Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1993.

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INDIGENOUS AFRIC AN
ME TALLURGY: NATURE AND
CULTURE
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S. Terry Childs

Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560

David Killick

Departments of Anthropology and Materials Science and Engineering, University of

Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721

KEY WORDS: technology, symbolism, ritual, trade, ethnoscience

INTRODUCTION

Western observers have commented on the technology of mining and metal­

lurgy in sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 1) for over three hundred years, but
Western awareness of the cultural dimensions of African metallurgy is much
more recent. It was not until the looting of Benin City by the British expedition
of 1897 that the outside world learned of the West African traditions of
figurative art in metal, and not until the late 1940s that these traditions were
first investigated by archaeologists. Anthropological studies of the cognitive
and symbolic aspects of metallurgy in preindustrial African societies are even
more recent. Although missionaries and colonial officials had drawn attention
in the early 1900s to the rituals associated with smelting metals in Africa (e.g.
27, 120), serious anthropological studies of the conceptual and social aspects
of these technologies were not conducted until the late 1940s (e.g. 20, 28, 37,
42).
Most of the early studies were written in French; comparable work in
English did not appear until the mid-1970s (93, 114). The last fifteen years

0084-6570/93/1015-0317$05.00 317
 318 CHILDS & KILLICK
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Key:

• Agadez Place name

SHONA Ethnic group

UPEMBA Region

Figure 1 Map of Africa with the major sites discussed

have seen a marked surge in research on all aspects of metal production and
use in Africa, in particular, ethnographic studies of iron smelting. Interest in
this topic has grown in part because of the urgent need for "salvage ethnogra­
phy," as these technologies are now extinct and the few surviving former
ironworkers are elderly. This increased interest also reflects growing intellec­
tual fascination in the West with the seamless web of perception, social theory,
social organization, and technical prowess that together constitute African
metalworking.
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 319

The anthropological significance of indigenous African metallurgy extends

far beyond the economic importance of metals in warfare, agriculture, and
trade. Metallurgical processes in Africa were explained by drawing upon
indigenous theories of natural and social order, and these beliefs had marked
influence on the social organization of production. Studies of African metal­
lurgy can, therefore, shed light on beliefs as remote from the forge and the
crucible as marital relations, witchcraft, and the obligations of the living to
their ancestors. Technologies, it appears, are also "choses it penser." This idea
has been long understood in France, but is only now beginning to be appreci­
ated in Anglo-American social anthropology (e.g. 83).
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Although circulation of African metallurgy studies has been restricted

mostly to the Africanist community, they should be of interest to a wider
audience. They are particularly relevant to the long-established "An­
thropologie de Techniques" group in France (57, 67), to the emerging "An­
thropology of Technology" movement in Britain and North America (19, 66,
83), and to the dominant "Social Construction of Technology" paradigm in the
history of technology (6). Members of each group share the conviction that
social forces often determine which technologies are selected and how they are
applied.
In this review, we focus upon studies of the social significance of African
metallurgy. We first summarize the changing role of metallurgy through time
in prehistoric and historic sub-Saharan Africa. Next, we look at ethnographic
studies that examine how metallurgical technologies were understood, and the
natural and supernatural forces that influenced these processes. We then re­
view what is known of the social organization of metal production in historical
times, and the social roles that metals played in selected African societies. We
conclude with thoughts on possible future directions for research.
We use sub-Saharan Africa in the conventional sense to exclude all of
present Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. We distinguish between
historical dates, which are presented as years BC or AD, and calibrated radio­
carbon dates, which are cited as a range of years cal BC or cal AD. All
radiocarbon calibrations were made with the computer program CALIB 2.0
(101) at 2 L. For the uncalibrated radiocarbon dates and laboratory numbers,
the interested reader must consult the sources cited.

METALS IN AFRICAN HISTORY AND PREHISTORY

Origins of metallurgy in Africa

The earliest reported evidence of metal smelting use in sub-Saharan Africa is

from Nubia where small numbers of copper artifacts have been recovered from
sites dating after 4000 Be. These were probably imports from Egypt. The
 320 CHILDS & KILLICK

