The African Archive - Beyond Colonization

Lourdes Miller

Mende Horn and Silver Pendant

Research Dates:
Website: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/objects/168171

Mende Chief photo from 101LastTribes

Njaa ngla leweni wכ ndoma lכ woma. (Mende Proverb)
The dog was beaten by the rain because of love. (Literal English Translation)
Love is blind. (Figurative English Translation)

Sound, Signal, Substance, or Snuff?

Rethinking the Mende Horn and 19th Century Material Culture of Sierra Leone

“What can a horn pendant tell us about gender, power, and colonial memory?”

This site explores a 19th century horn pendant from Sierra Leone, housed in the Brooklyn Museum, through the lens of material culture and decolonial inquiry. Rather than treating the object as isolated “African art,” it is approached here as a lived, wearable artifact bound up in gendered initiation rituals, spiritual authority, missionary encounters, and colonial economies. Through close analysis, this site asks: What are we missing when African objects are stripped of their histories? What can material details like a cruciform stamp or the use of cow horn reveal about global entanglements?

A Mendi Chief and Satellites photo from 101LastTribes

In the 19th century, the Mende people were among the most prominent cultural groups in what is now southern and eastern Sierra Leone. Their ancestors are believed to have migrated from the Mali Empire centuries earlier, bringing with them political, agricultural, and spiritual traditions that would evolve over generations. Mende society was structured around complex networks of leadership that included both men and women. Figures like Madam Yoko, who held the title of paramount chief and was later formally recognized by British authorities, challenge assumptions about gender roles in West African governance.

At the heart of Mende life were powerful secret societies such as the Sande and Poro. These institutions shaped community values, education, and ritual knowledge. The objects associated with them, like horns, bells, carved masks, carried layered spiritual and social meaning. Yet most surviving records of Mende culture come from European observers whose interpretations often reflect their own agendas. Many of these traditions remain secretive, making formal Western scholarship of these objects rightfully difficult.

19th century German map showing the locations throughout the country under the influence of various missionary groups.

This website approaches Mende material culture not as static evidence of an “ethnic past” but as part of a living and shifting world. By focusing on specific objects and their material qualities, we begin to ask how colonial presence shaped what was preserved, what was misunderstood, and what stories have yet to be fully told.

The gaps in scholarship are often the most illuminating, not because they invite speculation, but because they reflect the deliberate privacy of Mende secret societies, spaces not meant to be fully known or explained through Western academic frameworks. Rather than trying to expose what is intentionally concealed, this website aims to appreciate the cultural depth of such traditions and to consider how an object like this pendant, now held in a museum, stands as a living testament to both Mende resilience and the lasting entanglements of colonialism.

This awareness shaped how I approached the exhibition. It was important not only to trace what the object might have meant within Mende society, but also to reflect on how its meaning changes in a museum setting. In its original context, the pendant was likely worn, handled, and engaged with as part of daily or ceremonial life. In a museum, it becomes static, removed from use, framed by institutional narratives, and interpreted through Western categories of “art” or “material culture.” That shift in context is central to understanding how cultural heritage is preserved, but also transformed, within museum spaces.

Unknown artist (Mende culture)
Horn and Silver Pendant, 19th century
Cow horn, silver, aluminum
10 1/4 × 3 × 2 1/2 in. (26 × 7.6 × 6.4 cm)
Sierra Leone, Mende people
19th century, Colonial Period
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Blake Robinson, 2004.76.1

This pendant was acquired by the Brooklyn Museum in 2004, attributed as a “gift” from Blake Robinson. As with many African objects in Western collections, the precise conditions of its removal from Sierra Leone remain undocumented, reflecting broader patterns of extraction, displacement, and collecting under colonial systems. While its exact provenance is unclear, the object’s materials and form suggest it belonged to a person of considerable standing within Mende society—potentially a political or spiritual leader. Today, it stands as a testament to both Mende craftsmanship and the complex histories of African cultural heritage in diaspora.

