Symbolic message made from plant fibre and cowrie shells. Six cowrie shells threaded through a plaited length of plant fibre. [FB 11/05/2015]

Collection type: Object
Description: Symbolic message made from plant fibre and cowrie shells. Six cowrie shells threaded through a plaited length of plant fibre. [FB 11/05/2015]
Geographical reference: Nigeria
Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria
Cultural groups: Ijebu Yoruba
Person: Field collector John Augustus Otonba Payne; PRM source Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1887
Date collected: By 1887
Acquisition information: Donated: 1887, uncertain Transferred: 1887, uncertain
Materials and processes: Material Cowrie Shell, Material Plant Fibre, Process Plaited, Process Bound, Process Tied
Dimensions: Width: max 22 mm, Length: max 120 mm approx
Object numbers: Accession number: 1887.10.3
Research and responses: For a nineteenth-century account of such objects, see 'On African Symbolic Messages', by C. A. Gollmer, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 14 (1885), pp. 169–82. [JC 15 5 2015]
Associated publications: Illustrated and described (with 1887.10.1–.2 and .4–.8) in detail in 'Exhibition of West African Symbolic Messages', by G. W. Bloxam, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 16, pp, 295-9, and Plate IV. (Copy in RDF.) [JC 15 5 2015]