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Last updated: May 10, 1999
IntroductionStudy of the Iron Arts of Africa
The Six Parts of the Exhibition
Additional Reading and Viewing
List of Objects Included in the Show
And so it long has been and is in Africa. Over the centuries, iron is the substance and agent of transformation that has allowed Africans to forage and hunt, till the soil, and assure their own protection and prosperity. Iron creates and saves lives, but takes them too. Iron-working has been the pre-eminent transformative process, a technology greedily sought and jealously guarded, for its control could promote a king's ambition and a soldier's fortune. Iron-smelting technology has often been considered divine inspiration brought to humans by culture heroes. Sacred kings were sometimes renowned as smelters and blacksmiths. In other circumstances, the transformative powers of iron-workers are deemed so great that blacksmiths are thought dangerous and avoided by ordinary people.
Iron objects are worn, carried, and used as tools and weapons; but their mundane purposes are matched, underscored, and complemented by iron as a master metaphor: more than metal, keener than cutting. Shrines are studded, graves bedecked. By exchanging precolonial currency tokens of iron in bridewealth, ransom, and tributory gifts, many Africans in earlier times demonstrated their equation of iron with value itself.
Why has iron been so apt a vehicle for this creative conceptual process? Metaphors and other tropes posit relationships between and among things, people, places, and phenomena. Many African people draw analogies between the processes of iron-working and the dialectics of gender politics, and again, between iron-smelting and procreation. Iron ore is one of Africa's most plentiful natural resources. When smelting was still widely practiced, iron-bearing stones were "cooked" in a furnace, where intense heat transformed them into culture's most useful products. Iron is malleable when red-hot, but hard and edged when it cools and blackens. At play are the symbolic oppositions of nature/culture, raw/cooked, hot/cold, red/black, and fire/water that underscore and inform all manner of African expression, including the play of gender. From a male viewpoint in some African societies, the "natural," "red .... heat" of women must be tempered by the "cool," "black" qualities of men of culture.
If all went well as ironworkers manipulated the extremely high heat within a smelting furnace, an iron "bloom" was created from the ore. The spongy bloom swelled like a pregnancy, and could be drawn from the furnace in a "birth." So clearcut was the metaphorical bridge between smelting and birth that in many African societies, furnaces were sculpted in the form of a woman's body (Figure 2), wooden bellows feeding air into the furnace were carved in phallic forms, and fertility magic was placed inside the furnace to encourage and protect its "fecundity." Master smelters controlled this magic, organized the long months of backbreaking labor necessary to bring smelting to fruition, and imposed on their workers certain prohibitions from ordinary activities such as sexual contact, to "frame" the smelting as a special event. They also knew and led invocations, dances, songs, praises, exhortations, jokes, aphorisms, and other esoteric activities necessary to make the entire performance of smelting a success.
Yet for many Africans, iron is ironic. Smelting is a very complex process. A host of variables that are difficult to control meant that despite past successes, smelting did not always come to fruition. Indeed, most attempts to resuscitate this turn-of-the° century technology have failed, despite recourse to the most sophisticated tools of contemporary archeology and metallurgy. When smelting did "work" for earlier Africans, its products could harm as well as help those possessing them. Human birth presents some of the same ironies and anomalies as iron-smelting. Africans often say very explicitly that birth gives meaning to life, and those who cannot or will not give birth are pitied and scorned; yet Africans know all too well how perilous the process can be to the fetus and its mother. Procreation is fraught with troubling uncertainties, disappointments, pain, and dangers, as well as joys and purpose. Even as they seek the bliss of giving birth, Africans may be wary and somewhat ambivalent. Life has never been easy for Africans, who must sometimes wonder if bringing another soul into such a harsh world is the right thing to do. This, the irony of life itself, made the bridge between human procreation and iron-smelting so "good to think" for Africans across the continent.
The ironies of iron do not end with such philosophical considerations, though, for with astounding brutality, colonial conquest of Africa was executed with an iron fist. As Bismarck noted in 1886 when the scramble for Africa was at its most obscene, military power "cannot succeed through speeches, and shooting matches, and songs; it can only be carried out through blood and iron." If iron is cold, as Kipling had it, the violence it promotes and the blood it lets can run hot as fire.
Around the turn of the century, European colonizers prohibited local African industries like iron-smelting in order to decrease African selfsufficiency. One way to enmesh Africans in nascent colonial capitalism was to force them to sell their labor. Africans would then be obliged to purchase basic necessities with newly introduced European currencies paid as wages. Africa was flooded with iron objects produced in Europe that were often inferior in quality to the local products they replaced. Industrially made replicas of precolonial iron currency tokens further destabilized local economies. The older technology, ideology, magic, and social organization of smelting became obsolete in most parts of Africa.
