Mudlarking the River Thames : The Mysterious Wooden Dog with nails in his back found on the Thames

what is that? Oh my goodness! oh my goodness!  now that looks like something   that i will definitely not be taking home oh whatever is it? now it doesn't look very...  i don't know - it's got nails in his back how odd! it's obviously got some kind of  meaning i mean it's like an offering but   it doesn't look quite so nice i mean i  could be wrong it could be completely   lovely but something's not quite appealing about it it's not something that i would want to have  in the house. let's get a better shot of it who are you? what are you doing here?  what's your name? and what is your purpose? and why have you got nails on your back? who are you? yeah i've come across things before that have  had pins stuck in them dolls and things like   that and i must admit i'm not superstitious  but i have a healthy respect for odd things   that i definitely don't want to take home  with me so this chap will be staying here i'll send him on his way with with blessings and yeah let's hope he's a  nice dog with nails in his back now i don't know if you can see there but just down here look here there is what  looks like the outline of a pocket watch   now I've found a few watches here - a few  military pocket watches three in fact   um and so maybe this is another one of  those but i can't wait to see what it is but   it's it's great to savour the anticipation  but you can just see it there all crusted   in and so now i'm just gonna ease it  out of course what i would love would be   for it to have a name or something on the  back but often it's got like a serial number and look here we have it and yes  i think yes it is, it's another   military pocket watch there we are look it's  got the broad arrow there general service   mark two two nine five five four  what a fabulous find this morning i wonder who that belonged to it's a lovely clean foreshore this morning  the boats have been running for quite a while   so you can see really well what's going on which is nice sometimes you  come down here and there's   so much mud on the surface that  you really can't see a great deal i wonder if there's anything underneath let's have  a look looks like looks like they could be there looks like there could be oh yeah i can feel a stem going down here   looks like we might be in luck feels like a  plain pipe bowl let's do a little extraction look at that still coming oh very nice lovely so this pipe is a 19th century  pipe and it probably dates   to between about 1840 and 1870. let's give it  a little rinse it's so amazing isn't it that that these pipes still exist with  such a length of stem you know after   all the people that walk around down here  there we are get a better view of it now it might have a maker's mark on the heel  there it doesn't have one on the stem   and that will fade back to that colour   pretty soon when it's exposed to the air for  a while that black colour fades very nice and i will let that mud dry just in case there's  a nice little plug of tobacco at the bottom oh i do believe that's my crow friend  behind me. there's a couple of bullets here that looks like a spent 303 round maybe and then  there's this one which looks like a practice round   if i'm not mistaken with that crimped edge at  the top let's have a little walk around here   oh i can see something that looks interesting  over there or it could just be a piece of rock it looks like it's a piece of metal with  a number scratched in it just here look oh yeah it is   it's got a six now that's interesting because  i've got lots of these they're like little little game tokens and they've usually  got little holes in them to indicate   what number they are but this one's  actually got a number scratched in it kind of makes it more personal somehow  doesn't it i'll show you the rest of   the tokens that i've got i've got a lot  i think that they were used to gamble as well back in the 19th century look over here oh i've seen something round  just down here can you see it just over here oh look it's a coin is it a modern coin is it an old coin it's  got a barnacle on it must be fairly old   let's have a look i can't quite make it out at  the moment i'll clean it off when i get home exciting i love finding coins and it's fun  when you can't see what they are straight away   hopefully it won't be too worn i can see Britannia there okay i put that in my bag let's continue along here see  if we can see anything else so   i've just been scraping around here and my  trowel prised something out of the mud it's   just here and i nearly discarded it straight  away to the side because i thought it was just a   misshapen piece of metal but look what it is is a little lead toy and it looks like  a little lead native american there look i think it was the headdress that caught my eye  first of all you can barely make it out really   but i'm pretty certain that's what it is so  i'm gonna take it home with me and try and   straighten it out and bring him a little  bit back to his former glory in fact the   other day i also did the same thing i  filmed myself scraping and i picked   up a little piece of metal thinking it might  be something and then realized that it wasn't   and i still put it in my bag though for some  reason and then i realized that it wasn't nothing   later on and it's actually also a very very  bended up little lead toy so i'll dig it out again   and i'll see if we can do something to the two  of them yeah there you are look see now he's got   to be quite old there's the the base just here  and you can see a figure kneeling down this arm   probably in the middle of pulling his bow back i  expect well hopefully we'll be able to clean it up and what is this ah look that used to be a lead  horse once upon a time with a rider but you can   barely make it out now it's completely destroyed  almost a toy from a very very long time ago another lead one haha i can see another lead toy i wonder if this  one will be in a slightly better condition   look it's just here what is  that that looks like a lion or a rabbit now there's a big difference between a  lion and a rabbit unfortunately his head   is covered up do you know what do you think look  i can see some ears there i reckon that let's put it in   the camera that would help wouldn't it?! um something  running bounding leaping it could be a bunny it   could be a bunny rabbit i'll reserve judgment  until i've tried to give it a little clean off yeah i think a rabbit rather than a  lion we'll soon find out hopefully   oh what's this something ornate look oh that was something at some point wasn't it it's like the leg to