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In any case, in Tervuren, as elsewhere, real research on the little-discussed topic was conveniently replaced by the credo: “except among the Ababua and the Warenga,1 no one has ever seen an ivory spoon in the Congo.” Even a cursory examination of the Tervuren collection allows for refinement of this restrictive classification. In studying the files and technical 104 records for the approximately fifty “Boa-type” ivory spoons in the museum’s collection, it becomes apparent that, counter to assertations, none of them can be attributed to the Ababua with any real certainty, although the accounts and/or biographies of certain field collectors do tend to suggest this ethno-geographic identification could be correct. The spoon in figure 2, for example, initially belonged to Commander A. Daenen, a colonial officer who was in the Ababua area in 1891–1892. However, we also know of a small number of spoons that were definitely collected around 1910 in the neighboring Bango region by colonial agents named Conod and Coclet (figs. 3 and 4). The British Museum also has five spoons of a type similar to these, which were collected at the end of the 1890s by English officer G. Burrows (fig. 5). According to Burrows, these spoons were of a utilitarian nature, intended for domestic use, and came from the Bango (Bongo). Another example of a somewhat different style (fig. 6), also in the British Museum, was supposedly collected in Basako by Dr. S. Hinde, probably in 1894. The spoons Burrows collected are all the more interesting in that they offer a particularly good illustration of the kind of ethnographic information contained in his writings, which he published himself: I found the Mobongo quite unapproachable in the ordinary sense. On rare occasions I went among them, however, and with some difficulty had peaceable dealings with them. They differ from the other tribes round them in this respect, that they use the spoon; they make themselves little ivory spoons, very delicately carved and often gracefully designed, which they use for eating their meat (Burrows, 1903: 236). A few lines later, the author makes a point of stating that the Bango are gifted ivory workers but that they appear to use it exclusively to make the bracelets and spoons he mentions. And where the use of the spoon is concerned, Burrows sees it as a “Bango cultural exception,” one that distinguishes the group from its close neighbors. I admit to being somewhat reticent to see Bango spoons as a unique creation that owes nothing to neighboring cultures. Indeed, a stylistic analysis of the spoons of the northeastern Congo reveals that the handles of Bango spoons FEATURE Left to right FIG. 7: Spoon. Wood. L: 19.5 cm. Collected between the Rubi and Uele Rivers, perhaps before 1897. MRAC, EO.0.0.27479 (registered in 1924). © MRAC. Photo: J.-M. Vandyck. FIG. 8: Ladle spoon, papa. Zande. Wood. L: 31.5 cm. Collected by A. Hutereau in the early 1910s. MRAC, EO.0.0.13845 (registered in 1913). © MRAC. Photo: J.-M. Vandyck. FIG. 9: Ladle spoon, ebengwe. Sire-Boguru. Wood. L: 39 cm. Collected by A. Hutereau in the early 1910s. MRAC, EO.0.0.14108 (registered in 1913). © MRAC. Photo: J.-M. Vandyck. FIG. 10: Ladle spoon, ebengwe. Sire-Boguru. Wood. L: 47.7 cm. Collected by A. Hutereau in the early 1910s. MRAC, EO.0.0.14090 (registered in 1913). © MRAC. Photo: J.-M. Vandyck.


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