ancestor figures, and then the tribes of French Equatorial Africa, which as yet have not been much explored. From this region large numbers of figures with ancestor's heads, mounted with sheet brass and copper, have come to Europe, revealing an unnaturalistic, mainly decorative style. They are from the districts of the Aduma, Bakota, Oshebo and others. In addition to these, however, there are carvings on masks and figures of a fully rounded type, so that we here have a mixed zone of purely decorative and naturalistic art.

A little further south we find the district of the well-known 'nailfetish images', of the Mayombe and others, and thence turn to the inner Congo. Here, mainly thanks to the information given by Torday, and to the collection in the Tervueren Museum, a number of separate districts have emerged, each of which has its own idiom of artistic expression; Bateke, Bayakka, Bapindi, Bena Lulua, Bushongo, Bakete, Batetela, Baluba, Warua, Wabemba. A zone of high-grade artistic production extends in a broad strip from the sea to the western shore of Lake Tanganyika. The distinctive feature common to the art of these tribes, when compared with that of the West African art zone bordering the coast further north, is its decided streak of decorative genius, and excellent taste of a standard which the Baule-Guro alone have nearly attained. The Bushongo have attracted most interest, and much light has been thrown on their high artistic culture by Torday and Joyce. Indeed, in their figure drinking cups, coloured masks adorned with cowry shells, their famous statuettes of kings (London, Tervueren), oracle figures, vessels with figure decoration, and so on, such a wealth of variety and artistic skill are displayed that we have to recall Yoruban art in order to find anything worthy of being compared with it. Indeed it seems to us that the art of the Bushongo has attained even greater depth than that of Southern Nigeria.

The other districts of Southern Congo often equal the Bushongo in particular details, without, however, being able to compete with them in their work as a whole. It is generally in their masks that an approximately equal level is reached. Great variety is found in the work of the Bayakka, a particularly large number of whose masks and figures are in the possession of the Tervueren Museum. These are for the most part pull-on masks, with figure headpieces, animal, bird or

human being, which produce a striking impression. Their big, rounded heads have faces which seem to represent one of the dead. In addition to this most familiar type, there are also, besides purely ornamental creations, large masks of an essentially simpler kind, to which J. Maes was the first to direct attention in his book AniotaKifwebe (plates 12, 13). Certain large figures from the huts used for the ceremony of circumcision have faces of the same type as the smaller pull-on masks above mentioned. In both cases the characteristic feature of the face is the pointed nose, which is bent upwards. The art of the Bapindi and of the kindred Bapende and Bakete stands out as strikingly good, and is mainly represented by masks, many of which show most interesting forms, varying between exaggerated flatness and accentuated relief. To the district of the eastern Bakete also belong the masks with violently protruding eye-pyramids, if one may use that expression, which are among the most striking creations of Congo sculpture.

We shall only mention in passing a few tribes in whose territories interesting types of masks and figures are often to be found, such as the Bena Lulua with their masks, which, in spite of well balanced colour schemes, have rather an air of handicraft; the Bankutu and Yaelima, whose slender torsos are covered all over with a rhomboid design in low relief; the Batetela, whose curiously crude looking masks, some with tubular eyes, others with no eyes at all, always show only slight conventionalization of plastic form, but have all the more emphasis on ornament in colour or in low relief, and are different from the other carvings of Southern Congo; finally the Basonge, whose fetish figures are thickly studded with copper nails.

Let us immediately pass on to the Baluba tribes, among whom a particularly fertile artistic culture has developed. The Warua above all are distinguished by the extremely delicate and, in a certain sense, beautiful form of their masks. Particularly attractive are female figures holding out a bowl, and these Maes, on the authority of a label on one specimen, would like to regard as figures for the collection of alms in cases of pregnancy. Just in this central province there are works filled with a certain lyrical spirit. Here in the depths of Africa we find its deepest art.

Immediately following on to this broad strip of land where each tribe has its own special and well worked out formal idiom, are the Lunda, Kioke, Zombo, Mazupia and others in the south, whose work is essentially of the same character as the art of Southern Congo. To this almost uniform art of Southern Congo, cultivating a richly elaborated style, there is now opposed that of the northern part of Belgian Congo, which is entirely different in character. On the other side of the great artistically barren area in the centre of the whole district there is a broad strip running parallel to the northern bank of the Congo River containing art of an extremely simplified form absolutely unrelated to that of the Southern Congo tribes. It must be noted that this contrasted style already appears in the district of Warega, thus being comparatively near to artistically highly cultured tribes of Southern Congo. It is, however, only north of the River Congo that this vigorous art, with its large, simple forms, extends over a large continuous area. The work of the Ababua, Azande, Mabinza, Budja, Buaka, Banza, Bongo, and other tribes is characteristic of it. Numerous masks and figures, which one can best get to know in the Tervueren Museum, show the same predilection for large, flat surfaces on face and body, far removed from any attempt at conventionalization. In this district there are certainly also remarkable groups of figures, as for example, that of a female with two small children growing out of the larger figure, the work of the Azande, but on the whole the simple detail of their form accords with simplicity in composition. It is important to bear in mind this radical difference between the northern and southern parts of the Congo, for we now see that West African culture, which in many respects is (or seemed to be) very uniform in character, is definitely divided as regards its art. Apart from the artistically barren area in the centre, we thus have to distinguish two art zones in the Congo region, whose form is diametrically opposite in type. Let us follow the course of the simple type of art further westwards from North Congo. As the South Congo art zone is connected with the Upper Guinea coast, so the North Congo district extends a considerable distance towards the west. The carvings of the Mandja, Baja, Tschamba, Yakoko, Yergum, Nupe, form a narrow bridge leading into the Western Sudan, reaching

what seems to be the most western outpost in the carved figures of North Togoland (Moba, etc.). It must be admitted that we cannot as yet form a sufficiently clear estimate of this whole district, since our written information about a number of tribes is not supplemented by specimens of their work.

The elaborated art type of the South Congo district not only has the broad strip of the zone of simple art running parallel to it, but is also enclosed on the east and south by areas of a similar character, not, it is true, in a continuous belt, but in isolated spots. Thus in East Africa the principal district is that of the Makonde, with face and body masks in curiously decorative carving. Then in the south there are the Shangaan Kaffirs, whose large figures with small heads, long bodies and limbs are unique in African art.

Madagascar forms a separate art province; grave pillars with big sometimes lifesize figures, and carved fetish horns, in the Trocadero collection are from the districts of the Bara, Betsileo, Manambia, and Antanosy, representing the southern half of the island. Only in the smaller figures does the style of these carvings show a certain polish, but even in them we are aware of the same underlying bent towards large size and roughness which is strongly marked in the larger works; rounded form is generally preferred, but in individual instances there is an inclination to flat treatment.

Taking African sculpture as a whole, we find that the elaborated type of form prevails in a broad strip of land, which roughly extending westwards in a wide track from the northern end of Lake Tanganyika to Lake Bangweolo, with offshoots to the south, reaches the Atlantic Ocean, then leads up to the Cameroons in a narrow strip, and stretching along the Upper Guinea coast to Sierra Leone, finally occupies in a wide crescent the western part of West Sudan. In this crescent, which extends from the Rivières du Sud to the Habe and Mossi, art is dominated by an over-strong tendency to cover with ornament, while elsewhere West African art is distinguished by a just proportion of naturalistic and decorative styles.

Sandwiched between the double lines of the southern, western, and north-western districts of elaborated form, we have in the