PEABODY MUSEUM HAS NEW AFRICAN COLLECTION

Several shipments of material illustrating the daily life of the primitive tribes of the southern, Cameroon region in West Africa, and constituting a collection believed to be without parallel in this country, have been received from West Africa by the Peabody Museum.

The collection was made for the Museum by George Schwab, who has been a Presbyterian missionary in West Africa since 1905, and is now superintendent of the American Presbyterian Mission Schools in the Cameroons. Mr. Schwab has been for many years greatly interested in the scientific study of the life and customs of the native tribes, and this year, while on leave of absence from his missionary work, he is the holder of the Hemenway Fellowship for anthropological study.

Stone Axes and Implements

Among the objects of interest in the collection assembled by him are several valuable prehistoric stone axes and other implements from southern Cameroon, such as are handed down from generation to generation in the native families to give good luck and to keep the dead from tormenting them. One of these stones is put into the water in which each newly-born child is bathed, to bring it luck.

Another characteristic feature of the collection is a number of divining sets, used by the superstitious natives to settle all sorts of important questions in their daily lives. A typical divining set contains pieces of animals and natural objects regarded as representing the powers of the universe, which must be brought to bear on the problem. A porcupine quill is included for its penetrating quality; a bit of leopard's hide because the leopard represents strength; a stone from the stomach of a crocodile because of the local legend that a crocodile which has swallowed nine stones cannot be harmed; a piece of a hawk, which gathers everything in its talons, symbolizing the bringing to bear of all these forces upon the problem.

The collection contains also a number of pipes of cast bronze, examples of the unusual work of this region; chairs, drums, fighting helmets, bronze collars, spear-head money, "memory sticks", and numerous other articles illustrating the customs of the West African tribes. These objects, which will form a part of the African collection at the Peabody Museum, the third largest collection of its kind in the country, are now being classified in the basement of the Museum and cannot be put on public exhibition for some time to come on account of lack of cases to hold them.