Away from Africa

A fricans made metal tools by sharpening them with stone instruments, before they started using European-style hoes and specialized tools. Stools were mainly found in forest areas, because of the availability of large blocks of wood.   Traditionally, a person would put in an order for a custom stool with a professional sculptor, who would make it out of a block of wood. First the wood had to be hollowed out with a hoe, called a d ibao . The sculptor would use a controlled fire (using hulls of palm nuts, or banana leaves) within the wood, to soften it in order to be able to hollow it out, in a similar way as used when making a  pirogue . The sketch shows the way the stool was sculpted, along with the photo of a finished stool. Before the stool was finalized, the client would sit on it to ensure that the height and width were comfortable. The formed stool was then sculpted with symbols, names... Before the use of sandpaper, leaves of a plant na...

  T he most important piece of furniture in an African household is the seat, most often a stool or bench, as it is called in French:  le banc .    The  Duala  of the area now known as  Cameroon , for example, believed that the owner’s mystical strength lay in his seat; it was therefore dangerous for another person to sit on it. This person could be hit by lightning if he did not possess a similar mystical force. To sit on another person’s seat was to openly defy him, and nobody was surprised to find the transgressor dead the next day.   In  Ghana , an  Ashanti ’s seat would be tipped to one side when its owner was absent, to ensure it would not be used in his absence.   These backless seats were also used as thrones, albeit very ornately sculpted. A throne was not sufficient to make a king: the officials of the kingdom, who had assisted at the death and the burial of the previous king, were the only ones en...