What Will People Consider Artifacts in 100 years?

What Will People Consider Artifacts in 100 years?

Do you anytime stop to anticipate that one day, the activity we’re active with now will be advised history? A awe-inspiring anticipation because we anticipate of the accomplished as aback in the “olden days” area bodies had to airing barefoot to academy both means in the snow and they didn’t accept the Internet or radio to accumulate them aggregation on arid Saturday afternoons.

An absorbing anticipation is what will bodies accede to be artifacts aback they attending at us in 100 years? Will they attending at our aerial tech cell phones and blogs because we were so amused by the simple things in life? Will they attending at the war in Iraq and apprehend that it was the point aback the apple absolutely started to breach down? Will they anathema us for ruining the planet and the accustomed adorableness of the Earth for them?

Chances are, they will be attending at our technology, our blogs, our photos and celebrity attraction and booty that as the artifacts from these years of our lives. It is not necessarily a bad thing, we do not apperceive if the apple will be in ruin in 100 years or if it will be this utopia area worldly accord reins and worlds ache has ended. What we do apperceive is what we accept actuality today, and what we accept is not that bad.
We accept terrorism, we accept war and we accept abundant abandon to aftermost lifetimes. We additionally accept a lot of peace, adulation and achievement that can serve as abiding artifacts for the future. Approaching ancestors can attending aback at the artifacts we leave and apperceive we were an anatomy of bodies, who were aggravating to do the appropriate affair, while accepting ashore in the mistakes of the past.

Hopefully bodies of the approaching will abide to apprentice from our mistakes and use our artifacts as guides to always advance the world. They could additionally aloof in booty and attending at the affair pictures that we leave and smile because we at least knew how to accept during acceptable times!
People can sit and accept about the approaching and bethink the accomplished for what it was. What we can do is accomplish our mark for the approaching to appearance others and accomplish them accept what we as bodies were all about. We formed hard, we played alike harder and we admired to accomplish a difference. In the end, that will be all that matters.
Then, maybe in 200 years, the bodies will be attending back at us in history and admit that this was the time in history past cultures were absolutely focused on accomplishing the appropriate affair and creating a more good activity for anybody in it, including the bodies of the future.

Can they get all of this from the artifacts we leave behind? Of course! We accept apprentice from accomplished ancestors that way, haven’t we? That is why we leave abaft our mark, to appearance the bodies of the approaching what we did and area we are going. Who knew artifacts told that accomplished story?

Calabash Water Pipe

Calabash Water Pipe
Wood, tar (used nature), Calabash
Size in cm: 30 x 14 x 12
Weight: 200g.

Water pipe with a half male figure on a calabash used as the suction part of the pipe. The figure is attached to the calabash with brass wires and indigenous glued material. The figure shows details that helped identify this pipe with the Himba people. In many cases this pipe will questionably be held for Luba origin, but the stem style being dominantly male, contributes to the Himba culture. Elaborate waterpipes such as this were used by chiefs or dignitaries to smoke tobacco and in some cases even hemp. Himba sculpture is dominated by the representation of men. It is through male presence that the high ranking of the clan is ensured. Such an artefact would be owned by either the tribal chief or other high ranking male society members.

Kifwebe Mask

Kifwebe Mask
Wood, reed, vegetable fibre
Size in cm: 29 x 28 x 11
Weight: 400g.

"Kifwebe" means "Mask" in the Songye language. The typical style with the bean shaped eyes, round face, square mouth and waved face decoration (linear incisions) is very original for its character. The Luba Eastern live in the Katanga Province in the neighborwood of the Buyu, Hemba, Zela and other Luba subgroups. The size of the crest determines the magical power of the mask which can be found in use at funeral ceremonies, initiations and circumcisions. Also traditional for such masks would be the pigmentation of the linear incisions. Round mask with striations is the most famous of the Luba Kifwebe masks, made for the Bwadi Bwa Kifwebe Secret society. This attention to detail is queationable if the Luba people borrowed it from the Songye tribes.

Chokwe Mask with Headdress (Mwana Pwo)

Chokwe Mask with Headdress (Mwana Pwo) Wood, reed, vegetable fibre Size in cm: 26 x 23 x 14 Weight: 100g.

This mask presents beautifully its headdress and comes from the Chokwe people who are members of a large culture cluster living today in Zambia, central Angola and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This cluster of prominently Chokwe people is also composed of the Lunda, Ovimbundu, Lwena, Luvala, Mbwela, and Imbangala and a number of distinct but related peoples. As a result of the complex interaction of people the region has shared stylistic elements, based upon shared ritual practices and mythologies. Masks were used during Mukanda initiation rites for young boys through a series of endurance tests. The present mask called Mwana pwo depicts a beautiful young woman and represents the female ances­tor. Mwana Pwo also dances at the induction of a new chief, fertility rituals, at funerals, and during public entertainment. Also among the Chokwe dances in which masks are prominent are the means to publicly demonstrate appropriate conduct and correct social behavior. The dancer of Mwana Pwo attracts a very large audience, especially women. The grace and elegant gestures of the pwo mask teach Chokwe women to act in a graceful manner. Mwana Pwo reflects all the positive attributes of an ideal woman who can resemble the Chokwe female ideal.

