[Belgian1]

Thank you for this very interesting and rewarding document.
It seems that the harpoons for hippopotamus fishing have been used all over Africa and it seems, have the common point of having all been influenced by the models described and reproduced with the ancient Egyptian geoglyphs .

But also, if the models seem different from one part of Africa to another, it appears that a common point reunited these peoples by the fact that hippopotamus hunting is, wherever it was practiced with harpoons, a kind of ritual during which the participants were chosen and widely adulated and the first harpooner of the hippopotamus was considered the "big winner of the party".
No doubt before the "arrival" of Europeans and gunpowder, this hunt was to give rise to a special ritual ..... or be practiced according to a particular ritual.
What is certain is that the bulbous part of this harpoon was to serve as a float designed to locate the hippopotamus in the water after it was harpooned ....

I think that this harpoon can teach us much more about a Cultural and Cultual aspect of the Mbete, than as a "simple" hunting harpoon .....
For my part I was harpooned by what suggests hippo hunting in African Culture and I will try to learn more about it.

Here is 2 pictures taken from the (Revue d'Ethnoécologie: 10 | 2016 : Inland traditional capture fisheries in the Congo Basin), whom I thank for the excellence of their information.
Fabrice