ZOMBO SCULPTURE 131 According to these authors, this gives them an impressive presence and makes them look taller. The upper body remains uncovered save for iron chains worn crosswise across the chest and reaching down to the hips. Weapons include a bow and arrow, swords, daggers, and shields. 26. The mask in fig. 21 was a gift to the British Museum from a Miss Shepherd via Rev. T. I. Jagger. The inventory ledger mentions that it was collected by the donor’s brother about thirty years before that date. 27. Edward Gerrard senior, taxidermist, maker of anatomic models, and friend of Charles Darwin, was employed by the natural history department of the BM as the resident taxidermist from 1841 to 1896. The commercial firm of Edward Gerrard & Sons was founded in 1853 and remained a family concern for more than a century. Their first business premises appear to have been at 54 Queen’s Road, Camden Town, North London, from which they moved to 60 College Place (later 61) in the early 1900s. Before the Second World War the firm split in two and it closed in 1967. Edward Gerrard was also a dealer in artifacts and sold many ethnographic objects to the BM and to other museums. The BM’s collection database reveals that the museum has 405 objects collected by, or purchased from, Edward Gerrard & Sons, of which 213 are from Oceania (most from Melanesia), 160 from Asia, and 30 from Africa. Cf. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography website. 28. In his book Sign Language of the Mysteries (1928: 85, 229) J. S. Ward provides a description of this picture, although we cannot agree with his interpretation. “It represents a roadside fetish shrine on the Zombo plateau whereon there are six figures, four of them making mantric signs of which three are signs of distress. These fetishes were, of course, closely associated with death and other unpleasant things.” Nor can we accept the explanation of Johnston (1969: 638, no. 345 (1)): “According to some notes of Grenfell concerning fetishes in use on the Zombo plateau (west of Lower Kwango), a certain amount of “phallic” worship exists or existed among the eastern Bakongo; not that the representations of the generative powers— male or female—were worshipped, but that these rude images were the abiding place of a spirit force which, if rightly propitiated, would promote fruitful intercourse between men and women.“ FIG. 24 (far left): Sculpted nlongo panel with female figure from a kikaku. Zombo, Kibokolo, Uíge Province, Angola. Before 1905. Wood, pigment. H: 57.5 cm. Collected by the Rev. Thomas Lewis. Purchased from Edward Gerrard & Sons. Collection of the British Museum, London, Af1905,0609.15. © The Trustees of the British Museum. FIG. 25 (above): A Roadside Shrine, Zombo Plateau, Western Congoland. Photo by George Grenfell, c. 1900. From Johnston et al., 1908, p. 638, fig. 345. FIG. 26 (left): Sculpted nlongo panel with female figure from a kikaku. Zombo, probably Kibokolo, Uíge Province, Angola. Before 1905. Wood, pigment. H: 58 cm. Probably collected by the Rev. Thomas Lewis. Ex British Baptist Missionary Society. Photo courtesy of Christie’s with thanks to Bruno Claessens.
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