Helmet crest

Helmet crest
Wood
Size in cm: 40 x 19 x 13
Weight: 400g.

These helmet crests are examples of ownership by politically influential men's association in every kingdom of the region. The lineage masks used during memorial services for the dead, latterly represent animals such as apes, sheep, bird species or buffaloes. However, elephant and leopard masks / crests are considered as royal animals and the use of such royal animal masks is reserved for the privilaged of certain lineages. This exclusive elephant mask, which would be worn horizontally on the head, can be sourced back to the Babanki style of the northwestern Grasslands.

Fang Mask(s)

Fang Mask
Wood, wood polish
Size in cm: (Male) 64 x 15 x 7
(Female) 62 x 15 x 7
Weight: (Male) 150g.
(Female) 200g.

Members of this male society wore the Ngil masks during the initiation of new members and the persecution of wrongdoers aswell as the use of a form of passport for crossing cultural borders. Masqueraders, clad in raffia costumes and attended by helpers, would materialize in the village after dark, illuminated by flickering torchlight. This great rain forest region in the Fang territory is a plateau of middle altitude, with innumerable waters with falls and rapids rendering navigation for the most part impossible, and with a climate typically equatorial. The top mask would be used for woman which is strongly indicated by the certain tattoo patterns across the face whereas the lower/bottom mask would be primarily carved for male members.

Wemba Statue

Wemba Statue
Wood, Glassbeads
Size in cm: 22 x 72 x 22
Weight: 3.4kg

The karan-wemba statue combines a wooden female figure standing on a stool-shaped surface. The standing female figure is ornamented with a colourful glassbead necklace and sacrification patterns on belly and arm region. This indicates the high ranking of such a woman and most probably married to a community member. Carving in such a style comes from the region of Burkina Faso, an area where Mossi horsemen from northern Ghana conquered the earlier Dogon inhabitants (about 1500). These sculptures went together with karan-wemba masks which were used in tribal functions to appear at the funeral of an elderly Mossi woman. The statue represents the woman at the height of her physical beauty.

Body / Belly Mask

Belly
Mask
Wood, black pigment
Size in cm: 36 x 17 x 12
Weight: 300g

The Belly Mask from the Makonde tribe, Southeastern Tanzania. Carved from a solid tree trunk the hollow to ergonomically fit the front part of the body. The mask is normally part of the costume of a Ndimu masker and are normally worn by a male masquerader on a return ritual that accompanied the return of boys / men from the bush camp. The mask represents a pregnant young woman. These masks are no longer made or worn today. These artefact is worn together with a matching face mask.

Tokoloshi (Power Figure)

Tokoloshi Figure
Wood, textile, pigment
Size in cm: 44 x 10 x 10
Weight: 300g

The tokoloshi is a magical figure which is highly feared in the traditional Owambo Culture of Namibia. According to elders, the tokoloshi being comes at nighttime and brings along death. Strong believers in this mythological being have a fear of sleeping in direct contact with the ground, since saying goes, that the soul will be taken from there, while asleep. The overall power of this figure remains questionable if it would bring bad luck or simply a form of spiritual protection. The Owambo society live in the northern part of Namibia and its surrounding border countries like Angola and Botswana. This piece however is sourced from Namibia.

Nkishi Figure (Power Figure)

Nkishi Figure
Wood, textile, horn, sea shells (cowry shells)
Size in cm: 65 x 21 x 15
Weight: 3kg

This figure is a power figure which protects the villagers from dark and evil forces. From carefully calculated correspondences the prominent stomach and large protruding head with its massive horn creates a very aggressive and powerful image, tempered by the perfection of the textiles and the beauty of the shining surface. Always with african art of such kind, the sea shells indicate the ritual power of such an artefact. Most probably the ears served as a magical element of some sort and the expressive sculpture is carved in a Songye style, with hands placed on either side of the abdomen. The Songye live on the left bank of the Lualaba River in an area of savanna crossed by numerous major river systems.

Luba Headrest

Headrest
Wood, blackish paint/polish
Size in cm: 21 x 21 x 8
Weight: 400g

Used by the members of the Luba elite, artefacts like these elevated the head of its resting owner. Its function may appear not important at all but it served an important purpose by protecting the sleeper's elaborate coiffure. Such pieces of art did require some fifty hours to create.The Luba peoples are settled in the land of what is today Democratic Republic of Congo. As early as the seventeenth century, the Luba headed an extensive, centrally organized state structured on the principles of divine monarchy.