Primitive African currencies take a wide variety of forms, and these sometimes take on, in traditional African art, the appearance of particularly aesthetic tribal sculptures. Some hoe-type pieces were used in the 1950s in Nigeria to acquire a slave or a wife. It was necessary to collect around forty for a slave, and at the time they constituted part of the dowry for most Bantu tribes. Height on base: 42 cm. In Africa, before the colonial period, payments were never made in coins. Transactions were made using cowrie shells, pearls, cattle, kola nuts, but also metals, including iron in particular. These primitive currencies were used during commercial and social exchanges, for dowries in particular, but could also constitute objects of display or throwing weapons. In Sierra Leone, goods were valued against iron bars called barriferri. In 1556 in Djenné Jean-Léon l'Africain observed that the populations also used iron to pay for "things of little value". The king generally controlled the production or delivery of the kingdom's currency.
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