Object Details
- Label Text
- In the courts of the Cameroon Grassfields Kingdoms, rulers and noblemen drink palm wine from carved buffalo horns. The buffalo or bush cow is a large, dangerous, crafty beast that can easily turn on the hunter. Like the leopard and the elephant, the buffalo is a royal emblem. So prestigious is buffalo horn that it is copied in wood. The decorative motif carved on this horn is suggestive of the spider, another symbolic animal, chosen for its wisdom. The earth spider, a nocturnal hole dweller, is used in divination throughout the Grassfields. The wisdom is assumed because it comes from the earth, the resting place of the dead who will become ancestors.
- In the early 20th century the Babanki chiefdom was documented as a center of horn carving but based on examples in western collections and Cameroon treasuries, production and use was widespread in the Grassfields region.
- Description
- Curved buffalo horn with overall incised pattern of concentric circles connected by linear bands. The outer edge of each circle between bands has four petal like forms. A band of linear panels goes around the open end.
- Provenance
- Galerie AAA (Rasmussen), Paris, -- to 1968
- Robert and Nancy Nooter, Washington, D.C., 1968 to 1981
- Exhibition History
- Artful Animals, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., July 1, 2009-July 25, 2010
- Art of the Personal Object, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., September 24, 1991-April 9, 2007
- African Emblems of Status, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 29, 1982-April 3, 1983
- Content Statement
- As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.
- Image Requests
- High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/
- Data Source
- National Museum of African Art
- Maker
- Babanki artist
- Date
- Early to mid-20th century
- Credit Line
- Gift of Robert and Nancy Nooter
- Medium
- Horn
- Dimensions
- 41.5 cm (16 5/16 in.)
- Type
- Sculpture
