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The text makes it clear that in addition to Conrau’s commercial activities for the “Victoria plantations,” he had been engaged in ethnological research. He seems to have followed von Luschan’s instructions4 to ask certain specifi c questions of his informants and he may also have shown them images. He alludes to verbal and other misunderstandings in connection with his research on the use of “fetishes,” of which he had acquired a certain number at the time of writing. I was already familiar with this document when Kevin brought it to my attention, as I had seen the original while doing research for my thesis in the archives of the African department of that same museum. While the text is interesting, the drawings are particularly signifi cant for the subject at hand. At fi rst glance, these appear to have no great merit (Conrau even begs for indulgence for their poor quality), but the basic traits of the objects he sketched are clearly recognizable, as we shall see below. Conrau had fi rst come to Cameroon in 1890 in the service of a Hamburg-based company and spent time in the Grasslands area. He returned to Germany in April 1898 and sent von Luschan two shipments of ethnographic objects, as well as notes and handwritten observations, presumably at the latter’s urging.5 He was still in Germany in August of that year and appears to have met with the anthropologist in Berlin.6 Conrau came back to Cameroon later that year and ventured into the Bangwa, arriving in Fontem in December 1898. He later went from there to visit the Kabo, the Basosi, and the Bafo (fi g. 5). This area is part of the basin of the Manuy River, which in its lower courses becomes the Calabar or Cross River, and in his journeys he passed through areas that no other European had visited before. Conrau had good knowledge of the fl ora and fauna, and he was well versed in geology and geography, as his publications clearly demonstrate. He took photographs—unfortunately, now lost— and collected more artifacts to ship to von Luschan. Information indirectly relevant to the history of the objects illustrated in Conrau’s letter can be gleaned from the correspondence between these two men. Together with other sources, a picture emerges that should be briefl y described here. When Conrau arrived in the Bangwa settlement of Fontem and fi rst encountered its leader, Fontem Assunganyi, in the compound of his palace in late 1898, the king was surrounded by a gathering of his court and his subjects. Among his insignia of rank was a magnifi cent tobacco pipe, the brass bowl of which represented an elephant head with four tusks and which had a stem covered with appliquéd beadwork, to which leather straps with small brass bells were attached (fi g. 7). This was the ruler’s personal pipe and Assunganyi later said that only a chief could have one with four tusks, while sub-chiefs could only have pipes with two.7 Assunganyi smoked it with great fanfare, throwing the bells over his shoulder as he did, and the court applauded as he did as a sign of respect for him and his insignia. He gave the pipe to Conrau when FIG. 3: Page 3 of the June 11, 1899, letter from Gustav Conrau in Fontem to Felix von Luschan at the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. FIG. 4 (below left): The only known photo showing Gustav Conrau, c. 1892. From Elizabeth Chilver, Zintgraff’s Explorations in Bamenda, Adamawa, and the Benue Lands, 1889–1892, Victoria (Kamerun), 1966. FIG. 5 (below): “G. Conrau’s Wegeaufnahmen im Lande der Banyang, Bangwa, Kabo, Basosi, und Bafo (G. Conrau’s survey in the land of the Banyang, Bangwas, Kabo, Basosi, and Bafo),” 1899. Cartography by Max Moisel. Ink on paper. 61 x 73 cm. Basel Mission Archive, ref. 97098. OBJECT history FIG. 6: Assunganyi, fon of Fontem (c. 1885–1951, r. 1897–1951). Photographer unknown, before 1950. From Robert Brain and Adam Pollock, Bangwa Funerary Sculpture, University of Toronto Press, 1971, fi g. 3.


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