technology for smelting copper appears, based on the present, meager evi­
dence, to have been introduced from upper Egypt during the early Old King­
dom period (ca. 2686-2181 Be). The principal evidence for this is an Egyptian
colonial outpost that was established at Buhen in 2600 Be to smelt Nubian
copper ores (1). A crucible furnace for casting bronze, dating to 2300-1900 cal
Be, has also been found within the temple precinct at Kerma (11). The source
of the tin in the bronze is not yet known. During the next millennium, Nubian
artisans developed great skill in working copper, bronze, silver, and gold. The
gold deposits in the desert of upper Nubia appear to have been discovered by
Middle Kingdom times, ca. 2700-2200 Be, and were the major source of gold
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for the Egyptian dynasties of the New Kingdom (1991-1633 Be) (1).
Metallurgy does not appear to have been practiced elsewhere in sub­
Saharan Africa until the early first millennium Be, except perhaps in Ethiopia.
The early metallurgical history of Ethiopia is still obscure, but a fully devel­
oped bronze- and ironworking industry with strong stylistic affinities to south­
ern Arabia existed by the fifth century Be (26). The only other regions of
sub-Saharan Africa that have yielded evidence of copperworking before the
advent of iron are near the southern fringes of the Sahara in Mauretania and
Niger.
Several small copper mines and a smelting site were excavated at Akjoujt,
Mauretania, dating from the ninth through the third centuries cal Be (64). The
origin of this technology is unknown, although some contact with Punic North
Africa is indicated by the recovery of a type of bronze fibula known to have
circulated around the Mediterranean in the sixth century Be. The scale of
production at Akjoujt appears to have been very small; it ceased after the third
century Be, but resumed in the late first millennium AD .
A large survey project in the region west of Agadez, Niger, also discovered
the remains of numerous copper smelting furnaces and purported furnaces
between 1977 and 1981. Several dozen of these were excavated and dated (54,
55). On the basis of these data and chemical analyses of some associated
residues, the excavator proposed the following metallurgical sequence:
"Cuivre I" began with the melting of native copper before 2000 cal Be,
followed by smelting copper from oxide ores by 900 cal Be in "Cuivre II," and
iron smelting by 500 cal Be in "Fer I" (54, 55). A subsequent and more
thorough technical study of these residues, however, found no definite evi­
dence for copper metallurgy in Niger before the early first millennium cal Be
(63).
Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, iron is the first metal to appear in the
archaeological record. Iron smelting furnaces have been radiocarbon dated to
the interval 500-1000 cal Be in Nigeria (81,99),Niger (55,84), Tanzania (93),
and Rwanda (109). These dates have fueled the long-running debate about the
origins of ironworking in Africa. Before the first of these dates were published
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 321

in the mid-1960s, it was widely accepted that iron smelting had been transmit­
ted from Egypt to Nubia, and then to West and East Africa ( lIS), with possible
independent transmission from Phoenician North Africa across the Sahara
(71). The early radiocarbon dates for West and East Africa imply, if taken at
face value, that iron smelting in sub-Saharan Africa may be as old as that in
Egypt or North Africa, and older than that in Nubia. Trigger (lOS) showed that
the earliest known occurrence of iron in Nubia dates from the reign of Taharqa
(689-664 Be), even though presently there is no evidence of iron smelting in
Nubia before the sixth century Be (106). Iron smelting in Egypt was not
known before the eighth century Be. There is no material evidence for early
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ironworking in North Africa, but it is presumed to have been introduced by

Phoenician settlers in or after the ninth century Be (l07).
This lack of evidence led some scholars to suggest an independent inven­
tion of iron smelting in sub-Saharan Africa (2, 39, 95). There are, however,
technical objections to this suggestion. The smelting of iron requires strict
control of furnace temperature and gas composition. Most historians of metal­
lurgy .find it difficult to believe that such control could be developed without
some prior experience with high temperature pyrotechnology, such as kiln
firing of ceramics or copper smelting (16, 107). A second technical caveat is
that the few radiocarbon dates before 500 cal Be for metallurgy in sub-Saharan
Africa may be the result of the "old wood" effect. This effect has been found
when prehistoric peoples burned heartwood from long-lived trees in tropical
forest regions, or when they used long-dead wood or charcoal in arid regions
where the mechanisms of decay were suppressed (63, 74).
The question of origins is therefore still unanswered. Claims for iron metal­
lurgy before 500 Be must be supported by radiocarbon dates that are not
susceptible to the "old wood" effect (i.e. by dates on annual plants) or by data
produced by other methods (archaeomagnetism or thermoluminescence). We
also must know more about the history of metallurgy in Ethiopia and the Hom,
and should consider the possibility of introductions from other regions, such as
the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent. Iron metallurgy in Africa
probably has multiple origins.
The subsequent spread of ironworking technology to central and southern
Africa was linked for many years to the spread of Bantu languages. The theory
that the dispersal of ironworking was achieved by the spread of Bantu-speak­
ers originated with Sir Harry Johnston in a series of papers written between
1880 and 1920 (111). The Bantu expansion was recast in the late 1950s as a
"package" of language, agriculture, and metallurgy carried south by a new
(Negroid) racial group who spoke Bantu languages. This remained the domi­
nant theme in the later prehistory of Africa until the the mid-1970s, when it
became increasingly difficult to reconcile the linguistic and archaeological
data (112). In particular, the linguistic reconstruction that iron metallurgy was
 322 CHILDS & KILLICK

carried from the proto-Bantu cradle in present-day Cameroon through the rain
forest of the Congo Basin and into the savannas of Central Africa or further
east seems to be refuted by excavations in Zaire and the Congo Republic.
Although there is evidence of iron smelting by the late first millennium cal Be
in present-day Gabon (38) and along the Congo coast (33), iron does not
appear in northeastern Zaire until much later (44). It is increasingly likely that
ironworking technology arrived in Central Africa from the interlacustrine area
to the east (113). Only in southern Mrica is it still plausible to see iron
technology arriving as part of a "package" with cereal agriculture, Bantu
languages, and permanent architecture. The knowledge of smelting was appar­
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ently never acquired by the pastoralists and hunter-gatherers of southern Af­

rica, although they did forge traded metals (34). In the Central African wood­
lands, stone-using hunter-gatherers coexisted with iron-using farmers within
the last five centuries (e.g. 76).

