African art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The complicated history of the collection and display of African art by museums in the United States has yet to be written in any detail. (1) There are, however, numerous individual institutional histories in print. To date, this journal alone has published twenty-two articles on African art in American museums and another nineteen dealing with those outside the United States (not counting its "New Acquisitions" features). Obviously, depending on the various museums' mission statements, these and other accounts describe different trajectories in terms of the acquisition and presentation of African expressive culture; most art museums lagged behind museums of natural history, anthropology, and ethnography in this regard.

At the risk of oversimplification, one might note some general temporal trends for U.S. art museums. The 1920s and 1930s featured the first significant forays into African art through exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (1923), the Cleveland Museum of Art (1929), and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1935). Only Brooklyn had works from its own collection to feature. There was generally little activity with African material in art museums during the 1940s and early 1950s, but the founding of the Museum of Primitive Art in 1957 and the burgeoning civil rights movement spurred interest in "non-Western" traditions, especially African. In the late 1950s and early 1960s a spate of exhibitions of "primitive" art drew attention: major temporary installations opened in many large U.S. cities, including Chicago (1961), Los Angeles (1962), and Kansas City (1962), to name just a few. The late 1960s and the 1970s saw the formation of the first curatorial positions for African art, which was typically grouped with Oceanic and Native American arts into one mammoth area of responsibility. It was during this period that most U.S. art museums mounted their first permanent installations of African art.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, now the sixth-largest art museum in the United States, was founded a bit later than most of the major metropolitan art museums but, as we shall see, was somewhat precocious in featuring African art within the historical paradigm outlined above. The MFAH lists its official founding year as 1900, although it did not have a building until more than two decades later. Its initial agenda was heavily weighted toward educational objectives. According to Dr. Peter C. Marzio, the museum's current Director:

   The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a direct descendant
   of the Houston Public School Art League, which was
   founded on March 24, 1900, and re-christened the Houston
   Art League in 1913. The league was like many of the public-school
   reform movements flourishing throughout the
   United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth
   centuries. The original mission of the league was to encourage
   "art culture" by installing reproductions of old-master
   oil paintings in classrooms.

   (Marzio 1989:12)

This turn-of-the-century initiative for the first art museum founded in Texas was rather advanced compared to many arts development programs of the time, and was also distinguished by the fact that it was led by five women. The Houston Art League changed its name to the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston at the opening of its own purpose-built facility on April 12, 1924. Its first director was James Chillman Jr., who remained as head of the museum for the next thirty years, overseeing two major expansion projects in 1926 and 1953. (2)

In 1933, less than ten years after opening its first purpose-built facility, the MFAH presented its first African exhibition, "Primitive African Wood Carvings." Museum records are sketchy, but a Houston Post notice on July 30 of that year indicated that it was a collection from the "Bailundo" (Bailundu) peoples of Angola that had been shown at the Paris International Colonial Exposition of 1931. (3) The Post noted that the "primitive art objects" were loaned by B. H. Cranford and went on to focus on the figural sculpture:

   The three idol statuettes are the most interesting pieces in
   the group. They have the pointed faces, the elongated torsos
   and stumpy legs forming a series of ovoid shapes
   which characterize African sculpture. It is such sculpture
   as these statuettes at the museum which so profoundly
   influenced Picasso and other modernists in their concepts
   of form.

   (Houston Post 1933)

The exhibition also included "a musical instrument, a ceremonial pipe, a carved wooden flask and a comb" as well as "five ceremonial sticks ... used by the tribe chief during religious rituals. The carving of the symbolistic heads of those sticks is exquisite." Unfortunately, further details and photographic documentation are absent.

This 1933 effort was one of the earliest installations of African works in a public art museum in the United States. Only a handful of exhibitions preceded it, the best known being "Primitive Negro Art," the massive project organized by Stuart Culin for the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1923. These presentations were of course followed, in 1935, by the groundbreaking "African Negro Art" at the Museum of Modern Art.

After the Angolan exhibition there would be a twenty-five-year interval before sub-Saharan African art reappeared at the Houston museum. In 1959, shortly after the opening of Cullinan Hall (the museum's third major expansion, designed by Mies van der Rohe), the MFAH mounted the temporary exhibition "Totems Not Taboo" and referred to it as "An Exhibition of Primitive Art." It was curated by Dr. Jermayne MacAgy, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, as a collaborative project (Figs. 2a, b). Although the display included Oceanic and Native American works, the largest section was African, with 104 pieces listed in the catalogue. Among these was a loan by Sir Adesoji Aderemi, the Oni of Ife, of eleven works discovered in Ife, Nigeria, in 1957. The loan includes the famous bronze figures of an Oni and a couple with intertwined arms, along with four equally famous terracotta heads.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The catalogue essay was written by Ralph C. Altman, one of the founding editors of African Arts (in 1967) and the founding director of the UCLA Museum and Laboratories of Ethnic Arts and Technology (in 1963), later to become the Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Altman was well ahead of many of his colleagues when he asserted that "Ignorance was the only justification for the creation of the catch-all term 'Primitive Arts' " and that "Most generalizations about primitive arts as an entity are meaningless" (1959: n.p.). Nevertheless, he did continue to use the phrase for the sake of convenience. In his essay Altman also argued that in order to better understand the significance of these works, one should study the cultural background of the people who produced them.

