‘ Adam and Eve’

Muslims from Sierra Leone who lived in The Gambia and formed an Islamic Cultural Group used to commission a lantern each year for the end of Ramadan and either brought a builder up from Freetown to construct it or, as in the case of this lantern, relied on a local Sierra Leonean lantern builder living in the Banjul area.

In the centre of this lantern stands the tree of the knowledge of good and evil up which is coiled a grey snake. Adam stands on the right and Eve, clutching a red apple, on the left. It is an example of the type of lantern, comprising animal and human puppet figures, that gained increasing popularity in Freetown from the 1950s onwards and which often drew inspiration from religious sources. In the case of this lantern, however, it appears that the figures are static and not puppets. The lantern was placed on a hand cart (or carried by four club members) when it was paraded by night through the streets of Banjul.