EditorialThe year 200 I was an exciting onefor science, with two majordiscoveries out of Africa's pastbeing announced by the NationalMuseums' Palaeontology andIchthyology Departments.

In this issue you will also findout more about the history andculture of the Kenyan coast, withpictures of Old Mombasa, a studyof dreams and spiritism, and anartist's cross-cultural view ofGiriama ancestor posts.

On a contemporary note, wefeature an interview with designerand entrepreneur Alan Donovan,the man who first brought Africanfashions, music and models to thespotlights of the world.

And looking to the future,environmentalist and author KukiGallmann brings us her view ofholistic tourism initiatives whichwon't harm the ecology.

As always, this magazine triesto bring its readers the best of pastand present. We hope you enjoy itand welcome contributions forfuture issues.

Peta MeyerEditorKenya Past and Present

Cover Photo:Giriama elder MacKenzie KarisaNgala shows vigango (commemora-tive posts) honouring his grandfa-thers. This tradition among theGiriama of the coast is fast dyingout. Read more about vigango andtheir significance in CrossingBoundaries on page 57.Photo by Kate Parsons.

Kenya Past and PresentIssue 32, 2001

ContentsKenya Museum Society in 2001 3Helen Smallwood

Museum HigWights 2001 7Josephine Thang'wa

The Flat-faced Human from Kenya 11Meave Leakey

The Quest for African Ivory 16Dan Stiles

An Interview with Alan Donovan 21"Visionary Leadership in the Arts in Africa"Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin

Pictures of Old Mombasa 33Judy Aldrick

Kenya's Living Fossil 53Dalmas Oyugi

Crossing Boundaries 57Kate Parsons

Dream Interpretation and Spirits on the Kenyan Coast.. 63Linda Donley-Reid

NMK ProfIle:Dr Emma Mbua 72The Evolution of East Africa's FirstAfricanWomanPalaeoanthropologistJosephine Thang'wa

"Speak to the Earth, and It Shall Teach Thee" 76Kuki Gallmann

wounded animal before it has a chanceto react. A split second later the panickedelephant trumpets in pain and, with earsflapping and trunk waving, tears off intothe forest. Digba gives chase, knowinghe can easily track the bull by followingits trail of blood. It will die in a day ortwo.

This scenario is repeated about 250times a year in and around the MinkebeReserve in northern Gabon. The tusksthen make their way down river andeventually to Libreville, Gabon's capital,or more commonly they travel north intoCameroon, often with the connivance ofgovernment officials. Baka Pygmies,usually led by farmer villagers, have setup hunting camps allover northernGabon. Similar camps exist in the forestsof southern Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville. In the savannas of easternand southern Central African Republic(CAR) and northeastern DemocraticRepublic of Congo (DRC), well-organisedpoaching gangs using automatic weaponsmow down entire elephant herds,including the young, for their meat andivory.

Where once enormous herds ofelephants roamed majestically over theplains, gathering in their hundreds todrink from river banks, guarded by craggyold bulls carrying tusks weighing 30to 50kg each, now one sees only a fewnervous and traumatized groups. Fewelephant families have not lostrelatives to the poachers' bullets orspears, and in Central and West Africathere are almost no bulls todaycarrying tusks over 20kg. Digba'simmature bull had tusks weighing only4kg each. In 1979 there were anestimated 1.3 million elephants inAfrica. Today there are less than halfa million according to a 1999 WorldConservation Union - United NationsEnvironmental Programme report.

A trail of greed, deceitand corruption

Where do all these tusks go? In 1999 Ispent five months finding out, visitingeight countries in West and CentralAfrica. I uncovered a trail of greed, deceitand corruption, in which foreign ivorydealers, United Nations personnel anddiplomats colluded with Africangovernment officials to kill elephants andturn the tusks into home decorations,jewellery, and Oriental name seals. Muchof the worked ivory is sold in Africa itself,a surprising finding of the investigation.

Auctions of govern ment stocks of rawivory were permitted by CITES' to beheld in April 1999 in Zimbabwe,Botswana and Namibia, following yearsof bitter debate between proponents andopponents of the international trade inivory. The opponents lost, and 50 tonnesof ivory were bought by Japanese traders.But a crucial question was left hangingin the air - would this one-off sale of ivorystimulate the trade as a whole? If so,elephant poaching would no doubtincrease.

To answer the question, the scale ofthe current trade in Africa needed to beassessed to establish a baseline fromwhich to measure future changes. This

The Quest for African Ivory

Left hand page:In BangUi, CAR, thereis a thriving fake ivoryart business. Vendorssay that these'antique' pieces comefrom the lootedGbadolite palace offormer Zaireanpresident Mobutu SeseSeko. In reality, theyare fabricated in Lagosand Douala.

Below:The tourist hotel shopsin Lagos, Nigeria,displayed some of thelargest pieces ofworked ivory seen inthe study.

* Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

stockpiling due to the civil war.Conversely, ivory prices have shot upfrom an average $30 akg to $50 a kg inKinshasasince 1998, aseastern DRC ivory is nolonger available there.Prices go progressivelyhigher as one movesaway to Nigeria, Coted'ivoire and Senegal.

Cameroon is the pivotal country inthe international trade, as raw ivorycomes in from CAR, Congo-Brazzavilleand Gabon, where elephants arepoached by Pygmy bands led by traders.Cameroon also supplies ivory from itsown dwindling elephant herds in theeast. There are several ivory carvingfactories in Douala, and these supply notonly the local crafts centre and touristhotel shops, but also foreign residentsand visiting buyers. I witnessed largecarved tusks, covered in sunbaked earth

and decoratedwith coloureddisks, beingwrapped for airshipment to Italy,where the earth iswashed off afterpassing Customs.African traderstake workedpieces disguisedin this way toEurope and theUSA for sale.

does deter sales.Nevertheless, I was ableto negotiate for 42 tusks weighing 252kgfrom a craftsvendor without too muchtrouble. Abidjan, justifying the name ofits home country, displayed the largestamount of ivory of any country in Africa- over 20,000 pieces! Lagoswas secondwith almost 6,000.

As alarming as this sounds, the scaleof ivory traded is still lower now than in1989 everywhere except Lagos, wherethere appears to be a moderate increase.CITES voted a ban of the internationalsaleof ivory in 1989, and the market andivory prices crashed in 1990. Kinshasa,Bangui, Yaounde, N'Djamena and Dakarstill have fairly low levels of trade, butthis is due as much to ivory shortages asto low demand. Unfortunately, themarket is showing signs of reviving, andmany of the indicators show an increasefrom levels seen in the early and mid-1990s in Central and West Africa.

There is a ready buyer for any tusk,of any size, froma poachedelephant. I sawtusks as small as10cm in lengthmounted onwoodenpedestals for sale.The prices arelowest in the ivorysupply countries,not surprisingly,with the lowestbeing in theCentral AfricanRepublic wheresmall to mediumsize tusks cost nomore than $20 akg. The price isabout the same ineastern DRC,where ivory. is

The Quest for African Ivory

" There is a readybuyer for any tusk,of any size, from apoached elephant"

Americans inManhatten areparticu larly fondof a certain ivorymask of a formerQueen of Benin,paying $2000 forone. The Italians,Spanish and

This large crucifix wascommissioned by aCatholic priest fromGuinea Bissau.I was told that Spanishpriests commissionseveral such piecesevery year to give awayas gifts to visitingdignitaries.