Urbanization, state formation and the long distance trade in

metals

The most significant developments in sub-Saharan Africa during the first and
early second millennia AD were: 1. the collapse of the Nubian and Ethiopian
civilizations, 2. the Islamization of North Africa, 3. the establishment of long­
distance trade routes, and 4. the rise of towns and states in West and Southeast
Mrica. Metals figure prominently in the last two developments. Long distance
trade in both West and Southeast Africa exported Mrican gold to the Islamic
world and India and imported brass and copper to West Africa. Elite metal
goods reflect early political stratification.
The earliest historical records of West Africa are in Arabic, dating to the
ninth century AD. The trans-Saharan gold trade was well established by this
time, as were towns and at least three states (68). These documents led histori­
ans to view both urbanism and political stratification in West Africa as prod­
ucts of the gold and slave trade (74), but this conclusion has been contested
recently.
The first revelation was the archaeological discovery at Igbo-Ukwu, Nige­
ria, (eighth to tenth centuries cal AD) of a royal burial, whose wealth pointed to
political stratification (98). Igbo-Ukwu is famous for its corpus of over a
hundred copper and bronze objects that are triumphs of artistic virtuosity and
unique styling (45). The site is not in a gold producing area and lies deep in the
rainforest, a zone that was essentially unknown to the Islamic world until the
fourteenth century. These facts have led to heated argument between those
who see social stratification and craft specialization at Igbo-Ukwu as an indig­
enous phenomenon and those who see external stimuli at work. Recent scien­
tific studies of the objects (17, 24) support indigenous development. The
subsequent association of art in metal with royal status in Nigeria is now fairly
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 323

well understood (40, 46), but no precursors to Igbo-Ukwu have yet been found
(117).
The only thorough archaeological study of the chronology and process of
urbanization in West Africa is that established for Jenne-Jeno, Mali (73, 74).
The McIntoshes have shown that a substantial town existed at this site by ca.
250 cal AD and a large walled city by 800 cal AD (the beginning of the Islamic
era in West Africa). No gold and very few imports from north of the Sahara
have been found at Jenne-Jeno dating before 850-900 cal AD (72). The origins
of urbanism on the middle Niger appear, therefore, to be unrelated to the
trans-Saharan trade. This does not rule out the possibility that the gold trade
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played a part in state formation further to the west in the Senegal River valley,
where the earliest states known to Islamic writers were located. Intriguing
evidence from records of North African mints also suggests some importation
of West African gold by the end of the Roman era, around 400 AD (50). A
major program of archaeological fieldwork in the middle Senegal is now
nearing completion and will undoubtedly provide some answers to these ques­
tions (S. McIntosh, personal communication).
The presence of brass, the alloy of copper with zinc, is the most sensitive
indicator of the beginning of trans-Saharan trade in West Africa. The Romans
were the first to make brass in quantity (23), but it does not appear to have
been produced in sub-Saharan Africa. The fact that there is not a single brass
object among over a hundred analyzed objects from Igbo-Ukwu (24) is strong
evidence that the metal used was mined locally rather than imported from
across the Sahara. The earliest brass recovered at Jenne-Jeno is from contexts
dated to 900-1000 cal AD (72), similar to recent findings in the Senegal River
valley (S. K. McIntosh, personal communication) . The scale of metal imports
in later years is suggested by the discovery in the Mauretanian Sahara of a lost
caravan load of two tons of brass rods, dated to 1030-1280 cal AD (77).
While the role of the trans-Saharan gold trade in the origin of West African
states is still uncertain, the link between long distance trade and state forma­
tion in southern Africa is more clear. Islamic, Persian, or Chinese imported
ceramics occur at coastal sites between Kenya and Mozambique from the
eighth century AD; by the ninth century, glass beads of probable Indian origin
are found in Botswana and the Limpopo valley. The commodities first ex­
ported from this region by the coastal trade were ivory and skins; gold is first
mentioned in Arabic documents by the tenth century (49). The oldest gold
artifacts yet recovered from an archaeological site come from Mapungubwe
(floruit 1220-1270 cal AD), the largest and richest site in what was a very large
chiefdom or, possibly, southern Africa's first state (61).
The richest sources of gold lay on the Zimbabwean plateau where a much
larger state grew in the thirteenth century. Its capital, Great Zimbabwe, is
dated to ca. 1275-1550 cal AD, and is estimated to have had a maximum
 324 CHILDS & KILLICK

