

WEST WING 

 Collections From Africa 



Opening to the north from this hall of North American Archaeology is 

 the African Hall. This differs from other halls in containing besides 

 ethnographical specimens a number of characteristic African mammals. 

 The future extension of the Museum will provide room for groups of African 

 mammals, including elephants. The installation is geographical, i. e., as 

 the visitor proceeds through the hall from south to north he meets the 

 tribes that would be found in passing from south to north in Africa, and 

 the west coast is represented along the west wall, the east coast along the 

 east wall. 



There are three aboriginal races in Africa : the Bushmen, the Hottentot, 

 and the Negroes. In the north the Negroes have been greatly influenced 

 by Hamitic and Semitic immigrants and become mixed with them. 



At the south end of the Hall the wall is decorated with reproductions 

 of cave-paintings made by the Bushmen, the most ancient and primitive 

 of African natives. These works of art are remarkable for their realism, 

 and should be compared with the reproductions of old European cave 

 paintings in the tower of the adjoining hall. 



Nothing is more characteristic of the Negro culture, to which the rest 

 of the Hall is devoted, than the art of smelting iron and fashioning iron tools. 

 The process used by the African blacksmith is illustrated in a group near 

 the entrance, on the west side, and the finished products, such as knives, 

 axes, and spears, are amply showTi throughout the hall. The knowledge 

 of the iron technique distinguishes the Negro culturally from the American 

 Indian, the Oceanian, and the Australian. 



All the Negroes cultivate the soil, the women doing the actual tilling, 

 while the men are hunters and, among pastoral tribes, herders. Clothing 

 is either of skin, bark cloth, or loom-woven plant fiber. The manufacture 



55 



