Introduction: colonial power and aesthetic practice
Part 1. Warriors. Maa warriorhood and British colonial discource.
Idoma warriorhood and the Pax Britannica
Part 2. Sculptors and smiths. Colonial rupture and innovation: the colonizer as inadvertent patron
Samburu smiths, Idoma maskmakers: power at a distance
Part 3. Masks, spears, the body. Mask and spear: art, thing, commodity
Warrior theatre and the ritualized body
Part 4. Commodities. Idoma sculpture: colonialism and the market for African art
Samburu encounters with modernity: spears as tourist souvenirs
Samburu warriors in Hollywood films: cinematic commodities
Reprise: the three C's: colonialism, commidities, and complex representations
Coda: from spears to guns in the North Rift.