Draft:Farmingdale Statue

In September 1961, Edna Genega and her family were excavating behind their home in South Farmingdale, New York, when she discovered a dirt-encased wooden figure buried beneath a small tree rooted in swamp deposits. The swamp had been masked by clean sandy fill laid down before the construction of the surrounding ranch-style houses. The bog appeared to have drained into a small stream entering Great South Bay along the western shore of a peninsula known locally as Fort Neck. The find-spot was located within a few kilometers of the former Massapequa tribal stronghold, whose fort had been destroyed in 1644 by English mercenaries in the employ of William Kieft, Director-General of New Netherlands.^[1]

A specialist in the study of primitive art at a major museum initially dismissed the find as a piece of modern tourist art. The statue eventually came to the attention of archaeologist Richard Michael Gramly, then at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who undertook a systematic investigation.^[1]

Gramly visited the Genega home and cut a small block of wood from the statue's base for radiocarbon dating, filling the hole with paraffin to prevent further damage. He noted that the wood was soft and friable — a sure sign of respectable antiquity. He also excavated two pits near the find-spot with the assistance of the Genega family to verify the circumstances of discovery. Both pits revealed forty to sixty centimeters of barren fill resting upon swamp or bog deposit. The most significant item recovered was a chip of sawn wood bearing marks of an early straightsaw, suggesting the deposit dated to the seventeenth century or later.^[1]

The statue is a standing anthropomorphic male figure measuring 51 centimeters (approximately 20 inches) in height, with a shoulder width of 15 centimeters. It is carved from a single piece of wood and is notable for its detailed surface decoration and the presence of several separately rendered accessories.^[1]

Key features include a circular headring (isicoco), worn among the Zulu by all mature men, with holes that may once have held plumes; a fur kaross appearing to have been fashioned from leopard skins; a hanging loincloth rendered in exquisite detail; and a detachable knobkerrie (club) held in the right hand. The left hand was broken and lost at the time of discovery, struck accidentally by a shovel, and may once have held a staff or spear. The figure bears a beard — significant because European observers shipwrecked on the Natal coast in the seventeenth century frequently noted that important men among the Nguni were bearded. Intricate designs incised on the shoulders, neck, and breast are interpreted as representations of decorative scarifications, marks considered beautiful among Nguni peoples.^[1]

The surface of the statue was coated with a veneer of clear, waxy matter identified by the Chemistry Department of the State University of New York at Stony Brook as animal fat or oil — consistent with traditional African practice of dressing wood carvings with fat to preserve the wood and impart a luster over time. Traces of red ochre or similar pigment remained in some of the incised grooves. Tool marks of a narrow-bladed adze, possibly a metal one, were evident on the base.^[1]

Gramly submitted a wood sample from the statue's base to a radiocarbon dating laboratory. The wood was dated to A.D. 1630, with a margin of error of 115 years. The friability of the wood further confirmed that the carving had not been made recently. All evidence indicated that the Farmingdale statue was a genuine relic of the Colonial period.^[1]

Gramly solicited evaluations from multiple specialists in primitive art and African ethnology, though initial responses were skeptical given the exceptional state of preservation. Opinions on stylistic attribution varied widely. One curator of ethnology at a New England museum cautiously suggested a Middle Eastern or African origin. Specialists at a large Midwestern museum compared the iconography to excavated figures from ancient Nineveh, or alternatively proposed it was a naive modern European portrayal of a prehistoric man. Experts at a Belgian museum argued the statue lacked the rounded surfaces characteristic of authentic African carvings.^[1]

A decisive identification came from Dr. Leon Siroto, one of the leading experts on traditional African wood carving, who at the time was assisting in the cataloguing of the Peabody Museum's collection of African art at Harvard University. Referred to Gramly by Professor Monni Adams, Curator of Art and Anthropology, Dr. Siroto identified the work unhesitatingly as having been made by the Zulu or another Nguni group of southeastern Africa. The identifying clues were the headring, the detachable knobkerrie, the fur kaross appearing to have been sewn from leopard skins, the beard, and the decorative scarification designs on the shoulders and breast.^[1]

Patricia Davison, a professional officer at the South African Museum, confirmed Dr. Siroto's attribution, while expressing reservations about the statue's antiquity given the conditions under which it had been preserved.^[1]

Gramly brought the statue to the Tropical Timber Information Center at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University, where Professor Carl de Zeeuw and Dr. Richard L. Gray identified the wood as belonging to the family Leguminosae, possibly the genera Cassia or Acacia. Professor de Zeeuw subsequently provided a more specific classification, identifying the wood as Cassia siamea — an Asiatic tree first introduced into central and northern South Africa as a fast-growing windbreak whose wood is termite-resistant. He noted that among members of the Cassia genus in South Africa, only C. siamea produces stems broad enough to carve an artefact as large as the Farmingdale statue.^[1]

The identification of C. siamea had an important implication: the species was apparently introduced to South Africa no earlier than the first half of the seventeenth century, when Dutch skippers were making experimental plantings at the Cape of Good Hope. It was suggested that logs of C. siamea might have been salvaged by Nguni wood-carvers from one of the many shipwrecks on the Transkei and Natal coasts.^[1]

During the course of the investigation, several other statues with strong similarities to the Farmingdale specimen were identified.

The identification of the statue as a Zulu or Nguni artefact raised the central historical question: how did it arrive on Long Island in the seventeenth century? Gramly explored several hypotheses.^[1]

In 1981, the Farmingdale Statue was loaned by Edna Genega to the Buffalo Museum of Science, where it was exhibited as catalogue item No. 83, titled "Wooden Statue," in the exhibition "Masterpieces of the Anthropology Collection," which opened on May 3, 1981. The exhibition catalogue described the statue as one of the earliest artifacts associable with Black Americans of African descent, referenced the identification of the wood as Cassia siamea, a carbon-14 age of 320 radiocarbon years, and the hypothesis that the figure had been brought to New Amsterdam by an indentured African laboring for the Dutch West India Company. The catalogue confirmed the statue's dimensions as 51 cm in height and 15 cm in width at the shoulders.^[2]

Prior to the exhibition opening, an article headlined "African Statuette: Zulu Woodcarving To Highlight Show" was published in The Buffalo News on February 15, 1981, previewing the forthcoming exhibition and crediting Dr. Leon Siroto as the expert who provided the decisive identification.^[3]

The Farmingdale Statue also served as the lead artifact in the Buffalo Courier-Express Sunday section's feature article on the exhibition, published on May 3, 1981, which characterized it as "one of the oldest such artifacts ever found in North America."^[4]

Following the exhibition, journalist Tony Schaeffer reported in Newsday on September 23, 1982 that Edna Genega was actively seeking a suitable permanent exhibition venue on Long Island.^[5]

The statue remains in the private possession of the Genega family.

Gramly assessed the potential importance of the Farmingdale Statue on multiple grounds. Artefacts of the Colonial period attributable to Black Americans are rare, and objects that came from Africa to the New World in the hands of their original owners are doubly so. The statue is one of the oldest surviving African wood carvings, as well as a representative of a little-known school of wood-carving art — the Zulu had not previously been given credit as wood-carvers, and comparative material was extremely rare. As a relic of the encounter between an Old World population and Native Americans, the statue may be unique, serving as a reminder of seventeenth-century America.^[1]