Bamenda Ceramic Shield, Cameroon

Herringbone above, herringbone below, and an X where they meet.

This shield is Bamenda, from Cameroon, Central Africa, and is contemporary, in wood and kaolin. White kaolin clay is applied to carved surfaces throughout the Cameroon Grassfields, where it is generally associated with purity and ancestral blessing. Here a slender elongated hexagon is carved all over in fine slanting ridges, whitened and set off by black grooves. The ridges form chevrons that run up and down from the center, where four fields meet in a crisp cross. Both ends taper to rounded tips. It is 10.5 inches wide and 46 high.

Tailored like a well-cut jacket, seams and all.