STRIKING IRON
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between “animate” and “inanimate” things or
“sacred” and “secular” matters. Rooted in ancient
indigenous knowledge and philosophical
systems, such understanding has served local
needs and purposes for millennia. Iron figures
prominently as a medium that activates spiritual
power. As master of the transformative processes
of making iron into culture’s tools, weapons,
and poetic accoutrements, the blacksmith is often
charged with making the very objects used to
invoke, represent, and mediate deities and other
mediums of supernatural agency.
Yorùbá, Edo, and Fon peoples of Nigeria and
the Republic of Bénin share systems of knowledge,
practices, and cultural objects made of
iron, a medium possessing a performative power
known as àṣẹ among Yorùbá and Edo and as se
among Fon. Deified in the figure Ògún (or Gu,
among Fon, fig. 17), iron is essential in many
domains: truth telling and moral behavior; divination;
war; medicines that protect, cure, or destroy;
the fertility of the earth and of humans;
and the honoring of ancestors. Ògún’s creative
energies orient a person’s life, and iron, as a
guarantor of àṣẹ, ensures the efficacy of both
sacred and social acts.
SECTION VI: Blades of Power and Prestige
Throughout the African continent, blades produced
as weapons—spears, swords, axes, and
knives—have served defensive purposes and
achieved warlike ends. Blacksmiths have also
transformed such weapons into insignia capable
of performing political power. Blades have been
deliberately removed from practical use by having
their edges dulled; their aerodynamic balance decreased;
or their forms made larger, thinner, and
more ornate than could serve ordinary purposes.
Oversized swords, scepters, and sickle knives
brandished by elite warriors and ruling nobility
were designed to draw attention, elicit fear, garner
loyalty, and distinguish their owners. These
formidable and often magnificent forgings aestheticized
power to communicate key ideas about
honor, authority, success, and sophistication.
Some axes and adzes have shafts of carved
wood that end in delicately sculpted anthropomorphic
heads or full figures from which forged
blades—“tongues”—emerge (figs. 11 and 24).
Specific ethnographic data on how they were used
FIG. 20 (above): Installation view, Fowler Museum, 2018.
Photo © Joshua White.
FIG. 21 (right): Power figure, nkisi nkondi.
Yombe; DR Congo. 18th to 19th century.
Wood, iron, copper alloy, mirror, cloth, cordage, glass beads,
cowrie shells (Cypraea moneta). H: 114.3 cm.
Fowler Museum at UCLA, X65.5837; Gift of the Wellcome Trust
Image © courtesy Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Photo: Don Cole, 2013.
This nkisi nkondi acts as an armature for a
large array of materials, added by a healer
who alone knew the secret composition
of herbal medicines, roots, plants, and
even small carved wood sculptures that
gave the figure its efficacy. Staring eyes
chipped from mirrors warned aggressors
and deflected their malice, while potent
substances held in a bundle over the
navel were hidden from view by the
cape of cloth strips. The nkisi spotlights
iron’s empowering roles, as the many
forged shards, blades, tools, and nails
directed supernatural agencies to human
desires and needs. Each iron piece was
hammered in to awaken spirits present in
the sculpture and direct them to solving
personal and community problems. Such
a figure became an archive of intentions.