¹ This situation contrasts with the case of Indo-Portuguese art of the sixteenth century, some of which was produced by Indian or Ceylonese artists living and working in Lisbon. It is possible that some carvers from “Serra Leoa” did work in Lisbon, and that documentation of their presence in Portugal may surface as scholars continue to do research in Portuguese archives.

² See P.E.H. Hair, notes to Almada, chapter 5; André Alvares de Almada, Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea…;” an interim and makeshift edition; translation, introduction and notes on chapters 13 — 19 by P. E. H. Hair, organized by A. Teixeira da Mota; Department of History, University of Liverpool; see also Hair, notes to Donelha, French edition, 239n118; Donelha, André, Descrigào da Serra Leoa e dos rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625), da Mota, A. Teixeira, ed., Hair, P. E. H., trans. Lisbon: Junta de Investigacões Cientificas do Ultramar, 1977Google Scholar. Almada, as historian P.E.H. Hair notes, “equated the limits of Serra Leoa with those of the ‘Sapes.” Almada and Donelha were both talking about a coastal region and giving it a cultural meaning, the Sapes region. Hair, however, argues ‘contra’ Almada and Donelha, that this region, which supposedly corresponded to the territory of those Sapes who had been subjected to the Mane “invasion” (see below), could not have extended north beyond the site of present-day Conakry.

³ da Mota, Avelino Teixeira, As Viagens do Bispo D. Frei Vitoriano Portuense à Guiné e a Cristianizagào dosReis de Bissau (Lisbon, 1974), 13Google Scholar.

⁴ Alvares, Manuel, Ethiopia Minor, and a Geographical Account of the Province of Sierra Leone (ca. 1615), translation and annotation by Hair, P. E. H., based on the transcription made by Avelino Teixeira da Mota of the original (eighteenth-century) copy of Alvares's manuscript; Department of History, University of Liverpool, 1990Google Scholar.

⁵ André Donelha, Descricã;o da Serra Leoa e dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde (1625), André Alvares de Almada, Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea…; an interim and makeshift Edition.

⁶ Etymologically both terms appear to refer to these individuals' renegade status, since their presence on the coast was generally not legally recognized by the Portuguese Crown: “Tangos mãos” (those who hold hands) and “lançados” (those who are thrown/cast themselves). Some Portuguese sources give the former term as “tangos maus” (they hold to ill or evil). On the “lançados” communities see Boulègue, Jean, Les Luso-Africains de Sénégambie (Lisbon, 1989)Google Scholar; see also Brooks, George, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000-1630 (Boulder, 1993)Google Scholar. and Mark, Peter, “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity (Bloomington, 2002)Google Scholar.

⁷ Alvares, Manuel, Ethiopia Minor, 30v, 31rGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Cultru, Pierre, Premier voyage du Sieur Jajolet de la Courbe fait à la coste d'Afrique en 1685 (Paris, 1913), 205–06Google Scholar: “le roi de Guerègue: …, avait un bonnet à la portugaise et un habit de nègre, et tenait une épée à l“espagnole à la main sur laquelle il s'appuyait. Après avoir salué, il nous fit entrer dans sa case… sa case est faite à la portugaise; nous trouvâmes le dejeuner tout prêt…il se mit avec nous et en mangea aussi bien que sa femme, ce qui me fit voir qu”ils commencent en cet endroit là à prendre les manières des Anglais;” also cited in Mark, , “Portuguese” Style, 91Google Scholar.

⁹ AN/TT, Inquisição de Lisboa, livro 205, ff. 554-54v; from a letter written by a Jewish trader to the King of Bussis in 1612. This document is part of a short corpus of correspondence from Jews of the Petite Côte and their families, to be published by me and José da Silva Horta, intercepted by Christians and delivered to the Portuguese Inquisition.

¹⁰ On the “Portuguese style” houses that served as both a highly visible symbol of wealth and an identity marker for members of the Luso-African “Portuguese” community, see Mark, “Portuguese” Style.

¹¹ See Bujok, Elke, “Africana und Americana im Ficklerschen Inventar der Münchner Kunstkammer von 1598,” Münchner Beiträge zur Völkerkunde 8(2003), 57–142Google Scholar.

