African blacksmiths forge iron for a variety of different events and purposes, enhancing the efficacies and meanings of iron in community life. Iron tools have permitted communities to harness nature while iron weapons have offered protection. As a medium, iron has ensured the potencies of sacred acts, assisting with life’s challenges and transitions. Sounds produced by iron musical instruments continue to call forth ancestors and deities.
Explore featured iron works using the buttons below to learn more about why iron has gained and retained significance throughout centuries. Short activities accompany each work.
Artist unknown (Central Pende peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Adze, early 20th century
Iron, wood, pigment
Felix Collection
About the Artwork
This ceremonial adze, with its figurative handle and bifurcated, tongue-like iron blade, once dignified the left shoulder of a Pende chief. He wore it as an emblem of high office when traveling. Never intended to carve wood, the adze was instead made to symbolically represent smooth-cutting diplomacy, straight talk, and efficient negotiation. The bird at the top alludes to the chief’s birds-eye view, or oversight, of his domain. In contrast, the calm, masklike face from which the blade emerges is protected by another set of eyes, keeping watch behind him. The seamless design of the handle and blade is most likely the work of a single artist.
Thinking About Art: Presenting Power
After looking closely at this artwork, answer the following questions:
- How does this ceremonial adze, which was once worn by a Pende chief, communicate power to viewers?
- This adze visually interprets several metaphors, such as a bird overlooking a domain. If you were tasked with designing an adze for a current leader (such as your school’s principal), what would you include?
- It is thought that this adze was created by a single artist. What question(s) would you ask the artist to better understand how they created this piece?
Artist unknown (Sara-Madjingaye peoples, Chad)
Throwing knife-shaped currencies (kuur), late 19th to early 20th century
Iron
Fowler Museum at UCLA, X2014.40.25, X2014.40.26; Gift of Dr. Allen Roberts and Dr. Mary Roberts
About the Artwork
Iron currency tokens are among the most compelling and virtuosic of sub-Saharan blacksmiths’ designs. The shapes of precolonial currency tokens were often derived from blade forms of tools and weapons. These tokens were used as payment in the exchanges that mattered most in life: marriage; legal proceedings; ransom of battle captives; and the purchase of horses, enslaved persons, and other prized commodities.
Currency forms were produced throughout the African continent, most often as bars or blades at sizes suitable to being exchanged in small bundles. The Sara-Madjingaye smiths who forged these throwing knife-shaped currencies were adapting the design from the sacred knife called Miya-bo, owned by Sara Madjingaye’s Supreme Being, who used it to bring rains. The value of these fragile, human-like forms comes from their use in battle and religious beliefs.
Design Your Own Currency
Money comes in many different shapes and sizes, depending on where you are in the world. There are two types of money: general purpose and special purpose. General purpose money can be readily exchanged as you move from one country to another, such as exchanging an American $20 bill into Indian rupees or Japanese yen. Special purpose money does not look like general purpose money, as it might be too large to easily carry or used only for purchasing specific items.
Consider the advantages of both general purpose and special purpose money. Now imagine that you are able to create your very own type of currency, and it can be used for whatever you want.
- What would it look like?
- What would it be able to purchase?
- Sketch your currency’s design and write 3-5 sentences explaining its value.
Artist unknown (Yombe peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Power figure (nkisi nkondi), 18th – 19th century
Wood, iron, copper alloy, mirror, cloth, cordage, glass beads, cowrie shells (Cyprarea moneta)
Fowler Museum at UCLA, X65.5837; Gift of the Wellcome Trust
About the Artwork
This nkisi nkondi acts as an armature for a large array of materials, added by a healer who alone knew the secret composition of herbal medicines, roots, plants, and even small carved wood sculptures that gave the figure its efficacy. Staring eyes chipped from mirrors warned aggressors and deflected their malice, while potent substances held in a bundle over the navel were hidden from view by the cape of cloth strips. The nkisi spotlights iron’s empowering roles, as the many forged shards, blades, tools, and nails directed supernatural powers to human desires and needs. Each iron piece was hammered in to awaken the spirits present in the sculpture and direct them to solving personal and community problems. Such a figure became an archive of intentions, as the scraps of cloth, iron, shells, and beads served as reminders of people’s requests for help from the spirit world.
Looking Closely: Examining Expressions
- While looking closely at this artwork, pay attention to what items you recognize on the nkisi’s body. What items do you see on the nkisi’s body?
- When people sought help from the nkisi, they would document their request by leaving something small—such as a scrap of fabric—with the figure. This exchange could be considered a social contract.
