[Oe List ...] Katanga cross in museums

Fri Oct 19 17:56:09 EDT 2007

About 10 years ago while Bob and I were visiting (Philadelphia? of OK City,  
we can't remember) we stopped into a Treasury Buidling  which had a museum  on 
the first floor.  They had a display of the history of currency   with 
samplings from around the world -- and lo and behold at least  1 Congolese"  cross 
as a sample of money used in that time.  That  was quite a surprise for us.  
Now I see others have also seen them in  musees

Cynthia

In a message dated 10/18/2007 8:08:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
bergdall at rcn.com writes:

At  18/10/2007, John Cock wrote:
>>this link  http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/objectmo/ob-9802.htm
>>works fine for  me.

I have used this link for years: it is the best summary that I have  come 
across about the "Congelese" cross (as it was called when I first heard  about it 
in the Order). Here is what Fred Buss -- before he apparently became  
displaced(!)-- wrote about it in March 2007 (see  
http://twiki.wedgeblade.net/bin/view.cgi/Main/OrderHistory

>>The  Congolese cross was nailed to the Westside wall 
>>in 1964. JWM felt  the Congolese cross, symbolic of 1.
>>Cruciform shape, 2  International, 3 developing world, 
>>4. As money, the  transfiguration of the secular into 
>>the religious as a demand on  the 20th century church’s
>>mission. The cross was the form of  exchange (money) 
>>and made of solid copper. 

I heard the  basics of this same history in 1968 when I first visited the 
Ecumenical  Institute. After I was assigned to Africa in 1984, I asked Lyn 
Mathews to  elaborate on the story. She told me that Joe was given an antique cross 
at  Victoria Falls during his first research trip to Africa. She said he liked 
 that fact that it came from a non-western culture. Lyn also confirmed that  
this same cross was used to symbolize the covenant of the Order shortly after  
their departure from the Faith and Life Community in Austin. Lyn told me,  
however, that the original cross from Victoria Falls had somehow vanished. If  I 
ever came across another one in Africa, she told me that she would be most  
grateful if I would obtained it for her.  

This is the kind of  quest I enjoy. Little by little, I pieced together their 
African history  (which has since been confirmed in the link above from they 
McClung Museum):  they are copper ingots that were used as a primitive form of 
currency in  pre-colonial Africa. They primarily originated from the Katanga 
region (thus  some refer to them by that name). Today, this is where the 
southeast tail of  the Congo spears into the middle of Zambia -- an odd border 
negotiated by  European colonial powers due to huge copper deposits. 

In the mid-1990s  I finally stumbled across some of these antique copper 
ingots in an open-air  market in Lusaka. At the time I felt it was almost as if I 
had found the Holy  Grail! I bought four and gave one to Lyn in Dallas during 
the January 1996  conference of the International Association of Facilitators 
(IAF). That was  the last time I saw her.

That brought my long and interesting search in  Africa for an original 
"Congelese" cross to a successful end. What it  symbolizes, however, (i.e., 
embodying a new religious mode in a secular time),  remains an active pursuit.

Terry

Cynthia N.  Vance, M. A.
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