| Description |
The rattle-staff, or the ukhurhe, was and is a constant feature of Benin ancestral altars. In this region, altars serve as ceremonial locations that honor the deceased and commemorate their achievements. In the Edo state it is customary for the male leader of every extended family to maintain an altar dedicated to his patrilineal ancestors. The shrines are central to rituals where ancestors are invoked with praises and requests for blessings on their living families. The most important ancestral altars have been in the palace of the Oba (ruler). Benin belief is that the Oba inherits supernatural powers from their deified predecessors, and invocations of ancestral rulers improve the general welfare of the nation.
The rattle-staff is symbolic of male authority transmitted to his successor. They are massed side by side on an ancestral shrine to emphasize the importance of the community over the individual and how this principle has continued over many generations. The majority of rattle-staffs are made from the wood of the ukhurhe-oho plant which has small branches that break off when they reach a certain length. Each branch is made into a segment of of the rattle staff which represents a single life span. By joining together many sections into one rattle staff, a generational connection is displayed.
Ivory was a rare and spiritually significant material used for Benin's religious and socio-political culture. It possessed the same color and smooth texture as orhue, a white kaolin clay associated with purity that is often applied to the face and body during rituals, mixed into ceremonial food, and molded into spheres or ovioid shapes on altars. As a powder, it is also blown or tossed into the air as a blessing. As ivory shared orhue's white color, especially when bleached with citrus juice, it became associated with spiritual forces.
In addition, the procurement and handling of ivory was an exclusive affair. In the early period of Benin's history, before the introduction of the firearm, the Obas maintained a guild of professional elephant hunters. There is also the hereditary ivory carvers' guild Igbesanmwan. Its members carved ivory motifs and, notably, a matched set of elephant tusks for royal ancestral altars. This guild remains active today as crafters of ivory items for the Oba and the royal court. In the past, the Oba claimed one tusk from any animal killed and had the right to purchase the other if he so chose, meaning that Benin's rulers controlled access to Ivory within the kingdom's sphere of influence. Based on these parameters, it can be reasoned that the original owner of this rattle-staff was somebody of authority or influence.
Recently, this item, along with other items designated as being potentially associated with the Kingdom of Benin, was presented to the Digital Benin Project, whose goal is to “bring together photographs, oral histories, and rich documentation material from collections worldwide to provide a long-requested overview of the royal artworks looted in the 19th century." The Digital Benin project was developed in close cooperation with the Benin Dialogue Group, which includes the Royal Court of Benin, the Edo State Government, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria and all European museums with important Benin collections. This item was not accepted to be part of the project due to new research related to time period, tribe, culture, and/or country of this item provided by the scholars leading the project. We continue to research our collections specifically for items that may have been unethically removed from their places of origin. We will attempt to return all items found to be unethically sourced. |
| Bibliography |
Blackmun, Barbara W. “History and Statecraft on a Tusk from Old Benin.” The Bulletin of the
Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 4 (1994): 87–115.
Ezra, Kate. Royal Art of Benin: The Perls Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art : Distributed by H.N. Abrams, 1992.
Ross, Doran H. Elephant: The Animal and Its Ivory in African Culture. Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992.
The Art Institute of Chicago. “Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria,” 2013.
Sotheby’s. Catalog for sale of June 23, 1981. p. 95, lot 134. {photocopy]
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