Scrap from European consumption provided new sources of iron for African use during the colonial period, however, and African blacksmiths shifted their skills to exploit new markets for their wares, keeping alive some of the ironies and ideologies of iron production. Indeed, African blacksmiths continue to demonstrate their adaptability, problem-solving, and ability to cope with social change as technology brokers, transforming one thing into another, often across the lines of historical and cultural definition. Their wares are sold in the market--the place where invention is most evident in Africa. African markets pulse with laughter, concerned discourse, and social transaction. Their human interaction is punctuated by the clang and clatter of blacksmiths initiating the new "careers" of objects, as they transform scrap iron into all sorts of useful things, from plowshares to woodstoves, hairpicks to keys for thumb pianos.
Iron still has an other-than-utilitarian sense in many contemporary African societies. Aside from knives, hoes, arrowpoints, and a host of other tools, weapons, jewelry, and gadgets for everyday use, blacksmiths also make iron objects for veneration or active magic. Blacksmiths themselves are often felt to be imbued with mystical powers of transformation, and like the iron objects they produce, blacksmiths may be associated with fertility, healing, rainmaking, divination, and prophesy. The generative powers of iron are deified by many west Africans and in their trans-Atlantic diaspora, whose shrines nowadays may include iron engine blocks beside heirloom weapons. Iron scrap from consumer goods is recycled as tomb and shrine ornaments, and iron remains a standard of value in much of contemporary Africa.
Study of the Iron Arts of Africa
Archeologists have been at the forefront of the study of iron in Africa. They have considered topics such as the technologies and environmental consequences ofprecolonial iron-smelting; the political economy of iron-production; and the possession and trade of iron objects. Films have been made recreating how iron was once smelted in Africa. Historians have traced the spread of particular smelting technologies and tool types, and the correlation between control of smelting and consolidation of political power. Art historians have studied the esthetics and iconography of particular iron objects and the relationship between blacksmithing and other forms of expression. Cultural anthropologists have considered the symbolism of iron and the significance of iron production and trade in African political economy. Museum collections of iron tools, weapons, religious objects, and currency tokens have been assembled, and several exhibitions of African art have included iron objects. Still, iron is understudied given its central importance to African cultural history, and there has been very little cross-disciplinary discussion of the ideologies and symbolism of iron smelting, smithing, trade, and use. The exhibition, symposium, and published proceedings of Iron, Master of Them All are meant to be a step in this direction.
(1) Tools and Weapons
The primary purposes of iron tools and weapons may be functional, but often enough, a blacksmith will demonstrate his esthetic sense even as he skillfully executes his craft. Indeed, it is probably spurious to consider esthetics as separate from craft in such cases. Tools made for iron-smelting and smithing make this very clear. The bellows exhibited here, made by Luba people of Zaire, demonstrate that the practicalities of providing and forcing oxygen into the furnace to build its great heat can be accomplished by an instrument that is anthropo-morphic, a "male" presence to empower "female" transformation of smelting.
The tools of iron-working have their own symbolic sense, then. A Chokwe comb or hair-pick bears a bellows motif, and may have been worn, as well as used in hairdressing, to suggest a person's identification with iron-working. Women among Bamana people of Mali who have survived difficult childbirth may wear an iron necklace with a tiny pair ofsmithy's tongs as a pendant. These refer to an analogy, perhaps reinforced by proverbs, between the woman's courage through her "hot" ordeal, and the manner in which a blacksmith fearlessly uses his tongs to pull red-hot iron from his forge.
Chadian and Zairian knives from the Rayburn Collection further suggest that form can be functional and yet of great beauty (Figure 3). Chadian blades (miañ) made by Sara people are lethal weapons, for instance, either as quickly drawn from over one's shoulder to swing at an attacker, or as thrown endover-end. The same throwing knives, though, are associated with a rich corpus of myths explaining the origins of technology and sacred authority, and the centrality ofa miañs value to Sara society is indicated in the three Sara currency tokens derived from its shape. Close examination reveals that they are too frail for utilitarian purposes, but their decoration with beautiful repoussée work makes them esthetically alive. Indeed, they seem to dance, and are evocative of the famous figures of Saharan rock art.
Some weapons demonstrate that not all the ironies of iron are auspicious in nature, however. Razor-sharp iron "daws" were made for terrorists among Shu and related peoples of what is now northeastern Zaire. Members of the Aniota movement used the claws to disguise their assassination of political enemies by making the deaths appear to be the attacks of man-eating leopards or lions. Targets included persons who were closely identified with missions and other seats of colonial power. Similar forms ofgueritla warfare continued throughout eastern parts of the Belgian Congo well into the 1940s, and may have informed the tactics of the Simba ("Lion") insurgency of the 1960s as the Congo became the independent republic now known as Zaire.
(2) Objects of Status and Authority
In many parts of Africa, there was and still is a close relationship between iron-working and leadership. This may be because precolonial leaders controlled the sources of iron ore and the means of production and trade. In other words, the association between iron-working and leadership was based upon or reinforced by local and regional political economy. Underlying such history, though, was a conceptual association between iron-working and the culture heroes who introduced human civilization, as one finds among Dogon and Bamana of Mali, or Luba and Tabwa of Zaire; and an even more essential focus upon the symbolic nature of both smelting and smithing as transformation.
