Headrest (Luba). Democratic Republic
of the Congo. Wood, 17 x 13 x 9 cm.

The Trustees of the British Museum, London.

 

 

Serving multiple purposes, headrests such as this are a cool and comfortable pillow in tropical climates as well as a protector for elaborate hairstyles by raising the head above the surface of the bed. Also viewed as a seat for dreams in the Luba culture, who consider dreams to be prophetic in fortelling important events, providing warnings, and communicating messages from the other world. It is not surprising, then, that headrests should support female priestesses, who serve as real-life intermediaries and interlocutors for spirits.

The cruciform coiffure and cascade hairstyles displayed on this headrest, both decorative and spiritual, were the most popular styles of the upper class of the 19th century. Women, through the embellishment and civilisation of their bodies and heads, are rendered ideal receptacles for the containment of a spirit.

 

 

Skilled Occupations

 

With the exception of the artisans, the Negroes generally carry on their occupations outside of their villages and, save during the dry season, pass almost all their days in the fields or hunting wild game.

 

Others are given almost exclusively to cattle-herding and cattle-raising; they are, in general, populations which, by their distant origins, are related, at least in part, to the white race: the Fulani of West Africa, the Masai in East Africa, the Vahimba or Bahima in central Africa, not to mention the Hottentots of southern Africa, whose origin is more mysterious. Industry is more extensive and more developed than is generally believed to be the case, even among very backwards tribes. It is almost always the privilege of castes living outside the bounds of society, despised because of their pretended servile origin, at the same time petted because they are indispensable on account of the trades which they are the only ones to exercise, and feared because they are believed to be in possession of numerous magic secrets. One group devotes itself to the extraction and working of iron, another – or the feminine part of this group – to the manufacture of pottery, another to working in wood or wicker, another to the making of copper or copper ornaments, still another to gold or silver jewellery by means of the process of cire perdue or of the blowpipe. To these diverse categories of artisans must be added that of weavers, dyers, tailors, embroiderers, these latter not constituting in general a special caste. On the contrary, musicians, professional singers, and poets form castes to which Europeans give the generic appellation of the caste of the “griots”.

 

Many of the Negroes devote themselves to commerce, especially ambulatory commerce, notably among the Sarakolle or Marka, the Jula and the Hausa. Some populations, as the Jula and the Hausa of Sudan, the Apollonians of the Gold Coast and the Ivory Coast, traverse considerable stretches of country, going to the north to fetch salt bars of Saharan origin and, in the zone neighbouring the great forest, kola-nuts, transporting on donkeys or bullocks, more often on the heads of men, the most varied products of local industry or European importation, gaining painfully, by this heavy toil, fortunes which are generally very meagre but which are nevertheless envied by the peasants. The latter profess a certain admiration for these peddlers who have become educated in many things by their travels and more or less polished by the frequentation of a variety of environments. But the mass of the population is given almost exclusively to agriculture: the land is at the same time the primordial divinity and the principal means of subsistence of the Negroes of Africa.