942:116; Fergu- son 1973:320; Bargery 1934:40). On the other hand, Heathcote has illustrated a series of tapered, knife-like shapes applied to a twentieth-century Hausa leather mirror case, adding that the design was known as laya (Heathcote 1974a:29, fig. 17 [1]).29 The term laya, or "charm," in conjunction with knife- like images parallels the use of sword and dagger forms as amulets in, for example, Egypt and Morocco (e.g. Schienerl 1979:30; 1980:8). Yet another interpretation derives from the reference to the robe embroidery as fuska, or "face," in which case the tapered shapes might be seen as distinguishing facial marks called aska (Ferguson 1973:311; Fletcher 1912:80; Bargery 1934:40).30

It is also possible that the original Two Knives embroidery motif was derived from representations of Dhu 'l-Fakar, the two- pointed sword of the Prophet frequently depicted in Islamic iconography. The sword was thought to have magical properties, with the two points used to put out the eyes of the enemy (Mittwoch 1965, vol. 2:233). It therefore may have operated as protection against the evil eye, which would correspond to its crucial position over the heart of the wearer. An image of Dhu 'l-Fakar was engraved on the Blade of Gajere, one of the state swords of Katsina Emirate; the blade has been dated to the early fourteenth century (Bivar 1964:21). The mythical sword might also have been known to Muslims who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, since Dhu 'l-Fakar has been por- trayed on pilgrims' banners from at least the seventeenth century (Denny 1974:71-73). The motif could have retained its magical associations while losing its precise referent, thus al- lowing it to be modified. Its expansion into Eight Knives is achieved by the addition of two groups of three pointed forms, that is, 2 + 3 + 3=8. I have not been able to establish whether there is any numerological significance attached to these numbers."3' An alter- native would be to read the pointed shapes both horizontally and vertically, as for magic squares. In each instance, the pair added to three would make five, a number used as protection against the evil eye.

I have shown that administrators of the Sokoto Caliphate formed policies promoting the production and regulating the distribu-

tion of robes. The believers had waged holy war to reform Islamic practice in the area, and they looked to various sources - classical texts, popular history, and reports of the greater Islamic world from pilgrims and trad- ers - for their model of an Islamic state. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that the production and use of embroidered robes, especially robes of honor, formed an essential component of that model. Whether bestowed on high officials or awarded to clients and followers in holy war, embroidered robes dem- onstrated a system of reward, alliance, and protection in the Caliphate. The evidence indicates that they looked like the garment described as the rigan giwa, "robe of the elephant." The finest examples were presented as robes of honor. They later served as mod- els for workshop production to meet the growing demand for Caliphate robes.

It is probable that, as in other Islamic states, imagery or inscriptions on robes served the important ideological function of distinguishing between different regimes. The Eight Knives embroidery could well have been introduced by the early Sokoto community just after the founding of the Caliphate around 1810. Its imagery is particularly appropriate for representing a state established by jihad, since its visual elements, drawn from a broad Afro-Islamic vocabulary, referred to leadership and also offered protective powers in holy war.32 It was by far the composition most frequently found on robes produced in the Caliphate and was worn by its soldiers and elite. In view of this, the current practice in the literature of classifying these garments by ethnic group is misleading, for by wearing such a robe one was, above all, demonstrat- ing religious and political affiliation with the Muslim believers of the Sokoto Caliphate. O

Notes, page 85

79

books Continued from page 26 scholarship. Among the earlier authors who also have gone out of their way to provide such data are William Fagg (1968), Susan Vogel (1981), and most methodically Monni Adams (1982). Walker is to be commended for setting a precedent in this first catalogue of the Na- tional Museum of African Art for both track- ing down and including this information. One hopes this will become a standard part of future exhibition catalogues as well.

Owing to the current dearth of data on the collection histories of most African art works, Walker is able to offer detailed provenance information for only a few of the objects. In a perusal of those entries that do include related data, European museums seem to have been more systematic collectors (and dis- seminators) of this information than museums in America. And, anthropological museums to date seem to have been more concerned than their fine arts museum counter- parts with obtaining and giving out pertinent information on the early collection histories of their works. Museums as a whole, however, are far more forthcoming with this data than private collectors are. The long-standing mys- tique as regards age seems to be one of the

The collection of Baule and other slingshots was started about four years ago by Scanzi from his Abidjan residence. At the time there was virtually no market for such objects in

Ivory Coast; published examples of West Afri- can slingshots could be counted on the fingers of one hand. As he began showing interest in buying decorated slingshots, the Hausa trad- ers - who collect art from rural areas for re- sale in Abidjan - started bringing back from their buying trips greater and greater quantities of these items. A majority of the pieces illustrated in the book were sold to Scanzi by Ivoirian, Malian, and Burkinabe' art dealers in

Abidjan who act as middlemen between the itinerant Hausa runners and the relatively large European expatriate clientele. When I showed Potomo Waka to a number of the art dealers in the open-air Plateau marketplace in Abidjan, they each recognized a few pieces as ones they had sold to Scanzi.

