SWAHILI BOX WITH SWIVELING LID

There has been no consensus on who the “Swahili” are. A growing body of literature has focused on Swahili origins, history society, culture and identity, but surprisingly, the question remains unanswered. I argue that, in part the issue of who the Swahili are is complex…an elusive name tag often laden with social and political overtones.

Fadhili Safieli Mshana, The Art of the Zaramo

OBJECT BIOGRAPHY

MARKS OF THE HAND are visible all over this object, saw lines, slips of the chisel, wiggliness in the borders of the geometric decoration. The construction of the box itself is also curious, it’s made out of a solid block of hardwood, with the top sawn and reattached with a nail to make the swiveling lid. The bottom of the box is not fully carved out, but has a deep circular scoop almost centered lengthwise, removing less than a third of the material of the original wood block, so the base of the box easily outweighs the lid, which allows the box to stay upright even when the lid is opened, a design feature also seen in Sri Lankan spice boxes. The hole was carefully excavated, likely using an adze or curved scraper, in the same technique a maker might use to carve a bowl or a spoon. To me, the decorative carving seems almost improvisational and speaks to an urge from the maker to create something useful with their own hands, and prioritizing the making experience over a finely finished, lightweight, or practical finished object.

IT IS UNCLEAR TO ME what the box may have been intended to hold: Bajuni cash boxes (mkakase) seem to be of a similar size and shape, but are of radically different external appearance–cylindrical, with red and black painted or lacquered designs. Kuba cosmetic containers and Somali inkwells from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century both have a similarly sized and shaped cavity, and the Kuba cosmetic containers also bear some of the same carved imagery, like the sun-like motif. Athman Hussein, a Lamu trained wood-carver, identifies this motif as commonly included in the Bajuni style of Swahili carved overdoors, characterized by geometric chip carving. The incised rows of sharp mountains and valleys found on either side of the sun-like motifs, the bands of tessellating triangles around the borders, and the bands of chevrons–like those found on the handle of the lid–are also common in Bajuni door carvings: Hussein calls these saw ridge, shark-teeth and majani palm leaf patterns, respectively. Yet, Hussein warns against attempts to read too much meaning, especially into the more geometric stylings:

Although many scholars and tourist guides often project all sorts of meanings onto the patterns and motifs of Swahili woodwork, they are in fact mostly purely decorative, except when they are hiziri (protective emblems or inscriptions). The patterns are indeed beautifully complex and original, but they primarily express the Swahili appreciation for beautiful form and artistic inventiveness.

-“Reflections on the Artistry and History of Swahili Carved Doorframes in the Collection of the Lamu Museum”

THE EXTERIOR OF THE BOX is decorated with improvisational geometric chip carvings. While the decorative scheme draws on established chip carving conventions, the application of the decorations is asymmetrical with modulated angles and irregular sizing to fit the patterns into the surfaces of the box. It seems likely that this box was decorated by a non-professional carver. Elizabeth Orchardson describes three loose categories for production among the Mijikenda of inland Kenya

1. Things most people can make like wooden spoons, baskets, calabash containers
2. Things which are usually made by a craftsperson, “considered as demanding additional skill that in practice only a few people acquire” including metalworkers, drum-makers and woodcarvers, and finally-
3. Things which are must be commissioned through a controlled political and ritual context, such as commemorative sculptures and the sacred drum.

Due to the sacred nature of the third group, I have opted not to reproduce images of commemorative sculpture such as Zaramo gravemarkers, since the consensus seems to be that they should not be held in museum collections. As a more secular but still highly trained example of craftmanship, compare the cuts to highly specialized carving production like these sandals possibly made for a sultan Fumo Omari. The triangles are much more regular and have clean edges with very little tear-out. The boundaries between chips are of fine, but even thickness.