The authority of African leaders and rulers was and still is based upon control of the mystical processes of transformation that are critical to survival and welfare. Many African groups recognized analogies between iron-working and human childbirth, agriculture, and the archetypically masculine pursuit of hunting. A chiefs authority to oversee and profit from transformation is manifested when an African leader brandishes an iron staff, or holds an iron scepter; adorns or surrounds him or herself (for in some circumstances, African women may rule) with iron regalia; accepts iron currency tokens as tribute, bridewealth, or ransom and then redistributes them to loyal subjects; or places iron objects on the tombs of sacred ancestors.
The relationship between iron and authority in Africa is especially well illustrated by a cluster of objects in the exhibition made by eastern Luba, Hemba, or Tabwa people of Zaire. A pair of ancestral figures on top of a staff from the Coudron Collection stand over an hourglass-shaped memory device called a lukasa, associated with the Mbudye Society. Mbudye members extolled the sacred rule of kings, and they could "read" the secret messages of a lukasa, ensuring the continuity of the society's collective wisdom. The conical pins studding the lukasa of the Coudron staff are miniature anvils, referring directly to the relationship between ironworking and sacred authority. The staff ends in an iron piece whose shape may refer to cosmograms and other ideographs that were once the sacred esoterica of Mbudye members. The same hourglass shape of the lukasa appears in a chiefs iron staff, also from the Coudron Collection; the blades of razors used for scarification; and the repeated figures of an iron bowstand from the collection of Marc Félix (Figure 4). All of these objects demonstrate the extraordinary virtuosity of blacksmiths in southeastern Zaire. As they were displayed, carried, or used in other ways, these staffs, stands, and blades made strong statements asserting and confirming the refined status and sacred powers of local rulers.
Ceremonial axes and adzes from southern Zaire reinforce the same association between status and iron, for their iron blades are the "tongues" or, more probably, the wise words of both the ancestral spirits represented in the sculptures and the leaders who bore the objects in their hands. A leader's counsel was inspired and guided by spiritual forces as he "cut through" ignorance, obfuscation, and foolishness to transform the lives of those who came before him seeking guidance or settlement of a dispute. Shona ceremonial axes represent some of these same qualities. They are not only associated with chiefs and sacred authority, however, but with spirit mediums and their powers to transcend ordinary human experience to communicate with the ancestors, as well. Shona spirit mediums played a central role during the long Zimbabwean war of liberation, precisely because of their ability to bring people together across factional lines to form a common resistance to continued oppression.
Finally, the symbolic associations among iron, social status, and sacred authority may be based on the leader himself as a master smelter or smith. One of the best examples of this in all of African history is the line of kings of the Karagwe people living in northwestern Tanzania, who were said to be virtuoso smithies. In the early nineteenth century, King Ndagara is said to have fashioned extremely intricate iron staffs, spears, and standards such as one from the Félix collection shown in the exhibition. The chefs d'oeuvres of these royal blacksmiths were iron oxen or cows, however. One of only two examples in the United States is that of The University oflowa's Stanley Collection of African Art (Figure 5). This expressive creation symbolizes the great importance of cattle to pastoral peoples such as the Karagwe. That it should be made of iron may have resonated metaphorically with sacred kingship and the manly virtues of herding. The figure may also have had magical powers to increase the royal herds through an association between the smelting of iron and the birth of cattle.
(3) Articles of Value and Uncommon Currencies
Precolonial African iron currency tokens are often fascinating objects, esthetically and conceptually. They may have served as practical tools, weapons, or jewelry; but as often as not, their foremost purpose was symbolic rather than utilitarian, for they representedvalue itself.
Value is an exceedingly difficult term to define, in any circumstance. Despite an ideology that might (and usually does) suggest otherwise, value is always a most arbitrary cultural construction that is contingent upon very particular socio-historical circumstances for very particular individuals. As represented by currency, value is a matter of negotiation and trust: this is the fiduciary nature of money about which economists write. Indeed, the word "credit" is derived from the Latin verb "to believe, to entrust." Entrusting one with credit is an important way that people stick together, yet group and individual assessments of value often contradict each other, as they do when equally tricky terms like "quality" or "beauty" are at issue. Inherent to value, then, is debate and negotiation; and inherent to exchange, the possibility of argument, tension, rancor, and conflict. The suspicion must be that exchange always benefits one side more than the other, yet conflict must be kept in check or resolved if further exchange is to occur. It is in this context that iron currency tokens were used by many African groups, and it must be assumed that the ironies of iron---that is, the multiplicity of contradictory meanings implicit to smelting and iron itself--lent themselves to the negotiation of value.
