Henri Junod discusses Muhlati in his two volume Life of a South African tribe. He was 'a sculptor living in the neighbourhood of Lourenço Marques. This artist, who was very proud of his work, and asked a tolerably high price for it, claimed to be able to carve anything and everything: birds, four-footed beasts, or men. He was famous throughout the land for his talent'.6 Muhlati's most famous work is his sculpture of a leopard (with a detachable tail) devouring an Englishman, now in the Museacute;e d'ethnographie, Neuchatel (see pp.13-14 for Junod's description of this piece). His distinctive style is characterised by pokerwork representing hair and clothes on a blonde wood, and, more specifically, incised circular eyes heightened with pokerwork, circular ears with an intruding triangular form, slit mouths, hands with simplified parallel grooves for fingers, and a running motif of cross-hatching often on the base or support.

Other works by him are illustrated in Julius E Lips, The savage hits back, London, 1937, p.172, fig.143; and Ubuntu Arts et cultures d'Afrique du Sud, Paris, 2002, no.18 (a work in the collection of Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Paris (A99-29-5), incorrectly ascribed to Basotho).

6 H A Junod, Life of a South African tribe, New York, 1962, v.2, pp.135-136.