Brass staff. Surmounted by the figure of a bird with curved beak and outspread wings.

Collection type: Object
Description: Brass staff. Surmounted by the figure of a bird with curved beak and outspread wings.
Geographical reference: Nigeria
Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria; Benin City
Cultural groups: Edo
Person: Field collector 1897 Benin City "Punitive Expedition"; PRM source Charles G. Kingsley
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1897
Date collected: February 1897
Acquisition information: Donated: 1900
Materials and processes: Material Brass Metal, Process Lost Wax Cast
Dimensions: Length: max 320 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1900.39.5
Research and responses: This object is part of a collection documented as ‘from Benin city, taken during the punitive expedition under Admiral Rawson, February, 1897’. The objects in the collection were acquired by Mary Henrietta Kingsley before her death in June 1900. They were bequeathed to her brother Charles G. Kingsley, with the understanding that they would be transferred to the Pitt Rivers Museum after his death, however he arranged for them to be immediately presented to the Museum, where they entered the collection in September 1900. [JMC 14/04/2023]
Associated publications: Possibly the object listed as no RO/16 ('idiophone, bird') on p. 2.1.33 in An Illustrated Catalogue of Benin Art, by Philip J. C. Dark, Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1982. [JC, undated] A similar piece is in the Perls Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This is illustrated as figure 82 on page 103 of The Art of Benin, by Paula Girshick Ben-Amos (London: British Museum Press, 1995). According to the author's caption (on page 103), such staffs are known as ahianmwen-oro and were carried by chiefs at the Ugie Oro festival, when they would hit the beak with a brass rod 'in remembrance of its ignominious prophecy. [JC 23 5 2002]

Search terms: Figure, Music, Status, Insignia, Religion, Staff, Bird Figure, Musical Instrument

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