Economic anthropologists draw a useful distinction between Western general-purpose money and the special-purpose currencies once used by Africans and other peoples. Precolonial African currency tokens like those exhibited here had no general liquidity, and were used in limited spheres of exchange. Sometimes there were several, mutually exclusive spheres, each with its own tokens, as illustrated by the different "denominations" of iron tokens made by Mbum people of Cameroun and Chad. One sphere might include small items of market commerce; a second, prestige items such as cattle, horses, or ritual objects, offices, and magic; while a third sphere might involve rights in people, especially in bridewealth leading to marriage or the ransoming of prisoners of war. Often the tokens were bound in packets for easy counting, and what is astounding is how uniform the shapes were, as exemplified by mezong tokens made by Kwele smiths of Gabon and Congo (Figure 6).
But why should iron currency tokens be given such eccentric shapes if these were the purposes they served? What logic was manifest in these esthetic choices? African artistry allowed people to represent the ineffable qualities of value through the conceptual device or trope known in rhetoric as "synecdoche." Synecdoche is a reductive process, whereby some part of a totality represents the whole. The Christian crucifix and the British crown are examples of synecdoche: both stand for complex realms of religious and political history and behavior. African currency tokens were synecdochal, representing the value of work.
In small-scale, rural societies in Africa, subsistence, and, indeed, one's very survival, depend upon a great deal of punishing physical labor. Farming the poor soils of the Sahel, for instance, requires innumerable hours of tedious, backbreaking toil. In most of Africa, a variety of iron-bladed hoes, some like that of the Kabré people of Togo exhibited here, are used for such work. The blade strikes, breaks, and tills the soil before planting; it scrapes, chops, and weeds growing crops; and it aids in the final harvest of seeds, stalks, leaves, and tubers. The iron blade, then, makes farming possible. Through synecdoche, such a blade may stand for the totality of the work performed and the harvest gained, of the cooperation to accomplish the task and the sharing of food thereafter, and of land rights and work responsibilities. The value of the iron hoe blade, then, is this totality, that, in many ways, constitutes the lifeblood of society itself.
Iron hoe blades were often used as currency tokens in the context of bridewealth, when a groom and his family exchanged wealth for the hand of the bride. At issue was the potential labor, nurturance, and childbearing of the bride. Bridewealth was by no means a "purchase," however. Rather, hoe blades given as bridewealth represented an exchange of responsibilities and expectations between the families of the bride and groom. To raise required bridewealth, the groom had to borrow from his kin; in accepting bridewealth, the bride's family redistributed wealth to those from whom they had borrowed in the past. In this way, a woman's bridewealth allowed her own brothers to marry, thus furthering their lineage. The exchange ofbridewealth cemented these bonds, and was the "glue" of social continuity.
As often as not, currency tokens used in bridewealth or other important transactions were not utilitarian objects at all. Instead, a second process of synecdoche was effected whereby abstract hoe blades or other tools or weapons such as throwing knives, spears, and swords, were produced that could not be used for actual work. As objects in the exhibition demonstrate, many iron currency tokens were too large or too small, too thin or too thick for real work; or they were literally useless but figuratively useful, adorned and elaborated with shapes and designs making symbolic reference to significant aspects of social life. This double synecdoche might better serve the need to represent value, as the totality of work was reduced to the hoe as a single symbol, and the hoe was further removed from practicality to an abstract form standing for value itself.
(4) Objects of Religious Significance
As a master metaphor, iron has helped Africans to create conceptual bridges between domains that may be disparate, but that one must try to join if at all possible. No other symbolic function of iron was or is as important as its ability to link people and divinity. Iron objects are made to honor the god Ogun among Yoruba, Fon, and other coastal west AFrican peoples, for example. In the exhibition, an iron hook from the Coudron Collection honors Ogun, and its cast-brass finial is stylistically similar to the famous pair of ogboni figures in the Stanley Collection. The curved iron shaft of the object is phallic, standing for the sexual potency of Ogun; but it also represents a smelter's hook used to rake out coals and pull the bloom from a furnace. Ogun's shrines often include ceremonial swords called gu-bassa by Fon of Bénin, whose curved blades are in turn cut out in shapes suggesting further piercing and cutting instruments. The same form can be found among Baulé peoples of Ivory Coast, as exemplified by a double-bladed ceremonial sword of the Stanley Collection. The carved finials covered with gold foil are visual proverbs extolling the virtues of a chief, but the ornate iron blades must have added significance to the chiefs transformative powers of life-giving and warfare.
Ogun has come to the New World, too, and is important to many syncretic religions such as Santeria in Brazil or Vodun in Haiti. Ogun appears in the iconography of the sequined banners and informs the iron crosses of Vodun, such as one crafted by the Haitian master ironsmith Georges Liautaud lent to the exhibition by the Davenport Museum of Art (Figure 7). The same crosses are cosmic maps directly derived from Haitian ancestral roots in Kongo culture from Zaire and Angola. If Ogun is "Lord of the Cutting Edge" as Robert Farris Thompson has written, the expression is doubly apt if taken in its American slang sense, for the "cutting edge" or innovative quality of iron is its ability to assist people in coping with their changing circum-stances. It is no surprise, then, that Ogun is among the most popular and important dieties in contem-porary west Africa and throughout the diaspora of African America, for Ogun still personifies the creative transformation and ironies of iron.