population of between 11,000 and 18,000. This site and many smaller, lower­
level elite residences have yielded gold, imported glass, ceramics, and metals,
and are spatially associated with gold mines. There is now little doubt that
much of the state's power flowed from taxing the gold trade (61). Since no
examples of true tin bronzes yet exist from southern Africa before AD 1000, it
is possible that local tin mining was also stimulated by external demand.
Political stratification and the intensive exploitation of metal resources in
Africa were not always the result of external demand. Ancient cemeteries in
the Upemba Depression of southeastern Zaire provide evidence of emerging
social stratification by the late first millennium cal AD . Marked variation in the
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abundance and quality of grave goods in over 300 burials is well documented,
and some artifacts suggest direct continuity from these peoples to the emer­
gence of the Luba state by the eighteenth century (18, 31). Many of the more
elaborate graves contain copper, presumably smelted some 200 Ian to the
south in the KatanganlZambian Copperbelt. Control of the distribution of
copper, as well as local sources of iron, was critical to the vitality of the Luba
state (88). The distinctive cross-shaped ingots produced in the Copperbelt
became general purpose currency in Central and Southeast Africa after the
fifteenth century (30). It was not until the sixteenth century, when the Portu­
guese established trading posts in present-day Angola, that this region was
connected to a world system.

Indigenous metallurgy from the sixteenth century to the present

When da Gama's fleet rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 it marked the
beginning of a profound reorientation of patterns of production and trade in
metals. The caravels of the Portuguese and their competitors provided more
direct access to the rich Akan goldfields of present-day Ghana, and the means
to flood the market with copper and copper alloys, hitherto restricted by the
perils of the Saharan crossing and the carrying capacity of the camel. The
trans-Saharan caravan trade persisted into the late nineteenth century, but its
importance in the metal trade was much diminished. The greater abundance of
copper alloys gave rise throughout the West African rain forest to a flowering
of metal casting traditions, of which those of Benin and Owo are best known
(45). The kingdom of Ashanti, which controlled the major goldfields, is well
known for the quantity and exuberance of its royal regalia in gold.
The arrival of Europeans led to a sharp increase in the production of gold in
West Africa, but had an opposite effect in Southeast Africa. There, the Portu­
guese failed to understand the dispersed nature of the industry and the labor
intensive form of production. Their greed and persistent interference in the
political affairs of the kingdoms that succeeded Great Zimbabwe led to a sharp
decline in gold production (3).
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 325

The scramble for Africa from the mid-nineteenth century onward also
brought European metal imports, which gradually drove out the more expen­
sive local products. Indigenous copper and tin mining and smelting ceased by
the late nineteenth century, except in present-day ZaIre, Angola, and Zambia,
where they lingered into the present century. Iron smelting was extinct in
many parts of Africa by World War I, but survived in remote areas of West
Africa until the 1960s. The last indigenous furnaces used to smelt for the
market went out of production in the northern Ivory Coast in 1983, bringing to
a close a technological tradition spanning some 2500 years. Forging and
casting scrap metal by traditional methods continues in rural and urban Africa,
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and has expanded to incorporate new materials, notably aluminum.

MODELS AND METAPHORS IN METALLURGY

All social behavior, including technology, is grounded in a conceptual frame­

work that imposes order on the world and lends structure to human existence.
These beliefs guide the choices made in all facets of life. In the context of
technology, these choices include the organization oflabor and the selection of
resources, tools, and the sequence of acts that constitute a technological pro­
cess. Technologies in the industrial world are explained through the sciences
of thermodynamics and kinetics. In the preindustrial world, however, compli­
cated technologies like iron smelting are made comprehensible by analogy to
other natural or social processes. Metallurgical technology in Africa is ex­
plained by analogy to human physiology and to theories of social structure and
social process (32, 59, 78, 93).
The processes of transforming ore into metal and unrefined metal into an
object through the control of fire are widely conceived in Africa as dangerous
and uncertain acts of creation, subject to interference by ancestral spirits and
by acts of sorcery from fellow mortals (21, 58, 59). Secret rituals and symbols,
along with various rules and taboos, were viewed as essential to counteract
such supernatural forces, and as important to a successful smelt as were the ore
and fuel. Smelting operations were carried out far from villages, required
special protective charms and medicines, and were restricted to specific indi­
viduals, usually those with particular kin ties and specialized training (21, 58).
While mining and smithing were more public enterprises, they also often
required special precautions and rituals (29, 32). The cosmological founda­
tions of these rituals have been topics of study for the last several decades.
Herbert (59) argues that two axes of fundamental human experience, gen­
der and age, provide a framework that structured behavior in the production of
iron and, quite likely, other metals in Africa. Gender involves an interplay
between males and females through the human life cycle. The critical differ­
ence is that females experience a stage of potential reproduction and creation,
 326 CHILDS & KILLICK

offset by monthly periods of sterility, which males do not. The relationships

between women, production, and reproduction are readily apparent. In the
realm of iron smelting, men bring iron into the world by appropriating,
through symbol and metaphor, the reproductive power of women.
The axis of age structures the social relations between elders and youth, as
well as between the living and the dead. Individuals in many African societies
accumulate power, experience, and wisdom with age, giving elders the right to
appropriate the labor and reproductive powers of the young. Elders, for exam­
ple, held the esoteric and practical expertise required to work metal, while
youths provided much of the labor. The oldest and most powerful of all in
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many societies are the deceased ancestors, who have the power to assure
success or failure in any enterprise, such as the productivity of a mine or an
iron smelt, or the protective potency of a gold charm. The favor of the ances­
tors was courted through specific rituals and taboos that were an integral and
essential part of metal technologies.