The exhibition and catalogue had a small section titled "Relations to Primitive Art," which included five works by Brancusi, Laurens, Lipchitz, Modigliani, and Picasso. Ever since the first publication of Robert Goldwater's Primitivism in Modern Art (i938), the subject of African art's influence on early-twentieth-century European art has been used as a point of access to the arts of Africa, if not as an explicit rationalization for showing these arts in the major art museums of the United States.

"Totems Not Taboo" was very well received and well attended. It also garnered national attention. Rene d'Harnoncourt, director of the Museum of Modern Art, called it "one of the three most exceptional exhibitions he had ever seen" (Tomkins 1998:58). In a telegram to the curator, Buckminister Fuller said that it was his "personally most excitingly important exhibition experience in respect to total associative conceptioning and competence of mounting" (Munro 1959:84). Although not an entirely comprehensible comment, it was nevertheless telling in its enthusiasm.

Among the lenders to "Totems Not Taboo" were John and Dominique de Menil. The intellectual climate that prompted the "Relations to Primitive Art" section of the exhibition had also been part of the environment that inspired the couple to acquire African, Oceanic, and Native American art at the same time that they were building their famous School of Paris Modernist collection and especially their renowned Surrealist collection. The de Menils served on the board of the MFAH, and John de Menil was influential in bringing James Johnson Sweeney to the museum as Director in 1961. Sweeney is best known in the field of African art as the "director" of the landmark exhibition and publication African Negro Art, shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in 1935. Shortly after his arrival he established the "African Australasian Gallery," the museum's first permanent installation to include African art. In 1964 the MFAH also hosted "A Photographic Corpus of African Art--Walker Evans."

In the early 1960s, before envisioning the museum that currently bears their name--The Menil Collection, which opened in Houston in 1987 with its own important African collection--the de Menils gave several significant African works to the MFAH, including an impressive Dogon trough or ark (Fig. 3). On a purely practical level these massive containers served as vessels for sacrificial offerings of sheep or goat to family ancestors and to the Creator deity Amma at annual harvest celebrations. They are also said to represent the spiritual ark sent from the heavens that transported the eight primordial ancestors of the Dogon, who are represented on the outside of the vessel. The ark additionally brought all the flora and fauna that sustain the Dogon. The example given by the de Menils has the head (muzzle missing) and tail of a horse, which is thought to have towed the original ark to its final resting place near water (Ezra 1988:100, 101; cf. Kerchache et al. 1988:367).

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The de Menils also gave the MFAH a majestic Senufo headdress with horns representing those of the African buffalo, sometimes called a bush cow (Fig. 4). These are worn only by members of the [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] society (Glaze 1993, vol. 2:17) during initiation and healing rites. Smaller brass versions of the buffalo-horn motif are clenched in the mouth by society members during funeral rites. The motif is also common to Senufo face masks; Anita Glaze associates the complex symbolism of the masks' horns with the verbal arts of Pore initiation and concludes that "a primary meaning of the buffalo motif is the celebration of advancement and regeneration in the Pore cycle, the path to adulthood and fulfillment" (1981:41, 42).

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Sweeney's tenure at the museum (1961-68) was followed by that of Philippe de Montebello (1969-74). During the latter's directorship the museum acquired a fine Benin palace plaque (Fig. 5) depicting a court official holding a ceremonial sword (eben) and wearing a leopard-tooth or leopard-claw necklace and a fish-eagle feather in his hair. Barbara Blackmun identifies it as one of a set of four or five plaques from a single artist that share as many as seven distinct stylistic features (personal communication, September 5, 2003). Nevertheless, she specifies a number of characteristics unique to the Houston example:

   1) The ring around the chest is designed to give strength
   to the wearer, but there is no real or simulated leopard
   skin warrior's tunic. 2) The pelt of an animal, with the
   horns attached, hangs apparently from the hilt of the
   sword or dagger that the figure holds in his left hand. The
   horns seem to be of a goat, or perhaps a small ram. 3)
   Although the figure wears armlets on each wrist, plus a
   brass upper-arm bracelet to add to his energy and stamina,
   there are no anklets at all. 4) There are six unique bosses
   in relief on the background.