the bottom of some  kind of little box ornamental box maybe again lead lots of lead finds  today at least i think it's lead   interesting what do you think that came from well there's another little  beauty just there behind the rock i don't know if it's intact or not but i can  see that it's really pretty what do you reckon   i think we might be in with a  good chance actually there it is   isn't that pretty come here little pipe yes it is  it's intact it's a really lovely decorative one   look at that oh what a beauty  let's give you a little rinse that's lovely i wonder who the last  person was who took a puff of that i have seen over there though  signs of a victorian stoneware   pot look it's down here ready to extract now  what's the chances of it being intact pretty   good i'd say pretty good let's leverage it  out yeah yes it is look at that beautiful also known as pork pies because they look  a little bit like pork pies that's lovely okay well this is the thing  everyone i'm doing an about turn because i put this dog on twitter  and it had such a huge reaction   and it seems that it may be um valuable in terms  of research and i've finally been persuaded   to come and recuperate it um on the understanding  that it's for research and it can always be put   back in the river you know i don't like messing  with things that are supposed to be left where   they are but on the other hand if it's really  of such great interest and maybe it's not as   kind of sinister as i assumed which is always  a dangerous thing to make assumptions so   i'm going to take it with me and i'm going to be  consulting a museum about it and then if necessary   he can be returned to the river  so yeah so join me on this   voyage of discovery and let's find out a little  bit more about this dog about this art and   let's not automatically assume like i  did that it's something really really   really really horrible let's find out  and try and understand a bit more about it okay right well friend let's go hi everyone  thank you very much for watching my video and   welcome to my studio where i'm surrounded by some  of the treasures which i have found in the river   thames over the years and i'm going to talk  to you a little bit about some of the objects   which featured on today's video including my new  unexpected companion who you may have spotted   behind me here this rather magnificent  wooden dog he's now all dried out   and he has a rather interesting tale to tell  or at least that i'm going to tell for him   um certainly very very unexpected he's the last  thing that i expected to actually be standing next   to in my studio considering when i first saw him i  thought that he was never even going to leave the   foreshore and it's just such a great example of  the ridiculously varied um miscellaneous kinds of   objects which the thames tide washes out and the  stories behind some of them we can only guess at   including him but first of all let's just do a  quick run through of some of the other pieces   here i'm going to start off with this military  pocket watch here which is really beautiful and i   have found three if not four of these i've managed  to find three that i've got here in front of me   which came from the river thames and it is  actually a rolex and it's a military issued rolex   and it would have been issued probably during  the world war ii era in around about 1935 it's   got the broad arrow on the back and also a serial  number and they all have different serial numbers   unfortunately none of them have got their little  hands or the glass on them but they're beautiful   little pieces of history nevertheless and i'm sure  that if i was brave enough to open one of them up   that the the workings would  probably be in really good condition   but i'm not brave enough to do that so i'm  just going to content myself with imagining   whose pocket that used to be in all those  years ago and how it ended up in the thames i also have my pipe here which dates to let's say  between 1840 and 1870 it's been in the mud for   such a long time and it's in such good condition  and again like the pipe that i spoke about a few   weeks ago that i found in the mud this one has  a great big chunk of tobacco in the bottom it's   incredible isn't it that after 200 years that  that tobacco is still in there that the mud just   preserves everything so perfectly and again i just  can't help wondering who the last person was you   held this pipe because the last person who held  it before me would have been the person presumably   who smoked it and then 200 years later here we  are almost 200 years later you know what i mean   we've also got this lovely stoneware ink pot here  from victorian times also known as a penny pot or   a pork pie because of how it resembles a pork  pie and again it's fun to think of who may have   used it to dip their quill in there and write  a letter or a novel who knows the little coin   which i found which i have cleaned up turns  out to be a queen victoria farthing from 1860   and then this little coin-like object a little  round piece of lead with the number six scratched   into it is i believe some form of little token  like a gambling token and i do have a little box   of similar tokens which i believe were used for  gambling by sailors back in the 19th century and   who were probably actually not supposed to be  gambling at all so i don't know why there's so   many of them scattered on the mud but maybe they  hurriedly threw them over the side of the ship   when their official came along to tell them off  again it's um the stories behind these objects   which make them so fascinating because we can  only really imagine how they got to be in that mud   and then lastly of the objects which i have here  in front of me i have a very motley crew of lead   toys in various states of disarray and disrepair  many of them with no heads and some of them   looking uh yeah very worse for wear now the little  toy which i thought might be a lion or a rabbit   definitely is a rabbit you can see his little  ears here i managed to clean off what looked   like a huge mane to reveal the rabbit underneath  so there is the rabbit and here we have our little   native american here um i also managed to get  the crustiness off of him and here he is with   his bow and arrow and as i was looking at my  collection of lead toys i realized that i've   actually got several native americans exactly  the same so i've got now a little lineup of   three of these all shooting their arrows and  i also have two native americans on horses   so i'm afraid that the cowboy here who has not got  a head in fact i've got two um what i think could   be