Human gestation as a model for iron smelting

The dimensions of gender and age were sometimes made explicit in African
metalworking, although it was more often expressed subtly in ritual, dance,
and song. Iron (and sometimes copper) smelting was most commonly seen as
analogous to gestation and birth (19, 21, 29, 59, 94).
Among the Fipa of Tanzania, for example, the construction of a furnace
was accompanied by the same rituals and decorations used to prepare a bride
on her wedding day (119). The smelting process was not explicitly likened to
giving birth, although analysis of the ritual strongly suggests an implicit asso­
ciation (59). The Phoka of Malawi described their smelting furnace as a fertile
young woman while under construction, and as their "wife" once smelting
began (l08). Shona ironworkers of Zimbabwe, by contrast, made the associa­
tion explicit by modeling their furnace as a fertile woman, with breasts and
scarifications to indicate and activate her fertility, and sometimes with a
waistbelt to strengthen her sexuality and guard her fertility (36). The bloom
dropped from her stomach area into an opening between leg-like projections
(5). Finally, among the Yeke of ZaIre, the operation of the forced draft furnace
for copper smelting involved a chant with the words "a high furnace with a
large womb" (27 as translated in 58).

Explaining failure: infidelity, pollution, and sorcery

The obstetrical model of iron smelting could account for failure as well as
success, though not all failures were explained as such. Failures due to poor
choice of materials or to mistakes in operation were also recognized, and some
failures were ascribed to acts of sorcery. One of the major explanations for
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 327

failure, however, was the displeasure of ancestral spirits, and a major reason
for such displeasure was often a transgression of sexual and marital norms.
Strict sexual abstinence was usually mandated for all male ironworkers
(21), and frequently for other metalworkers (e.g. 52), during smelting and
some stages of mining and smithing. In many cultures, such as the Phoka ( 108)
and Chewa (62) of Malawi, the male ironworkers were the "husbands" of the
female furnace during smelting operations. Sexual abstinence from his human
wife meant that the ironworker was fully available to his furnace "wife."
Adultery by either marital partner during pregnancy was widely believed to
cause miSCarriage. Failure of a furnace to form a bloom, therefore, often led to
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accusations that an ironworker was unfaithful to the furnace by engaging in

sexual intercourse with a human, even his own wife (e.g. 12, 62) . Such behav­
ior was thought to deeply offend the ancestors. To remove the ironworkers
from temptation, smelting sites were often placed at some distance from vil­
lages.
Sexual taboos for a smith were usually enforced when a new forge was
built or new tools were made. The rituals associated with the latter involved
processes that anthropomorphized and genderized a new tool as a child among
the Ondulu smiths (87), for example, or as a second wife among the Nyoro
pig-ironworkers (89). The potential fertility and productivity of these new
social characters is clear
.

Interdictions against the presence and participation of women in African

metalworking were widespread, yet highly variable. In some societies
[Rwanda and Burundi (15), for example] women were not allowed in the
vicinity of a smelt. Among the Bassari of Togo (59) and the Tumbuka of
Malawi (62), only prepubescent girls or postmenopausal women, who were
assumed to be sexually inactive, cooked and brought food to the male workers
during iron smelting. Women of all ages participated in iron, copper, and gold
production as miners and porters where it had developed on a large scale (27,
52, 69), but were always excluded from smelting operations.
Even where the strictures against women in metalworking we re relatively
loose, menstruating and pregnant women were always excluded. It is likely
that menstruating women posed the threat of temporary sterility and loss of
productivity during a smelt (59) or in gold mining. The presence of pregnant
women might increase the chance of a premature "birth" in a furnace (29).
Sorcery was often invoked as a cause of failure. Ironworkers were rela­
tively wealthy in many societies and as a result, they felt vulnerable to spells
cast by envious fellow mortals. The preparation of medicines to protect the
furnace from such spells was considered an essential part of the technology,
often involving much effort to gather the ingredients required (62, 108). It is
hardly surprising, therefore, that metalworkers were often suspected of being
sorcerers or shamans themselves. In fact, some took up their specialty because
 328 CHILDS & KILLICK

of demands by spirits in dreams (e.g. 10). Many African metalworkers were

sought out by the general public for their divining and healing skills (e.g. 48,
75, 78). These craftsmen made protective amulets from the metal they pro­
duced (e.g. 25) or from other materials; placed concoctions of secret medicines
in and around a mine, furnace, or forge (e.g. 104) ; and benefited from the
special powers of their tools (e.g. 32, 70).

