Paper short abstract:

The Sixteenth and Seventeenth century Sapi-Portuguese ivories were the product of a cosmopolitan environment. The way Europeans were integrated in the African world imagination within which the objects were carved may help explain the form they took and the meaning they are intended to express.

Paper long abstract:

The carved objects known as Sapi-Portuguese ivories (16th-17th centuries) were the product of ongoing contacts and intensive exchanges from the mid- fifteenth century. The circulation of people, merchandise and ideas, sharing of experiences, as well as languages between Africans and Europeans meant that the spaces of exchange constituted a cosmopolitan environment. How far were there changes in the perception of ivory as raw material, as well as in carving? Did ivory get a new role? This paper discusses what could have been the perspective of the African elephant hunters and ivory carvers concerning an apparent double oxymoron: in the one hand, the compatibility between a ritualized activity (elephants\ hunting) and in some societies a ritualized contact with ivory tusks and trade in a market commodity; on the other hand, the compatibility between the production of objects in ivory with spiritual power and the foreign consumption of these carvings, far from any African ritual control. The paper argues that an eventual compatibility might be found in the representations of the power associated with Europeans, including Luso-Africans. The interpretation of these representations should be based on the context of religious interactions with the Europeans. The way the latter were integrated in the African world within which the ivory objects were carved may help explain the form that these objects took and the meaning they are intended to express.