Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/289

 In addition to the forty groups, twenty-four bas-relief panels in bronze (six by eleven feet each) are planned as a frieze just above the floor groups and along the balcony to form a series around the entire lower floor, becoming a part of the architectural decoration of the hall. The sculpture of each panel will tell the story of some native tribe and its relations to the animal life of Africa.

For instance, one panel will show a Dorobo family, the man skinning a dead antelope brought in from the forest to his hut, where are his wife and babies and two hunting dogs, their only domestic animals. A further interest in animal life will be revealed in the presence of the dead antelope as it is a source of food and clothing, for these people live entirely by hunting. Another panel may show a group in Somaliland with camels, sheep, goats, cattle, and ponies at a water hole, domestic beasts furnishing the interest in animal life. Still another panel completing the Somali story will represent a group of Midgans in some characteristic hunting scene. While each of these panels should be a careful and scientifically accurate study of the people and their customs, accurate in detail as to clothing, ornaments, and weapons, the theme running through the whole series should be the relationship of the people to animal life.

If an exhibition hall is to approach the ideal, its plan must be that of a master mind, while in actuality it is the product of the correlation of many minds and hands. In all the museums of the world to-day