Reading the ideological basis of metalworking into prehistory

The ideological bases of behavior are difficult to detect in the archaeological

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record. The wealth and diversity of ethnographic information on African metal

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production, however, provide strong material clues for examining the ideas
and concerns that might have motivated prehistoric behavior. These are pri­
marily features of furnaces, the most permanent remains of metallurgical
activity.
The shape and decoration of the furnaces may provide evidence of a con­
ceptual association between smelting and rites of passage such as marriage,
gestation, and birth. Decoration of furnaces as brides by the Fipa (119), or as
fertile women with breasts and scarification by the Shona (5, 36), Luchazi
(60), or Luba (14) are ample evidence that furnace walls communicate import­
ant information on belief systems. Many Early Iron. Age furnaces have been
found with vertical grooves, chevrons, and dot-like markings on some brick
wall materials (e.g. 93, 96, 109). Collett (22) notes the similarities between the
furnace decorations and those found on Early Iron Age pots, and hypothesizes
an ideological parallel between smelting and cooking. Not only is cooking
historically considered a woman's role that promotes good health and produc­
tivity in a society, but it is metaphorically related to sexual relations and the
conception of children (see also 59).
We noted above that most recent smelting sites were built at some distance
from villages to keep sorcerers and sexually active women away. Such rela­
tionships between ancient smelting areas and villages should be evident in
regional archaeological surveys. In central Malawi and southern Zambia, for
example, smelting sites dated before 1200 AD are often located within villages
(62). This suggests that ironworkers before this time were less concerned
about isolating the smelting process from women than were their more recent
counterparts. Furnaces may also have been located on ancient smelting sites to
express the linkage between metalworking and ancestral spirits, as among the
Ushi of Zambia (4). Reuse of the same smelting site over time has been noted
in Tanzania (96).
Another continuity between the ethnographic record and the distant past is
the presence of one or more small pits, often sealed, in the furnace floor. In the
ethnographic record these are known to have been receptacles for the protec­
tive medicines used to placate ancestors or deter sorcerors (e.g. 104, 108) .
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 329

Although perishable medicines disintegrated over time, similar holes dating to

the first millennium AD have been found in prehistoric furnaces in East and
Central Africa (e.g. 96, 110) .

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF METAL PRODUCTION

Systems of belief profoundly influence the organization of technology. In this

section, we survey the ways that metalworking was organized in the recent
past within politically unstratified and stratified African societies.
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Metalworking in unstratified societies

Many metalworkers in unstratified societies, particularly ironworkers, were

free agents and part-time specialists. Their carefully concealed knowledge
ensured their specialist status, but most only worked on a seasonal basis
because of low demand. Since most were both smelters and smiths, this
usually meant working the fields during part of the year, smelting during the
dry season, and forging intermittently. Some worked in small family units
such as the Kikuyu ironworkers of Kenya (90). Most, however, were members
of a clan that worked under the ritual and technical leadership of one master,
who might be a father, an uncle, or, in Central Africa, often a village chief
(29). Most metalworkers were also permanent residents of one villa�e, except
for occasional fissioning because of competition (e.g. 70). Some itinerant
metalworkers in Nigeria (78) and Niger (43) have been documented.
Where metalworkers were highly respected, as in most Bantu-speaking
societies, they might demand long service from apprentices before imparting
the essential technical and ritual knowledge (e.g. 87). Apprentices who were
not kin to the ironmaster might also be required to present a large gift before
obtaining knowledge of the secret rituals (e.g. 13, 62). The expense probably
limited the number of outsiders who became masters (59) . Ironworkers might
also demand some labor, usually the blowing of bellows, from individuals who
sought their services at the forge (e.g. 90). The labor of women as miners or
porters was exploited through kinship obligations, usually without any direct
compensation (59, 62, 91).

Metalworking in stratified societies

In many stratified African societies, tension existed between the metalworkers,

who communicated with the spirit world to create valuable metals, and the
royals, who also claimed empowerment by ancestral spirits. Rulers, therefore,
sought ways to restrict some of the artisans' powers. Metalworkers in Central
and East Africa were often reminded of the political leaders ' ultimate authority
during ritual reenactments of forging during enthronement ceremonies (e.g.
 330 CHILDS & KILLICK

32, 82). Many ironmasters had rights similar to those of the king, but as among
the Fipa (118), regularly had to pay a tribute to the ruler.
A distinctive feature of many West African societies is that ironworkers
(male) and potters (female) are segregated from the rest of society in endoga­
mous groupings that often are wrongly called "castes" (20, 25, 75). Members
of these groups usually hold exclusive rights to perform other transformative
acts, notably circumcision and burial, and are feared for their powers as divin­
ers and potential sorcerers. McNaughton (75) suggests that this segregation
has been actively promoted by smiths as a way to restrict access to a poten­
tially lucrative and prestigious status, while Tamari (102) favors a political
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explanation. She sees the social segregation of artisans as an active attempt by