Scanzi's interest in slingshots and the sub- sequent publication of the book have caused the market for slingshots in Ivory Coast to

catapult, so to say. Already it is difficult to find decorated ones in the marketplaces of Abid- jan, Bouak&, and Korhogo. Those pieces that are available are being sold for increasingly higher prices. And, as with most other facets of the African art market, sculptors and trad- ers are quickly learning to supply the bur- geoning European demand for old and used slingshots by carving and faking "instant ethnographic antiques."

Bringing to light a largely unexplored di- mension of West African sculptural art, Potomo Waka is an interesting addition to any collection of books on African art. Its publication, however, serves not only to introduce a little-known category of artifacts but also to make evident the dynamic relationship between African-art books and the art market. By simultaneously arousing interest in a class of objects previously unknown and under- valued by collectors of African art, and ab- sorbing for themselves large quantities of the items, the authors have created a potentially prosperous market with high demand and limited supply.

Christopher B. Steiner Universite Nationale de Cite d'Ivoire

NEW PUBLICATIONS Songye Masks and Figure Sculpture by Dunja Hersak. Ethnographica, London, 1986. 199 pp., 121b/w & 8 color photos, 4 plans, 3 maps, bibliography, glossary, index. $45 cloth.

The Anatomy of Architecture: Ontology and Metaphor in Batammaliba Architectural Expres- sion by Suzanne Preston Blier. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1987. 314 pp., 85 b/w illustrations, map, notes, bibliography. $44.50 cloth.

African Sculpture from the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania by Allen Wardwell. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1986. Distrib- uted by the University of Pennsylvania Press. 152 pp., 73 b/w & 22 color photos, 5 maps, bibliography, index. $43.95 cloth, $14.95 paper.

Man and His Vision: The Traditional Wood Sculp- ture of Burkina Faso by Esther A. Dagan. Galerie Amrad, Montreal, 1987. 64 pp., 173 b/w photos, map, bibliography. Text in French and English. $18 paper.

Shoowa Design: African Textiles from the Kingdom of Kuba by Georges Meurant. Thames and Hudson, London and New York, 1987. Dis- tributed by the University of Michigan Mu- seum of Art. 206 pp., 36 b/w & 102 color photos, drawings, 3 maps, bibliography, glossary. $24.95 paper.

Who'd a Thought It: Improvisation in African- American Quiltmaking by Eli Leon. San Fran- cisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, 1987. 88 pp., 16 b/w & 46 color photos, bibliography. $15.98 paper.

85

KRIGER, notes, from page 79 Research for this article was carried out in museums and ar- chives in North America and Europe, 1983-1986.

I would like to thank Drs. Zdenka Volavka and Paul

Lovejoy for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this

paper, which was developed from my M.A. thesis (York University, 1985). An abbreviated version was presented at the Seventh Triennial Symposium on African Art, held at UCLA in April 1986. I would also like to thank the Pasold Research Fund for partially supporting my research in Great Britain in June 1986. 1. For a discussion of the issue of who was a believer and who was not, see Last and Al-Hajj 1965: 232-39. 2. Lombard refers to the operation of an official "language" of colors (1978:117). 3. For a discussion of imported cotton and cotton yarns as well as magenta waste silk from Europe, see Johnson 1976:97, 100-2. 4. The robes exported from Kano to Borno have not been

clearly described, but the weight of textiles was an important factor in the trade (Shea 1975:80-82, 111, 173, 276). According to the illustration in Nachtigal's account (1971, vol. 2:182), robes traded to Borno were made by the simple, lightweight method of tailoring. 5. Museum of Mankind, London. Accession numbers 43,3- 11.22 and 43.3-11.53. 6. A robe measuring 130 x 245 cm. would require about

eighty strips of the size strip purchased for 2,000 cowries. 7. Prices have been converted into cowries according to