Many African peoples make devotional objects of iron, such as the umbrella-shaped asen that Fon, Nago, and related peoples of southern Bénin have long placed on the tombs of beloved ancestors. Asen may be ornate, with figures riveted to the top whose imagery spells out "praise poems" honoring the deceased. The wrought-iron asen lent to the exhibition by the Indiana University Art Museum (Figure 8) honors a master blacksmith and his patron, Ogun. Asen may be very simple, too, and these days are often made from scrap iron or recycled tin cans. Yoruba smiths make a number of other sorts of religious artifacts from iron, such as orisha oko agriculturalists' staffs from Nigeria, endowed with phallic potency, intricately decorated with incised patterns, and protected by beaded sheathes. A sequined banner from Haiti honors the same orisha or veta. Osanyan staffs also made by Yoruba smiths are used as emblems of herbalists and diviners. The iron birds of these spirited creations are a woman's power, that from a male point of view may be positively creative, but may also be frightening and lead to aggressive witchcraft.
Other sacred objects may not be made entirely of iron, but have important iron parts. A mask from the Lasansky Collection made by Toma people of Liberia has a packet of folded "Kissi penny" currency tokens affixed to the top of the head, perhaps as an exchange between the dancer and the spirit of the mask, or to protect against sorcerers. Ayo dommolo shoulder crook made by Dogon people of Mali is set with a small iron hook to appease the vital force (nyama) of the tree from which wood was taken to carve the object. The crook illustrates an origin myth in which a primordial being (Nommo) stole a piece of the sun, carrying it as a lump of red-hot iron down the rainbow to earth. The Nommo's descent is portrayed as the zigzag down the handle. This culture hero introduced fire as the essence of human culture, and is the ancestor of Dogon blacksmiths. Dogon blacksmiths are still "hot" because of their transformative powers, and must not walk in people's fields lest they cause the crops to wither. Instead, .they use their extraordinary powers to heal, divine and create.
Africans have made a wide assortment of musical instruments from iron. Many are percussive, such as the Bamana and Kuba gongs, the Kabré finger cymbals, or the Dogon or Senufo chime in the exhibition. Others are wind instruments, such as flutes used by initiates to the Komo Society among Bamana and related Mande peoples of Mall. These same flutes may have found a role in divination, a specialty of Mande blacksmiths. Still other instruments have iron parts, such as the keys of "plucked ideophones," better known as "thumb pianos" or by their African names such as mbira sanza, or/ikembe. One of the examples in the exhibition was made by the young Shona artist Albert Choto ofZimbabwe, a multi-talented blacksmith, carver, musician, and political leader. This particular model is called robira dza vadzimu, or "thumb piano of the ancestors," for it is used in possession rituals when the music "causes" the medium to enter into trance and speak with the voices of the ancestors. This mbira also illustrates the creative recycling so important to contemporary African expressive culture (Fig. 9). Another thumb piano is from Chokwe people of Zambia and Angola, who use a gourd as a resonator for the plucked keys. This mbira's intricate carving makes manifest the link between musical rhythm and visual iconography.
Iron was and still is used in many different sorts of articles for personal adornment. Iron bracelets, razors, hairpins, and other objects are often crafted in esthetically significant shapes, and incised with further symbols. Luba and related peoples of southeastern Zaire wore pins or picks in their hair that had hourglass shapes in allusion to the lukasa memory board of the Mbudye Society, or that had conical shapes referring to the anvils that were so important as symbols of sacred authority. Such an object was placed in one's coiffure to be close to the seat of one's thoughts and powers of prophesy. The form of a hairpin from the Félix Collection is similar to iron currency tokens also once made by Topoke people of east-central Zaire, and demonstrates the close association between bodily adornment and social value. Iron aprons or "cache-sexes" were worn as late as the 1960s by Matakam women in northern Cameroun. As in other applications of the master metaphor of iron, one must assume that over and above the allure of the aprons and what they did or did not hide, people recognized a symbolic link between ironworking and the fecundity of women.
Some items of iron jewelry had very particular symbolic purposes. The intricately twisting pattern of a Kuba bracelet from the Félix Collection reflects graphic symbols carved, incised, and woven into many artifacts associated with royalty. Hogon shamans of the Dogon people wear necklaces and bear staffs such as that lent by Charles Bird and Martha Kendall, of twisted iron beads, bells, pendants, and mounts for small streamworn stones called dugé that are associated with fertility and the rains, as well as the cosmic egg that began life itself. One might consider in this same light iron headrests from burial caves high in the Bandiagara Cliffs of southeastern Mali, such as the one lent to the exhibition by James Willis. Ancient Tellem peoples placed the heads of those who had died on iron headrests such as this, probably to honor them through the associations so frequently drawn among iron, power, and transformation.
