Mbole Currency

Once, while I was waiting for a ride out of a ramshackle village at the edge of the Ituri forest in Zaire a truck burst from the broken jungle carrying a huge red log streaming pennants of vines. “That’s sad,” I commented to the hanger on waiting with me. “Zaire has millions of trees,” the young man replied. “We can cut them and cut them for a thousand years.” I pointed out that the spot where we were standing with its plank huts, sodden children and pet baboon chained to a papaya tree had once been forest too. “Maybe not a thousand years,” he admitted then. “Maybe just two hundred.” Or maybe less? There was a time in the mid 90s or so when African traders would open the doors of their vans and warehouse lockers to reveal piles of these Mboles. The once seemly inexhaustible supply of these hammered copper curiosities has been depleted. I probably won’t be offered any more so here are all the ones I have left. 7″ to 8″ diameters.

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