- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Slightly oval wooden stool with lentoid hand grip cut near the edge of the seat. [RTS 14/4/2005].
- Long description
- Stool carved from a single block of wood, consisting of a slightly oval top with narrow flat rim and flat, slightly recessed seat with lentoid hand-grip cut near one edge. The underside is flat and turns out at the centre into a squat cylindrical pedestal foot with swollen, bulbous sides that splay out at the bottom to form a disc base. A deep circular depression has been hollowed out at the centre of the base underside, but left with a rough surface finish; this was probably added to increase the stability of the form. The wood is a natural yellow colour (Pantone 7508C), but this has been stained black everywhere except the base underside (Pantone black 7C); this stain has largely worn off the seat. Most areas have also been polished to a high gloss. The upper rim edge of the seat has been decorated with two incised lines around the inside and outer edge; on one side of the rim, an additional detail of 4 shallow concentric arcs has been added in the space between. The pedestal has four rectangular vertical openings cut into it, spaced evenly around its circumference with the hollows meeting at the centre of the body. Immediately below the base of each window are a series of v-shaped grooves that run towards the edge of the foot. These are arranged in alternating groups of 2 to 4 pairs of grooves. The stool is complete, but has been mended. Two side pieces of the stool have cracked off and been glued back in place. One of these pieces may also have been pegged in place, with a nail hammered into the flat side edge of the seat and running at an angle into the wood near each end. These are visible only at their heads, where there is a circular depression filled with a white chalky material that appears to be mixed with small red and brown stones, and was probably a decorative element added to the head of each nail. The nail itself appears to be visible under one of these insets. On the other side of the seat, where there is the second broken section, there are 2 circular starter holes where it looks as though a similar repair was begun, but never carried through. There are some chips missing from the underside of the seat, and several minor surface scratches and wear along edges throughout. Finally, the foot has signs of a local repair, where 2 rectangular copper rivets were hammered across a crack that had developed - one on the side edge of the foot, one across the underside. Some of the surface of this underside has also eroded away, leaving an irregular, channeled surface. The stool has a height of 220 mm; the seat is 320 mm long, 305 mm wide and 29.4 mm thick, while the handgrip measures 70 by 22 mm across; the pedestal fenestrations are 30 mm wide and 91 mm high; the foot base has a diameter of 265 mm and is 20 mm thick, while the depression at its centre has a diameter of 76 mm [RTS 14/4/2005].
- Cultural groups
- Zande
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 1930
- Date collected
- 1927 - 1930
- Acquisition information
- Purchased: 1970
- Materials and processes
- Material Wood Plant, Material Pigment, Material Copper Metal, Process Carved, Process Decorated, Process Incised, Process Stained, Process Polished, Process Repaired (local), Process Inlaid
- Dimensions
- Depth: max 309 mm, Width: max 323 mm, Height: max 226 mm, Weight 1000 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1970.38.10
- Research and responses
The catalogue card states that this material was collected by Evans Pritchard in the 1920's; this presumably means between 1926 and 1930 when he conducted fieldwork amongst the Zande. For similar Zande stools, see also 1970.38.11 and 1948.2.138, and 1948.2.139 (with solid pedestal), all collected by Evans-Pritchard. Evans-Pritchard photographed a similar type of stool being manufactured by the Zande woodworker Kisanga - see the photographic archives for accession numbers 1998.341.22, 1998.341.79, 1998.341.316 and 1998.341.319 where a nearly completed stool is being stained by applying a liquid to it from a clay pot boiling on a fire, showing that, unlike some of the wooden bowls, stools were stained by the craftsman, not the subsequent owner. Other images show Kisanga using an adze to carve out the wood (e.g.: 1998.341.27, although in this case the stool has a square top - either because it is unfinished, or because it is a slightly different form). This type of stool also appears in images 1998.341.152, 1998.341.185 and 1998.341.502, and being sat on by men in 1998.341.206 and 1998.341.211.
Larken describes these stools as follows: "Solid wood… is employed in the manufacture of the stools, mbata, which are made after the fashion of this dish [a circular dish on a pedestal stem, sometimes pierced, with round base]; the seat is slightly hollowed so that there is a flat raised rim at the circumference, and is usually pierced so that it may be hung up by a cord out of the way of white ants. Such stools are about a foot in height, or rather more, the diameter being the same, though bigger ones are not uncommon … sections of logs … must be used for the standing dishes, stools and mortars." (P.M. Larken, 1927, "Impressions of the Azande", Sudan Notes and Records X, p. 132).
This style of object seems to be produced also by the Mangbetu, called nobarra, and carved by male craftsmen. These stools were used by Mangbetu women, who sometimes passed a carrying strap around the top of the pedestal and through the hand grip, with the strap either going across the forehead so the stool could hang down their back, or over one shoulder (see E. Schildkrout & C.A. Keim, 1990, African Reflections, pp 119-121, fig. 6.25, and photos showing these stools in use, figure 7.3 and 7.5) [RTS 1/6/2005].
Search terms: Furniture Dwelling, Stool, Furniture