¹² See Bassani, E. and Fagg, W., Africa and the Renaissance (Prestel, 1988)Google Scholar. This work, published as the catalog to an exhibition at the Center for African Art, New York, is co-authored by Bassani and Fagg, with an independent historical essay by myself. I had nothing to do with the proposed dating of the ivories. At the time the book was written, Fagg was in ill health, and the central essays appear to represent in large measure the work of Bassani. The bifurcated dating proposed, with everything after 1530 being ascribed to Benin, essentially contradicts Fagg's earlier assessment of the ivories. In his 1959 essay, he had written: “In fact, there is no similarity between Afro-Portuguese and Bini work, and I cannot discover that any piece or fragment in this style has been found at Benin, or indeed anywhere in Africa in modern times. It is easy to rule out Benin…” Fagg, William, Afro-Portuguese Ivories (London, [1959]), xixGoogle Scholar. For the 1490-1550 dating see Curnow, Kathy, “Alien or Accepted: African Perspectives on the Western “Other” in 15th and 16th Century Art.” Society for Visual Anthropology Review (Spring 1990), 38–44Google Scholar.

¹³ Ryder, A. F. C., “A Note on the Afro-Portuguese Ivories,” JAH 5(1964), 363–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; da Mota, Avelino Teixeira, “Gli avori africani nella documentazione portoghese dei secoli XV-XVII,” Africa 30(1975), 580–92Google Scholar.

¹⁴ AN/TT Nucleo Antigo 799, f. 13v: “de hum salleyro e tres colhares de marfy de Diego Lopez capitão de Myna que pagou pello todo avallyado em…” “of one salt cellar and three spoons of ivory of Diego Lopez Capitain at Elmina who paid for the entirety the value of …”

¹⁵ Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis (Lisbon, 1988), 117Google Scholar, “E a maior parte dos moradores desta terra por um nome são chamados Boulões, e é gente belicosa que poucas vezes estão em paz…(118): Nesta terra se fazemos mais sotis colares de marfim e milhor lavrados que em nenhua parte.” Note that the writer uses nearly the same orthography for “spoon” found in the customs records.

¹⁶ Códice Valentim Fernandes, leitura paleográfica, notas e índice de José Pereira da Costa (Lisboa, 1997), 111Google Scholar. I wish to express my gratitude to José da Silva Horta for calling my attention to this document. For the original manuscript, see “Codex hispanicus 27” microfilm 1282 363 Aüfn; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. The above citation is from folio 136r. This manuscript gives three different spellings of “spoon”: “colheres,” (f. 125); “colheyros,” [as?]; and “collares” (f. 140). On later misreadings of early orthography see note 17 below.

¹⁷ It should be noted that the Portuguese “lh” (virtually unpronouncable by non-Portuguese) is properly pronounced in “colheres” in a manner that approximates “lhey.” Fer-nandes was not a native speaker and the mistaken orthography reflects the sounds he was attempting to transcribe. I wish to thank José da Silva Horta for sharing with me both his knowledge of the Fernandes manuscript, and his insight into non-native pronunciation (including my own efforts) of “lh.”

¹⁸ Fernandes, Valentim, Déscription de la Côte occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels), Monod, Théodore, et. al., trans. (Bissau, 1951)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Pereira, Pacheco, Esmeraldo, 117Google Scholar; note that the modernized Portuguese text reads “colares,” i.e., necklaces and makes the accorded adjective “lavrados,” but the available manuscripts, both later copies from the eighteenth century, read the feminine “lavradas” (the correct gender for “spoons” in Portuguese) and not “colares,” but “collares” or “cohares.” This means that one of the copyists misread “ll” for “h” (see the two passages on ivories in Joaquim Barradas de Carvalho's édition critique [Lisbon, 1991], 285, 28788, 468-69). Hence in the original the writer would have used a similar orthography for “spoon” to that found in the customs records (the sound “lh” of “colhares” could also be given by “ll”).

²⁰ Curnow, Kathy, “Oberlin's Sierra Leonean Saltcellar: Documenting a Bicultural Dialogue,” Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 44(1991), 15Google Scholar.

²¹ Rodney, Walter, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar.

²² Jones, Adam, “Who were the Vai?” JAH 22(1981), 168CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ Bujok, “Africana und Americana.”

²⁴ Jones, Adam, “A Collection of African Art in Seventeenth-Century Germany: Christoph Weickmann's Kunst- und Naturkammer,” African Arts 27(04 1994), 28–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Ryder, Alan, Benin and the Europeans 1485-1897 (London, 1969), 84Google Scholar.