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

Despite the necklace made of teeth or claws, Blackmun concludes that this is not the adornment of a warrior. Leon Siroto, who provided early expertise on the Houston collection, viewed the "pelt" as a metal mask of a maned ram, but such forms are typically hung from the belt, not suspended from swords. Siroto identified the six bosses as probably representing "European basins, one of the main forms in which brass came to Benin. They might identify the central figure as a member of the palace association that both guarded the king's treasure and supervised trade with European merchants" (1980:209).

In 1972 de Montebello appointed the first Curator of Primitive Art, Alvia Wardlaw. Wardlaw also held the title of Curator of Education from 1974 to 1976, after which she turned to teaching full-time. (She returned in 1995 to her present position as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.) In 1974 de Montebello brought to the MFAH "African Art of the Dogon," organized by the Brooklyn Museum out of the Lester Wunderman collection. That exhibition still has one of the most extensive lists of host venues of any traveling exhibition of African art to date. The Wunderman collection was subsequently acquired by Nelson Rockefeller and the Museum of Primitive Art in 1977 and became part of the Metropolitan Museum when the MPA was transferred to the Met in 1978-79--whose director was now Philippe de Montebello!

In 1976 Wardlaw curated "The Narrative Symbolism of Ghanaian Combs," all of whose examples were drawn from the collection of Dr. Gus K. Nicholson, Professor of Languages at Texas Southern University. Carved wooden Akan combs were used to both dress the hair and ornament it. Many were carved or commissioned as gifts of affection from a young man to his sweetheart, a husband to his wife, or a father to his daughter, and the openwork, relief, and incised imagery on the combs often reflects these relationships. For example, a head with a ringed neck on the comb in Figure 6 probably refers to the well-known fertility-inducing figure called Akua'ba. The keyhole that frames it suggests the lock-and-key motif of Victorian jewelry that also became a symbol of love and commitment among the Akan. Below this is an image of two hearts shaking hands, another reference to the connection between two people, and a crescent moon and star. The latter pair represents a popular Akan proverb, "Although the moon is brightest, the star is more constant," which asserts the value of consistency over something that waxes and wanes. This configuration must have been been popular among Akan audiences, as several nearly identical combs by this carver are known (cf. Ross 1983:89).

[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]

Wardlaw developed a number of compelling humanistic themes in the label copy, but perhaps as interesting as this content and the works themselves was the exhibition's influence on the celebrated American artist and Houston resident Johir Biggers. Biggers and his wife, Hazel, had visited Ghana for an extended trip beginning July 3, 1957, and had even written the book Ananse: The Web of Life in Africa (1962) about their experiences. Biggers was a good friend of Nicholson's, and he also had a collection of Akan combs; yet combs did not become a leitmotif in his art until after the 1976 Houston exhibition, which probably served as a catalyst. In her book The Art of John Biggers: View from the Upper Room (MFA, Houston, 1995) Wardlaw provides multiple examples of combs providing not only compositional structure and backdrop for Biggers's works but also references to heritage and ancestral continuity (e.g., Wardlaw 1995:61, 64, 73, 152). (4)

The consistent growth of the African collections at Houston did not really begin until Dr. Peter C. Marzio became Director in 1982, after serving as director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art from 1978 to 1982. Marzio appointed Anne-Louise Schaffer as Curator of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in 1986, and she oversaw the continuing development of the gallery for African art. Indeed, a significant majority of the African collection was not acquired until the 1990s. After the untimely death of Dr. Nicholson in 1989, his heirs decided to keep the collection together and gave 118 works to the MFAH, including the aforementioned combs and a fine group of Yoruba sculpture. Leaving aside a collection of approximately 300 Asante goldweights, the Nicholson collection more than tripled the number of sub-Saharan African works in the museum. Among the objects hl the new gift was a lovely Senufo champion cultivator staff topped with a characteristic female figure (Fig. 7). Anita Glaze has discussed at least four categories of Senufo staffs, and this one best matches her description of "champion cultivator staffs used in hoeing contests, for funerary display and dances (long, iron-tipped and with a seated young female)" (1994:38). It is one of the few extant staffs that still has some of its ritual attachments of cowry shells, antelope horn, and other materials carefully tied beneath the seated figure.

[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]

The Nicholson donation aside, most objects acquired in the 1990s were purchased, albeit with funds specifically donated for each acquisition. One of the most impressive of these is a Yoruba Epa or Elefon headdress with an equestrian figure surmounting the helmet mask (Fig. 1). The piece was formerly in the Milton D. Ratner Family Collection and published by Henry Drewal (1977:19). William Fagg in a 1975 letter to Ratner wrote that "it is not impossible that this piece is from Agbonbiofe's hand, and if so it could be of any date between 1900 and 1945 ... a reasonable guess would be about 1920-1930" (in Drewal 1977:19). Drewal's own analysis of the mask continues:

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

   This equestrian probably represents a sacred king or military
   hero. The carved whisk in the left hand and whisk
   handle in the right (missing the actual horsehair which
   would have been inserted at the top) are attributes of leadership.
   The absence of weaponry recalls the tradition of
   the eso, military officers among the Oyo who were armed
   only by apotropaic inoculations.

