Figure 1: Full view of J.26 object, photograph taken by the author, 2022. |
Current and future use of object
Today, this object forms a part of UCL's vast collection, and it is primarily used for teaching and handling (fig. 2). The object has become-- and will continue to be-- a site of academic research and discovery as well as an item that university staff, faculty and students may examine and touch in person.
Figure 2: View of the object in its mount, conveying the educational value of handling it, photograph taken by the author, 2022. |
Nonetheless, this type of interest has not always defined the object's function. In the Wellcome Collection, the object participated in a knowledge-system of medicinal history that characterised it as inferior compared to its Western counterparts, which were understood as scientific (Hill, 2006, p358).
Addition of cowries
The object includes ten cowrie shells, attached to it through various twine (fig. 3). Although beautiful in appearance, the object's African origin and nineteenth-century date of creation allude to an insidious past associated with the Atlantic slave trade (Hogendorn and Johnson, 1982, p153).
Figure 3: Detail of four cowries at the top, label-side end of this object, photograph taken by the author, 2022. |
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, cowries also held symbolic status in West African society, signifying wealth, prosperity and fertility (Ogundiran, 2002, p442). As such, it is possible that the inclusion of cowries was amuletic in nature (Kovács, 2008, p12).
No comments:
Post a Comment