Description:

West Africa, Cameroon, Centre Region, Bafia tribe, ca. late 19th to early 20th century CE. A hefty club-shaped iron potato masher known as an ensuba. The stocky head has a flat pounding face on the bottom and a tapered conical handle on top that was easy to grip due to the coarse iron surfaces. Ensuba like this example were used as currency for rare, unusual, or highly symbolic transactions. The cost of thirty ensubas was the necessary price for a man to 'purchase' a wife from her father. Size: 3.9" W x 16.25" H (9.9 cm x 41.3 cm)

Cf. Opitz, Charles J. "An Ethnographic Study of Traditional Money: A Definition of Money and Descriptions of Traditional Money." First Impressions Printing, Inc., Florida, 2000, p. 141, second from top.

Provenance: private J.H. collection, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, acquired in the early 2000s

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#154851

  • Condition: Abrasions and coarse surfaces commensurate with age, otherwise intact and very good. Nice iron patina throughout.

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November 19, 2020 8:00 AM MST
Louisville, CO, US

Artemis Fine Arts

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