FAMOUS IVORY TREASURES OF A NEGRO KING 551 



rC^Ea^iaiay^itni:^^fKIi^THt8!)'i>TT«liOjjnE(i3j^(5j.|,iIi?^ 



Pictograph of hunting and fishing. — One party has been succossful in tlie forest. The boar, sus- 

 pended from a pole by loops cut and pulled up from its own hide, is borne by two men, wliile a third 

 follows, carrying the hunting nets. The fishing party, too, has been fortunate, its success represented 

 by the proverbially large fish. The second figure in the boat, a little boy, eagerly awaits an opportunity 

 to spear a fish ; the two other spearlike implements are oars. In the group of three at the right, the 

 leader of the party (in the middle), on returning home, threatens his flirtatious wife with severe pun- 

 ishment for her conduct with a warrior (extreme right). To appease his anger, she offers him in one 

 Iiaiul a bowl of wine. ;iiul in the other, leaves to wipe his perspiring brow 



iiig across the fragments of the re- 

 mains, were to carry such disaster to 

 opponents as they themselves had ex- 

 perienced. 



The great chief.s of the Spartan-like 

 Azande, who conquered parts of Mang- 

 betu territory, tried to imitate the won- 

 ders of the court of the Mangbetu king, 

 for they recognized the importance of 

 favorably impressing the natives en- 

 slaved by them. A few of the ivories 

 in the American Museum collection 

 show the work of Azande artists. Sasa 

 especially decorated the horns with valu- 

 able records of customs and beliefs from 

 the native's point of view. Without any 

 previous sketch, these pictographs, 

 often direct from actual scenes, are 

 scratched on the well-polished ivory 

 horns with the sharp point of a knife. 

 From time to time the artist rubs his 

 thumb over a piece of charcoal and 

 passes it across the engraved line caus- 



ing tlic picture to stand out clcni'lv in 

 bhick. 



The only ancient ivory carvings 

 found in Africa are those from Egypt, 

 assigned by Petrie to about 7000 B.C. 

 Although Assyrian and Phoenician 

 ivories date to the ninth and seventh 

 centuries b.c.,^ subjects from about 

 4000 B.C. indicate that even then ele- 

 phant tusks must have formed a valu- 

 able article of commercial intercourse. 



The first piece of carved ivory we 

 came across in the Congo was at Ava- 

 kubi. Dr. Rosati, the resident physi- 

 cian and a great sportsman, showed us 

 an interesting club, a smooth, nearly 

 cylindrical piece of brown ivory about 

 eighteen inches long. Natives, he told 

 us, found it of service in breaking the 

 bones of their victims — whose bodies 

 were then soaked, to render them more 



1 Ivorij and the Elephant, by Dr. George Fred- 

 erick Kunz, pp. 8—13. 



iriiK^Ui.aiHiCiiL.u- 



tl><llLH[KiiaifeJll>lrijll^ik:iii^lkllMlH!r>ln^ ll l->»Kllli<lu; mailt^niMiKm - .< i k- li r^ l .: 



Pictograph of buffalo hunt. — ^\■|ll■n th.' wdHD.l.d Ipniialoes charge, one native climbs a tree, another 

 shoots poisoned arrows, while a third feigns death, illustrating the native belief that even an infuriated 

 buffalo will not hurt a "dead" man. Hunters with spears come to the rescue, and the women at the 

 extreme right carry home the spoils, a buffalo head and a basket of meat 