²⁶ Eisenhofer's work is a thoroughgoing critique of the widely-accepted association of Benin ivory carving with the early history of this kingdom. Eisenhofer applies critical historical methodology to the “oral traditions” that art historians have used to argue for the antiquity of the institution of the Oba, and for the early introduction of ivory-carving in Benin. In the course of this argument he pretty well dismantles the theory of Benin origins of any sizeable number of “Afro-Portuguese” ivories. See Eisenhofer, Stefan, Höfische Elfenbeinschnitzerei im Reich Benin (Munich, 1993)Google Scholar.

²⁷ Ryder, , Benin, 64Google Scholar “Ivory, however, had by this time seemingly priced itself entirely out of the market, for the Portuguese bought none in Benin after 1522.”

²⁸ Ibid.,67.

²⁹ Bassani, , in Africa and the Renaissance, 146Google Scholar.

³⁰ Bassani, , “Additional Notes on the Afro-Portuguese Ivories,” African Arts 27(1994), 44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³¹ Curnow, in her unpublished doctoral dissertation, observes the appearance of hunting motifs on “colchas.” Her dating of the Sierra Leone ivories, if correct, would effectively rule out the possibility of Indian influence.

³² I wish to thank Dr. Barbara Karl for providing access to her comprehensive photographic archives of Indian “colchas.” Indian influence via “colchas” is only possible for hunting horns produced after 1570.

³³ Bassani, , in Africa and the Renaissance, 146Google Scholar: “certainly fewer than the forty [artists] previously suggested.”

³⁴ Bujok, , “Africana und Americana,” 64Google Scholar: “Aus der Münchner Kunstkammer sind nur 4 der 120 subsaharischen Africana mit Sicherheit erhalten.”

³⁵ “Cödice Valentim Fernandes,” 111. “In Sierra Leone the men are extremely subtle and ingenious … some make spoons others make saltcellars and others make handles for daggers and any other subtlety.”

³⁶ As noted above, Eisonhofer warns that even this reference to ivory spoons might not specifically target Benin.

³⁷ Eisenhofer, , Höfische, esp. 99–114Google Scholar: “ Zusammenfassend lasst sich deshalb sagen, dass weder die … formaler noch die stilistischer Kriterien eine Herkunft der soganannten “bini-portugiesischen” Hörner aus Benin belegen kann,” ibid., 114.

³⁸ Eisenhofer is in my estimation, too categorical in dismissing all possible historical documentation of Benin origins for ivory spoons. He apparently overlooked the citation by Teixeira da Mota, “Avori,” of a 1621 manuscript describing ivory spoons from Benin.

³⁹ Inexplicably, Curnow (“Oberlin's,” 15) actually cites Teixeira da Mota's “Avori” to document her assertion that ivory-carving from Sierra Leone: “appears to have ceased by the mid-sixteenth century, when the Mande-speaking Mane people invaded the region…” Yet Teixeira da Mota clearly contradicts Curnow's assertion. To cite one's source in such a way as to make it appear that the document confirms a theory which, in fact, it clearly contradicts, is very sloppy scholarship.

⁴⁰ An interim translation of Manuel Alvares S.J. “Etiópia Menor e Descripção Géografica da Província da Serra Leoa” [c. 1615]; transcription from an unpublished manuscript by the late Avelino Teixeira da Mota and Luis de Matos on behalf of the Centro de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, Lisbon; translation and introduction by P.E.H. Hair. Department of History, University of Liverpool. 1990. [hereafter Etiópia Menor].

⁴¹ Ibid., f. 54r.

⁴² Ibid., f. 55v.

⁴³ My translation of Álvares, Manuel, Etiópia Menor e Descripçào Geographica da Província da Serra Leoa, Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, Res. 3, E–7Google Scholar. Cópia do séc. XVIII. I wish to thank José da Silva Horta for extensive conversations about the wording of this text.

⁴⁴ AN/TT, Inquisição da Lisboa, livro 59 film 5120 f. 153v.

⁴⁵ Green, Tobias, “Further Considerations on the Sephardim of the Petite Còte,” HA 32(2005), 175Google Scholar. Green's observations are consistent with our own findings about the same trading communities.

⁴⁶ Ibid.

