throwing knife (weapons: missiles & projectors); currency

Large throwing knifes in this form, known as oshele or woshele, are thought to have been used as a form of currency by the Bankutu and the Basongo Meno in central-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Belgian Congo). This example was collected by Emil Torday, who also refers to it in relation to the Bushongo people (Torday's name for the Kuba), giving it the Bushongo name 'shongo'. He suggests that for the Bushongo this knife has an almost mythical status as a weapon, and that their name is derived from it.

fighting

object
MUSEUM NUMBER
10.153
PLACE
COLLECTION
MATERIAL/TECHNIQUE
iron
CATEGORY
Anthropology: Ethnography
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Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

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