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[...] the poet's frequently evoked query speaks to the significance of African art in the construction of modern American identities and aesthetics across racial boundaries in the first decades of the twentieth century, providing an overlay for the investigation of the role of photographs in this development.

Why is bone sometimes used instead of ivory in Yorùbá carving? Bone objects are often mistaken for ivory, which is not surprising since the two materials look similar, although they are not identical. During interviews with Yorùbá practitioners carried out in Nigeria in the summer of 1998, priests, carvers and historians often spoke of elephant ivory and elephant bone interchangeably, making it clear that the association with elephant was paramount. The first chapter of this dissertation begins with a review of the image of elephant that reverberates throughout both the verbal and visual art of the Yorùbá. Architectural sculpture and painting, sculpture, and textiles all exhibit elephant motifs that can be tied to those found in praise songs and hunters' chants. Chapter two discusses elephant in his natural environment, the hunters who pursue him and the charms they use in the hunt, and some of the uses for elephant ivory and bone. The practice of lfá divination and the tappers, divining chains and small heads carved of bone or ivory used in the performance of its ritual are examined in chapter three. Finally, chapter four explores the cult of Òrìsà Oko, god of the forest and the farm, and the use of bone and ivory whistles as emblems for the male devotees. What emerges from this study is the certainty that both bone and ivory are materials with rich metaphorical associations tied to elephant and his attributes, but that both materials also have important intrinsic characteristics that differ. Elegant ivory, lustrous and durable, is a fitting material for the public display of kings and other leaders, while porous bone is more easily broken down to become the ingredient for powerful charms and medicines, the province of the more esoteric realm of hunters and priests. In Yorùbá eyes, elephant truly has “long, white arrows of bone”—ivory and bone, one the echo of the other.