⁴⁷ In his seminal but largely ignored “Avori,” Teixeira da Mota includes (ibid., 587) a 1621 reference to ivory spoons from Benin (cf. Garcia Mendes Castelo Branco, “Relação da costa da Africa da Mina…até ao cabo Negro).

⁴⁸ Teixeira da Mota, “Avori.”

⁴⁹ Donelha, , Descricão da Serra Leoa, “Buzinas de marfim,” p. 102, 103Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ See Coelho, Francisco de Lemos, Description of the Coast of Guinea (1684); Hair, P.E.H., translation, University of Liverpool, History Department, 1985, introductionGoogle Scholar.

⁵¹ Lemos Coelho, chapter 9, paragraphs 72 and 73.

⁵² See Horta, José da Silva and Mark, Peter, “Two Portuguese Jewish Communities in Early Seventeenth-Century Senegal,” HA 31(2004) 231–56Google Scholar. See also Mendes, Antonio, “Le rôle de l'Inquisition en Guinée, vicissitudes des présences juives sur la Petite Côte (XVe-XVIIe siècles),” Revista Lusófona de Ciencia das Religiões 3/5(2004), 137–55Google Scholar. See also Green, , “Further Considerations,” 175Google Scholar. Rufisque, located on the same coast, also housed a Jewish community as late as 1647; this community too appears to have been linked to Amsterdam. See de Moraes, N.I., “Le commerce des peaux à la Petite Côte au XVIIe siècle (Sénégal),” Notes Africaines 34(04 1972), 39–40Google Scholar. For a brief mention of the Petite Côte communities see also da Silva, Filipa Ribeiro, “A Inquisição na Guiné, nas ilhas de Cabo Verde e São Tomé e Príncipe,” Revista Lusófona 3/5(2004), 165, 167Google Scholar.

⁵³ Some New Christians who were already in West Africa traveled to Amsterdam to reconvert as a result of the contact with the Jews directly arrived from Holland.

⁵⁴ AN/TT, Inquisição de Lisboa, livro 202, f. 643 and livro 203 ff. 515-16. The sources are a “relação” and a denunciation both made in Lisbon by João Cansuel, Flemish, born in Antwerp. On Brazil see AN/TT livro 59, f. 153.

⁵⁵ AN/TT Inquisição da Lisboa, livro 59, film 5120, 13 October 1612 f. 153v. “no ditto Porto de Ale, e no de Joala, … E todos tratavão em courama e cera, e marfim que aly compravaõ a negros gentios, e a homens branquos x.os, e en mandavão pera Frandes…”

⁵⁶ “And these said merchants, who are all New Christians, send a great quantity of the said “espadas” [daggers, short swords] to the Rivers of the Coast of Guinea who[se inhabitants] are non-Christians and who live adjacent to the Muslims.” AN/TT Inquisição de Lisboa. Livro 208 MF 5178 f. 640v; witness Adrião de Abreu, violeiro.

⁵⁷ A “palmo” was 22 cm. in length.

⁵⁸ Ibid. “…que são espadas larguas de quatro palmos pouco mais ou menos huas voltas (curved) e outras direitas.”

⁵⁹ See AN/TT Inquisicão da Lisboa, livro 208, microfilm 5178, f. 640ff; Denunciacao contra alguns mercadores desta cidade (Lisbon) que mandão armas a infieis e mouros… 13-7-1618, “And there they give them to tribal Blacks and the same “espadas” were fashioned [finished] most often eight or nine years ago [i.e., 1609-10] from these parts to various merchants and the sailors who transport them and deliver them to Guiné, and they would be 500 or 600, the number that were finished in this period.”

⁶⁰ Prussin, Labelle, “David in West Africa: No More Forever?” Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2005), 88–109Google Scholar.

⁶¹ In fairness, a partial exception to this oversight should be noted. In 1995 W. A. Hart cited both seventeenth-century references (Alvares and Lemos Coelho) to ivory-making in Sierra Leone. He nevertheless accepted Bassani and Fagg's dating of Sierra Leone ivories to the period 1490—1530. While Hart correctly states that the “Mani invasion” was not a catastrophe for the arts in Sierra Leone, he discounts post-1530 ivory production. See Hart, W. A., Continuity and Discontinuity in the Art History of Sierra Leone (Quaderni Poro, 9, Milan, 1995), pp. 429, 443, 450, 459Google Scholar.