The museum also acquired several animal masks during the 1990s. A splendid pangolin masquerade headdress (Fig. 8) from the Ekpeye peoples of southern Nigeria was recently displayed in the UCLA Fowler Museum exhibition and publication Ways of the Rivers: Arts and Environment of the Niger Delta (Anderson & Peek 2002). The categorically ambiguous appearance and behavior of the pangolin has given rise to many interpretations by different African societies (see Roberts 1995:83-87). Seemingly sharing traits with both reptiles and mammals, and seen in many cultures as something of a primordial anomaly, the pangolin provides a provocative subject for African thought. According to John Picton, among the Ekpeye the pangolin was described as the "blacksmith of the animal world, and at its appearance at Egbukere ['an all purpose cultural celebration'], I was told that everyone begins to imitate the actions of the smith." Picton goes on to relate this to the conceptual foundation of Egbukere "as a time in between, a time of renewal, of transformation" (1988:48).

[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]

A beaded Bamileke elephant mask (mbap mteng; Fig. 9) was formerly in the collection of Bryce Holcomb and was featured in Tamara Northern's exhibition and publication The Art of Cameroon (1984:164). In Northern's earlier publication, The Sign of the Leopard: Beaded Art of Cameroon, she noted that the beaded designs of these masks are "fully geometric in pattern" (1975:23), which distinguishes the Houston mask as a rare example with representational imagery. As Northern comments: "This elephant mask is unusual in that its bead design integrates two full icons--the frog, symbol of fertility, and the iron double-gong, emblem of the regulatory society" (1984:164). According to Christraud Geary these masks were originally associated with men's warrior societies involved with social and political control. Eventually they evolved "into prestige societies, assembling wealthy, titled men who pay for the privilege of being inducted, and pay further to advance within the group" (1992:246).

[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]

Another animal mask, representing the Cape buffalo (bush cow), comes from the Chamba peoples of northeastern Nigeria (Fig. 10). The complicated nature of this mask type has been examined in some detail by Richard Fardon, who notes that it is performed on numerous occasions, "notably at rites of passage such as chiefmaking, circumcision or the festivals of mourning and remembrance of the dead" (1990:156).

[FIGURE 10 OMITTED]

The Houston collection also contains a good selection of prestige headdresses. The chief's hat (botolo; Fig. 11) from the Ekonda or related Mongo peoples of the northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo was shown in the London exhibition "Africa: The Art of a Continent" (Phillips 1995:307). The ritual chief (nkumu) wears it while attending to various ceremonial and spiritual roles, including divination, and when he dies the hat is passed on to his successor. The one or more plates found on these hats were hammered down from brass bars, which were widely traded and served as a form of currency and thus were a measurement of wealth (Brown 1944:431-447; cf. Arnoldi & Kreamer 1995:44, 45; and Biebuyck & Van der Abbeele 1984:96, 97).

[FIGURE 11 OMITTED]

From the Kuba comes a beaded and cowry-shell-adorned hat called a kalyeem, worn by senior titleholders (Fig. 12). The vertical projections from the top of the hat are thought to reference elephant tusks, much as do the Kuba elephant masks called mukenga, which are made by the same artists (Binkley 1992:285-88; Darish & Binkley 1995:167). A beaded crown (adenla; Fig. 13) from the Yoruba of southwest Nigeria features the characteristic frontal face, interlace design, surmounting bird, and encircling veil, all of which have received multiple interpretations representing regional and local views (see Drewal 1998:201-3).

[FIGURES 12-13 OMITTED]

The earliest sub-Saharan African work in the collection is a striking Nok terracotta female head and torso, nearly two feet tall (Fig. 14). With its elegant coiffure and elaborate rings of jewelry covering the shoulders and upper chest, this sculpture speaks of the antiquity of the arts of adornment in sub-Saharan Africa. Two millennia later, Kenyan-born Magdalene Odundo is producing ceramic vessels with some of the same emphases. Both of Houston's Odundo pieces date to 1995 and are coincident with the traveling exhibition and publication Ceramic Gestures: New Vessels by Magdalene Odundo (Berns 1995). Although Odundo admits to many influences, including British, Nigerian, Pueblo Indian, and ancient Greek and Roman ceramic traditions, one nonceramic influence is rooted in Mangbetu body arts from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Fig. 15). According to Berns,

   Above all, she is "totally mesmerized" she says, by the
   Mangbetu people of northeastern Zaire who are known
   for their striking treatment of the body, especially the permanent
   elongation of the head, which they achieve by
   binding a new-born infant's forehead with braided string.
   Odundo has produced a series of vessels with sharply
   angled mouths, tipping backward in long, graceful sweeps
   to evoke the tightly bound, elongated heads and halo-shaped
   coiffures of Mangbetu women.

