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House of Stones: Memorial Art of Fifteenth-Century Sierra Leone

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House of Stones: Memorial Art of Fifteenth-Century Sierra Leone House of Stones: Memorial Art of Fifteenth-CenturySierra Leone FrederickJ. Lamp In 1850 George Thompson, an American missionary in I ISSALr'A- i.. 1. I southern Sierra Leone, came across a group of carvings in -- 12 12 U'LADyalonk ............. ..... y•.,c, , stone.' "Evidence of the of man," he im- depravity GUINEA mediately pronounced them. In his journal, dated May 21, Fulbe, he wrote: Maninka, . 11 and ,Balznt-a Dvalorink S Iandiu FUTA DYALON .... This evening I found a nest of old, broken graven im- annka B ages. ... There were five of them, lying at the foot of a NUNE Dyvalonkc small tree, where a town once stood, which was RIVER & Fule -10 Susu destroyed by war. ... They are made of stone, intended VERGA•• '. ..... as imitation of of human - something, perhaps beings CONAl Y i Kur-Kranko if so, very comical ... I made a captive of the best one to Nmani act as a preacher, to plead for Africa.2 9~ :n... o- 2 . n . oko From the turn of the a of no century plethora publications ap- FREETOWN~J peared in English and German with more enthusiasm for the place of these stone figures in African history. Some Kpsel linked the discoveries to ancient Egypt or Phoenicia and others to the great civilizations of medieval Nigeria.3 It is now known that the figures may be found throughout an area of some 60,000 square kilometers of the southeastern half of Sierra Leone and the neighboring CAPE MOUNT 'Va area of the Kissi and Kuranko peoples in Guinea (Fig. 1).4 Kpel""" No archaeological discoveries have been made, although in 1909 a Anderson what to be a MONROVIAA Major reported appeared Africa ATLANTIC carving workshop in a collapsed cave, with some incom- OCEAN- ST. OIN\ RIVER plete and miscarved specimens intact. Anderson was told consistently by many chiefs of the Kono, Temne, and Mende that "all the Nomoris [stone figures] were found in 13I I 11 caves or recesses of worked-out steatite."s Another source, 12 I -t F. Ryff, was told that the figures were found often in I Ethnic groups of the West Atlantic Coast (shaded portion: clusters of up to fifty buried in tumuli.6 More often they area in which stone figures have been discovered, revised from and Hammacher, have been found singly, lying in the farm soil, beneath the Tagliaferri 9). underbrush of forested areas, or in river beds. The ma- jority are carved of steatite.7 Like other area peoples, the 1 Although Alldridge (pp. 163-64) is given credit in recent publications sources on Sierra Leone itself, ignored by these writers, are more fruitful by both Allison (p. 36) and Tagliaferri and Hammacher (p. 10) for first in explaining the significance and origin of the iconography of the stone mentioning the stone figures, he is preceded not only by Thompson (as figures. noted Atherton and Kalous, 304; and D. Fraser, "Note on the by by STagliaferri and Hammacher, 9-10, 26; Riitimeyer, 198; and Arts connus Stone Nomoli of Sierra Leone," Art Bulletin, LIII,1971, but Figures 393) et arts miconnus de l'Afrique Noire, exh. cat., Paris, 1966. Some affinity also J. the Mende London, 1884, by Sch6n (Vocabulary of Language, 80) is suggested with figures found far afield among the Dogon of Mali and and aus and he cannot be J. Biittikofer (Reisebilder Liberia, Leiden, 1890), the Bijago of Guinea Bissao. considered earlier than Riitimeyer. 5T. "Steatite from Sierra 67. 2 Joyce, Figures Leone," Man, Ix, 40, 1909, G. Thompson, Thompson in Africa, New York, 1854, 289-90. Four See also n. 8 on the name "nomori." years later he had a collection of at least ten - see G. Thompson, The 6 197. Palmland (1858), London, 1969, 415. Riitimeyer, 7For of the stone, see 198-204; Atherton and See Dittmer; Riitimeyer; Edwin. See also W. Fagg, Afro-Portuguese analyses Riitimeyer, Kalous, 303; and E. Jeremine, "etude des statuettes kissienes au de Ivories, London, 1959, xx; and W. Fagg and M. Plass, African Sculpture, point vue mineralogique et Journal de la des New York, 1964, 22-23. I believe that the ethnographic and historical petrographique," Socikte Africanistes, xIv, 1945. 