Antique Tuareg Manilla Currency/Slave Bracelet, North/West Africa (3156JCE) $195

Description

Tuareg traditional herders were nomadic tribal peoples who traversed an area the size of Western Europe in the Sahel region and the Sahara Desert and in the North African countries of Mali, Niger, Libya, Algeria, Chad and West African Burkina Faso. Followers of Islam, they are prohibited from creating figures or masks and use their artistic talents to create exceptional functional metalwork, wood and leather objects embellished with abstract geometric designs including circular and horseshoe shape bracelets with decorated ends. This antique Tuareg manilla bracelet/anklet from Mali or Niger was fashioned using a sand mould to create a slim circular-shaped bracelet with hoof-shaped terminals, hand incised line decorations, and applied faceted rounded beads at the open ends. It is decorated with v-shaped incised striations that continue through the ends with 13 facet ends. During the colonization of Africa in the 1500s by Europeans imported their own factory made bracelets, called them manillas which became slave trade currency referred to as slave bracelets to purchase slaves for plantations in the Americas.

Click here for the Blog Manillas: Former African Trade Currency.

Sources

Helen E. Hagan and Lucile Meyers, Tuareg Jewelry: Traditional Patterns and Symbols, Xlibrus Corporation, 2006.

African Jewelry, African Slave Trade Bracelets/Manilla, North Africa, Saharan Africa, Tuareg, West Africa