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The Taste of the Earth Collected and Donated Ceramics: Armand Hutereau and Alphonse de Calonne- Beaufaict Between 1911 and 1913, Captain and Commander Armand Hutereau (1875–1914) was appointed by the colonial ministry to lead an ethnographic expedition in the northern part of the former Belgian Congo. In the course of that expedition, he collected several thousand objects, which he shipped to the MRAC. Hutereau can rightly be considered one of the great collectors of utilitarian and everyday objects. Indeed, a substantial percentage of the northern Congolese baskets, spoons, ladles, wooden plates, and other items—including ceramics, of course—in the MRAC’s collection are there thanks to him. His death on the battlefield in World War I cut short his historical and anthropological research on northern Congo. Only a few of his writings, some of which were published posthumously (Hutereau, 1922), remain to bear witness to his ambitious project. Researchers studying Hutereau’s material will be interested in the curious nedekere and nedjirimbo of the Bari and the Mangbele (figs. 24–25), the aba of 105 Fig. 17 (bottom left): Water jug. Tshokwe, Sandoa-Dilolo zone (?), DR Congo. 32 x 27 cm. Donated by V. Jacobs in 1953. MRAC, inv. EO.1953.67.20.  The “bakelite” appearance of this object is the result of its having been sprinkled with a dark vegetal-based liquid while it was still hot, just after firing. The use of this procedure can be observed on pots made from 1940 through 1950 for Europeans, but the result is not often as successful as on this example. Save for the Tshokwe sphere, it is unusual to find deep and brilliant black ceramics in Central Africa. Examples of certain Rwandan ceramics are of comparable quality. Fig. 18 (below): Cosmetic oil container, belibo. Mongelima, DR Congo. 27 x 25 cm. Collected before 1911, donated by C. Delhaise. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.3052.  its neck suggest that it might have been intended for placement in palm trees for the collection of precious palm sap, which, once fermented, would become palm wine. Sometimes the vegetal fiber lacing was more discretely executed and covered only the neck of a ceramic so that a handle or a lanyard might be attached to it, as is the case for a type of ceramic used among the Kango and the Makere (fig. 26), as well as for certain Mongelima pieces (fig. 30). The pot in figure 30, known by the vernacular name sango, has designs highlighted by the addition of ngula (a red vegetal dye), a practice known to have been favored in the past by certain groups in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Sango were receptacles for water used to rinse out the mouth after a meal. While the northeastern DRC is particularly rich in examples of ceramics with wickerwork additions, it would be a mistake to believe that this mixture of techniques was specific to this region, as the shiny white clay piece in figure 23, whose form identifies it as being lower Congo, clearly demonstrates. FIG. 16 (left): Vessel, mútóndo, for sorghum beer, attributed to Agatha Kiyembo. Aushi, Sakania region, DR Congo. 53 x 47 cm. Collected in the early 1950s by A. Maesen. MRAC, inv. EO.1953.74.7580. Fig. 19 (below): Cosmetic container. Angba, DR Congo. 19 x 17 cm. Collected before 1911. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.4509.  Fig. 20 (above): Palm sap container. Niongo region (greater Kisangani area), DR Congo. 32 x 22 cm. Collected before 1897. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.14892.


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