African folk art

Much African folk art consists of metal objects due in part to the cultural status of forging as a "process that is likened to the creation of life itself.

"[1] While in the past ceremonial pieces were exchanged as part of social rituals (i.e. marriage), today in Senegal, metal objects are recycled as utilitarian African folk art.

"One of the most striking forms of jewellery in West Africa are the distinctive, four-leaved earrings worn by Fulani women" states Peter.

They add that Fulani woman would have their earrings made larger than their family’s wealth would increase to show her fortune and proven her safekeeping.

The "headdresses called "farming animal hat," represented the mythical antelope, who taught man agriculture" (Davis 1981; 20).

But "while African artists portray some familiar animals (e.g., dogs, horses, rams), they tend to concentrate on curious menagerie of aardvarks and antelopes, bats and buffalo, pangolins, snakes, spiders, spotted cat, and a few others deemed meaningful and behaviour (Roberts 1995; 17).

It is stated that, "People of the Zulu culture admire elegant design and fine craftsmanship in everyday object serving dishes, tools and utensils, smoking pipes, and accessory boxes" (Richard B, 50).

The Shoowa people, a small population on the northwestern fringe of the Bushoong kingdom, Congo, have created visually delightful and colourful ceremonial panels that combine tradition and innovation in a complex artistic fashion.

This ancient cloth is composed of two pieces joined across the centre; and bordered by pompoms, a technique reported for textiles on the Kongo coast in the seventeenth century.

To create the plush effect, an embroiderer twists a strand of raffia into an iron needle which she inserts between the warp and weft, leaving a short tuft.

After pulling the fibre strand through to about two millimetres in height, she cuts it with a narrow knife held vertically in the same hand and brushes both ends.

Unlike the Bushoong, the Shoowa typically, as here, dye the foundation cloth red before embroidery and execute their designs in natural beige and dark brown.

The colourful dots (diamonds, rectangles, triangles) belong to the familiar tiny tunjoko designs seen in many Shoowa cloths.

In front of this grid two large vertical interlace designs begin at the bottom as thin curved forms and rise criss-crossing to the top.

Metal objects represent a rich area for interpretation because their manufacture and use encompasses the development of technology, trade, adornment, ritual and religion, and core cultural values.