220 THE ART BULLETIN JUNE 1983 VOLUME LXV NUMBER 2 Temne of central Sierra Leone today frequently find such situations by the Mende, Bullom, and Kono peoples, and stone figures (Figs. 3, 13-14) and call them ta-mal (sing., this has been documented amply in many sources." But ka-mal).8 They are convinced that the figures were made their use today relates to their discovery as foreign objects by spiritual beings. and may have little to do with their original function, In addition to full figures, stone heads (Fig. 2) about life which is the focus of this discussion. The Mende and size have been found, principally in the Mende and Kono peoples came into being as the result of several inva- Bullom areas. These heads are known generally by the sions of Mande peoples (called "Mani" in the early Mende term, mahei yafeisia (sing., indef., maha yafa), literature) into the area, primarily in the sixteenth century, signifying "chief's spirits."9 invasions that originated in the vicinity of the Upper Niger Stylistically, the figures of most concern here, from River in present-day Guinea. Previously the area was oc- southern Sierra Leone, bear almost no resemblance to the cupied by the people known to the Portuguese traders of work produced by the groups currently occupying the that time as the "Sapi," of which the Baga, Temne, and area. The stones do bear a significant resemblance, Bullom are the linguistic descendants. The Mende today however, to the recent work of the Baga of Guinea and believe that the figures in stone represent the previous their linguistic relatives, the Temne, especially near the landowners, and both the Mende and Kono say that the Guinea border.1oThe most salient common feature is the figures were already extant when they originally arrived.12 forward projection of the large head (cf. Figs. 4, 6, 2, 3, 13- A Mende term for the figures is mali yafeisia (sing. indef., 14, 25). Eyes are bulbous. Ears often sweep far to the rear mali yafa), "discovered spirits.""13It is my contention here in a C-shaped arc. In profile the nose is dominant, that the clues to the function of the stone figures may be although in a frontal view the difference between the found not in Mende practice, as commonly cited, but in stone figures and the Baga figures can be extreme Temne. The Temne ritual of particular concern is that of (especially among the northern Baga where the nose is the placing of stones in a shrine called the "house of narrow, whereas the ancient stone noses are broad). stones," the am-boro ma-sar. Elaborate scarification of the face and neck in geometric I have chosen for this study a number of stone figures patterns is common (cf. Figs. 4, 14-16). A vertical ridge with elaborate articulation of form, because they yield the marks the forehead (cf. Figs. 4, 3, 16). Hands are often most information. The forms of hundreds of figures are held to the chin (cf. Figs. 4, 3, 5, 21). In others, hands are less detailed and voluptuous. Some are mere cylinders clasped in front of the figure (cf. Figs. 6, 7). Scapula are vaguely resembling the human body and are probably of pronounced (cf. Figs. 4, 5, 25). And the image of a large more recent origin.14Others are clearly zoomorphic.15 It is figure holding a smaller adult figure before it is common not my intent here to deal with a range of possibilities of (cf. Figs. 9, 10), as is the position of the kneeling woman. function or form but to single out a principal function Today the stone figures are used in a variety of ritual suggested by the figures that is most responsive to 8 At least one ancient stone figure (in the collection of the University Leone Studies, III, 1926, 89; T. Joyce, "Steatite Figures from West Africa Museum, University of Pennsylvania, No. 43.23.1) was collected as far in the British Museum," Man, v, 57, 1905, 99-100; Alldridge, 163-64; north in Temneland as Makeni, although it is not clear where it was Atherton and Kalous, 311-14; H. Sawyerr, God: Ancestor or Creator, found originally. The term, mal, may mean "ancient." London, 1970, 84; Thompson (as in n. 2), 1854, 290, and 1969, 416; W. Various names are used to designate these carved stones among the Addison, "The Nomori of Sierra Leone," Antiquity, vIII, 1934, 337; groups of the area. The Mende call them nomoli (pl., nomolisia), Edwin, 161; W. Harris and H. Sawyerr, The Springs of Mende Belief and properly the term for the African bowstring hemp (Sansevieria senegam- Conduct, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 1968, 71; Parsons, xiii, 72-74. bica on and used in but liberica) planted graves "medicines," applied 12 Ibid., xiii; Tagliaferri and Hammacher, 14. more generally to any object with "medicinal" or spiritually efficacious 13See n. 8; and also Dittmer, 185, for an interesting explanation of their properties. Among the Ko-Mende the term ngafotui (spirit-stone) is used origin. (M. Hill, "Archaeological Fieldwork in Sierra Leone, 1967-1968," West 14 19. African Archaeology Newsletter, xI, 1969, 15). Sch6n (as in n. 1, 80) gave Dittmer, 186; Tagliaferri and Hammacher, 16, the apparently archaic term male-yafa (sic), which applied as well to the 1sAtherton and Kalous (pp. 314-15) suggest that the stone figures = brass or iron rings discovered with the stone figures (mali "discover"; resemble Thomas's description of ang-kirfi (spirits): "One has only to = yafa [ngafa] "spirit").
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