Carving by the Makonde tribe of East Africa of an Elephant Shetani, c. 1974, African blackwood, Photo by Gadfium, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Shetani (noun)
The Makonde tribe that lives in Tanzania are master sculptors who create unique and powerful objects that are collected by museums as well as tourists.
These works of art that are based upon tribal myths and stories are primarily carved from African blackwood, or mpingo.
This is a sculpture of an elephant shetani, or an evil spirit that has both human features and those of an elephant. Such spirits often have one eye, one leg, and are bent over.
