Artefact belonging to the Mads LaMotte Collection

THE MUNGO PATERNOSTER. Charred remains of alabasterite sculpture depicting the joined head of explorer Mungo Park and Death. Eleven ½ inch beads constructed of paper. Historians identified the original paper as loose scraps from Park’s journal, sold as religious charms in 1796 on Park’s return from Nigeria. See also Mungo Park 1799 Travels in the Interior of Africa. According to Mads LaMotte, the religious charms were no more than badly written phrases translated from undetermined passages of the Koran. In spite of this, the charms were soon discovered to be Indestructible and collected over a period of fifty years. How the charms became beads for the paternoster is debated. Mads LaMotte purchased the paternoster as part of a collection of personal property owned by adventurer George Hogg who died in 1945 at Shandan district in China. 

copyright © 2022 by Jane Harrington