Exeter-Museum-Devon at African Antiques

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Exeter Museum-Devon

Royal Albert Memorial Museum World Culture Galleries
Queen Street Exeter Devon EX4 3RX

Tel: 01392 665858 Fax: 01392 421252 len.pole*exeter.gov.uk

See also African Travel for other cities related on African art

World Cultures Galleries

These galleries concentrate on the finest objects covering a 200 year period as well as a gallery for the display of ancient Mediterranean and Egyptian civilisations going back over 5,000 years, including a re-constructed Egyptian tomb.

The display sections highlight many hundreds of items of the highest quality from each continent. For example, the range of items from Southwest Nigeria includes two beaded royal crowns and fans, masks associated with cult groups, 19th century wood carvings and cast bronze as well as everyday objects like cloth, stools, musical instruments and weapons.

Henry Townsend (1820 - 1885)

Townsend photo Born in Exeter in 1820, Henry Townsend showed an early desire to be a missionary. Sent as a teacher to Sierra Leone in 1836, aged 21, he became sympathetic towards the situation of the freed Yoruba slaves, many of whom wished to return to their homeland in what is now Nigeria. Townsend volunteered to work for the Church Missionary Society, in Abeokuta from 1843.

He returned to Exeter in 1876. During a period of leave in 1868, he gave a selection of the items he had collected to the new museum in his home town. They now form an invaluable picture of aspects of mid-19th century Yoruba life.

To find out more about the Yoruba visit the MOLLi Yoruba website: http://www.molli.org.uk/yoruba/welcome.html

Esu-figure Collected By: Townsend

Region: Abeokuta, Nigeria, West Africa

Description: Figure of Esu, who wears an elaborate female hair-style consistent with his desire to confuse. The style of the carving is associated with North-east Oyo. This figure and another stood either side of the entrance to chief Ogunbona’s Palace in Abeokuta. Both were given to Townsend by the chief, who died in 1861.

Other items in the Exeter Museum

priest's costume Exeter Collected By: Dennett

Region: Kongo Kingdoms, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa

Description: Mask made of painted wood. Costume made of netted vegetable fibre and feathers, mostly of a species of hornbill. It was probably worn by a priest (nganga) for protection when he was in contact with potentially dangerous spirits. Red is associated with blood and danger, black with the land of the living, white with ancestors. The museum’s Accessions Register for October 1889 merely reads: “Collection of ethnological objects from Cacongo, S. Africa from Mr R.E. Dennett. Ashton near Exeter.”