CAST-METAL WORK FROM BENIN. 5] 
According to Burton, the tribal tattoo of the Benin people, of both sexes, is 
a line extending from the scalp down the forehead to the tip of the nose, but 
often ceasing at the eyebrows, made with a razor or sharp knife, and 
blackened with charcoal and gunpowder ; and three parallel cuts about half 
an inch long, and placed close together, upon both cheeks, about half way 
between the eye and the corner of the mouth. Another favourite decoration, 
he adds, are three broad stripes of scar, like the effects of burning, down the 
front of the body from the chest to the lower stomach. “Some added,” he 
says, ‘‘to these ‘ beauty spots’ on the middle of the forehead, vertical lines 
of similar marks above the eyebrows.” 
The tattoo marks on these bronzes are similar, if not quite identical with, 
the fashion which was in vogue in 1862, and which appears to continue to 
the present day ; for Commander Bacon writes me: “The tribe marks of the 
Beni, again, I had no opportunity of studying ; but 1 was told they were both 
on the cheeks and 
on the breasts. The 
Houssa and the Jakri 
had them horizontally 
on the cheeks.” 
Tattoo marks were 
not the sign of low 
birth, for, in a letter 
written from Abomey, 
in 1724, by Mr. Bul- 
finch Lamb, an agent 
of the English African 
Company, who was 
captured by the King 
of Dahomey on the 
taking of Ardrah by 
his army, he states 
that the face of the 
King’s General was 
searified for orna- 
ment’s sake. 
Although this 
plaque is, in size, 
very small (being only 
135 mm. by 185), and 
had an obvious use, 
having been the lid of 
a box (in both respects 0 alpen 
r 3 Sits Se ‘ > , s ArRM-BEARERS : 
Pues aitiarmg «trowe Miaye Oe ie van Buasaloawcm 
those in the British Aen ; ac aa 
Museum, which were decorative only, one of which (Fig. 3) I am able, through 
the courtesy of the Proprietors of the Illustrated London News, to reproduce 
here for comparison), it agrees with them in style of workmanship and in 
mode of manufacture. 

Of these plaques, Commander Bacon, R.N., the Chief of the Intelligence 
Department to the punitive expedition, in his interesting book, “ Benin : The 
City of Blood,” says, “the [King’s] storehouses contained chiefly rubbish. . _ 
But buried in the dirt of ages, in one house, were several hundred unique 
bronze plaques, suggestive of almost Egyptian design, but of really superb 
casting. Castings of wonderful delicacy of detail, and some magnificently 
carved tusks were collected, but in the majority of cases the ivory was dead 
