Description (Labels & Markings)
A round circular white mark on the bottom of the base has the no. '25' written on it. The same number is repeated on a white paper label.
Event Date
Author: Louise Puckett

Context (Field collection)
A stray note was found on the database suggesting that this object was collected in the 1930s. However, the source of this information was not given.
Event Date
Author: Lucie Carreau

Context (Production / use)
Remke van der Velden: 'These rhythm pounders may have been acquired from the Nafan in Northwest Ghana or traded from further west as the Senufo are generally based in Mali and the Ivory Coast'
Event Date 26/10/2015
Author: Lucie Carreau

Context (CMS Context)
See Spooner photo no. 11 in Collection file for object in Spooner family home.
Event Date 26/10/2015
Author: Remke van der Velden

Description (CMS Description)
Dark wooden male figure, or Senufo rhythm pounder. With crested hairstyle and scarification marks on face. Hands resting on hips. On integral rounded base.
Event Date 23/9/2015
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
The Spooner Collection was acquired by Arthur Casswell Spooner (1906-1996) during his colonial service in West Africa between 1929-1963, and also by his wife Sylvia from 1944. Following the Cambridge Colonial Service diploma (Clare College, 1928-9), he was posted to the Gold Coast in July 1929 as a Cadet in the Administrative Service. He was soon appointed Assistant District Commissioner and served in various areas of Ashanti and the Northern Territories until 1938. His tasks comprised office and court work as well as much travelling through the district.

In 1939 Spooner was seconded as Commissioner of the Labour Department in Kumasi, and in 1942 was appointed Assistant Director of Labour, General Headquarters West African Command, involved in raising Pioneer Groups in Sierra Leone and Nigeria primarily for the North African campaign. He was a member of the Gold Coast Defence Force and in 1942 appointed as a temporary Lieutenant Colonel. He married Sylvia Blest in Accra in 1944 and she accompanied him on all his postings. In 1945 he returned to the Administrative Service, and was appointed Senior District Commissioner, Ashanti, in 1946 and in 1951 Assistant Chief Commissioner of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast He retired in 1952, returning to the UK to work for Eastbury Estates Ltd.

He returned to Africa in 1956, working for the Gambian Government in the Establishments and Training Department until 1959. From 1961 to 1963 he was employed by the Government of Northern Nigeria to run the Resident's offices in Makurdi and Ilorin.

Following discussion with MAA from 2005 onwards the object and photograph collections were donated in 2015 by Sylvia's son Professor Edward T. Spooner per the Spooner family, with material also going to the teaching collections.

Arthur Spooner's correspondence and papers, 1928-95, are held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Several items (including Konkomba dancing hats), copies of photographs and their associated copyright and a telegram relevant to the purchase of Sylvia Spooner's wedding ring were also given to the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum c.2008.
Event Date 23/9/2015
Author: Remke van der Velden

Context (CMS Context)
These rhythm pounders may have been acquired from the Nafan in Northwest Ghana or traded from further west as the Senufo are generally based in Mali and the Ivory Coast.
Event Date 23/9/2015
Author: Remke van der Velden

Context (CMS Context)
Notes by Arthur Spooner typed by his wife, Sylvia
read: 'Senufo male and female rhythm pounders, the male figure standing with hands on hips, high median crest projecting over the nape of the neck, the feet merged with the circular base, glossy patina. (Description extracted from Christie’s Tribal Art Sale, March 25th 1986. But not bought in this sale)’ ‘The rhythm pounders are carried by the young men of the Lo or Men’s Society in a dance in which all thump their figures in unison on the ground holding them from behind the upper arms. They are also used at funerals’. R. v.d. Velden, 23/09/2015.
Event Date 23/9/2015
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Male figure, dark wood, possibly a rhythm pounder with a crested hairstyle, scarification marks on face and hands resting on hips.
Event Date 10/11/2020
Author: Louise Puckett