[FIGURES 15-16 OMITTED]

Berns continues by quoting Odundo's articulation of her process and thought:

   You can imagine when you're coiling that clay onto a vessel
   this woman laboriously binding her head. The head
   among the Mangbetu (and other peoples) is the apex, the
   place of intellect, thought, and even the soul. Therefore its
   elaboration, its adornment emphasizes its importance. I
   attempt to achieve the same forms within my work--an
   engagement with the upper part of my pieces.

   (in Berns 1995:17, fig. 14)

One of the most remarkable works in the Houston collection is an installation called The Clubs of Bamako, which premiered at the Deitch Projects in New York City in early 1999 (Figs. 16-18). It consists of sixteen photographs by Malick Sidibe of nightclub scenes, taken in the capital of Mali between 1962 and 1973, and eleven life-size polychrome wood sculptures in dance poses commissioned specifically for the installation in 1998 and based on some of Sidibe's photographs. Eight are by Coulibaly Siaka Paul, two by Emil Guibehi (Gbeli), and one by Koffi Kouakou. The photographs were originally printed as postcard or album-sized souvenirs of an evening on the town. For The Clubs of Bamako Sidibe enlarged and reprinted the images and assigned titles to each based on his memories of the events or the subject matter of the photograph (e.g., Drissa Balo Wedding Party, Merengue Dancer, James Brown Fans). This project was put together by the entrepreneur and art historian Andre Magnin, one of the curators of the controversial 1989 exhibition "Magiciens de la Terre" and editor of the equally controversial Contemporary Art of Africa (1996); the latter is based primarily on the Jean Pigozzi Collection, as are the Magnin books Seydou Keita (1997) and Malick Sidibe (1998).

[FIGURES 17-18 OMITTED]

In addition to accelerating the African acquisitions, Marzio also brought a number of traveling exhibitions of African art to the MFAH. These include "The Art of Cameroon" (1984); "Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory" (1989); "Benin: Royal Art of Africa from the Museum fur Volkerkunde, Vienna" (1994); "Expressions of Belief: Masterpieces of African, Oceanic, and Indonesian Art from the Museum voor Volkenkunde, Rotterdam" (1998); and "Masks: Faces of Culture" (2000).

The most celebrated and important gift to the MFAH African collections, indeed to the museum itself, is the 1997 donation by Alfred C. Glassell Jr. of nearly a thousand works of African gold. As founder of the Glassell School of Art, which opened in 1979, and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the MFAH from 1990 to 2000, Glassell has worked closely with Peter Marzio on the growth of the museum and especially the new Audrey Jones Beck Building, designed by Rafael Moneo and dedicated in 2000. An initial selection from the Glassell Collection of African Gold was installed as a temporary exhibition in 1991, curated by Anne-Louise Schaffer. Frances Marzio, who was appointed Curator of the Glassell Collections in 1993, oversaw an expanded exhibition of these works in their own permanent galleries in 1998 (Fig. 19). Part of the collection traveled to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow during 2001, and a national tour will be launched in March 2004 at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

[FIGURE 19 OMITTED]

While the collection contains works from Senegal, Mali, Kenya, and Cote d'Ivoire, its real strength is in the royal arts of the Akan peoples of Ghana. These holdings encompass virtually the whole spectrum of Akan gold regalia and related forms and include many unusual if not unique works. (5)

One of the highlights is an elaborate Akan chair called akonkromfi or nnamu (Fig. 20). The first name may be translated as "praying mantis," and although the chair is rigid, its name probably derives from the articulated structure of its prototype, the folding chairs introduced by Europeans as early as the seventeenth century. Kyerematen notes that the chair is also called nnamu because it is "restful" (nna, lit. "sleep"). Despite this association, he writes that it is used on "joyous ceremonial occasions" (1964:28), and it is this chair type that the Asantehene typically occupies during major durbars. There seems to be considerable variation in its use, however, since the nnamu of the Kumawuhene is employed by the chief at times of bereavement for a member of the royal family or an elder of the state. (6) An alternative interpretation of nnamu may perhaps be found in Christaller's definition of the term as "change, transformation" (1933:327), which could be a reference to its origins and the transformative nature of a folding chair.