the state to neutralize any material and occult powers that might threaten its
hegemony.
The rise of African states resulted in increased demand for symbols of
prestige and power, among which copper, iron, and gold were prominent.
Bisson (7, 8) notes a marked increase over time in the number and output of
copper mines in the Katanga Copperbelt of Central Africa. He interprets this as
the result of demand for copper, through trade and tribute, by the new chief­
doms and states that arose after the tenth century AD . The strong growth of
demand for this commodity may explain why many women mined copper in
the Katanga by the late nineteenth century (27).
The formation of stratified societies brought about other changes in the
organization of metalworking. For example, a new type of iron smelting
furnace was developed to supplant the small pit furnaces used in the Nyoro
kingdom of present-day Uganda (89, 103). The greater yield of this furnace
provided the king with more iron and greater profits from trade in the iron.
Metalworkers were also employed full-time. Nyoro ironworkers worked in
three month shifts each year at the royal court and had to meet production
quotas in exchange for certain privileges (89). Similarly, the hereditary guilds
of brass casters worked exclusively for the royal court of Benin and enjoyed
special privileges (46).

THE SOCIAL ROLES OF AFRICAN METALS

After a metal is won from ore, it is given social roles that may change during
its lifetime (14, 56, 58). An iron hoe, for example, may have multiple uses and
meanings, depending on the context of its use, whether as an agricultural tool,
a currency, a burial offering, bridewealth or dowry, or political regalia. A gold
nugget, quite apart from its potential economic value, might be sought as a
protective talisman (52). African art or artifacts cannot be understood without
reference to their exact social context. This explains why historians of African
art have almost unanimously rejected the aesthetic approaches that dominate
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 331

Western art history. These historians have instead adopted anthropological

approaches that interpret artifacts as material expressions of ethnicity, status,
religious affiliation, and wealth, the meaning of which is constantly manipu­
lated and negotiated (e.g. lO, 58).
Three aspects of metals made them particularly useful for symbolic expres­
sion. First, copper and gold were rare and expensive, and therefore, were
useful for conspicuous display of wealth or high status. Second, the mysterious
transformation from ore to metal, usually likened to the human processes of
gestation and birth, undoubtedly made metals especially appropriate symbols
of fertility and productivity. Third, the physical properties of metals-color,
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1993.22:317-337. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

luminosity, malleability, and storability-greatly influenced their functional

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and symbolic potentials (58).

Metals in production and trade

Several direct or indirect economic functions of African metals have been

recognized and explored to varying degrees: 1. agricultural production, 2.
warfare, 3. trade over varying distances, 4. currency with values set for spe­
cialized or general purposes, and 5. a means of storing wealth.
There has been remarkably little study of agricultural tools and weapons of
metal in Africa (except e.g. 41, 47, 116). Much more attention has been paid to
metals as items of trade, particularly in relation to the rise of African states
(e.g. 48, 78, 88) as discussed above. The complex histories of iron and copper
currencies have also been researched in some detail (e.g. 7, 30, 56, 58). de
Maret (30) argued that some forged iron objects were used in ZaYre's distant
past for specialized purposes, such as bridewealth. Copper ingots then re­
placed iron as special purpose currencies when social differentiation devel­
oped in Central Africa from the tenth century AD. The copper ingots were
made smaller and more standardized through time, possibly reflecting a
change from special to general purpose currency (7, 30). Guyer (56) found an
increase through time in the number of iron currencies and a decrease in their
craftmanship in Cameroon, but relates these trends to active negotiations and
changes in the local politics of marriage.
The replacement of iron currency by copper may have resulted from the
relative ease with which copper could be cast into standardized forms. Herbert
(59) suggests that the introduction of currencies for marriage payments, first in
iron, then in copper, also had symbolic associations-a material produced
through the fertile success of a furnace was used to appropriate the fertility of
women. Herbert also suggests that the change in metal did not involve an
ideological conflict because copper was equally or more scarce, durable, and
storable as iron, and its production was often attributed to a fertile furnace.
At another level of meaning, copper and gold, in particular, symbolized
accumulated wealth. This may have been mostly because of their luminosity,
 332 CHILDS & KILLICK

corrosion-resistance, and ability to be displayed and stored. Schweinfurth (97),

for example, was overwhelmed by the quantity of copper worn by the King of
the Mangbetu, while the opulence of the Asantehene's gold jewelry in Ghana
(85) is still stunningly impressive today.

Metals and rites of passage

A common use of metal objects in many societies is to mark major changes in

a person's life cycle. Age and gender were often critical determinants regard­
ing the type, form, and number of objects used. The Tamberma of Togo, for
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example, use elaborate iron jewelry at the naming ceremony of a newborn to

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symbolize the connections to the infant's ancestors, as well as familial conti­

nuity through rebirth (10). Young women in some areas receive or remove
metal jewelry, particularly of copper, at first menses, marriage, or the birth of a
child (e.g. 15), probably because of its symbolic correspondence to fertility
(58). Among the Loikop of Kenya, the age grade and ethnic affiliation of a
man can be read quickly from the shape of his spear (65). Special objects of
metal were sometimes buried with the deceased, as in the Upemba Depression
of ZaIre in the first millennium cal AD (31).
The most dramatic examples of such life changes were the investiture
ceremonies of some African rulers, as mortals were transformed into divine
beings (32, 59). Metal objects such as elaborate axes, anvils, and spears were
used as insignia of office to symbolize and legitimate the new authority (e.g.
35, 79). More significantly, some items embodied the ancestral spirits who �

protected and gave power to the leader (e.g. 52, 80).

