Elephant Jali Sculpture in Silver

Elephant Jali Sculpture in SilverWhen Patrick was six or seven years old and lived in a small mining town called Shabani, he was deeply influenced in his love of the bush by their cook, Welo Phiri. Welo was a chigure drummer and mask maker. Chigure were tribesmen selected to dance as they were possessed by ancestral spirits. They wore feather arm and leg bands and wore wooden masks. Patrick recalls, Welo would take me on his little safaris to look for dried out Commiphora trees from

When Patrick was six or seven years old and lived in a small mining town called Shabani, he was deeply influenced in his love of the bush by their cook, Welo Phiri. Welo was a ‘chigure’ drummer and mask-maker. Chigure were tribesmen selected to dance as they were possessed by ancestral spirits. They wore feather arm and leg bands and wore wooden masks. Patrick recalls, ‘Welo would take me on his little safaris to look for dried out Commiphora trees from which he would take pieces of wood to carve his little masks. At that age, I was very cautious about animals that trampled little boys like me, and Welo would placate my fears with stories about a friendly little elephant in his homeland called Jali. He told me that the sweetest bananas were grown on the shores of Lake Malawi and little Jali was such a well-mannered young elephant, that every tribesman would feed him a banana when he came to their village’.

Sterling Silver sculpture.

Dimensions:
Length: 50mm
Width: 34mm
Height: 43mm