How many of you bring home memorabilia from your trips to africa? My wife and I have had quite a lot of fun haggling and trading in differant countrys for things we've seen and liked. I've got to admit that having these things around the house is a nice everyday reminder of our experiances in various countrys and brings back fond memories.



Ethiopian head rest:





Awale playing board, Dogon door from Mali and 2 "stick men" from Tanzania:





Mask from Mali:





Speers from various african regions, Masai buffalo hide shield and a common reedbuck:





San (bushman) hunting sack where they keep their digging stick and other utensils with an Impala skullmount:





San knife, and poison arrows (with dried up poison) next to west african mask and southern african music instument:





San quiver and bow next to blesbok:





Erik D.

Mask from Ivory Coast and monkey mask from Mali:





Closer view of shield:





Another Dogon door from Mali::





Big drum from Zimbabwe and smaller drum from Ethiopia:





Masai drinking gourd from Tanzania:





Mali masks:





Mask from Burkina Faso:





Bronze figures from Mali:





Chairs from Mali:





Spears and knives from my wifes great, great uncle who was a customs officer in the Congo over 100 years ago:





Erik D.

Very nice reminders of Africa. I usually bring back an item or two. Everything from carvings and spears to Amarula and porcupine quills! Thanks for sharing.

Brad

You have a beautiful collection of African artifacts.

We do the same thing. They are wonderful reminders of our trips.

Erik - you and your wife have collected some very nice and unique African goodies. It is not easy finding the genuine stuff, and it's obvious you spent time away from the tourist markets.

This past trip, instead of more carved lead wood, I brought back some painted wall hangings. I have one over a chair, and another on the wall w/a fancy curtain rod, and they help to break up the dead-heads a bit and add some color to the trophy room.

How did you go about getting the Bushman (Sans) arrows, knife, bow, etc? That stuff is great. All I managed to get was a spear and a few hatchets with the blades made of leaf springs. And what's the story w/the Awale playing board? Again, neat-neat stuff, thanks for posting.

Bill

Great stuff!! Well put together.

Most of it wouldn't get through Australian customs however

Very nice, Eric!! Very nice.

Frans

very nice

I enjoy the "shopping" for momentos too.
In almost daily use is my warthog tusk bottle opener from Namibia. And I'm just waiting for the "trophy room" to be built (someday) to put up the asagi spears

My favorite!

Quote:

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Ethiopian head rest:

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That's a lot of nice stuff, and transporting those items could not have been easy.

Erik,

That is some great stuff. We have collected a few things, but they are just "touristy stuff" compared to what you have.









Regards,

Terry

Bill,

We were very fortunate to be in the capitol of Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou) when a special yearly event took place dealing in african artifacts. Traders came from all over the continent to sell stuff that is aquired in small, out of the way villages for next to nothing. Buyers come from all over the world to pick up artifacts that are then exported to be sold in western "high-end" artifact stores for a fortune. We benefited from this by learning quite a lot about telling the differance between newer things and things that are genuinly old by being able to compair so many genuinly old things next to newer things in one place. This event is really only for people in the business and Air France has a special air-freight deal for people participating. I think it was 2 Euro per kilo which is pretty cheap. Even though we were not really accredited, we pulled a fast one on Frog Airlines, and pretended like we were. It was actually quite simple since basically no other westerners are there unless they're a part of it.

The difficulty with many masks and other things sold in markets (even in "high-end" artifact stores found in RSA) are that much of it is actually new, but are buried in dirt etc for a while to make them appear old. If you aren't very careful and perceptive, it's easy to be fooled. All in all, finding really old stuff is a lot easier in west africa, where there is much less tourism than in east/southern africa. But even in west africa you can be fooled! It's a differant case of course when buying things that are obviously not very old. Then at least no one is being fooled, and these things are just as valuable as something really old when it comes to memories of ones stay in africa.

We have some new things too, such as some basic, but colorful oil paintings we bought in Mozambique. Actually they were traded for with baseball caps, t-shirts and such. My wife who did these trades over several weeks got to be known by the local boys as "The Change Lady"! This suited me fine since I was off scuba diving every day for a couple of weeks, and it kept her occupied! We have a couple of them hanging over our babys crib where they fit nicely so she can look at the colors.

As for the Bushman stuff, you'll find many small villages in the area around Tsumkwe in the Kalahari. A few are used to tourist coming along with sporadic organized tours, while others are more off the beaten track and you have to be pointed in the right direction to find the tracks that lead to them. We happend to have been in Tsumkwe previously (2000) and re-visited the couple who runs the only campsite when we passed that way this time. With a bit of directions from the wife, we were able to find a village that tourists never visit, but where one of the bushmen spoke a few words of english. This is kind of important, since we'd been thru many bushman villages where no one spoke a single word of english. Making it kind of difficult for us to learn anything! Anyway, it was in this village that we hung around for a day, "talked" and bartered for various things. Bartering is also and important point. Unfortunatly, the bushmen are rather fond of alcohol... And thus, just using cash can actually do quite a lot of damage. The solution is to trade with items such as mielie flour, tobacco and so on which they otherwise buy, together with a relativly small amount of cash to the village headman. At least it's kind of a solution. The same thing applies to the Himba in northwest Namibia. Trading with food is better than getting all the men drunk... We have a full Himba womans outfit we traded for that we want to try and hang up too. The problem is that their cloths are soaked in the earthy red gunk they put on their bodys. This is made from ochre and rancid butter. So we're thinking of making a flat glass box that can hang on the wall in a frame like a painting. This might take a while since the glass would have to be reflection free (expensive), relativly airtight, and put together in a nice way.

The awale board is bought, and not traded. It would be nice to say that I won it in a nightlong awale contest with some wise old village cheif with drums pounding thru the jungle, but unfotunatly this isn't true! The fact is though that I have watched many old men play awale all over africa (although the name, and some of the rules varies a bit from region to region). They play so fast that it's amazing! I seriously doubt that I'd have a snowballs chance in hell to beat one of these grizzled old guys...

To round up a long post, all our african mementoes, both older and newer bring back fond memeories, which is the important thing.

Erik D.

Terry,



Your stuff looks good! I like it when people blend in african things in their homes, as much that is made is very decorative.



I see that your Masai spear is at the ready to defend your household.



Did the trophy picture frames come from over there too?



Erik D.

Erik,

No, we found those frames over here.

Regards,

Terry

The best thing about the mementos and artifacts is that they are real. They're from Africa, not a mass-produced knock off. That alone means that when your guests ask about them, they will come away impressed with whatever your answer is.

Congrats and thanks for sharing.