Other social roles were also symbolized and legitimated by metal objects.
Special axes, spears, or jewelry were used by spirit mediums (e.g. 35), power­
ful men in various occupations (25), or high-ranking members of secret or
specialized societies (e.g. 18,40). Metal bells and drums were often required
to activate the spirits who empowered leaders (e.g. 14), or to accompany the
praise of leaders.

The political roles of metals

Metal objects played other roles in African political arenas, besides embody­
ing divine power. Political leaders, such as the Oba of Benin, commissioned
bronze plaques and portrait heads of themselves to immortalize their achieve­
ments (9). Ray (86) suggests that the Igbo-Ukwu corpus (eighth to tenth
centuries cal AD) should be read as material expressions of the authority of
elders, and of the cultural values and attitudes they espoused. Furthermore,
some objects of metal or embellished with metal served as critical mnemonic
devices used in relating oral history or law (80), or in teaching moral values
[e.g. the gold rings of the Akan (52)]. While some objects were the property of
 INDIGENOUS AFRICAN METALLURGY 333

the state to be used over generations, other insignia were personal property that
leaders carried into their new roles as ancestors (92).
Other key political roles of metal objects were for tribute and taxes. Metals
were highly valued all over Africa, some more so than others. Political leaders
often levied a tax on metalworkers by demanding a portion of their output (e.g.
52, 94). In Central Africa, copper was demanded as tribute from conquered
groups whose territory contained copper ores (8). Gold was collected as a tax
for the Zimbabwe state by a network of administrators dispersed across the
Zimbawean plateau (61). Gifts of precious metals were also used by rulers to
build and maintain alliances, as well as to designate regional chiefs as local
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agents of authority. The Asantehene of Ashanti, for example, sent gifts of gold
and silver to chiefs to maintain their allegiance to him, and he sent silver to
Muslim religious leaders in exchange for their blessings (51).
Metal objects also functioned in rituals to benefit the society and the state.
The new moon ceremony of monthly renewal in some parts of eastern Africa
required the presence of the state leader with all his metal regalia (e.g. 92). The
Asantehene of the Ashanti still brings out the elaborate Gold Stool, the soul of
the nation, at the annual yam festival (52, 85). It is likely that the remarkable
heads, cast in copper or bronze, from Ife in Nigeria, were also used in annual
ceremonies of purification and renewal (40).

CONCLUSION

The late C. S. Smith, a founding father of historical metallurgy, always in­

sisted that metallurgy is above all an intellectual and social activity (100). We
hope this article demonstrates the truth of Smith's insight. African societies
have used metals and many other materials, such as wood, cloth, and glass, to
express their views of the structure of nature and society, in ways as complex
and diverse as the beliefs themselves. Even the technology of smelting, con­
strained as it is by the invariant laws of thermodynamics, offers ample scope
for the expression of beliefs about the order of things.
Many scholars of African metallurgy, whether knowingly or not, have been
at the forefront of viewing technology as social process. Technology is not a
monolithic force that is somehow separate from people, but is the product of
complex ideology, careful social negotiations and manipulations, and the va­
garies of local resources. This insight has largely developed from ethnographic
observations of metal smelting processes, a line of research that cannot con­
tinue for long. Most of the elders who practiced these techniques are already
ancestors, and the remainder soon will be. We wish to pay tribute here to all
those who have enlightened us in our drive to record these processes before
they pass from human memory.
 334 CHILDS & KILLICK

One question needing further scrutiny is the role of metal production and
the metal trade in the rise of towns and states in Africa. How crucial was the
control of ore sources and metal production to state formation over the conti­
nent? The work of the McIntoshes at Jenne-Jeno suggests that too little atten­
tion has been paid to the role of local and regional trade in agricultural produce
and other staples. In this case, and possibly in others, the gold trade may have
intensified a process that was already well under way. Recent thought on the
rise of the Zimbabwe state has taken a similar tack, suggesting that the external
trade in ivory and gold may have amplified rather than initiated the process of
state formation (61). In this, as in all other aspects, the role of metals needs be
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be viewed in its full social context.

Finally, an emerging line of research concerns the transfer of the African
experience with metals to the Caribbean and to the Americas through the
trans-Atlantic slave trade (53). What role did African artisans play in the
production of metals in these regions? Did some of the symbolic and social
roles of metals in Africa survive the crossing, and if so, how were they
modified in their new social settings? As we have seen, Africans were in­
volved in international networks of metal production and exchange for many
centuries. What we do not yet know is the extent to which they influenced the
production and uses of metals in the New World.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are most grateful to Eugenia Herbert and to Susan Keech McIntosh for
their careful reading of and constructive comments on an earlier draft of this
review.

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