Mbuti
Two Arrows, late 19th century
Iron head on wood shaft, length: 44.3 cm (17 7/16 in.) - 47.5 cm (18 11/16 in.)
These two African arrows are made of wood shafts with metal heads and date from the late 19th to early 20th century. Both arrows have slender wood shafts. One has a large flat metal leaf-shaped head that is pointed and the other has a much smaller metal head with a curved end that has small barbs extending down the shaft.
Long Gallery
Commentary
English merchant seaman and army officer Arthur Jermy Mounteney Jephson collected these arrows while on the infamous Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, in which he accompanied the explorer Henry Morton Stanley through Central Africa.
These arrows are probably from the Ituri Forest Region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and related to the Mbuti culture group. Mbuti iron-tipped arrows are exclusively used by men for group hunting of ground and big game. The iron tips are made by blacksmiths, who are regarded as powerful and important men within the community. In addition to controlling raw materials, they are also considered able to manipulate aspects of the spiritual word. Their makers’ unique connection to the supernatural and spiritual world suggest possible broader social or religious uses beyond the practical.
Jephson gave these arrows to Isabella Stewart Gardner as a Christmas gift but did not provide the specific context for acquiring them. The expedition—like most from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries—was certainly rooted in an extractive colonial context related to the expression of imperial power.