FEATURE A Grasslands Beaded Leopard Skin 108 By Bettina von Lintig preted as a schematized spider motif, while the one near the neck is a more conventional abstracted spider.2 In the Grassfields, the ground spider is recognized as a symbol of wisdom and is a common motif associated with faith in providence. The head of the leopard has rounded eyes and can be seen as either an animal or a human face, a rendering that is unlikely to be coincidental, as we will see below. The embroidered surface of the leopard skin is framed with an edging of cowry shells, which, like the glass beads, represent wealth. The top of the object, that is, the beaded side, has a clearly visible reddish-brown patina, presumably from the application of camwood powder (made from the heartwood and bark of the padauk tree, Baphia nitida). Normally blended with palm oil, this is widely used in the Cameroon Grasslands as an embellishment in ceremonial and ritual contexts,3 and it is sometimes also used to anoint parts of the body.4 The underside of the pelt is entirely covered with a thick reddish-brown patina, again probably from camwood paste. The object is in good condition overall, with only minor loosening of a few of the applied strands of beads. At the time the piece was privately acquired before donation to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), it was identified as Bamileke, one of the major culture areas of the Cameroon Grasslands.5 It was documented as being from a French collection,6 but beyond that, the provenance has not thus far been more specifically identified. The Leopard as a Symbol Frederick Clement Egerton provides a description of a congregation of “six very dignified kings”7 in the 1930s at Bafoussam, then under French colonial governance. He observes that their followers “brought chairs for them; spread leopard skins in front of them, and stuck umbrellas in the ground beside them to mark their dignity. They wore bracelets and bead collars … .”8 Such written documentation is confirmed by field photographs that show the use of the leopard—whether its skin or The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco were recently gifted a particularly rare and interesting object, a beaded leopard skin (fig. 2) that represents a hybrid of diverse elements from the ancient culture of the Cameroon Grasslands. The art of the Grasslands is well known for the richness of its human and animal representations in wood sculpture, but objects like this beadwork leopard pelt demonstrate an openness to other media and forms of creativity by the artists of this complex and multifaceted society. The Object The foundation of this composite artwork is the pelt of a leopard, most likely Panthera pardus pardus, which has been flattened with legs and tail extending outward. Only the four paws and half of the tail are visible as actual leopard fur. The rest of the pelt is covered with woven wax-resist indigo-dyed fabric, known in the lingua franca of the Cameroon Grasslands as “royal cloth,” which serves as the base for the beaded appliqué. This is composed of black-blue, white, orange-red, brown, and turquoise colored glass beads that form a design evocative of a ferocious being. The intricate beaded patterns suggest the real animal’s body in some places, while sinuous formal inserts can be construed as the shoulders and hips of the predator in motion. Despite the fact that the pelt is a flat object, the tight beading technique used on it has a greater affinity to that found on three-dimensional Grassfields objects than on the textiles of the region. 1 The design is varied, with geometric patterns such as multicolor isosceles triangles at the flanks and rows of dark and light triangles at the posterior. Checkered patterns, lines, and ten small circles are also present. Strikingly similar geometric designs can be found on the head disguises of the elephant society (kuosi), a status-based masking society that supported the sociopolitical hierarchy (fig. 1). Two large circles and a half circle are arrayed along the spine of the leopard. The central one resembles a stylized rosette with seven petals but can be inter-
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