Lovejoy (1974:584). 8. The alkyabba was a hooded cloak given only to emirs. 9. Sarki has referred to the emir, chief, or headman of a town, guild, or village; madaki was a high office in the Sokoto

Caliphate - third in the line of succession in Katsina and

Hadejia, first in line in Zaria (Bargery 1934: 738; Banfield 1914:207). The rank of ndaeji or ndeji has been associated with the highest rank among the offices of the civil nobility. Uban- dawaki referred to the second highest rank among the offices of the military nobility (Banfield 1914:354, 460; Nadel 1942: 100-1). According to Imam Imoru, zaki, or "lion," was a term used to refer to the king (Ferguson 1973: 211). 10. I surveyed published and unpublished museum and field

photographs, and came up with a sample of 53 robes with the Two Knives or Eight Knives embroidery composition. This

sample was the basis for my visual analysis. From this sam-

ple, 11 robes were selected according to their dates of collection and became the subjects of my technical analysis. My finds were corroborated by the 102 embroidery pieces collected by Frobenius, which I studied through photographs. 11. Imam Imoru described "palace malams" wearing expensive and elegant clothing (Ferguson 1973:227). 12. In the textile trade to Asante, which consisted mostly of unfinished pieces, a few costly robes were selected by the

wealthy caravan leaders for presentation to foreign rulers

(Lovejoy 1980:124). 13. My analyses of the 1841 Niger Expedition collection are

currently being prepared for publication. 14. Zabako is poorer qualitysak'i cloth;gansark'i is poor quality cloth like sak'i, only the weft is black and not black and blue (Bargery 1934:117, 361). 15. Accession number 1920.2-11.1. The robe is registered with the following information: "Given to Vice Admiral Eardley Wilmsley by the King of Dahomey between 1836 and 1866"

(pers. comm., B.J. Mack, Assistant Keeper, Museum of Man- kind, 1985). There are no Eardley Wilmsleys or Wilmsleys listed in the British Navy for the years 1836-1866. There is, however, an Eardley-Wilmot, who served as senior officer off the coast of Africa from 1862 to 1866. He became a Vice Admi- ral in 1876. 16. Each strip in the body of the garment is half patterned, half solid color. The strips are folded in half and sewn so that the patterned part shows on the outside and the solid- colored half becomes a lining on the inside of the robe. The

strips are woven with configurations for this purpose, which

suggests close production relations between tailors and weavers. Unfortunately, there has been very little research on

tailoring, especially nineteenth-century methods of hand-

tailoring. A case study of twentieth-century Kano deals

mostly with tailors using sewing machines (see Pokrant 1982). 17. Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England: Admiralty File 53/8428. 18. The robe does not correspond to the description by Renbe Boser-Sarivaxbvanis of "Dahomey robes," which have a different garment form and are embroidered in polychrome (1972:34). Further confirmation comes from the illustration of a late-nineteenth-century "royal costume" from Dahomey (Brooklyn Museum 22.1500, 1501, in Sieber 1972:41). 19. The wearing of two robes simultaneously, one black and one white, was called in Hausa ri'biye (Sokoto), ha'di (Kano), and gami (Katsina) (Bargery 1934:852). 20. Three robes from the Ulmer Museum have been published in Lamb 1975 and Lamb & Holmes 1980. In both cases, the authors attributed all three robes to the Weickmann collection (collected prior to 1653) although in fact only two of the robes belong to that collection. The black robe, along with a white robe, was collected by a First Lieutenant Picht, probably in the late nineteenth century They were given to the Ulmer Museum in 1910 by the Gewerbemuseum, along with another portion of the Weickmann collection; hence the confusion. I am grateful to Dr. Erwin Treu of the Ulmer Museum for his patience and generosity in helping me sort out this misunderstanding. I have so far not been able to track down Lt. Picht, but he may be the same Picht listed as a trader who gave two garments from Cameroon to the Berlin Museum fiir V61kerkunde early in the twentieth century (see Menzel 1972, vol. 3). The Ulmer robes could have been collected in Adamawa or the Grassfields area. 21. An enlarged and expanded version of Two Knives has been depicted on twentieth-century robes, but has not dis-