NEXT, COMPARE THE DECORATION on the box to a Boni wooden comb (shannuo), which can be carved by most men, but some specialize and create particularly expert carvings. Here the edges on the cuts show little tear-out, indicating a sharp tool, but some diagonals don’t line up precisely, some cuts have a little bit of wiggle to them, and there is variety in the size and dimensions of the chipped out triangles.

Another type of Boni comb (fili) appears to have either been carved with a duller tool, or carved out of a less workable wood, because the lines are quite wiggly and show notable instances of tear-out, where the tool ripped out a section of wood-grain instead of cleanly cutting through. The elaborately shaped handles of these combs might indicate what the handle of this box may have looked like before it broke.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

ACCORDING TO LAURA FAIR, after slavery (utumwa) was abolished in 1897, and sumptuary laws were no longer in effect, dress and display could be strategically manipulated to construct the appearance of prestige and hierarchy that was previously associated with the coastal elites. Prita Meier says, “while this process was by no means easy or uncontested, new arrivals, from inland African and overseas, could reinvent themselves as waungwana by appropriating coastal culture, by dressing and living a waungwana lifestyle.” 21st-century Swahili citizens continue to negotiate their cultural status through semi-public and private displays in the home and, alongside luxury commodities like porcelain, Meier says, “locally created Swahili arts are valued and exemplary objects of proper living that evoke a refined past and prestigious lineage (even if only imagined).” This construction of heritage at times is concurrent and in opposition with institutional constructions, like museums and the state.

The majority of my visual research has been sourced through the NATIONAL MUSEUMS OF KENYA, (NMK), a museum collection descended from the East African Natural History Society (EANHS) founded in 1911. Indigenous communities were excluded from the museum until the 1940’s and even after Kenya gained its independence from Britain in 1963, van den Berg says “the exhibits continued to be made for and by the ‘white elite’…who continued their racially segregating vocabulary.” In “Exhibiting African Heritage Today: Revisiting Western Museum Management in and out of Africa,” van den Berg identifies movement toward reform at the museum starting with the 2002-2007 European-funded initiative ‘Museum in Change’.

[The initiative] aspired a global and equal future for all Kenyans and reorganized Kenya’s heritage management by starting reforms at the National Museum of Nairobi. A series of (Western) inquiries from consultancy agencies and museum experts followed…The advice is summarized by the NMK as follows…the idea of culture now encompasses change as its inner dynamic that secures its continuity. It substitutes the view on culture as ‘traditional’ and static and delivers new exhibiting option such as ‘cultural diversity , cultural similarity, cultural change and culture as an agent to change.’

van den Berg addresses the conflicts in the museum’s mission between ethnic and national identifications, but concludes by “positively emphasizing Kenya’s self-management and resilience after years of disparaging colonialism” and expresses hope for the continuing efforts of the national museums.

ACCORDING TO STEPHEN ROCKEL’S essay, “From Shore to Shore,” while Swahili communities can be roughly associated with the language Kiswahili, they are primarily delineated by their cultural association (or historical cultural association) with land and sea-based trade routes. “Caravan culture,” Rockel says, “was highly innovative, constantly absorbing new ideas, creating a mercurial cultural ‘grammar’ across vast distances.” Through my digital exhibition I wanted to show how the box with a swiveling lid encapsulates these aspects of Swahili culture. IT IS AN INNOVATIVE OBJECT ABOVE ALL, with ties to both inland and overseas wood carving traditions, but not entirely within the bounds of any single lineage.

I felt that attempting to ascribe symbolic meaning to the mostly abstract geometry of the carvings would be foolish, especially considering Hussein’s comments as mentioned above. The stylistic connection seemed far more relevant. The box alludes to the older, more geometric Bajuni-style of woodcarving rather than the relatively newer Siyu style, and is thus more closely linked to what Hussein describes as the height of prosperity for the coastal city-states, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Carved overdoors during this period were markers of class stratification and luxury dwellings and the houses themselves “manifest the affluence and splendor of powerful families” but the carved door was “the most public exterior-oriented symbol of the homeowner’s social power” in the highly stratified traditional coast society.