Drinking horn

Object Details

Babanki artist

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

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Credit Line

Gift of Robert and Nancy Nooter

Early to mid-20th century

Object number

81-11-21

Restrictions & Rights

Usage conditions apply

Type

Sculpture

Medium

Horn

Dimensions

41.5 cm (16 5/16 in.)

Geography

Grassfields region, Cameroon

See more items in

National Museum of African Art Collection

National Museum of African Art

Topic

Status

spider

male

Record ID

nmafa_81-11-21

Metadata Usage (text)

Usage conditions apply

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ys78aeec931-50d7-4c1d-90ef-32ae2e454fff