Material and Meaning

A Cow’s Horn and the Question of Value

In many West African societies, materials were not simply aesthetic choices but signifiers of power, spirituality, and access. Ivory, in particular, held prestige and was often reserved for the elite. In Sierra Leone, carved ivory items were traded with the Portuguese as early as the fifteenth century, and large ivory horns became ceremonial instruments of chiefs. These trumpets were held by family and played during official gatherings, symbolizing status and authority. Their intricate carvings reflected both artistic excellence and political reach.

By contrast, the pendant at the center of this study is made from a cow horn. While scholarship does not specifically describe the cultural weight of cow horn in Mende society, organic materials like wood, gourds, animal matter, and fiber in divination kits and charms suggests that value was not always tied to rarity. Power could be invested in material through use, ritual, and intent. Cow horn may have offered practical benefits but also a deliberate alternative to ivory. The choice might reflect a different kind of power, one tied to the spiritual or personal rather than the publicly political. Even though ivory was still accessible in the late nineteenth century, the use of cow horn may indicate a purposeful disassociation from elite systems, or a shift in the meaning of material itself.

Chief’s Horn
Mende artist, Sierra Leone
Before 1892
Ivory, rope
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
Accession No. BMAG:R3483/6

Carved from ivory with a rope handle, this horn features geometric and animal-like motifs, possibly a crocodile. Played by an attendant, such horns signaled the presence and authority of a chief. Though often labeled war horns, they were more closely tied to leadership and ceremony.

Wearability and Function

The pendant is small, portable, and finely worked. Its wearability suggests that it was not only made to be seen but also to move with the body. The object’s shape, size, and traces of use hint at its possible roles.

One likely interpretation is that the pendant functioned as a charm or talisman. In southern Sierra Leone, missionaries collected protective objects known as greegrees, worn to ward off witchcraft or misfortune. These often contained spiritual texts or symbols, and some were created under the guidance of diviners. Similar miniature pendants, prescribed to clients by spiritual leaders, were tailored in form and symbolism. This aligns with the idea that the horn pendant may have offered protection or connection to unseen forces.

Another interpretation considers the pendant as a ritual or spiritual tool. Horns, even in miniature, may have evoked ancestral power or divine presence. The object may have been imbued with hale, or spiritual force, understood through the actions of its maker, its wearer, and its use in ceremony.

It is also possible that the pendant served as an emblem of identity, tied to a particular social role, lineage, or secret society. While no direct evidence suggests it was used as a snuff container, its hollow form invites questions about function. Its ambiguity is part of its strength, resisting easy classification and instead pointing to a multifaceted life in use.

Horn Pendant (associated with Tongo practices)
Mende artist, Sierra Leone, Sherbro District
Before 1910
Cow horn, tooth, and organic materials
World Museum Liverpool, Sierra Leone Collection
Accession No. LIVCM.17.12.10.26

This horn was likely used to hold ritual substances and worn or carried for protection or power. It is linked to the Tongo Players, a group involved in spiritual investigations during the 1890s. Colonial authorities later banned such practices. The object reflects local ritual systems and the impact of colonial suppression.

Sound and the Implied Power of Voice

In Mende culture, sound is more than a sensory experience, it is a form of communication with the spirit world. Large ivory horns were used in chiefly contexts not only for ceremony but as instruments of authority. Their sound could announce presence, enforce silence, or signal protection. Women’s bells, strung around the waist or neck, carried their own kind of resonance. These were believed to be heard by ancestors, reinforcing ties between the living and the dead.

Even if this horn pendant did not produce sound, its shape links it to a broader sound culture. It may have symbolically referenced the authority of larger instruments, suggesting its wearer was connected to those same ritual structures. In West Africa, the visual sign of an object often holds just as much communicative power as its function. A decolonial approach resists extracting meaning from silence by filling it with speculation. Instead, it holds space for unknowns, for intentional secrecy, and for meanings that may have been obscured through colonial collection practices. The horn’s journey into a museum may sever it from its original context, but it also invites reflection on what remains. Its presence is a quiet echo of what once was, and what may still be remembered.

nafali masquerade in Sierra Leone, Mende male artist, 1900. From T. E. Leslie Alldridge, “Life in Mende-Land.” The Wide World Magazine 6 (32, 1900): 193

Makers and Materials

Metalworking Traditions

In 19th-century Sierra Leone, particularly among the Mende people, metalworking was an esteemed craft. Artisans created silver and gold jewelry such as bracelets, earrings, and pendants that held both aesthetic and cultural significance. These pieces were often worn during important ceremonies and symbolized social status and spiritual beliefs.

