MUSEU DE ARQUEOLOGIA E ETNOLOGIA COLLECTION, USP
Hand-picked from the collection at Universidade de S.o Paulo’s Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, MAE-USP, this selection features jewelry from three West-African tribes that have left an indelible mark on Brazilian culture: the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Ashanti, from Ghana, and the Fon, from present- day Benin. An emblem of prestige, protection, and power, African tribal jewelry connects sensibilities through a tacit understanding of the interchange between the practical finality of the ornament, the precise rigor of the amulet or talisman, and the notion of immersion, through the eye of the other, in the totality of the social cosmos. The collection was acquired for the university in the early 1970s by the Assyriologist Marianno Carneiro da Cunha, with the assistance of the museum’s director at the time, the historian Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses; the then ambassador to Senegal, the poet Jo.o Cabral de Melo Neto; and the French ethnologist Pierre Verger, among other intellectuals. Some of these items have not been exhibited since the 1980s, while most are being shown to the public for the first time ever.