African Crafts In England we lament the disappearance of the
craftsman, the happiest and the best of men. It seems that such a lament is heard even in new and thinly populated countries. A Southern Rhodesian (" the first life member of The Spectator") fears that Rhodesia is passing through a stage similar to that which followed the supremacy of industrialism in England. The natives were great craftsmen as wood-carvers basket-makers and even as workers in iron, and a generation ago they supplied almost all their own requirements. They made garments of skin, and spun a sort of cotton fibre from different plants for the making of nets and ropes and such things. More than this, tradition had taught them a form of ration adequate in the necessary vitamins. The substitution of white bread and such things has seriously affected physical health as the abandonment of the crafts has done spiritual damage. Is it really quite impossible to secure the survival of at any rate the best part of the old way of life? One may wish and struggle for a good many past glories without believing in that mythical period, the Golden Age. We want "something old isiom Africa."
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