Double Crocodile Pendant
Unknown Artist
This pendant is in the shape of two stylized crocodiles, conjoined at one side. Both crocodiles’ bodies are decorated with a grid of delicate raised lines, which allude to the animal’s scales. The eyes are rosette-shaped, with dots surrounding the pupil. The two loops on either side of the two crocodiles would have been used to hang this pendant around the neck.
Exquisite pendants such as this one might be part of a matrilineal family’s sacred inheritance, which is a group of precious objects often kept together in a separate room as a shrine to the family’s ancestors. Such gold adornments are only worn or displayed by family members on special occasions, such as funerals or visits to other villages. Among Akan peoples, figural forms featured on such ornaments often refer to proverbs and bear symbolic meaning: this particular pendant represents the popular Siamese twin-crocodile motif known as futumfunafu. With their shared stomachs but distinct heads, they allude to the challenges of aligning community and personal interests.
Further reading
Appiah, Peggy, and Kwame Anthony Appiah. “Some Akan Proverbs.” New England Review (1990-) 21, no. 1 (2000):119–127. www.jstor.org/stable/40244520.
Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas from the Museum of Primitive Art, Exhibition Catalogue. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1969.
Garrard, Timothy F. Gold of Africa: Jewellery and Ornaments from Ghana, Côte D'Ivoire, Mali and Senegal. Geneva: Barbier-Mueller Museum. 1989.
Newton, Douglas, André Malraux, and Nelson A. Rockefeller. Masterpieces of primitive art: the Nelson A. Rockefeller collection. Knopf, 1978.
Vogel, Susan M. Baule Art as the Expression of a World View. New York: New York University Press, 1977.
Vogel, Susan M. "Baule: African Art Western Eyes." African arts 30, no. 4 (1997): 64-95.
Credit: The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979