SHORT GUIDE TO VINTAGE AFRICAN SPOONS
 

Traditional societies throughout Sub-Saharan Africa employ large spoons, ladles, and scoops for cooking and serving, as meals are often a communal affair.  Spoons are regarded not only as utilitarian objects but as symbols of treasured social values:  giving, sharing, nourishing, and accomplishing domestic duties with grace and skill.  Thus it is not surprising that some African peoples, like the Dan of Liberia/Cote d' Ivoire, create extra-large and elaborately carved spoons (wunkirmian) to present to the village woman most admired for her cooking and hospitality.  These spoons most frequently take the form of a woman's body, the swelling bowl symbolizing the life-giving womb (and maybe a filled-up stomach), the strong legs indicating the woman's centrality in the family structure.  Other wunkirmian designs include beautiful female faces or animal heads surmounting the handle.

Antique Dan spoons of this sort can be quite expensive indeed, they often are purchased by museums or high-end collectors.  But there are many affordable figurative spoons that show age, use, and artistic innovation.  Because much of what we think of as African Art is private in view only during religious, agricultural, or social ceremonies, and even then hidden from some sectors of the community carvers enjoy demonstrating their talent by embellishing objects of daily use that everyone can see and admire.   Handles often end in human heads or figures, small public versions of the larger carvings and masks reserved for ritual occasions.  Alternatively, handles may be zoomorphic, topped by a animal's head or a perching bird.  Most frequently the shafts and bowls are unadorned, apart from the marvelous patina the wood has acquired over years of use.  Sometimes, however, these parts of the spoon are embellished with carved or incised designs.  Besides the Dan, groups known for their figural spoons include the Baule, the Kongo, the Fang, the Luba, and the Bamun. 

Almost all African peoples produce non-figural wooden spoons, beautiful in their simplicity, a pleasure to hold and feel.  Zulu spoons are particularly noteworthy examples.  They are crafted from close-grained wood and smoothed with abrasive bark; handles may be decorated with burned and blackened geometric designs. Both ends of the spoon have utility: the bowl end for serving or eating and the sharp end for stirring and poking.  They have to be placed in a specific pattern around the communal food dish, and when not in use, are stored carefully in grass pouches. Always carved by men, the spoon are often made especially for a single individual, as in the traditional gift of utensils to a new bride, symbolizing that she can partake in the communal food source.  Indeed, some subtly figural Zulu spoons allude to the union of men and women, the bowl representing the feminine and the phallic terminal of the handle representing the masculine.  There may also be a design motif called amasumpa (literally "warts"), which was associated with cattle.  A spoon with this decoration suggests the cattle payment that binds Zulu marriages. Another tradition holds that a bride cannot share her husband's meat and milk until a spoon and a goat (called the spoon of the goat) were exchanged between families.

In all parts of Africa, figural and decorative spoons are fashioned for the tourist trade.  These can be attractive, and buying new craftwork does help support artisans in economically troubled areas. Just be sure you know what you are purchasing, and pay accordingly.   Finally, beware of the ungainly Neo-African spoons churned out by artisans all over the world.  With very rare exceptions, these sorts of items are not worth acquiring.

When buying a vintage African spoon, look for excellence in carving, harmonious proportions, balance of elements, patina of use, and condition of the wood.  If you can first examine it in person, hold it and touch its interior and exterior surfaces:  spoons are intended to be tactilely satisfying as well as functional. Further, grasping the spoon shows you where to look for signs of age.  Spoons naturally will be more lustrous at the place where human hands have gripped them for many years;  the carving may also be a bit more worn at this spot. 

Prices for vintage African spoons vary from well under fifty dollars US to the high hundreds, with fine examples available in the seventy-five to one-hundred and fifty-dollar range.

References:

Marc Ginzberg, African Form

Lindsay Hooper,  "Domestic Arts -- Carved Wooden

      Objects in the Home, in Zulu Treasures --

      Amagugu kaZulu

Philip L. Ravenhill, The Art of the Personal Object

Ernest Winizki, African Spoons

To see some great examples of African spoons, please visit our eBay store, Africa Direct