"djokélebalé" Or "nsoukou" Anklet – Kota Culture, Eastern Gabon, Late 19th Century

Imposing copper alloy anklet with a wide open ring adorned with six protruding moldings. Grainy and oxidized patina, testifying to the antiquity and ritual use of the piece. These ornaments, sometimes heavy and bulky, were used as currency and also constituted a wedding dowry. This type of jewelry-money, called Djokélebalé or Nsoukou, illustrates the dual aesthetic and social value of Kota and Mbete productions from eastern Gabon. The Kota, established in a region rich in iron ore, entrusted the blacksmith – also a sculptor – with the manufacture of agricultural tools, ritual weapons, reliquary figures, and ornaments. Copper jewelry, when too bulky to be worn, served as traditional currency and circulated in the equatorial region: from Gabon to Congo-Brazzaville, via Cameroon. A rare ethnographic piece, at once a prestige object, currency and adornment, characteristic of Kota/Mbete metallurgical art from the late 19th – early 20th century.