[FIGURE 20 OMITTED]

A piece nearly identical to the Houston chair, with a slightly more openwork back, was photographed at the Asante paramountcy of Agogo in the early 1960s. The photograph is included in Kyerematen's Panoply of Ghana, and the author identifies the central design on its back as "Kontonkurowi, with flourishes" (1964:23). Christaller translates kontonkurowi as "the halo or luminous circle round the sun or moon" (1933:254), but it is more popularly translated as "circular rainbow." The underlying idea is that the chief encircles and shines a beautiful light on his subjects. A pair of stylized ram's hums may appear on either side of this motif. These frequently evoke the proverb "A ram fights with his heart and not with his horns," meaning that strength of character is more important than weapons in any contest. (7) Kyerematen considers the remaining curvilinear imagery on the Agogo chair to be further variations on the ram's horn motif. This interpretation notwithstanding, many of these elements are not unlike the baroque flourishes often found on European predecessors of this chair.

The Glassell collection has more than thirty counselor staffs (akyeame poma), carved-wood and gold-leaf emblems of the chief's principal advisors. Their figurative finials carry proverbial messages about issues of governance, especially the responsibilities of leadership and citizenship. Four of the staffs are by the important Asante carver Osei Bonsu (1900-1977; see Ross 1984). One features a seated man holding an egg in his hand (Cover), a metaphor for the proper exercise of chiefly power: "To be a ruler is like holding an egg in the hand; if it is pressed too hard it breaks; but if not held tightly enough it may slip and smash oil the ground" (Kyerematen 1964:96).

Photographs in the Ghana Ministry of Information make it clear that another staff by Bonsu, depicting a whale with a man in its mouth, was originally owned by the state of Ahanta (Fig. 21). According to the current paramount chief, Nana Baidoo Bonsoe XV, the staff recounts how Ahanta was founded when the first chief was ejected from the mouth of a whale to claim the coastal lands between the Ankobra and Pra Rivers. (8) A number of staffs from various states represent similar claims of autochthonous origins, which serve in part to discourage competing demands for property rights from rival states (see Ross 1982:62, fig. 17). That the current paramount chief is the fifteenth in a succession of Bonsoes (lit., "whales") reinforces the legitimacy of this particular claim. (9)

[FIGURE 21 OMITTED]

The Glassell collection also includes a strong assortment of ceremonial state swords (arena), carved-wood and gold-leaf sword hilts, and cast gold sword ornaments (abosodee). One hilt represents one of the most familiar and influential images in all of Akan art, the so-called sankofa bird, whose head is turned toward its back (Fig. 22). Its message is most frequently translated as "Pick it up if it falls behind." (10) The basic idea is that if you have forgotten something, you can return to retrieve it; that is, mistakes can be corrected, you can learn from the past. In part the motif has to do with maintaining and respecting ancestral tradition. It appears on stools, swords, staffs, and umbrella finials as well as stamped, embroidered, and appliqued textiles, among other royal and nonroyal object types. It was the name and logo of two short-lived Ghanaian periodicals. The masthead of Sankofa Arts and Culture Magazine explained that its name "refers to the wise bird who picks for the present what is best in ancient eyes to meet the demands of the future, undeterred" (Bedu-Addo 1981:3). In the editorial introduction to Sankofa: The Legon Journal of Archaeological and Historical Studies, the motif was interpreted as "Every wise man knows where he is going but only the fool does not know where he is coming from" (Anquandah 1975:5).

[FIGURE 22 OMITTED]

Another very popular Akan motif is represented here by both a sword hilt and a sword ornament (Figs. 23, 24). According to often quoted Asante sources, the hilt casting depicts a gaboon viper with a hornbill in its mouth, a symbol of chiefly patience that refers to a story about a long-standing debt owed by the bird to the snake. Having the ability to fly, the hornbill avoided repayment, but eventually, after a long drought, the viper triumphed when he caught the bird after waiting patiently at the last remaining water hole (Kyerematen 1961:11,12).

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From Kumawu comes the sword ornament representing a bunch of palm nuts, sometimes referred to as a palm fruit (Fig. 25). Before tire rise of cocoa, palm oil and palm kernels were the major agricultural exports of the Gold Coast through much of the nineteenth century. The by-products of this indigenous palm also provided oil for local cooking, hair and skin care, and medicinal uses. Undoubtedly because of its multifunctionality, the oil palm and its bunches of palm nuts are a recurring feature in Akan royal arts. Sword ornaments with palm nuts are found in the treasuries of a number of states, including the regalia of the Asantehene and the states of Edweso, Kumawu, and Akyem Oda. In the Asantehene's regalia the ornament is found on the akrafena ("soul sword") of Asantehene Prempeh II (r. 1931-70), where the kernels refer to his genealogy: they appear on the same stalk and thus share the same origin (Kyerematen 1961:12). At Kumawu the motif is a symbol of invincibility: "The chief is like a palm fruit; if you fire your gun into it, you waste your bullets." It was further explained that a euphemism for war is "When hands are pressed on the thorns of the palm fruit." (11) At Edweso the ornament actually depicts a hand on the prickly bunch of palm nuts.