Why might it have been important for someone to leave something of theirs with the figure? - Consider what resources are available if you need help solving a problem. What do these resources look like?
Would others know if you used them? If so, how does this impact your willingness to seek help?
Artist unknown (Mumuye peoples [?], Nigeria)
Vessel with rainmaking wands, mid-20th century
Iron, ceramic
Fowler Museum at UCLA, X2008.32.3; Museum Purchase, 2008
About the Artwork
For centuries, iron has helped Africans forage, hunt, and till the soil. Forged knives, hoes, plows, sickles, machetes, axes, and adzes have long assured the efficient management of household and agricultural chores. In addition to these tools, iron has also assisted in maintaining fertile fields by being used as offerings to secure seasonal rains and bring bountiful harvests. Mumuye peoples of Nigeria’s Middle Benue consider individuals who are recognized as rainmakers to be powerful protectors of community survival. As part of the ritual, rainmakers use zigzag-shaped iron wands of wavy branches pointing upward. Their energetic shapes recall flashes of lightning or the sudden movement of slithering snakes, both thought to signal rain. Rainmakers secure the wands in the ground, where, as visual petitions made of iron, they marshal the Earth’s life force.
Slow Drawing
While looking closely at this artwork, spend 2-3 minutes slowly sketching what you see. You may focus
on a single detail of this vessel with rainmaking wands, or you may attempt to draw the entire figure.
The goal is not to create a perfect recreation of the artwork; rather, you should focus on looking closely
at this artwork’s various lines and shapes.
After sketching, briefly answer the following questions:
- What did the process of drawing slowly feel like?
- How did slowing down to look at this artwork while also sketching influence your understanding of this piece’s details?
- Did your interpretation of this artwork change after sketching? Why or why not?
Artist unknown (Zande[?] peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Hair pin (mangilli) late 19th to early 20th century
Iron
American Museum of Natural History 90.1/2656; Gift of Herbert Lang
Image © Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History
Provenance: Field collected by Herbert Lang, 1915
Zande man wearing a two-pronged iron hairpin in his coiffure and showing his beard twisted into a row of small coils along his jawline,
Akenge’s village, c. 1909-15.
Archives of the American Museum of Natural History, NY; 227671.
Mangbetu woman’s elaborate coiffure studded with ivory and iron pins, Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo.)
Photograph by Casimir d’Ostoja Zagourski, c. 1926-1937, Casimir Zagourski
Photographs, c. 1925
EEPA 1987-024-4053, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution
About the Artwork
Many 19th-century Congolese men and women used elegant iron hairpins to adorn stunning hairdos that could take days to perfect and often required headrests to keep them off the ground during sleep. The hairpins’ pointed ends additionally helped in teasing out strands of hair in the styling process. High- status Mangbetu women wore broad, halo-shaped coiffures studded with iron as well as ivory pins. Zande men used fine pins surmounted by two or more tall blades to complete their adornment.
Looking Closely: Combining Form and Function
While looking at these hairpins, take notes on how the design is carefully created to be both beautiful and functional. User-centered design remains a major topic today, as items are created to fulfill specific needs while also presenting aesthetically-appealing designs.
- Create a short list of 2-3 products that mirror these hairpins’ skillful combination of user-appeal and utility.
Artist unknown (Tabwa peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Lamellophone (kankobele), 20th century
Wood, iron
Fowler Museum at UCLA, X86.1890; Gift of Helen and Dr. Robert Kuhn
About the Artwork
Rhythmic sounds of the forge reverberate beyond the hearth when hot iron is struck by hammers and bellows are pumped with air. This measured resonance translates as “music,” and is important to iron production from beginning to end. Music is also produced using forged iron instruments that are known as idiophones. Idiophones create sound through the vibrating core of their principal material—whether struck, plucked, scraped, or rubbed—and without the aid of strings or membranes. Examples of iron idiophones include bells, rasps, and rattles used to set the steps of dance; and “thumb pianos” (kankobele) with different-sized keys that are plucked to play tone poems.
The sounds of iron are sometimes equated with voices from ancestral realms. Instruments are kept in the treasuries of chiefs; held in the hands of ritual experts such as diviners; and used at occasions marking social transitions such as initiation, marriage, and funerals. Such iron instruments contribute to more than just a night’s entertainment—they often serve as vehicles linking the forge to the community, to ancestors, and to divinity itself.
The Power of Music
Music has the incredible power to connect listeners, raise spirits, and strengthen communities. While listening to the thumb piano performance by Zivanai Masango below, consider what functions music play in your life.
- Create a short list of at least three reasons why music may be vital to a community.