cowboys with no heads are slightly outnumbered  and so is the rabbit so it's fun to think about   you know the children that lost these all  those years ago children playing with these   little lead toys which as we now know is not the  ideal material to make toys out of for children   so that's that for the objects which were on  the video and now i can get to this dog here now when i first found him i thought by  looking at him i immediately saw these nails   poking out of his back and i thought oops that's  some kind of modern voodoo figure and something   that i definitely don't want to pick up and take  home but um i must have had a sixth sense i think   that i might have to keep him because before i  left the foreshore i actually put him right at the   top of the tide mark so that after i'd gone home  and i posted the pictures on twitter like i said   several people contacted me and said well what  you've got there actually is a very interesting   object it is a Nkisi Power Figure  from the democratic republic of congo   and he was probably made in the 19th century and  so when i was told this i thought gosh i better   go and pick him up again so i quickly jumped in  my car dashed down to the foreshore and just got   to the top of the tide mark before the the  tide was going to carry him away down the river   and so i took him home but i still didn't feel too  comfortable about him to be honest it just wasn't   something i don't know i just didn't feel too  comfortable having him in the house having said   that i'm not superstitious i guess there must  be something there because i just didn't feel   comfortable so i left him in the car for a couple  of nights and then finally i brought him inside   and now to be perfectly honest with you i've  grown quite fond of him. So what is a Nkisi   power figure well Nkisi means a container  that holds an ancestral spirit and empowering   medicine and materials and the plural of Nkisi  is minkisi which happily is a lot easier to say   and minkisi were made in the democratic republic  of congo and they were made in various forms often   in the human form but also in animal form and  this one is a dog and this one has a different   name he is a Nkisi kozo and so these figures  were actually a collaboration. there were two   people who made them there was a sculptor and  there was also a spiritual specialist called a Nganga  so the Nganga, the spiritual specialist  would ask the sculpture to create the figure   and one of the things in common about all  these minkis is that most of them have   a little backpack sometimes on their back  sometimes in their belly which was where the   empowering medicine was placed and then often over  the top like on this one there was glass or mirror   for various reasons and it's quite nice because  this one here still has the glass in the back   and the Nganga would use the figure to help his  clients he would use it to heal his clients or to   record agreements and contracts and he could also  activate this figure to go after evil doers and   to activate the Nkisi kozo such as this one  because essentially it's just a piece of wood but   to actually activate it um nails would be driven  into it and each nail would be a call to the   Nkisi to come and do the bidding of the Nganga  and so there's such a fascinating story to these   so goodness knows why this one was in the thames  now as i was saying this was probably made back in   the 19th century and in the late 19th century when  there were missionaries over in the democratic   republic of congo often they used to confiscate  these figures because they saw them as something   demonic or witchcraft etc so they would confiscate  them often destroy them but they were also   sold to collectors so many of these objects  left the democratic republic of congo found   themselves in museums or destroyed or  in private collections and certainly   i know that there is a big call to  repatriate these pieces back to the drc   where they really belong so um i'd like to  say thank you to Professor Dan Hicks and also to Theo Weiss who have given me some pointers as to where  i can find out information about these and um one   of them said to me that these figures are often  on a journey so maybe this dog was on a journey   initially when i saw him you know i thought  that he was kind of modern but now it's very   clear that he's definitely got some age to  him i'm glad i rescued him from the thames but   yeah i don't think that his journey is over so  what's your thoughts on it what do you think   about it and also i'm going to put a link  up in the corner to an excellent video um   somebody who is talking about minkisi power  figures and i think if you're interested in   finding out more about them there's really  so much more to them than a sinister looking voodoo creature something that they really  aren't and i've actually become quite fond of it   and because it really has got a story and it  just goes to show that just because something   looks quite ugly and sinister doesn't  mean that it's not something that's quite   precious and that has a story to tell so that  is the story of my new friend the nkisi kozo   dog from the democratic republic of congo made  probably in the 19th century and whose journey is   not over and who i'm looking forward to sending  him on his way to the next part of his journey   Voila! i think we will end  there I shall place him back here so yes i'd welcome your thoughts one of the  great things about this youtube channel is   that i always get so much engagement from you who  watch my videos and i really value your thoughts   and opinions and i'd love to know what you think  about the niksi kozo where he should go what do   you think about him let me know maybe some of you  actually know more about these figures than than   i do which is actually probably highly probable  because i don't really know that much about him   so thank you very much again for watching and  thank you for your comments and feedback on   my previous videos thank you to everybody  who has donated to my kofi account and who   have bought me a cup of virtual earl grey tea  with lemon they have all been very very much   appreciated so thank you to all of you you  know who you are so i hope that you have a   wonderful week ahead everyone and i'm sending  you lots of love from london take care bye-bye   do

Channel: nicola white mudlark - Tideline Art

Views: 231,879

Rating: 4.9173284 out of 5

Keywords: mudlarking, nkisi kozo, minkisi, minkis kondi, nicola white, nicola white mudlark, mudlarking videos

Id: Upybjfh2qGc

Length: 34min 35sec (2075 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 04 2021