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Some of the most spectacular headgear in an Akan court is worn by bearers of important swords. The most flamboyant examples, called ntakerakye (Fig. 26), are represented in the Glassell collection by a headdress that photographs in the Ghana Ministry of Information document as being from Akyem Oda. Ntakerakye are distinguished by a spread of eagle feathers, a pair of cast-gold ram's horns, and a cascade of amulets. These headdresses are relatively rare today; only a single example is furred in the regalia of those paramount chiefs who do have them. In 1817 Thomas Bowdich described and illustrated this form, which suggests that it was more common at that time. "The dress of the captains ... was a war cap, with gilded rams horns projecting in front, the sides extended beyond all proportion by immense plumes of eagles feathers and fastened under the chin with bands of cowries" (1819 [1966]:32, drawing I). The ubiquitous ram's horns illustrate the same proverb mentioned earlier in relation to the akonkromfi chair: "A ram fights with its heart, not its horns." (12)

[FIGURE 26 OMITTED]

Although sandals are the defining adornment of Akan chiefs, crowns decorated with gold are nevertheless telling documents of leadership and history. One crown in the Glassell collection clearly has closer ties with European traditions than with indigenous practices (Fig. 27). The "lions salient" (to use European heraldic terminology) flanking a heart perhaps recalls the lions with hearts on the Danish state arms. The two arches that reach from side to side and from front to back (complete with "pearls"), along with the alternating cross and fleur-de-lis, are historical conventions used by British royalty. Most Akan, however, identify the fleur-de-lis, a popular motif on southern Akan crowns, not with the European symbol for the Virgin Mary but rather with the akoko nan (lit. "hen's foot") motif found on adinkra cloths. The proverb associated with this image is "The hen's foot may step on its chicks, but it does not kill them"--the hen (i.e., chief) provides guidance, not aggression. The significance of the globe under the lion on the right is unclear.

[FIGURE 27 OMITTED]

One especially rich component of the Glassell collection is a wonderful assortment of gold jewelry derived from Victorian and other European styles. Given the portability of jewelry, its popularity as gift items, and the availability of illustrated trade books, it is not surprising that Akan goldsmiths freely copied European forms. Frances Marzio (2002) has surveyed the wealth of styles and motifs from the Masonic to the astrological and the marital to the funereal, and her study has implications concerning the source of many widespread Akan images. A number of Akan rings in the collection (along with an important crown) feature signs of the zodiac (Fig. 28). The colonial surgeon Richard Austin Freeman described such rings in precise detail in his late-nineteenth-century account:

   At Cape Coast and Elmina, as well as at Kumasi and
   some other interior towns, gold rings of very fair design
   and workmanship are produced. Those of Cape Coast, of
   course, show very distinct European influence, but nevertheless
   have a character of their own. Many of them are
   of filigree work, light and pretty in design; but the most
   characteristic form is the well-known "Zodiac ring," a
   specimen of which decorates the finger of nearly every
   European who visits the Gold Coast, and which has thus
   become the recognized badge of the "Coaster."

      The usual form consists of a flat band of gold with
   raised edges, which is surrounded by a series of projecting
   figures more or less resembling the symbols of the
   signs of the Zodiac. I was unable to discover what had led
   the Cape Coast goldsmiths to adopt this design, which is
   a very favourite one of them, for it appears not only on
   the rings, but also on the broaches, clasps and other ornaments
   produced by them.

   (Freeman 1898 [1967]:40)

[FIGURE 28 OMITTED]

The Glassell rings reproduce the signs of the zodiac with reasonable accuracy. One can speculate that part of the Akan attraction to this imagery was a combination of astral magic and what was probably perceived as efficacious writing. That many of the signs (e.g., lion, ram, crab, scorpion, balance) stand for important and familiar symbols of royalty would certainly reinforce the attraction, although from Freeman's account it would seem that more than just royals were wearing these rings.

Other rings are more clearly within the indigenous orbit of Akan imagery (Fig. 29). A frog might seem to be an unusual royal symbol, but it is a common motif on chief's rings, as suggested by the multiple examples in the collection (Fig. 30). A widely recognized proverb for the motif is typically translated as "A frog's length is only apparent after death." (13) The implication is that a chief's accomplishments are often not appreciated during his lifetime, and that it is only by looking back at his career after his death that his contributions can be fully understood.