Additional Reading and Viewing
Many of the topics broached in this gallery guide will be discussed in detail in the proceedings of the symposium accompanying the exhibition, "Iron, Master of Them All.." Some readily accessible sources of information written in English are presented here.
David Killick, Terry Childs, and Candice Goucher have edited Metallurgy and Metallurgists in African Societies: An International Directory of Researchers (1990, Cambridge: Harvard University Archeology Laboratory). Nyame Akuma, the journal of the Society for African Archeology, regularly publishes articles and research reports about African ironworking. Eugenia Herbert's soon-to-be-published book, tentatively entitled From Thence Come Our Mothers: Notiota of Gender in African Iron Working, is an encyclopedic overview of African ironworking. A useful introduction to the practicalities of ironworking is to be found in Terry Childs' "Style, Technology, and Iron Smelting Furnaces in Bantu-Speaking Africa," ]ournal of Anthropological Archeology 1991, 10, 332-59. Blacksmiths and other "technology brokers" are discussed in Allen Roberts' "Chance Encounters, konic Collage," African Arts 1992, 25 (2), 5443, 97-8.
African iron tools and weapons are illusuated and discussed in Barbara Blackmun's Blades of Beauty and Death (1990, San Diego: Mesa College of Art); Marc Félix' Kpinga, Throwing Blades of Central Africa (1991: Munich: Fred Jahn); and Patrick McNaughton's 'The Throwing Knife in African History," African Arts 1970, 3 (2), 5440.
The relationships between African leadership and iron are discussed in Pierre de Maret's "The Smith's Myth and the Origin of Leadership in Central Africa," pp. 73-87 in African Iron Working Ancient and Traditional, R. Haaland and P. Shinnie, eds. (1985, Oslo: Norwegian University Press); and Patrick McNaughton's The Mande Blackmiths: Knowledge, Power, and Art in West Africa. (1988, Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
Standard, although dated, sources on African precolonial currency tokens indude Paul Einzig's Primitive Money in its Ethnological, Historical and Economic Aspects (1966, New York: Pergamon Press) and A. Quiggen's A Survey of Primitive Money (1949, London: Methuen). Charles Opitz's Odd & Curious Money (1991, Ocala [Florida]: First Impressions) is a collector's guide. Jed Stevenson occasionally discusses currency tokem in his "Coins" column in the Sunday New York Times. The Intemational Primitive Money Sodety holds get-togethers at American Numismatic Association annual meetings, publishes a newsletter, and collaborates with EUCOPRIMO, The European Union to Collect and Preserve Primitive and Curious Money.
Religious and magical aspects of iron in Africa are discussed in Africa's Ogun: Old World and New edited by Sandra Barnes (1989, Bloomington: Indiana University Press) and Barnes' own "Ogun: An Old God for a New Age," ISHI Occasional Papers 1980, 3; Nikolaas Van der Merwe and Donald Avery's "Science and Magic in African Technology: Traditional Iron Smelting in Malawi," Africa 1987, 57 (2), 143-72; and William Dewey's "Shona Male and Female Artistry," African Atrs 1986, 19 (3), 64-7. The Dogon origin myth in which a primordial being founds human culture as the first blacksmith, is recounted in Allen Roberts' "Of Dogon Crooks and Thieves," African Arts 1988, 21 (4), 70-5, 91-2. Iron arts of Haitian Vodun are illustrated inHaitian Art: The Legend and Legacy of the Naive Tradition (1985, The Davenport Museum of Art).
Although not the prindpal focus, iron objects have been shown in several exhibitions and catalogues of African art, such as The Anrtof Metal in Africa, edited by Marie-Thérese Brincard (1982, New York African-American Institute); Art of the Dogon, edited by Kate Ezra (1988, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Made of Iron, edited by Dominique de Menil (1966, Houston: College of St Thomas).
A number of videotapes or movies demonstating earlier African iron-smelting are reviewed by David Killick in "Recent Films and Publications on African Metallurgy," Nyame Akuma 1988, 30, 3941. These include "Dokwaza: Last of the African Iron Masters" by Nicholas David and Y. Le Bleis (n.d., Calgary: University of Calgary Dept. of Communications Media); "Weapons for the Ancestors" by William Dewey (1992, Iowa City:. University of Iowa AVC Marketing); 'The Bloom of Banjell" by Eugenia Herbert and Candice Goucher (1986, Watertown, MAc Documentary Educational Resources); and "The Tree of Iron" by Peter Schmidt (1988, Gainesville: University of Florida African Studies Center).
