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107 The presence of this six-pointed motif on different kinds of objects could be explained by the historical and cultural connections that this area of the northeastern Congo had with the Arab-Sudanese trade network. Indeed the sixpointed star, known as khatem Souleiman (Solomon’s seal) is often seen on djedouel (esoteric paintings) and the various h’erz amulets and talismans used in Islamic areas, especially the Maghreb. As E. Doutté notes, “Solomon’s seal is extremely popular throughout Africa. It is worn as an amulet and, especially, it is drawn onto the doors of houses. Many people adopt it as a symbol” (Doutté, 1984 reprint, pp. 157–158). Thus our spoon, our swords, and our mortar appear to testify to the appropriation by local populations of a mystical symbol introduced by Islamic merchants who were active in the area. In support of our hypotheses, we can compare this with other foreign mystical symbols that have been observed in other parts of the former Belgian Congo. Since the beginning of the 1930s, for instance, Bandundu groups, including the Yanzi, acquired “gris-gris” objects, such as rings, medallions, and talismans of diverse origin from Hausa merchants and various Europeans (Swartenbroeck, 1968, pp. 225–225). Another hypothesis also needs to be considered, however. The hexagram might have been put on by a collector or a European owner with the intent of “marking” his collections. Note that the spoon in figure 1 and the sword in figure 19, objects whose collectors remain unknown, show the same flaw in the rendering of Solomon’s seal, namely that a second star clumsily covers the first. This could suggest that the design might have been executed by the same engraver, whether he was African or European. The case of the mortar in figure 18 is more interesting, as we know that it was collected by Baron V. de Crombrugghe de Looringhe. There is, in fact, a reason that might have caused this owner to use a variant of this six-pointed symbol as a distinctive mark. The noble de Crombrugghe de Looringhe family has a heraldic escutcheon with three silver spurs on it. In heraldic representation, the spur wheel, as IVORY SPOONS in the case of the Crombrugghe de Looringhe escutcheon, can assume the general shape of a six-pointed star. It should be noted that this design is not found on other objects that we were able to examine which we know to have belonged to V. de Crombrugghe de Looringhe. A Mongwandi Spoon In the old MRAC collection, there is an ivory spoon that is unique in its genre (fig. 20). The few original notes that accompany the piece state that it was collected among the Mongwandi (Ngbandi). This attribution may be partly true, to the extent that the Ngbandi were known to have had a type of wooden spatulate spoon-spatula, the spoon portion of which is more or less shaped like an Italian shoe, as in our example in figure 20. Among the Ngbandi, these approximately fifty-centimeter long spoon-spatulas were known as mopambi and were used for the preparation of food (fig. 21). This “shoe”-type spoon-spatula occurs not only among the Ngbandi but also among other groups such as the Mongelima-Angba, Bobati, Sango, and Zande. The Zande and the Sango call this spoon-spatula papa and the Bobati call it epwopota. There was also a smaller version of this type of spoon that was undoubtedly used for eating soups and stews. These “soup models,” which are known from the Sango and particularly the Yakoma,4 are normally between fifteen and twenty-five centimeters in length and lack the spatula handle (figs. 22 and 24). Where the Zande are concerned, it is interesting to note that when all of the large spoons used for culinary purposes (ladle-spoons and spatula-spoons) that can be attributed to them are considered, there are ten ladle-spoons (fig. 8) for every spatula-spoon. This suggests that the latter type was not necessarily very well established among them, and that they are probably not its inventors. While we wait for the results of further research, I’ll advance the hypothesis that the origin of these spatula-spoons may be among the Yakoma or the Sango, among whom the type seems to have been fairly common. In any event, the case of the piece in figure 20, like those FIG. 19 (right): Short sword. Ababua type. Iron, wood. L: 45 cm. Collected before 1897(?). MRAC, EO.0.0.26934 (registered 1925). © MRAC. Photo: J.-M. Vandyck.


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