The object from the UCL Ethnographic Collections Material Culture Room labelled as B.0029 is an oval, 90 centimetres long shield executed by members of the Azande tribe from former Belgian Congo (Fig.1 & 2). The shield was donated to the MCR, most likely in the late 1950s, by Thorburn Alexander T. Leitch – a member of the British colonial government in Southern Sudan from 1948 until 1955 (Durham, 2020). Leitch travelled to Belgian Congo in 1955 what is evident from his diary (currently in Durham University Archives), and was in touch with Daryll Ford, the director of the UCL Anthropology department, throughout the 1950s. No other information about the exact provenance of the shield was found.
Figure 1. Front of the B.0029 artefact. |
Figure 2. The rear of the B.0029 artefact. |
The shield was manufactured with a technique of wickerwork which is a method of weaving two- and three-dimensional objects with the use of pliable woody materials, such as rattan canes or lianas (Darvill, 2009). This technique was the most popular way of creating shields among the Azande (Fig. 3 & 4), before producing weapons was banned by the Belgian colonial government at the turn of the 20th century (Evans-Pritchard, 1957).
Figure 3. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, A Zande man weaving a wicker shield (1927-1930). From the Pitt Rivers Photography Collections. |
Figure 7. Loosening and breakage of fibres on the curved sides. |
Figure 8. Signs of pest damage on of the slats of the rim. |
The artefact contains significant examples of traditional wicker craft and indigenous repairs - skills which have been forgotten after the production of weaponry was banned by the colonial government. Thus, the shield holds the biggest value for the Zande community as it is a palpable witness to the past of the Tribe.
References:
Durham University Library Special
Collections, (2020). [Online]. [Accessed 04 March 2020]. <Available from:
http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ark/32150_s13t945q83c.xml’>
Evans-Pritchard,
E.E. (1957), ‘The Zande Warfare’ in Anthropos Bd. 52, H. 1./2, pp.
239-262, [Accessed 26 February 2020]. <Available from:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40454004>
Florian,
M.E, Kronkright, P., Norton, R, (1990). The Conservation of Artefacts made
from Plant Materials, The J. Paul Getty Trust, Princeton University Press,
pp. 15-221
Pitt
Rivers Database of Photography Collections (2020), [accessed: 15 March 2020].
<Available from: https://prm.web.ox.ac.uk/terms-use-pitt-rivers-museum-database-photography-collections>
Plaschke & Zirngibl, (1992), African
Shields: Graphic Art of the Black Continent, Afrikanische Schilde.
Panterra, pp. 7-116
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