These carvings by the Kamba are not a continuation of an indigenous figurative tradition.7 They traditionally applied their carving skills to utilitarian objects such as stools, spoons, snuff flasks, handles for knives and axes as well as prestigious ceremonial sticks. The first figurative carvings can be traced back to one man, Mutisya Munge. He was a Kamba tribesman from the Wamunya location of Machakos who even before the First World War was well known as a skilled carver of ceremonial sticks. Munge joined the army in 1914 and served with the Carrier Corps in Tanganyika. At this time he started producing carvings of Askaris and African people in traditional dress with the express purpose of selling them to Europeans. On his return home after the War he devoted himself solely to carving such works which were popular with the many newly-arrived Europeans in the colony. Initially members of his family assisted him in meeting the demand, and later men from neighbouring communities also started producing carvings. The boom in tourism after the Second World War resulted in a proliferation of carvers working for local markets as well as for export to other African countries, and in the present day the Kamba carvers continue to produce vast quantities of carvings for sale to tourists in East Africa.

See Walter Elkan, 'The East African trade in woodcarvings,' Africa, 28, 1958, pp.314-323; and S Sanamu, Adventures in search of African art, London, 1961, pp.19-24; A Troughear, 'Kamba carving: art or industry?', Kenya Past and Present, 19, 1987, pp.15-25; Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Aesthetics and market demand: the structure of the tourist art market in three African settings', African studies review, 29(1), March 1986, pp.41-59 (especially pp.48-54); AFRICA 95, London, 1995, p.143.

7 In W M Robbins and N I Nooter, African art in American collections, Washington, 1989, seated female figures are illustrated (nos.1340-1341) with the note that the Kamba 'traditionally carved rotund figures that usually were seated, often depicting a mother and child'. The carvings produced for sale to Europeans may be an extension of such figures which have rarely been seen or recorded. There is an early example of such a maternity figure in the National Museum of African Art in Washington, illustrated in A Jack, Africa: relics of the colonial era - Michael Graham Stewart, London, 1991, pp.48-49. 38a