placed the version illustrated here. 22. This version of the composition is also known on the robe collected by Barth between 1849 and 1855, now in the Berlin Museum fiir V61kerkunde, accession number III C 15288 (Menzel 1972, vol. 2: no. 593). 23. Accession numbers 15-26-56 through 15-26-157. There is one entire robe, and at least ninety of the fragments appear to be from robes. I am very grateful to Dr. Maria Kecskbsi and her staff for their generous assistance and encouragement. 24. For example, many of the fragments are pockets only, worked separately. Nos. 15-26-100, -126, -129, and -130 only have the eyelet and chain-stitch areas of the pocket embroidered; patterned couching would be later added, perhaps by a different embroiderer. Heathcote found evidence of

twentieth-century Hausa embroiderers specializing in only one or two kinds of stitch (1972a:17-8). 25. The title has also been used to refer to important merchants, especially in the area around Katsina (Lovejoy 1980:84). 26. In Hausa, gidan zuma andgidan biyar (Menze11972, vol. 3: nos. 119, 120). 27. I am grateful to Dr. Lisa Golombek, Royal Ontario Mu- seum, for this and several other sources on Mamluk art. This bowl (acc. no. L 976.34) is on long-term loan to the Royal Ontario Museum. 28. It included the three-tiered pointed forms and each end of the arc motif as well as the cloverleaf shapes protruding from the other vertical motif (Heathcote 1972d:114-16; Menzel 1972, vol. 3:no. 127; Mischlich 1942:116). 29. Laya (pl. lawaye) refers to charms, usually calligraphed. See Rubin 1984:67-70; Prussin 1986:93. 30. For a discussion of facial markings and their association with commercial groups, see Lovejoy 1980:79-80. 31. The number three is a significant number in Sufi belief and prayer repetitions (Schimmell11975:157). On a more popular level, five is the number used most frequently in charms for protection against the evil eye (Westermarck 1904:212-15). In sub-Saharan Sufism, the hexagon is said to represent an

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FAULKNER, notes, from page 31 1. Drawings of Kasiyamaliro and Chimkoko appear in a Chichewa publication published in Malawi called Maliro ndi myambo ya Acewa (Funeral customs of the Chewas) (Makumbi 1955). Images resembling Chimkoko and Kasiyamaliro have been found in rock paintings dating back several centuries in Namzeze just north of Dedza in the central region of Malawi. 2. I resided in Lilongwe for two years with my husband, Scot Faulkner, who worked in development. Our interest in Afri- can art and culture evolved into research as we realized that a vibrant traditional culture virtually surrounded us. In order to document and study this culture freely, I sought clearances and approvals from the Malawi Congress Party and regional and local chiefs to view the Nyau dance, Gule Wamkulu, in which the masks appear. After nearly one year in the country, I received permission to videotape and study the traditional Nyau dances performed in the villages. My husband and I were finally initiated into the society in an admittedly super- ficial ceremony, but we had the advantage of access to members and openness among the villagers about the culture. We have pieced together information to be included in future works, backed up by our field research and other documentation. 3. The Nyau society is found throughout the central and southern regions of Malawi, as well as in eastern Zambia and parts of western Mozambique. Barbara Blackmun and Matthew Schoffeleers (1972) have written about the Man- g'anja Nyau association around Zomba and Chancellor Col- lege in southern Malawi. 4. The dating for Nyau is still inconclusive. It has been de- duced that Nyau and the dance date back to the hunting and gathering cultures of the Late Stone Age (e.g., Clark 1972, Ransford 1966). The history reportedly dates from the first millennium A.D. in the Congo Basin, or possibly Nyau en- tered Malawi with Bantu-speaking people from the Congo area as early as A.D. 300, bringing the Iron Age and pottery-making with them. 5. Use of these basketry masks is described by Makumbi (1955), though precise usage of Chimkoko is unknown. 6. Detailed description of Kasiyamaliro is based on a basketry mask, brought to the U.S. by my husband and me, that will be donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. 7. The ritual with the sacrificial chicken was described to me

in personal interviews with members. 8. The role of Njobvu was described to me in personal com- munication with members. 9. We documented the change from woven maize leaves to burlap bags in a village dance and visit to the graveyard, where my husband and I filmed the new burlap Kasiyamaliro. 10. I am preparing articles that will examine other masking forms in the Gule Wamkulu and provide insights into the Nyau society among the Chewa. References cited Blackmun, Barbara and Matthew Schoffeleers. 1972. "Masks

of Malawi," African Arts 5,4:36-41,69. Clark, J. Desmond. 1972. "Prehistoric Malawi," in The Early

History of Malawi, ed. Briglal Pachai, pp. 17-27. London: Longman Group.

