PRESTIGE AXE

SOTHO OR TSWANA, BOTSWANA / SOUTH AFRICA / LESOTHO

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This Sotho or Tswana prestige axe is one of the rarest types of axes from Southern Africa. Many seasoned African weapons collectors were skeptical of this piece when it was rediscovered in a small US auction. Subsequent research has revealed at least three other examples in major museums. The British Museum has an example (donated by the Wellcome Institute in 1954) with an unadorned handle. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford also has an example(acquired from the Ipswich Museum in 1966 and attributed to the Bechuana people) and Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum has an almost identical example but with a flat butt as opposed to the more phallic example of this work (collected between 1889-1892 and misattributed as Congo). Their example was gifted by the Jenks Museum, a museum founded in 1871 as Brown’s Museum of Natural History and Anthropology. 

Whilst the precise attribution of this axe is not known (the Mfecane, a historical period of heightened military conflict and migration associated with state formation and expansion in Southern Africa lasting from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, had caused wide spread migrations and a resulting transfer of material culture influences throughout southern Africa) the striking shape of the blade bears a strong resemblance to the fantastic brass breast ornaments worn by high-ranking Sotho men in the 19th century. The top of the handle representsa highly abstracted head, and the butt of the handle is distinctly phallic-shaped, much like many Zulu spoons. An old collection number remains on the side of the handle.

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