Smiths occupied a unique position in society. Their expertise in transforming raw materials into meaningful objects was respected, and their knowledge was sometimes considered esoteric. This dual perception granted them a special, albeit complex, status within the community.

Materials like silver were sourced through trade, including the repurposing of European coins. This practice was common in West Africa, where imported metals were adapted into local artistic traditions. The integration of foreign materials into indigenous designs reflects a dynamic exchange between cultures.

Materials like silver were often sourced through trade, including the repurposing of European coins. This practice reflects a dynamic exchange between local traditions and foreign influences, illustrating how global interactions were embedded within the material culture of the Mende. Notably, coins issued by the Sierra Leone Company beginning in 1791, such as the 50-cent and one-dollar pieces, were among the silver currencies circulating in the region.

The creation of metal objects was predominantly a male-dominated field. However, women played crucial roles as patrons and bearers of these items, especially in contexts like the Sande society, where jewelry and adornments were integral to initiation rituals and expressions of identity.

Lidded saltcellar, ca. 1490–1530. Temne or Bullom artist(s), Sierra Leone. Ivory; H. 11 3/4 × diam. 4 1/4 in. (29.8 × 10.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Paul and Ruth W. Tishman, 1991 (1991.435a, b). https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/310682.

Colonial Intersections

Unpacking Religious and Cultural Symbolism

A striking element of the Mende horn and silver pendant is the cruciform motif rendered in silver. While the precise origin of this detail is uncertain, it raises important questions about religious and cultural exchange in 19th century Sierra Leone. The cross is possibly Christian, but its presence on an object from a region with deep indigenous belief systems suggests a more complex story.

Although there is little archival evidence of missionary distributed crosses or imported molds for silverwork in Sierra Leone during this period, missionaries such as the United Brethren in Christ were active among the Mende people. Their presence, along with earlier Portuguese contact, introduced Christian symbols into local visual culture. We can also draw a parallel to earlier Sapi-Portuguese ivory carvings from coastal Sierra Leone, which integrated European imagery into African forms suggesting that artists in the region were adept at interpreting foreign motifs within their own aesthetic and spiritual frameworks.

Whether this cruciform was created using imported tools or adapted locally remains unclear. However, its material and iconographic choices suggest exposure to Christian forms, possibly through coins, prints, or other small portable items associated with missionaries or traders. As with the Sapi-Portuguese ivories, this pendant may reflect a local artisan’s interpretation rather than a direct replication of European religious art.

Spiritual and Religious Blending

The silver cross may not represent a wholesale adoption of Christianity, but rather an instance of cultural blending. The relationship between indigenous Mende spiritual practices and missionary Christianity was not one of simple replacement. Missionaries sought to suppress what they called “fetish” or “superstitious” customs, yet many local beliefs endured, often adapting to incorporate new elements.

Across West Africa, including Sierra Leone, sacred objects and symbols often held multiple, layered meanings. A cross could be reinterpreted as a powerful symbol and incorporated into charms (hale) or ritual tools. Just as African-American communities in the diaspora preserved African religious styles under a Christian guise, the Mende may have absorbed aspects of Christianity into their own cosmology without abandoning their traditional beliefs.

Furthermore, the use of foreign materials like silver, which may have come from melted-down European coins, adds another layer of meaning. These materials were not neutral; they carried connotations of value, prestige, or foreign power. Within the broader framework of Mende belief, where objects functioned as intermediaries between individuals and spiritual forces, a cruciform pendant may have signified power, protection, or transformation.

In this light, the cruciform detail should not be interpreted purely as evidence of Christian conversion. Instead, it may represent a dynamic negotiation between belief systems, a visual and material response to colonial and missionary encounters that allowed for continuity, adaptation, and resistance. This ambiguity is central to understanding the layered meanings of objects from this period, which often exist at the intersection of global contact and local tradition.

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