[FIGURES 29-30 OMITTED]

Two final works from the Glassell collection are wood carvings covered with gold paint rather than gold leaf. They are not items of royal regalia (Figs. 31, 32). Both were either part of drum stands used by traditional popular bands or were freestanding props for these bands. J.H.K. Nketia was the first to document these voluntary musical associations, noting that they function quite independently of the various royal ensembles that serve the court, although they might be engaged to perform for the chief on select occasions. Like contemporary popular bands everywhere, each one is associated with a particular style of music and dance that is fashionable for a certain period of time before being replaced by more current and popular styles. Groups may perform for a wide variety of occasions, including naming ceremonies, puberty celebrations, weddings, and local and national festivals. Funerals are perhaps the most frequent occasion for performance, and it is often said that individuals join these groups to ensure a successful send-off (Nketia 1963:67-74).

[FIGURES 31-32 OMITTED]

Many groups center their instrumentation around a large "master" drum that is anthropomorphized as a female. It may feature between one and eight prominent breasts and extensive relief carving (see Ross 1988, 1989), which reference many of the proverbs discussed above, in lieu of breasts some drums have a nursing female figure, although more often than not the child becomes detached from the female and is lost. Figure 31 is readily identifiable as being by the same hand as a drum stand in the National Museum of Ghana, Acera, and another in a private collection. The National Museum's drum stand was accessioned in 1953, and according to museum records was "made by Kwedwo Awire (popularly known as Robert), a native of Ashanti who settled at Ekutuase near Krobo (Sekondi area)." The second work (Fig. 32) can be attributed to the Brong peoples and is by the same hand as a related piece in the Detroit Institute of Arts (cf. Kan & Sieber 1995:75). (14)

In Houston, African art remains a priority. There are plans for a collaborative exhibition of contemporary African paintings involving the MFAH, the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Menil Collection, and the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston. A second traveling exhibition of "Quilts of Gees Band," textile works by African American women, is in progress, curated by Alvia Wardlaw. (The first began its tour in 2002.) Further expansion plans at the MFAH will make additional galleries in the Caroline Wiess Law Building available for the permanent display of African art. The acquisition of art from Africa and the diaspora continues in numerous curatorial departments, including American Paintings and Sculpture, Prints and Drawings, Photography, Decorative Arts, Contemporary Art, and Antiquities, in addition to Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. The combination of increased space and commitment across departments ensures Houston's ongoing involvement with the expressive culture of Africa.

[This article was accepted for publication in September 2003.]

(1.) To cite a single reference among many, see Vogel 1988, which includes essays on the early development of the African collections at the Buffalo Museum of Science, Hampton University, and the American Museum Natural History, and an overview essay by Arthur Danto.

(2.) I would like to thank Frances Marzio and Winnie Youngblood for providing considerable and essential background research for this article. Their efforts are greatly appreciated. I am also indebted to Alfred C. Glassell Jr. for generous access to his collection and to Dr. Peter C. Marzio, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for inviting me to write a book on the Glassell Collection of African Gold.

(3.) The Bailundu are one of the subgroups of the Mbundu, whose best-known art producers are the Ovimbundu.

There is considerable literature on the Paris International Colonial Exposition of 1931 that was both unavailable for this article and beyond its scope. I plan to write an article on this subject in the near future. See Maurois (1931), de Mello (1931) and Hodeir and Pierre (1991).

(4.) It is also possible that the UCLA Museum of Cultural History exhibition or its publication The Arts of Ghana had some influence on his interest in combs. The exhibition traveled to Dallas in 1978, and he may have seen it there. Two combs in the exhibition and publication closely resemble two in Biggers's sketch for the 1989 mural Tree House (ct. Wardlaw 1995: fig. 23; Cole & Ross 1977: figs. 81, 88).

(5.) Parts of the following discussion are excerpted with modifications from my book Gold of the Akan from the Glassell Collection (The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2002; $79 hardcover, $39.95 softcover).

(6.) This information was related to me during my interview with Kumawuhene Barima Asumadu Sakyi II and his elders, Kumawu, October 31, 1976.

(7.) This is also one of the most commonly found of all adinkra motifs and is discussed in some detail by Willis (1998:96, 97).

(8.) This was related to me during my interview at Busua, September 2, 21301; see also Sutherland (1954:9).

(9.) For a history of land claims and stool disputes in Ahanta see Welman (1969, pt. 2).

(10.) I tape-recorded this information in my interview with Adansehene Nana Kwantwi Barima II, Adanse Fomena, November 16, 1976.

(11.) I tape-recorded this explanation in my interview with Kumawuhene Barima Asumadu Sakyi II and his elders, Kumawu, October 31, 1976.

(12.) Quarcoo documented this proverb in relation to a similar headdress at Kokofu (1975:35).

(13.) I tape-recorded this translation in an interview with Kumawuhene Barima Asumadu Sakyi II and his elders, Kumawu, October 31, 1976.

(14.) Two more figures by this distinctive hand were recently published by Mate (2001:90).

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Doran H. Ross is the former director of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and an editor of African Arts.