TERA Gallery - African Art and Antiguities

"Altering The Way You View The World Of Art"
Type of Object:          
                                    Bakwele "Anchor" Currency
                                    19th c.

Ethnic Group:                 Kwele Society

    The Kwele occupy a great forest region on the borders of Gabon,
    Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. Their village communities
    comprised a number of lineages and were governed in the usual way for
    "headless" equatorial societies, that is in a diffuse and more or less
    informal manner. To reinforce unity, the Kwele have the beete cult. The
    beete ritual, which lasted for a week, would open with the departure of
    men into the forest to hunt antelope, whose flesh, seasoned with
    medicines, had to be eaten at a meal at the closing ceremony. During the
    hunt, women and children stayed in the village; after one or two days,
    ekuk masks would “leave”the forest, enter the village, and invite the
    people to come dance and sing. Ekuk means both “protective forest
    spirit” and “children of beete.” It displays a flat surface and often has a
    heart-shaped face, a triangular nose, coffee-bean eyes and small or non-
    existent mouth. The mask represents the antelope. The faces are usually
    painted in white kaolin earth, a pigment associated by the Kwele with
    light and clarity, the two essential factors in the fight against evil. Later
    another mask, the gon (gorilla), announced by bells, would make its
    entrance; the women would immediately lock up all the domestic animals
    inside the huts; everyone would begin looking for shelter. Gon is a
    dangerous mask. The wearer of the gon mask is nude – as opposed to
    the person dressed in the ekuk who wears a wide skirt of fibers. The gon
    mask is made in the image of a skull of a gorilla, an animal feared by the
    Kwele because of its frequent destruction of their crops. The masks are
    hung in Kwele houses and also worn during dances related to initiation
    ceremonies of the beete cult. Their function was to "warm up" the village
    atmosphere in order to activate the beneficial forces. Some other masks
    have obvious animal or bird attributes and bear their names; others are
    enigmatic in their identity. Stylized sculptures with similar facial features
    are also produced. Inside the Kwele huts sculpted plaques can be found.

Country of Origin:          Congo/Gabon

Material:                         Iron

Deminsions:

Reference:                  
    Quiggin, Alison Hingston. A SURVEY OF PRIMITIVE MONEY: THE    
    BEGINNINGS OF CURRENCY. Reprint. London: Spink & Son, 1978 p73

    Roberto Ballarini, Ferrie Monete dell' Africa Equatoriale, Galleria Africa
    Curio-Milano 1998. Pgs 37.p1

    Karl-Ferdinand Schoedler, Earth and Ore, 2500 Years of African Art in
    Terra-cotta and Metal. Panterra Verlag 1997. Pgs 369 and maps.
    p325#627

    Tom Joyce, Univ. of NC exhibition. Life Force at the Anvil, The
    Blacksmith's Art from Africa. Exhibition May - August 1998. Pgs 32 figure
    36