We extend our most sincere thanks to the Friends who have graciously lent objects to Iron, Master of Them All. Margaret and Al Coudron offered us hospitality in Ann Arbor as we deliberated over what few of their many superb staffs, spears, and shrine objects to borrow. Marc Felix, such a good friend and able guide in building the Stanley Collection of African Art, has lent a selection of fine iron objects from Zaire. Martha Kendall and Charles Bird of Bloomington, Indiana offered objects from their collection of Mande artifacts from Mall. Mauricio and Philip Lasansky of Iowa City were warm hosts and great conversationalists, allowing us to borrow from their wonderfully varied collection. Diane Pelrine arranged the loan of an important iron asen in the collection of the Indiana University Art Museum. Harold Rayburn of Davenport has been a constant Friend and strong supporter of the University of Iowa Museum of Art for many years, as manifested yet again in his loan of throwing knives and sceptres. Dorothy Schramm of Burlington, Iowa, lent us objects from her renowned collection. And James Willis of San Francisco has lent a superb, ancient iron headrest from Tellem people of Mali.
Our stimulating talks with Steven Bradley, director ofthe Davenport Museum of Art, and DMA curator Brady Roberts, led not only to a loan of dramatic Haitian works associated with Vodun spiritualism, but to collaboration on the Fifth Stanley Conference on African Art that accompanies this exhibition. We wish to thank them for hosting one of our presentations, for organizing a special exhibition at the DMA of more Haitian treasures from their permanent collection, and for offering our conference participants a lavish reception. Finally, we would like to thank Stephen Prokopoff, director of UIMA; Christopher Roy, curator of African, Pacific, and New World Cultures at UIMA; David Dennis, technical director oFUIMA; and the UIMA staff for all the help and friendship they have offered us through the course of this project. Above all, we wish to thank the Stanley/ University of Iowa Foundation Support Organization who so generously support all of our efforts.
William Dewey
Allen F. Roberts
Bamana people, Mali, necklace with blacksmith's tongs. Iron. Private Collection.Kota people, Gabon, throwing knife. Iron, copper. Collection of Harold Rayburn.
Luba Kasai people, Zaire, sword. Wood, iron, fiber. Collection of Harold Rayburn.
Luba people, Zaire, bellows. Wood. University of Iowa Museum of Art, 1974.126.
Bamana people, Mali, lamp. Iron. Collection of Charles Bird and Martha Kendall.
Kuba people, Zaire, scarification blade. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Chokwe people, Angola, comb with bellows motif. Wood. Collection of Manuel Jordan.
Objects of Status and Authority
Luba people, Zaire, spear. Wood, iron, cloth. University of Iowa Museum of Art, Stanley Collection, 1986.546.
Luba people, Zaire, bowstand. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix
Baule people, Ivory Coast, double sword with two figures. Iron, wood, gold leaf, fiber. University of Iowa Museum of Art, the Stanley Collection, 1986.295.
Lobi people, Burkina Faso, staff. Iron. Collection of Al and Margaret Coudron.
Karagwe kingdom, Tanzania, ox. Iron. University of Iowa Museum of Art, the Stanley Collection, 1990.631.
Northern Tabwa/Hemba people, Zaire, staff. Wood, brass, iron, copper, tin. Collection of Al and Margaret Coudron.
Fon people, Benin, axe (recade). Iron, wood. Collection of Harold Rayburn.
Luba people, Zaire, adze. Wood, iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Luba people, Zaire, axe. Wood, iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Luluwa people, Zaire, adze. Wood, iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Songye people, Zaire, axe. Wood, iron, nile monitor skin. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Karagwe people, Tanzania, standard. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Songye people, Zaire, staff. Iron, copper. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Kongo people, Zaire, staff. Wood, iron, copper. Collection of AI and Margaret Coudron.
Luba people, Zaire, staff. Iron. Collection of AI and Margaret Coudron.
Azande people, Zaire, presentation blade. Iron. Collection of Al and Margaret Coudron.
Hemba people, Zaire, spear. Wood, iron. Collection oral and Margaret Coudron.
Mangbetu people, Zaire, knife. Iron, wood. Collection of Harold Rayburn.
Kuba people, Zaire, presentation blade. Iron, wood, copper. University of Iowa Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William L. Brown, 1974.76.
Songye people, Zaire, spear. Wood, copper, iron. Collection of AI and Margaret Coudron.
Kabre people, Togo, hand hoe. Wood, iron. Private Collection.
Kenya, adze. Iron, wood, hippo skin. Private Collection.
Sara people, Chad, throwing knife. Iron. Collection of Harold Rayburn.
Ngombe people, Zaire, knife. Iron, fiber. Collection of Harold Rayburn.
Boa people, Zaire, knife. Wood, iron and copper. Collection of Harold Rayburn.
Aniota movement, Zaire, claws for leopard society. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Chokwe people, Angola, Zambia, firestriker. Wood, iron, tin, hide. Collection of Manuel Jordan.
Southeast Africa, spear. Iron, brass, wood. Collection of AI and Margaret Coudron.
Bamana people, Mali, door lock with keys. Wood, iron. Collection of Mauricio and Emilia B. Lasansky.
Articles of Value and Uncommon Currencies
Kwele people, Gabon, currency tokens (3). Iron. Private Collection.