Lindgren, N.E. and J.M. Schoffeleers. 1985. "Rock Art and Nyau, Symbolism in Malawi," pub. 18. Malawi Antiquities Dept. Reprint.

Makumbi, Archibald. 1955. Maliro ndi myambo ya Acewa. Nairobi: Longman's, Green & Co.

Ntara, Samuel Yosiya. 1973. Mbiri ya Acewa, trans. W.S. Kam- phandira Jere. 1st ed. 1944. Weisbaden: Fran & Steiner Ver- lag.

Nelson, Harold D. 1975. Area Handbook for Malawi. U.S. Gov- ernment Printing Office, no. D101. 22:550-172.

Ransford, Oliver. 1966. Livingstone's Lake, the Drama of Nyasa. Beth: The Pitman Press.

Robinson, K.R. 1972. "Iron Age Sites in the Dedza District of Malawi," pub. 16. Malawi Antiquities Dept.

Schoffeleers, M. 1975. "The Nyau Societies: Our Present Un- derstanding." Lecture presented to the Society of Malawi, November 25.

NETTLETON, notes, from page 51 1. See Fagg 1965, 1970; Delange 1974; De Rachewiltz 1966; Fagg & Plass 1968; Leuzinger 1972; Leiris & Delange 1968; Paulme 1%2; Segy 1958; Vogel 1981; Gillon 1984. Some of the reasons advanced for this supposed lack of figure sculpture in the literature range from the idea that black peoples do not have the ability to create any, to the idea that there was no suitable wood available, to the idea that the blacks, particularly the Nguni with their grass architecture, were nomadic and therefore could not carry sculpture around with them. The fact that the Zulu and Swazi made among the most elabo- rate and bulky headrests and milk pails from very solid woods appears to have escaped notice altogether. 2. Interviews with black artists in both Johannesburg and the rural areas have revealed how little is actually known by South Africans about their artistic heritage. Some even reject what little they do know as inevitably "primitive," as they suspect interested whites of trying to foist an inferior status upon them.

African freestanding figurative sculpture has had the widest acceptance as "art" in Europe and America. The whole question of the status of the ethnographic object as art is examined in Maquet 1979. 3. Both the Nasionale Museum voor Ethnologie in Leiden and the Musee Royal de l'Afrique Centrale in Tervuren have accurate documentation of figures in their collections. Other mines of information include the V61kerkunde Versammlung in Luibeck, Frankfurt's and Berlin's Museum fur V61olker- kunde, and the Brighton Museum. The arbitrariness of at- tribution is to be found in the case of a figure in the British Museum (Museum of Mankind), no. 1891 Af 5308, obtained in an exchange with the Amsterdam Museum where it was recorded as having been bought at Marabastad in the Transvaal. It was later reclassified as Zulu and more recently reclassified again as "Transvaal." Almost identical figures in the Musee de l'Homme and in Leiden were called Zulu and later "Shan- gaan," probably because it was finally realized that there were few Zulu-speakers residing in the rural Transvaal in the 1890s. 4. See museum documentation on, for example, the figures in the Museum of Mankind (British Museum), nos. 1954 Af 23, Wellcome Collection; and 1902-185, Christie Collection; and also 1953 Af 8.1. 5. Burchell clearly records the making of decorated spoons among the Tlaping and Hottentots of the Northern Cape; yet in the Royal Scottish Museum, and in contrast to the collections of the ethnological museum in Lubeck, West Germany, they are classified as Zulu or Xhosa. 6. Documentation of the use of figures in these contexts is in Roberts & Winter 1915; Roberts 1916; Judson 1968; Junod 1929; Tyrrell 1968; Distant 1892; Wessman 1908; Nettleton 1984; Van Warmelo 1932; O'Neill 1921; Christol 1897. See also documentation and fieldnotes in the collections of Meno Klapwijk, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Pretoria, and of Jurgen Witt, Tzaneen Museum, input 14, as well as my own fieldwork in Gazankulu and Bushbuck Ridge in 1979 and 1980. Van Warmelo published a photograph of a traditional healer with a variety of figurative objects among his paraphernalia without commenting on it at all. 7. This is now well documented in the literature but is still in evidence in most Southern African rural areas, where research is presently in progress. 8. See also my information from Tsonga informants in Gazankulu, 1979 and 1980; and Zulu informants in Johannes- burg, 1978. 9. Tsonga informants in Gazankulu. It is interesting that there are a number of Tsonga headrests that include guns in

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