BELGIAN CONGO TROPHIES

Southland Times, Issue 24832, 26 August 1942, Page 4

BELGIAN CONGO TROPHIES

EXHIBITS AT MUSEUM Belgian Congo, a country with a colourful history in the heart of tropical Africa, found a place in the Southland Museum this week. It is represented by fearsome-looking spears and swords and Ashanti drums, which have been handed to the museum by Mr Leonard Webb, of Invercargill. Mr Webb was engaged in surveying work in the Upper Congo many years ago, and it was then that he obtained these valuable pieces. The drums are typically African, although smaller than the tom-toms of many of the African tribes. The Ashantis are said to have derived their origin from the bands of fugitives who in the sixteenth or seventeenth century were driven before the Muslim tribes migrating south from the countries on the Niger and the Senegal. Ashanti was annexed by Great Britain in 1901. The swords of the collection are the war weapons of the Hausa tribe, longheaded people of northern Nigeria. They are remarkably well made pieces for a people whose facilities for making them are very limited. CRIMEAN RELIC Other gifts received this week also are instruments of war. Mr James Munro has presented a bayonet which was used by a family ancestor in the Crimean War. Primitive in design and fitted with a clip for a muzzle-loading rifle it nevertheless looks as if it was just as effective as the bayonet of the present war. It has not the hilt of the modern weapon. A Malayan sword and a kris (dagger), given by Mr J. Harris, complete the list of new pieces. The attendances ,at the museum have increased in the last week or two and now that the schools are closed it is expected that there will be record attendances.