Sara people, Chad, currency tokens (3). Iron. Private Collection.
Kissi people, Liberia, bundle of 100 currency tokens. Iron. Private Collection.
Lobala people, Zaire, currency token. Iron. Private Collection.
Eastern Nigeria, currency token. Iron. Private Collection.
Cameroon, currency token. Iron. Private Collection.
Topoke people, Zaire, currency token. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Topoke people, Zaire, currency token. Iron. Private Collection.
Nkutshu people, Zaire, currency token. Iron, wood. Private Collection.
Mbum people, Chad, Cameroon, currency tokens (bundle). Iron. Private Collection.
Kuba people, Zaire, currency token/sceptre. Iron, wood, copper. University of Iowa Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William L. Brown, 1974.75.
Mbum people, Chad, Cameroon, currency token. Iron. Private Collection.
Sara people, Chad, currency tokens (4). Iron. Private Collection.
Mbum people, Chad, Cameroon, three currency tokens. Iron. Private Collection.
Mbum people, Chad, Cameroon, currency tokens. Iron. Private Collection.
Objects of Religious Significance
Fon people, Benin, asen tomb ornament. Iron. Indiana University Art Museum, Gift of Rita and John Grunwald, 74.52.
Dogon people, Mali, shoulder crook. Wood, iron, magical materials. Private Collection.
Yoruba people, Nigeria, medicine staff osanyin. Iron. Collection of Dorothy Schramm.
Bamana people, Mall, staff. Iron. Collection of Charles Bird and Martha Kendall.
Bamana people, Mali, antelope. Iron. Collection of Charles Bird and Manha Kendall.
Bamana people, Mali, figure. Iron. Collection of Charles Bird and Martha Kendall.
Dogon people, Mall, staff. Iron, stone. Collection of Charles Bird and Martha Kendall.
"Femme Legere, "Serge Jolimeau, Haiti, 1978, iron sculpture. Davenport Museum of Art, Gift of Walter E. Nieswanger, 78.112.
"Le Petit Diable, "G. Liautaud, Lax-des-Bgts, Haiti, iron sculpture. Davenport Museum of Art, Gift of Walter E. Nieswanger, 73.10.
Croix Vodun (Cross), signed G. Liautaud, Haiti, 1983, forged iron. Davenport Museum of Art, Gift of Beaux Arts Fund Committee, 84.4.
Ogun Badagris," Ceremonial flag, Haiti. Cotton fabric, sequins. Davenport Museum of Art, Gift of Beaux Arts Fund Committee, 85.9.
'Zaka, "Ceremonial flag, Haiti. Cotton fabric, sequins. Private Collection.
Toma people, Liberia, mask. Wood, cloth, iron. Collection of Mauricio and Emilia B. Lasansky.
Tellem culture, Mali, headrest. Iron. Collection of James Willis.
Shona people, Zimbabwe, knife in rifle. Wood, iron, copper. Private Collection.
Dogon people, Mall, magical post. Wood, iron, magic material. Private Collection.
Yoruba people, Nigeria, medicine staff. Iron. Collection of A1 and Margaret Coudron.
Kongo people, Zaire, magical power figure, nkisi. Wood, iron, glass. University of Iowa Museum of Art, the Stanley Collection.
Fon people, Benin, staffS. Iron, brass. Collection of AI and Margaret Coudron.
Yoruba people, Nigeria, orisha oko, staff. Iron, wood. Collection of Al and Margaret Coudron.
Yoruba people, Nigeria, staff cover. Cloth, beads. Collection of Al and Margaret Coudron.
Yoruba people, Nigeria, iwana ogun. Iron, brass. Collection of Al and Margaret Coudron.
Jimini people, Ivory Coast, mask. Iron. Private Collection.
Dogon people, Mall, shrine ornament. Iron. Private Collection.
Mbuun people, Zaire, figures. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Albert Choto (Shona), Zimbabwe, finger piano for the ancestors, (mbira dza vadzimu). Wood, iron, copper, tin. Private Collection.
Mongo people, Zaire, double gong. Iron, fiber. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Uele area, Zaire, single gong. Wood, iron, copper, brass. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Bamana people, Mall, gong. Iron. Private Collection.
Bamana people, Mall, flute. Iron and magic materials. Private Collection.
Bamana people; Mall, percussion instrument. Iron. Private Collection.
Chokwe people, Angola/Zambia, finger piano. Wood, iron, gourd. Collection of Manuel Jordan.
Topoke people, Zaire, hairpin. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Kuba people, Zaire, bracelet. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Mangbetu people, Zaire, necklace. Iron. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
Matakam people, Cameroon, cache sexe pubic apron. Iron, aluminum, fiber. Private Collection.
Matakam people, Cameroon, cache sexe pubic apron. Iron. Private Collection.
Songye people, Zaire. Collar. Iron, wood. Collection of Marc Leo Félix.
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Last updated: May 10, 1999