FAMOUS IVORY TREASURES OF A NEGRO KING 



549 



I'lirtliiT ;niiiii:il tragedies depicted in 

 ivory by a cannihal artist. — A leopard 

 springs upon a small antelope, crushing its 

 skull ; an African domestic hen worries a 



snake it has caught 



siclerable variety of plcas- 

 irifr notes. TIkmt size, 

 however, was liniiled hy 

 the weight (»!' lln' tnsks. 

 and henee only the liol- 

 lowest. tliose of young 

 liulls. were nvailalile. 

 After tlie n;ili\t's li.-ul 

 learned to work with iron 

 tools, the great ehiefs 

 soon derived part of tlieir 

 prestige from the size of 

 the horns, for the larger 

 iruiniu'ts (-(nild be heard 

 at a greater distance. 

 The well-known blasts represented the 

 chief's full authority, for they trans- 

 mitted the first suinnions to war and 

 called the bravest to liis side when he 

 seemed lost in the fray. 



To make a good trumpet is a diffi- 

 cult task, but gracefully curved tusks 

 with a large cavity extending more than 

 two thirds of the length considerably 

 facilitate the work. These are common 

 among elephants foraging in the dis- 

 tricts Avhere grows an abundance of 

 succulent food, such as in the luxuriant 

 rain forest; whereas tusks from ele- 

 phants grazing on the rather arid, 

 nortlieastern plains are more massive 

 but with a smaller cavity as in the 

 greatly reduced female tusks. Their 

 texture is finer and the ivory harder, 

 however, due to slower growth, as indi- 

 cated by the concentric, probably sea- 

 sonal layers. 



"With a flexible rod the art- 

 ist measures the extent of the 

 cavity, near the narrow end of 

 wliicli. on the coucave side, 

 tlie mouth]iiece is place(l. 

 Using only an adz and knife, 

 he carves the hole for this 

 mouthpiece, and in less than 



Ivory pictograph of palmoil manufacture.— The native at the right is ascending an oil palm to 

 gather the nuts. He uses climbing ropes, standing on one while he moves the other higher. The nuts 

 are boiled in the caldron (above at left). In a mortar (e.\tremc left) the pulp is loosened from the 

 kernels which are then separated out on a mat (middle). The oil press (at the left of the palm) is 

 made of a flexible tree bent over, to which a troughlike, wickerwork basket with a loop at either end is 

 fastened. The pulp is placed in the basket and by slowly turning a stick inserted in the loops, the palm 

 oil is forced through the meshes into a wide dish on the ground 



an lioiir the first 

 blasts announce his 

 success. For ordinary horns, tlie mas- 

 sive top is cut otf somewhat beyond the 

 mouthpiece, forming a terminal finger- 

 hole by which the pitch of the tones is 

 controlled, as in a flute. But trumpets 

 must be light, for they are brandished 

 in every direction by the constantly 

 ])irouetting musicians. The solid ivory, 

 from which artists of other lands fash- 

 ion their treasures, flies otf in useless 

 chips until a mere shell around the 

 naturally tapering hol- 

 low remains. A good 

 artist never cuts 

 through no matter 

 how rapidly he works, 

 for the slightly differ- 

 ent shades of the inner 

 layers offer sufficient 

 guidance to his well- 



