puulevy - Allo Kafi Gida - Nigeria (Ei pohjahintaa)

An Allo Kafi Gida board of the Hausa people, Nigeria, with several drawings and arabic writings on both sides of the board. Signs of ritual use.

In Hausa usage the word allo refers to the rectangular wooden board employed in Qurʾanic schooling for the writing, memorisation and recitation of verses. These boards are central artefacts of the traditional makarantar allo system, in which pupils copy lines of the Qurʾan with ink prepared from soot and gum, recite them repeatedly, wash the board and proceed to the next passage. The phrase allo kafi gida does not denote a different object; rather, in pedagogical and artisanal contexts it designates a category of boards valued for their workmanship and durability, sometimes manufactured with thicker wood and a smoother writing surface than the ordinary boards used in the home or in informal instruction. In practice such boards are preferred for intensive study or for pupils who have progressed beyond elementary copying, because the quality of the calligraphic surface affects legibility and the ease with which ink washes off.

Ethnographic accounts show that the making of these boards involves specialised woodworking techniques and regionally specific aesthetics. Carvers select light, fine-grained woods that resist warping, then plane and sand the surface to achieve an evenness suitable for repeated inscription. The boards often bear modest stylistic signatures—subtle edge bevels or carved grips—that identify the workshop or region of origin. Although not considered luxury items, allo kafi gida boards circulate as valued pedagogical tools within Qurʾanic schools and are sometimes given as gifts to promising students or teachers as marks of esteem.

Within the wider cultural economy of northern Nigeria the use of such boards illustrates the intimate link between material culture and Islamic pedagogy. The allo is both a technological aid and a moral object, associated with discipline, endurance and the cultivation of literacy in Arabic. The designation kafi gida underscores expectations about reliability and suitability for formal study, distinguishing these boards from domestically made or improvised variants whose surfaces may be irregular, porous or prone to stain retention.

References
J. Boyd The Makarantar Allo in Hausaland
A. G. Ahmad Material Culture of Qurʾanic Schooling in Northern Nigeria
M. Last Qurʾanic Education and its Artefacts in West Africa

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All bronzes and terracotta items offered have been publicly exhibited in Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery since 2001. Organisations such as DIGITAL BENIN and academic institutions such as the Technical University of Berlin, which have been intensively involved in restitution-reseaches (translocation-project) over the past seven years, are aware of our work, have inspected large parts of our collection and have visited us in our dependance in Lomé, Togo, among other places, to learn about the international Art trade on site. Furthermore, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) in Abuja, Nigeria, has been informed about our collection. In no case in the past have there been restitution claims against private institutions such as the Wolfgang Jaenicke Gallery

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