Four Mumuye Coins

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Lot: 677

Four Mumuye Coins

Lot consisting of four paleo-coins. Mumuye culture, Nigeria. Made in iron. Measurements (from largest to smallest): 110 x 73.5 cm, 101 x 68.5 cm, 80 x 58 cm and 55 x 41 cm. All of them with base (not included in the measurements).

In the African tribal context, coins are related to an idea of value or prestige, but not necessarily to the concept of a regular exchange instrument. There is social recognition, a consensus on the concept that a piece has value, and that this value can be expressed, consistently, in a quantitative way. Although they do not have the guarantee that is associated with a currency to use, there is a social recognition towards them. This recognition has a collective dimension since there is no personal enrichment. Social life in a tribe brings into play key functions that structure give and take relationships. Failure to do so would be an act of hostility.

Paleo-coins are offered in multiple models and materials: metals, textiles, mollusk shells, glass beads... they tend to take multiple shapes that help to recognize the style and execution of an artisan or group of artisans who make them. produce.

Not all paleo-coins have the same monetary level. Sometimes the objects have another use until at a given moment they reach that degree, once the society assumes it and guarantees it like this.

The following paragraph helps to situate these pieces as coins:

"An example like these is offered by some practices and figures of betrothal, in the Angas tribe, in Bauchi. The betrothal is set with a gift offered to the father of the bride, and it can be a rooster or two thousand shells. Until the day the bride reaches the age of the marriage (at the age of nine or ten) his mother receives a gift from the groom every year, consisting of a sack of cornmeal.The fiancé then delivers a great haza, the great coins of the region.These gigantic iron coins, the older in Africa, they are attributed to the Mumuye."

In the attached illustration you can see a nuptial hut in a Mumuye village. The photograph shows the door of the hut, closed by one of the huge coins that are presented in this lot. Pictured is the son of a village chief in the Nigerian state of Taraba. The arrival of Muslim priests and Christian missionaries have been causing the disappearance of many traditions and, due to that, these objects have been sold in such a way that they have reached the Western market.

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Object

Four Mumuye paleo-coins

Country

Nigeria

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