Arm or ankle bracelet used by the Jonga and Hamba groups in Congo Kinshasa around the 1950s for the payment of the dowry. (""The Perfect Form" R. Ballarini, p. 291) Adapted base on request. In Africa, before the colonial period, payments were never made in coins. Transactions were made using cowries, pearls, cattle, kola nuts, but also metals, especially iron. These primitive currencies were used during commercial and social exchanges, for dowries in particular, but could also constitute objects of parade or throwing weapons. In Sierra Leone, goods were valued against iron bars called barriferri. In 1556 in Djenné Jean-Léon the African observed that the populations used iron to pay for "things of little value". The king generally controlled the production or routing of the kingdom's currency. The variety of these metallic forms is wide, and these sometimes take on the appearance of particularly aesthetic non-figurative sculpture.
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