The leopard's spots have been considered so important that, in many African societies, symbols have been created for the leopard in the form of patterns, pictograms and combinations of colours. Certain patterns have then been altered over the years and inspired further patterns, so that today we don't always know the pattern's original meaning and connection to the leopard. Do these wooden fragments from the lower Congo River show a leopard pattern? Many objects in our collections lack information about what they mean, who has used them and how. By comparing them with artefacts from other areas of Africa, we can however speculate about what the pattern means.
In Nigeria, triangles – like those on the lower board – symbolise the leopard's spots, and in the Congo triangles occur alongside other symbols for the leopard in art. Similar rhomboids with dots in, like you see on the upper fragment, are pictured together with leopards, on doors from the same area. Further south, Kuba textiles are woven with rhomboids called pandeke which means, "spotted like a leopard".